RULES
1. One person writes a poem of 30 words.
2. Next person takes the last phrase and uses it as the first phrase of their 30 word poem.
3. Thus it goes.
1
Expectations. Long goodbyes.
Love notes
Scattered around the house.
(Snowflakes yet to hit the ground).
Meanwhile
Your smell...
I get on the plane.
Realizing "goodbye, love", what a useless phrase.
2
what a useless phrase...
...i'm sorry...
after every failure
texted
and now
your eyes dart
any other way
to avoid
our challenge
realizing difficultly
comes with depth
inside the heart.
3
Depth inside the heart
Sloppy mess where everything lacks
Boundaries
Definitions
And
Demarcations.
Womb of chaos
And stillness
Womb of forgetting
And of nights falling asleep
Not alone
But alone.
4
not alone
but alone
i've always loved the distant stars
like shinning Beatrices,
calling me
to ever
touch them.
i'm
like
the promise of the Redwood,
never stopping growing closer,
5
stopping growing closer
means avoiding the prolonged eye contact
less time finishing each other’s coffee, sentences, laughter.
now you talk about other people,
what they ate and how they looked…
6
how they looked wasn't what stole
your sanity, your composure.
it was how they made you feel,
that made you promise things,
you didn't know,
come morning,
how to keep.
7
how to keep
reality becoming fiction?
words of promise, fake gestures of love and forgiveness
fill the empty rooms
you push your body against mine
repeating…
As we press closer.
8
as we presssss closer,
i want every breath to be you
you all the way from my toes, my lips,
into my-
hesitation,
you don't trust me,
buuuut why not?
9
why not cherry trees
ordinary love
the lemonade...
for the first time I have grown a thorn
with it came the rose
there's nothing to hide behind, in the desert
10
in the desert
that exists inside us
don't forget
you need to admit thirst
before water is seeked.
you tell me to go home
but that means
never leaving you.
11
never leaving you
means letting coffee get cold as I look out the window waiting for
beauty.
And when it comes
It fills hours of anticipation
With its single breath.
12
single breath and i'm gone, out the window, challenging the sky, trying to fly away as fast as i can hoping that i shatter my body into small bits from speed.
13
my body into small bits from speed
fragment into saffron colored sand
whirling into a night sandstorm
i leave dust
on sidewalks
coffee table near your bed
your tired soul
14
your tired soul sings to me to come home, hold your aching body. i've lost my way. overgrown thoughts, like trees, too dense. the sky unseen. no matter baby, i'm coming.
15
I am coming
to create a solution, implement conversations
we had in bedrooms, parks and kitchens
which will need to be checked against
discrepancy and disillusionment.
On a scratch paper.
16
On a scratch paper
a list
of things
i should change
to please you.
fuck you.
a coffee
flying across
the room
and an
exit door
swinging
behind me.
17
Behind me
I leave the lonely nights,
Long conversations by the pool, reflections of birdless skies
Mosque in the distance calling longingly for oneness,
While we discuss separations and goodbyes
18
While we discuss separations and goodbyes,
loss and failures,
there is the chance to play
when we forget all our seriousness
and make love, like meow-meows, on the couch.
19
make love, like meow-meows, on the couch
floor
kitchen
in my head
remembering every sweet sound and breath you took
gripping to every bone of mine
while others waited
20
while others waited (by the dip) i gave
my heart to all i knew. and watched
it grow into a garden, a field, the forest,
even becoming the ocean itself.
21
Even becoming an ocean itself
Wouldn't encompass the dryness I feel in my throat
When I recognize the look in your eyes
knowing that one day you will leave me
22
leave me.
it matters not. because
you won't make
it past the ice-covered
driveway before realizing galaxies
spiral electric in
black pupils
and time ends in
these arms
holding you.
23
Holding you
In desert sand
Geography defines me.
Silence replaces the quiet
of the dunes
Blanketing every possible emotion
Out of me dry.
Under its vast sky
I Hold tight.
24
I Hold Tight-
Always.
I Hold On-
All Ways.
I hold you-
4 eva.
i try
daily
to forget
telling
myself
it
ain't
real
butt
4 eva
you
is.
