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Oliver Pursley Poem
And your stepmom is in the kitchen with the smell of cooking onions
Upstairs your sister is in her room writing college essays and listening to her playlist on full blast
And your little brother is doing his very first homework assignment
And smiling about how much he loves kindergarten
And the fact that he is a big boy now
The cat is on the porch
The dog is in his bed
The stars are all right where they are supposed to be
You may not be talking to anyone
you may be alone in your room
But you are all there
You are all home.
Recently you’ve noticed the look of fear on your sister’s face at any mention of college
have gotten used to your father's grey hair and new glasses
You notice that your brother is too big to carry
he doesn’t always cry when he falls down
your stepmom's face is lined with the years
And her lips are thin
you see your dog walk funny
And you have to call louder for him to hear you
Your cat doesn’t catch birds or mice anymore
She lays in the sun, lazy on the porch
And the neighborhood kids come over to pet her, scratch behind her ears.
but you notice, they aren’t exactly kids anymore
It finally hits you that in less than a year
You won’t all be living together anymore
Your sister will be all the way across the world
In a big school in Italy
She won’t just be across the hall in the other room
And you won’t have dinner together anymore
Or make pancakes on Sunday mornings
And your dog won’t know where she has gone
And your cat will know but won’t understand
Your parents’ bones start to creak
Your brother is getting older and doesn’t hug you as often
And your life is stagnant
But moving too fast all at the same time
You’re dizzy
Your tears won’t come
It all feels so surreal.
Your sister has half a year
You have two more after her
And your bother has 9 more when you leave.
Your childhood will be ripped apart but it will also be scattered like ashes across the world
And you will find pieces of it wherever you go.
Copyright © Oliver Pursley | Year Posted 2025
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Oliver Pursley Poem
Is like saying
“I know my way around every corner, but I’m not allowed to walk through the door”
I lost my first tooth there
And I scraped my knee on the sidewalk out front.
My first cat tommy
Is lying
Bones in the backyard
Grave marked by nothing
But those old dead flowers
I used to live here.
absence makes the heart grow fonder.
This place used to be ours
And if you look
You may be able to find my name
Written on the door frame
Next to a height and age
And the nail sticking out of one of the stairs
That I stepped on
And I fell
And momma put a Band-Aid on the wound in this bathroom
And momma put ice on my head in this bedroom
And kissed me good night under this rattling ceiling fan
and I slept in this old place,
under this cracked ceiling
making faces out of the paint chips
making stories out of the sounds
the fridge
the air conditioner
the cars out front.
I used to live here.
It's my childhood home
But now someone new lives here
I secretly think,
It will always be ours more than anyone else's.
Copyright © Oliver Pursley | Year Posted 2025
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Oliver Pursley Poem
It smells like sprinklers
hot pavement
And dirt
the sky is six different colors
And the cicadas sing at six different octaves
my face is red
Hair wet with sweat
From chasing the cat
Around the yard
Barefoot in the grass
That morning momma had made chocolate chip pancakes
With butter and honey
She braided my sisters hair while I sang “blank space”
By taylor swift
Screaming over the speaker which played wide and loud
And the squirrel stole the seeds from the birdfeeder
And the night before
Daddy read us one bedtime story
Even thought my sister had begged for two
We sat sulking in our princess dresses
That smelled like old toys
And home
Daddy closed the book
And turned on the galaxy light as he walked out
Made sure the door was ajar
To let the light in
And let the cat in
And four years before that I was new
And red
And I smelled like baby powder
Hospitals
Blood
And
Life
My skin was soft
and i screamed
Momma didn’t wear makeup
or cry quite as much
My sister just learned to walk
and she held me with shaking hands
And just then
Everything sounded like music
and summer never ended
Copyright © Oliver Pursley | Year Posted 2025
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Oliver Pursley Poem
the silence before a storm
Sounds like my best friend laughing
The same laugh that I’ve known since I was six years old
Sitting alone on the swing set
It’s like dragonfly wings over a pond
It sounds like the heavy breathing after a long race to the end of the sidewalk
It sounds the way it feels
To be able to see your breath for the first time all year
It sounds like the friendship of autumn and spring
It sounds like you did when you said you would never leave
And the slam of the door when you did
And my sobs to your voice over the phone
The silence after a storm sounds like the loudest “I hate you”
Shouted into the face of someone who has never done anything
But love you.
