From the Side of the Road 746 Miles from Home

From the Side of the Road 746 Miles from Home

 

You are sore from a week’s worth of learning

where you came from. From the bottles
full of water. That you would not drink
In fear of a longer life and more miles
than either of us would care to walk.
That last one took something out of you. Something
I held just days before. Before we saw that deer, headless,
but not bleeding. Not bad. On the side of the road next to
soft drink cups and whatever the hell else
couldn’t have waited. You were there with it.
Curled up next to an empty Skoal can.
That smell of where you came from.
You wanted him. The bottles
full of spit. And you drank. You took him in.
Your youth not eternal. Your stomach
in knots. You let him go
in a rest stop trash can two miles away
from the house you did not grow up in. The house
your father built.

Older/Younger

This poem is a contrapuntal, so you can read the first stanza then the second stanza (which makes it a palindrome as well) or you can read straight across the lines from top to bottom. Another experiment...enjoy.

 

Older/Younger

I could not see,                                                     All the other shit
Even though you said it was                                 I could not believe
In plain sight                                                         The bible, the poison ivy itching on my leg
Sitting in the backseat, with the moon                 Science was
not giving me enough.When we were young       Not a state of mind, but the creator of the world.
Looking through binoculars, imagination was.     Looking through binoculars, Imagination was
Not a state of mind but the creator of the world.   Not giving me enough, when we were young.
Science was                                                          Sitting in the backseat. The moon,
The bible, the poison ivy itching on my leg            In plain sight
I could not believe                                                  Even though you said it was
All the other shit                                                      I could not see

                                   

                                         The things that scared me most.

Ghosts

Ghost

I saw a ghost

the day that they took
you to stay in the
woods for three months
and you would have dreams of monsters and lawyers
and rolled up dollar bills.
The ghosts
of your sleep
on the hard ground.
The ground was harder than you.
It broke you.
You found God on the ground.
You would sit on it
with your new friends
and tell ghost stories.

Flood

This one is kind of a weird version of a sonnet, istead of a rhyme scheme, I used antonym pairs it turned out a little weird but here it is:

 

Flood

 We sit criss-crossed on the finally dry

ground sifting through piled shoe boxes full
of warped photographs. My shirt is soaked
from your warm tears. My pockets are empty.
 
You are squinting at a slide, trying hard
to make out the chicken scratch numbers
smeared across the back. Your voice is so soft
I have to read your lips to know your words.

This is the room where I used to sleep

It’s become your closet without a light
We sit in it now, trying to stay awake
frantic hands reach at memories in the dark

You took them so that you would remember

Now the water will help you to forget.

Different

Different

In high school I

knew girls who cut
themselves for a release.
It was routine,
Cut your
wrists. Brush your
teeth. Go to
bed.
I do not
know any boys
who have cut themselves
to release anything
except enough blood.

death

death
after Jesus by Brand New

We stand on a corner where
all the cars drive too fast. And you’ve
got a bottle of whiskey. You take a pull and spit it out. Screaming “This tastes like
wood.” I laugh as i take a drag
and lean against one of those telephone poles that is covered in
nails from posters that the wind has ripped off and crucified on to car windshields

We sit at the corner all night. Fighting off the

sleep so that we might see an accident. A death if we’re lucky.
Inside we know it’s wrong. As we sit with fingers crossed. The sounds
of sirens echoing in our minds. We just want to know death.
This way we are prepared. So we will know when to unplug the
machine.

Back

Back

 

From the backseat of a ‘91 Carolla

I told you “No.”
Hoping that you or the car
would explode. But you just turned your eyes
to your shoes. Which meant
your trips down south must have been
worth it. Where you didn’t shower
for three months and you slept in tents
on the cold, hard ground. The ground
will break you. You can find God on that
ground and you did.
You came back with a dry
mouth and a clear throat.
A coin and a prayer in your
wallet. I was surprised to see
your head shaved when we
picked you up. You hiding
behind a long sleeve shirt
in hot July. As if we could forget.
When you got in the car you
put on that song and I
told you “No”
But you did not explode.