25
You
Is me without the vices
You is me
With honour, thick walls and voices
That separate you from the ones behind those walls
You is me
Double sided
Love
26
Double-Sided Love, hanging on the wall, for all to see your underwear, to comment about what form, what style, what colors you should have used. judging what can't be judged.
27
Judging what can't be judged. The intimate interactions, long lasting affinity, growing old in someone else's arms, soul. Is that what it is all about? Knowing what can't be known.
28
Knowing what can't be known,
i meet him in your garden,
among the dancing morning glories
and the crawling vine,
and he is
the...
sweetest...
song...
ever to touch me.
29
ever to touch me
the rain in the desert
oh how we marvel when we hear it hit hot cement sandy ground.
all quiet in Baghdad
while it pours here.
30.
30
while it pours here
you crawl into your
book
and into my lap.
i discover one
hundred
places to place
my lips making
you smile through
your genius lips.
31
Your genius lips
Savage elation on my skin
Badly kept secret
It’s as if the moon can frighten us
Or the fact that one day I too will eat earth
32
one day, I too will eat earth
fuck like a stag beetle in the dirt
I'll forget my heavenly duties
of fine art and privilege
becoming your feral hungry beast.
33
Becoming your feral hungry beast
I hold on to the crumbs you leave behind
Living in the wild but descended from domesticated individuals
I too twirl around what really matters.
34
what really matters
doesn't matter here.
born into a body
of your opposite sex
i want to be close
in mind but hot breath,
nightly siren howling,
tells us otherwise.
35
siren howling tells us otherwise
want
teapot whistling tells us otherwise
need
fork hitting the empty plate tells us otherwise
should
heart beating in my knees tells us otherwise
must
36
must
reality
reveal its
complexities?
showing
how half
i am
fish-
how half
i am
bull
full
i am
always
swimming
in space-
charging
into the
center of
the sun.
37
space-charging into the center of the sun
i pause
trying to find spaces between thoughts
i look for refuge there
waiting for the wind to make up its mind.
38
to make up its mind
i wait eternity
as every bit of anger
speed desire becomes transformed
into the delicacy of a
tea ceremony
tears of
gratitude
fill each cup.
39
tears of
gratitude
fill each cup till it spills out and there is no room but room
to breath and suffocate
to bite my lip and
walk
home alone
wondering
40
wondering where i'm suppose to go
i listen
to the small
voice inside
finding
promise
in madness
in my commitment
to you
like iron
i will stand
solid
rewardless.
41
Rewardless
Regardless
In spite of everything
Fruitless and bootless
Aghast I stand
Lost and not lost
Afraid and unafraid
Bold in between my thoughts
Knees shaking in between my breaths.
42
in between my breaths
i don't want to write
this poem
because
you've broken into
my concentration
and are burning
me from the inside
invasion has left my
Knees shaking.
43
invasion has left my
Knees shaking
penetrate my brain
Even
but
my breasts, thighs be not touched by your needy fingers
so it shakes me not every time you leave
44
leave me dreaming.
i beg of you.
for i cannot
bare your rough.
every thought- a wave
every emotion- capsizes my boat
every heartbeat- into your ocean.
i awake drowning.
45
i awake drowning.
before I realize that I still share this earth with the 7am porn watching neighbor and you,
kitchen. I take last sip of water before I drown.
46
before i drown,
forgive me for being so cruel.
but my happiness was stolen by
my responsibility to you, lack
of freedom has left me acting
bitter.
let me go.
47
Let me go
But hold me tight
Complement me but don't make me feel
Cheap
Women in white dresses excite you
I am wearing purple
And we sit in silence
48
And we sit in silence
my love
weaves a flower into my hair
i promise to always smile
when it rains, he to dance
when the coffee
isn't hot enough.
49
when the coffee isn't hot enough
limestone white city shrugs its tired shoulders
letting me wonder its hills and curves
unveiling me
shedding the layers
long before it covered me
50
long before it covered me
i knew
i had to wait
for you
to rewrite history.
the hardest thing
i have to do,
is disappear,
leaving no memory behind.
51
Disappear.
Leaving no memory behind
Of blueberries in the afternoon
Of coffee in the night
Of walks under the date trees
Of Figs in the morning
Of rough kisses whole time
52
rough kisses whole time
venomous snake bites, and feral boy scratches,
of long drives not following directions.
I whisper "I love you,"
and you kick me out of the bed.