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Poetry

AN INSTRUCTION MANUAL

written April 2017

I wanted to write about something

else, something practical like

a grocery list for the kitchen

that I don’t own, a religion

essay that’s due Tuesday, or

an ode for the plants that died

in my freshman dorm room. However,

 

it’s 41 minutes past the anniversary

of our first kiss under a myriad

of bright stars, not nearly as interesting

as your eyes had been, on a dock

that moved our bodies in time

with waves below, bringing cold air

unusual for Florida, that we accepted

as an excuse to dwell interlocked

in each other's warm bodies for just

another moment longer. Little did I know,

365 days, 41 minutes, and 42,051,900

heartbeats would pass, and I’d be stuck

sitting here, trying to write about something

else. Step One: To My Deceased

 

Plants, I brought you into a home that was

as new to me as you were to the world.

You were fresh and green, soil firm,

colors of spring in the dry summer,

 

lined up on a small window sill

absorbing the still light

I provided, and you shone

right back at me, until now.

 

Now it’s autumn, and

you came undone,

so I scattered your

dry leaves in the parking lot.

 

There’s space where you sat,

surrounded by dust, a clean

shape of a circle, only

circles aren’t supposed to end.

 

So I went back around to writing,

my finger brushing away the dust,

“How to Put Yourself Back

Together: An Instruction Manual.”

THE SPACE BETWEEN US

written March 2019

The space between us is like

the space between the stars,

black emptiness in the night

sky filled with invisible lines,

creating wild and radiant

constellations in the dark.

 They form intricate figures,

overlapping and extending

across depths far past the

world we watch them from.

They carry millions of stories

of love, of longing, of learning

hidden among dancing stars.

Although lightyears away, me,

you, and the stars reach out

between the space that is

never wide enough to break

the invisible masterpiece that connects us.

WAVES

written April 2017

My ears were numb to the sound

of bittersweet waves making love

to the salty shore behind me.

Small swirls of colorful plastic concealed

 

my inner ear, guarding it against treacherous

waters, specifically the tiny H2O molecules

that could further break my damaged ears.

With my earplugs in, I couldn’t hear, but I could feel.

 

I had never known the sudden tug of the deep

tides until then, as waves pulled my hair with force

that craned my neck upwards towards the sky

and peeled my eyes open, inviting salty pain.

 

The red burning intensified as I surfaced,

teetering my awkward arms in the water

like broken helicopter propellers.

The burning pain never stopped, but

 

neither did I. For the first time,

the heartbeat of the ocean rippled

beneath me, matching the thud of

my nervous heart as I swam deeper

 

into the oceans wide stomach. Its

warmth enveloped my small body and

pulled me in deeper. Waves crashed,

soared, and boomed behind my back.

 

Every splash caused my eyebrows to

raise. Panic swam through my veins.

Every splash was a fired gunshot

holding the potential to blow me up.

 

But my ears were safe, secure behind

specially made plugs my father had paid

hundreds of dollars for so that I,

too, could experience the rush.

I LIKE THE WAY YOUR BRAIN WORKS

written July 2018

I like the way your brain works.

You think in poems that

I could only dream of

writing and songs that I could

never play, so

 

I wanted to give something

that put words to what I

have trouble forming in the

passage between my brain

and my mouth.

 

and I’m probably meant to be

writing a profound article or

editing the 50th ad I’ve seen for an art

show as I sit here in this small green

desk, but instead,

 

 I think of the way I feel right now,

how I have never been great

at swimming, so the deep

deep water causes my chest to tighten

and my heartbeat to quicken

and my self to lose control,

and as the water closes in, I

feel the heartbeat of the ocean. It

ripples beneath me, matches

the thud of my heart beat as

I swim further, pushing back against

the pressure and allowing the waves

to shape me as they ceaselessly beat

back and forth,

 

and back to the way I felt 38

days ago when I saw that blue

for the first time and let the

wave sweep me under

and inside out.

STUCK

written August 2020

The room was silence.

Heat rising

and falling

between two bodies.

An exchange of spare coins,

the meaningless ritual of an

empty

prayer. How can the steady,

focused gaze of one

match the closed

eyes of another,

shut away but dancing?

Quiet outside, but

loud on the inside,

where questions press

and push and pull and twist

until they are too thick

to make it past my throat.

KITCHEN ISLAND

written February 2017

I sat, like always, on the far end of the island

in a tall, swiveling bar stool, like

a sailor in the Crow’s Nest of a ship,

only I was not on the lookout for any land

 

other than the island in front of me. Instead,

my eyes fixated on the black and white tiles,

small fingers swimming patterns along them.

My mother was the true captain on the lookout.

 

One of her eyes kept a steady watch on

small bubbles that rose to the surface

of her perfect shiny silver spaghetti pot.

She would pucker her raspberry lips as

 

another attentive eye landed lightly on

my brother as he blubbered some kind

of toddler joke while I turned up my nose,

and I told him how he ought to laugh.

 

A final eye was fixated on soap operas,

discovering an entirely new mini-universe.

But its frantic, crackly voices were drowned

out by the island’s comforting roar.

YOU ARE THE ONE

written July 2019

You are the one

always discovering

four-leaved clovers,

my lucky boy,

but I discovered you,

so does that make me

the luckiest one?

 

Their dazzling green

reflects in your eyes;

so easily can you see

deeply into something

outside of your self, as

 you hand them to me

in miniature bouquets.

 

You don’t make a wish,

but I do. I wish

that I could be lucky

enough to envision

the world through

your eyes: a beautiful,

 

broken place that you

make better just by being.

DANDY

written October 2020

I was once a dandelion seed

myself, floating toward you

in a warm, curious air

A broken piece of someone

else’s unfulfilled wish

blown hundreds of miles away

cautiously hovering, observing

my soul fragile and tired.

But the wind blew me into

You.

Quickly, I became rooted in

your existence,

our existence,

growing up and in and out, hundreds

of miles, only this time,

you came with me

and fulfilled each of my

dandelion wishes

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