hello i don’t really write here anymore, i’m at brokegardentool.wordpress.com nowadays; where i natter on about travel stuff and my opinions about things.

the poetic licence of memory

dictates that i am the villain
in every single tale thus far.
i am never the trigger, but i
line up the powder, the bullet
and pull someone to the gun’s handle
in my name

just so i can say my conscience is clean.

but this is the narrative i’ve spun. absolution comes
from wanting to see that i have made the mistake.
but he tells me this is a faultless line, two halves
split down the middle because it simply is that way.
i find that hard to accept.
i always need the rhyme
i always need the reason

because what else can guide me north
through the seismic shifts of
‘maybe you’re just not the one for me’?

draft

our story starts with
‘take me back’.

an invisible hand
puts the stars back into the sky

the birds fly back south

the wind sucks its bated breath
back into the sky

the plane
reconnects with the asphalt

and i unravel
the coiled road
as the cab whirs
in reverse

my door uncloses itself.
my keys find their way back into
the drawer.

i watch my luggage unlatch
hang my clothes back
in the closet

as i try to stow the body heat
back into the sheets.

somewhere, a light
goes back on.

tokyo freestyle

so this is what it is
to measure the length of a mountain,
or, the span of your shoulders
or, the sea between us

so we sail on, two passing
ships in the night. call me
your light house, your signal flare,
your night light on the sea of the endless years

there are other places we both should be. the
compass on my palm says this. where i stand on
this x is north of some island, south of you.

there is nothing else for me to do tonight but
to set my gaze in the silver of your moon.

spwm day 6

[someday i’ll write a better rescue song]

my message in the floating milk bottle,
my light cast like the lighthouse.
know this,
i have always loved you.
this is the way we are
two points in the sky
orbiting, meeting. i have
known this from the start.
you can keep your wild seaweed
hair, your soft sand heart. still want
hold your hand when the grey
swallows the skies whole. man on
driftwood, body sending the sky an sos –
and all.
want you to know your
heart isn’t a cavern.
there should be
no more wide and wavering seas
in you.

spwm day 5

[bloom]

if he splits you in half again
i am here to tell you this
the world will be beautiful
again after you shed your skin.
the grime of your yesterdays.
the worst mornings,
the ache of the afternoons
all falling like husks.
splitting like penumbras
and tipping like scales. you
are the most beautiful
when you splinter from that flesh,
making me ripe
rendering me new.

spwm day 4

[to you saying no – is this okay?]

what use do we have anymore
for the body heat we’ve stowed
behind every corner of the bed –

so this is how it goes
every furtive press below your waist
every half fucked attempt to eat you whole
every last time you tell me no

you leaving for new york. watching
me watch everything go.
i think all this is to get me by

spwm day 3

i know the world
is what it is. no smoke,
no mirror – the bend
in the river meanders
through the bank, slashing
its smile through. i know the
soil is rank. bodies pushed up.
seeds buried further down.
the daisies no longer fresh. i still
lap the water here like there’s
some salvation for me to find

like
an answer,
a prayer,
another lacuna
just
not another body at
the bottom of the lake.

spwm day 2.5

[non-movie ending]

not that
we can expect anything
in this life to get any easier.
not that
we can ask
for more than what he flips
a coin and
deigns to give us. but
what does it matter.
i think of
the better days anyway.

me dimming
like a broken bulb.
you flickering
like a warm candle.
all the same coin,
the same kind
of currency
our world likes to use.

i pay all my love forward
with iced tea. pretending
not to notice when you choose to
dive into your own summer pool instead.
i let my head go foggy with
all the forevers i want with you. every
version of the sun in every world i want.

and at night, when the sun sets –
the store lights shut down. fuses.
all of it seeing me end up with you.

[redoing 1992] singpowrimo day 2

[redoing 1992]

the way this happens in my mind
begins with the world slowing down.
the crescents ive made in my palm
giving way to skin furling back into place. no
more blood on the courtroom floor, the rostrum
feeling less like a spectacle. in my mind,
i tap out five heart beats worth
it is supposed to sound like

the way it happens in my mind,
i think this is all supposed to feel
like home, just not that version.
i am no longer the fish out of water. everything
moves slow like a fishbowl. 12 ounces of water
but i swim, not sink.

–
still getting back in the groove, still very self conscious about my writing now