who am I.
Look at us. Look at this culture. The world we live in. Constant content thrown at us everywhere we go. There is never enough. We’re told what to like, when to like it, what do to for a living, how to be presentable, how to talk, how to do everything. Media is the once constant in our lives being fed 24/7 to everyone from every walk of life. This culture has created one big identity crisis. Take it away. Take everything away influencing your choices. Who are you then? What is your style without the world telling you what’s “trendy” now? What’s your music taste without all the whats hot playlist? What would you be doing with your life if media didn’t tell you it was impractical? Do we like what we like because we like it or because were told we do? This constant noise is like sugary sweet candy. Kids crave more and more even when it’s bad for them, it’s hard to resist. We’re all kids in a candy store and it’s being tossed into our hands and we make no effort to refuse. It’s rotting our teeth and our brains and we let it. We can never have enough because no one lets us stop. Who are our friends that care enough to visit without a screen between us? This culture of ours has no culture. We have no defining moments without a screen. Our taste is what we’re told it is. Is it too late to wake up? Who even am I anymore?
Wake Up Full
Do you remember the nights we spent filling each other up?
You, eating my sleep as a feast.
And me, filling with your exhaustion.
Draining and bursting.
Bite down on the flesh of my dreams one last time?
Let me dig my teeth into your late nights?
Swallow down your slumber as you inhale my evening repose.
I know you’re starving, love.
So am I.
All of my love,
your sleepless nights
PUIULE
he said, you light them up.
you dream about touching
him. crumpling his sleeves like
sandpaper. sand
falls across the bed like
his body. which is folding, folding;
you love it unbelievably.
coming home and finding
the door unlocked. you press
into the latch, heart like
shoreline. pounding, pounding;
the rain that is his mouth, his hands
under this night-black
sweater that is too small.
he pulls it up over your head and
breathes more. a little more
than you know he meant to.
what else you know — you never
left home after all.
white noise, sunlight
at the edge of the windowframe,
shrinking back when he
rounds the corner from
halls that also recoil, refrain.
and do not stop him
as he comes to pull your
heaving heart out from in between
your thighs. shaking, shaking;
like being birthed again.
you hold back the evening tide
which is gripping the coast,
struggling against a desire
to rush back out to sea, where all
there is of heartbreak
is waiting, collecting like
silt. of all the windows you might
have touched your tongue to,
this is what opened.
he parts you, parses you, never
locks the door as he leaves.
you came back with roses
and he was holding a pillowcase,
fluttering against the
fan’s oscillating face.
he turns, a little like domesticity,
starts talking about the sun,
how it rose
when you walked in. he takes
the roses. breathes.
it's addicting,
the way i so easily slip,
into old patterns
tumbling into my past,
like i'm rolling down a hill,
no control,
in desperate need of saving
and when i finally come to a slow,
it's like my heart needs to be told,
as it lurches out of my chest,
and the butterflies migrate to my throat
sensations i have no use experiencing,
why can't my mind learn to let go
i'm a flower picking my own petals,
and when i'm left bare,
what then
#poetry #poem
[breakaway]
we spoke of nothing else all summer.
you had your foot on the gas.
doing ninety and still accelerating.
i stared up at the sun
and felt you look at me —
a moment that could have killed us.
you whispered, leaning so close
i might have loved you,
we're here. get out of the truck.
how did you spend
four months in an empty house?
even stars are not so lonely.
how can i claim to love someone
who never tells me why?
leaving means nostalgia.
i look through glass grown over
with a white-grey film
and cruelly close the door.
you would have loved this song.