The hour after you left, I called my best friend
And we laughed over something stupid
I rode my bike down to the pond
Sat down
Breathing heavily as I watched the dragonflies zipping across the surface of the water
And I finally realized why they name storms after people.
Copyright © Oliver Pursley | Year Posted 2025
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Oliver Pursley Poem
I hope death is like Christmas eve
The whole family is there
People that I haven’t seen in forever
And I sleep on the couch
Hear my parents in the other room
A bite of a cookie
A small sip of milk
my cousins set out the presents
I hope that the window is filled
With the sight of falling snow
my breath fogs the glass when I shuffle over to watch it
I climb back over to my blankets
And listen to my parents’ trip over each other
As they try to dance like back in the day
I hope that when I close my eyes
I can hear laughter from the other room.
Copyright © Oliver Pursley | Year Posted 2025
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Oliver Pursley Poem
You sat next to the fire pit
Sipping your martini, looking for secrets at the bottom of the glass
I bounced on the old trampoline
Dirty
Covered in sticks and leaves
And I jumped avoiding the small rips in the polypropylene
As the sunlight faded
And the fire flies came out
Neither of us even had the thought
That in just two months
One of us would be dead
And the other would be
Running
So fast in the opposite direction
But right then
The air was full of mayflies and the smell of bug spray and summer
And the season is too new.
Too young for its very own tragedy.
I really loved you then
I’ve loved you since I was old enough to remember your face
And I asked you if you were happy
To be there with me
And you told me that you had never been happy And you didn’t elaborate
And I cried myself to my bedroom
And fell asleep with no Kiss goodnight.
Copyright © Oliver Pursley | Year Posted 2025
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Oliver Pursley Poem
You are the black cat dancing on my tongue
And each word that leaves my mouth
Crosses you
And my voice is now unlucky
Copyright © Oliver Pursley | Year Posted 2025
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Oliver Pursley Poem
I want so badly to go back to 2018
To the year when I was pure and innocent
And so easily influenced
And the year that I didn’t even know my family was falling apart
My mother told me that it was the year of the dog
And I watched her slowly die 3 easters later
And the blood of my family is splattered on my hands
But the thing with blood is that you can’t just
Go back in time
To
Get
Rid
Of
It.
No one would opt to cover up their bloody hands with white paint
Or soft melodies
Or lies
You’ve got to scrub
Until your skin is raw
And even now I catch a glimpse of blood hiding under my nails
Or between my fingers
And I remember that I will never be a blank slate
And I can never be fully clean
Copyright © Oliver Pursley | Year Posted 2025
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Oliver Pursley Poem
It’s the last day of school and everyone is finally becoming friends
While we all start to understand
Old sad sentiments
I’m outside on the soccer field signing yearbooks
Name loopy
Hearts scribbled quickly
And for some reason the sun already seems to be setting
Mason and noah steal a kiss when they think no one is looking
Samantha gives her number to callie
It’s the last day of school and everyone is finally tolerating eachother
After years of longing to leave
We finally have a reason to stay
Those old sad sentiments suddenly seem cruel
And evil teachers cry while receiving hugs
The sun sets on one last day that you will all be together
The bus ride home is bittersweet
You let tears fall as my head rattles
Roughly on the window
Its my last day of school nd I hope that we will still be friends after this drive
When I move away
Call me when adages start to feel to accurate
Or when sad sentiments feel too real
I promise to always pick up the phone
Copyright © Oliver Pursley | Year Posted 2025
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Oliver Pursley Poem
He took me to the pool to drown me
Or poison me with summer winds
And his red swimming trunks looked like blood
And his eyes were the color of honey
Or coffee
Or just old dirt
He took me out to poison me
And my lungs filled with the warm breeze
And I drowned
I drowned
Not in the chemical water of the deep end of the pool
But in the air of heat
The sickly-sweet smell of dying flowers
And small decaying animals
And every inhale burned
And he held me there
And he wanted me gone
And I wanted to do everything he asked me
And I came back with his flesh in my teeth.
Bloody, Raw, Pink.
Almost still alive
And I knew that the price of freedom Is death
And the life of the boy with the brown hair
And the red swimming trunks
Who wanted me gone
Copyright © Oliver Pursley | Year Posted 2025
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