Heart to Heart

If it's not my head that's spinning,

then what is it that makes
the mirrors a funhouse?

Andrew dances after class

to a sad tune of creation.

His kicks are a fan

brushing air in a wave

of confliction emotions.

Like the anxiety I felt

in the warmth of my green suede

and the hardness of Daniel's stoop.

I told him my life's

more than you need to bear.

I'm folding towels to low tide-

uncrested tears beating

the banks of my brown eyes.

Thursday, November 12th

I walk into class to find heads bent to paper like the bodies of sweatshop children working on the shoes Kevin wears. I don't remember there being a test. Our evaluation is our lives. Can we find enough life for a prose poem, or obsess enough to write a villanelle? Goldstein didn't tell me I could, but yesterday I hiked through Neadle Woods and today I danced with Alyssa. Is that not life enough? Professor Stefaniak waves me in. I don't think I'll come again.

pirouette

I love spins because they are wild,

but I can never be satisfied with their craze.

I need complete oblivion,

a turn so disorienting I

cease to exist.

Pixelated Window

I can't tell if I can't see

when the windows are covered

in drops from the breeze

the pixelated scene is pulsing-

a heart-throb or a clouded dream.

Service on an Autumn's Night

For Hannah

I told her I would write her poetry.

What was it she expected of me?

That night on the rooftop of

Mequita's roparia with the purple

haze of the Sears Tower beckoning

behind you, we gave into our

guttural laughter until our collapse gave

heed to the creaks in the asphalt shingles.

I told you I would write you poetry.

Grand Tianguis

it was cold outside.

The type of cold

that three layers of protection

couldn't prevent.

We emptied boxes

until the empty

ones spanned the

fifteen feet of stairs.

Useless in ability to oraganize

I was ostracized

to network a computer alone.

Andres wore a blue North Face.

While he sat with me,

ability couldn't compare

to need for connection.

Daddy

Daddy won't be happy.

30,000 dollars

for that school,

30,000 I pay.

We both know

he doesn't pay.

The loans pay.

It's borrowed money

for a rented life.

I'll be in an office soon

wishing to be back

in collegiate life.

Weights crash at my feet.

Who cares about a C

in four years of glee?

the drive home

billows of mist

from the semi-truck fly

into the windshield

while I drive.

the clouds are etchings

in a baby-blue sky.

that one is a wisp,

a floating butterfly.

Reflection

an orange candle

but incrementally more red.

The shaving's of which

remind us life has been had

here in this room

in which we reside.

Moreso, in ourselves,

the hearts that have known.

Adison

there he is sitting

there in the curve

of his school desk chair.

gray as the shade

of his AE sweater,

my hands want

to have all he has.

more, I want to feel

everything he is.