Category: Poetry
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The Shape It Takes
A poem in X parts. This piece is made of scraps—lines I kept in notebooks, typed into my phone, left half-finished in margins over many years. I didn’t try to force a throughline, I just followed the tone and the emotional weight of things that stuck around. It moves like memory: non-linear, repetitive, contradictory, occasionally…
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Body, she’s me
Body, she’s me. Shadow, that’s mine. Ample arms fluffymarshmallowy whitecotton-cushiony cloud hugs—when she engulfs youit reminds you of what you’ve been meaning to remember.Must be magic. At the beach, she’s as big as the ocean.Sandy thighs ripple like wavesas she drops to the ground and crosses her legs. She engulfs the shadows of seagulls. I swallow the scene. It’s…
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Mad Belly
Mad belly,shaking volcano. Laughing moves earth,breaking ground.Up and down vibratingsound, like thunderclapsand breaking waves. Heaving, growing,climbing for freedom. Soft hotsoil fallsfrom your fingers. Wild earth, fleshy feminine. Down belowbodies are buzzing. You make me quake.
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Big Friends
Back then, we were other people. Your old-you met my old-meand we heard us click into place. Growing apart and back together—intertwining vines, dirt-packed back roads, a multi-colored ball of yarn—we’re at our fullest at the intersection.We’re always together at crossroads. Our appetites have grown as we’ve devoured everything in our paths. Gobbling up belly laughs, licking our plates clean, moaning with…
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Start to Summer
Lost light fixture, hanging smoke alarms ringing— I can’t wake you. The last night: sharing my twin bed, your furnace/your face. When you love me, you rest your head on mine and leave it there, forgetting that it’s heavy. It hurts to feel you, but you call me girl over and over and it makes us…
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The South in Summer
The south in summer— feet bare trail hopping in a cotton-candy-colored skirt, flowing neatly below the knees. The sun is his periphery and it dips into the water, shine stretching the length, dyeing the top of his nose: the kind of scene that makes you regret Godlessness. I touch it for a moment— touch the…
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Whistle Song
You like dive bars, and so do I. Walking away, my heels lick the road. No one knows this city like we know this city. From behind, you bent— kissed the hook of my back. Like a tree, carving your name on me. All around me is stale water. I look at my hands, think:…
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Missed Connections: Treasure Trove
I finally sat down and connected the lines I was gathering for a found poem based on Craigslist’s m4w Missed Connections section. I mostly wanted to write it for the first line—the first line is just awesome (and, absurdly, I wish it had been posted for me). Also, the OkCupid email on the bottom of…
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Prospect
In the night, the building is still—the pipes dry, the floorboards cold. Everything is tainted a strange gray, only sleep is in color. The passing train vibrates her stomach like an eager violin and she knows: Every night we surrender ourselves— she will die tonight and wake up tomorrow reborn. The ghosts of the old…