bloody nose

I shake awake to a blood smeared pillowcase

And the sound of drunk girls laughing on their way home from the bars

On a Friday night

Paralyzed from a dream

I was once trapped in

I am still trying to escape

I flip on a light switch

To the loud rumbling of the broken bathroom fan

I flinch and reach for some toilet paper

To shove up my nose

To ease the flow

And my mind

In the mirror

I see my father’s wrinkles around my eyes

And I shake because I am not a man yet

I am still living in a university owned apartment

Saturated with empty beer cans

And trash

And shit

And I could sink in a tub

Or a chair

Or a bottle

And tell myself I am fine

That it’s not me, it’s my mind

But I am not sure we know the difference

Without Fluoxetine

Disintegrating into dark red blood

Or light blue blood

I can never remember which color it is on the inside

But I know how it looks

Smeared on my upper lip

Or dripping off of frustrated knuckles

Or shot into my eyes

Because it’s been me and the mirror

The past few nights

Or maybe me vs. the mirror

And I am not quite sure

Who is winning. 

high school

In 2008 I would be sitting around a computer

With J and Brett

Just like I was every weekend

of my sophomore year

When I was losing all my friends

Because Paul smoked a lot of pot

And Matt found God after his second concussion

So we couldn’t say goddamnit around him

Or steal beer out of his parent’s fridge

And I heard Adam’s Song for the first time that year

And It was the first song that made me cry

In 2011 I would be sitting shotgun in a jeep

With J and Brett

Sitting without their seatbelts in the backseat

It was senior year

And we had made some new friends

It was Chris was driving the car

And Jon Deej and Dan were right behind us

And we could say goddamnit around them

And  get drunk in DJ’s basement

And we listened to Adam’s song on our way downtown

And it took everything I had not to cry

a sinking ship

a sinking ship

clouds of breath explode from cold conversations
and the words poured out between chattering teeth
trembling barricades
that allowed whispers to sound loud
echoing off of brick
icicles that hung
off the cheap plastic gutter
of a rundown apartment complex
while a girl stands with her back turned
because she couldn’t stand the sight
of the sad boy that was
(or wasn’t)
in front of her
ankles buried deep in snow
because they won’t plow the parking lots on Sundays at a Catholic university
the snow that was once white and stacked high
is now stomped down and brown
but the icicles hang innocent
untouched
and it looks like something out of a music video for some british folk song
that she would inevitably love
and that you would inevitably hate
your toes are numb, but you don’t mind, it suits your mood
and you can’t tell if its the cold or the nerves that are making you shake harder than high school
in the nurses office
when they showed the informational teenage suicide video
after a freshman shot himself with his father’s gun
your face is cold and snow is getting caught up in scraggly facial hair
that hasn’t been shaved in months
or touched in months
hanging defeated off of a defeated face
hairs she once ran Her hands through
and let tickle her neck
now the focal point of her disgust
and she’s crying and telling you how scared she is for you
and how scared your friends are
and how your mom doesn’t sleep at night
you light a cigarette and fall back onto the hood of a car and sink into the snow that covers it
let the smoke fight upwards against the current of the snow
and lose
the snow would always win
you find yourself thinking about the past month you’ve spent
locked in your room
with a handle of whiskey
and a guitar you can’t play
pretending to be Kurt Cobain
you could never get the ending right
and the apartment you called home
with the floor littered with crushed empty cans and turned over bottles
not a drop left in them to spill,
and the letters that you meant to send her
but you couldn’t afford stamps
those letters started out so strong
but nothing seemed that important anymore
not like it did over break
when all you needed was a 1.99 movie and the couch in her basement
and how even though it was cold, you weren’t
and how it hadn’t been that easy not to think in a while
no pills or doctors visits
you didn’t need that
her words snap you back to the present
“I can’t tie myself up to a sinking ship”
And you smile, because it was a nice metaphor
and she didn’t usually talk like that
but now you’re running towards her car and she’s fighting you off
and you’re grabbing her arm
and she pushes
hard enough to knock you on your ass
hard enough to open up your eyes
and for the first time in at least a month you are sober
and for the first time in at least a month you can see her eyes
and for the first time in at least a month you are scared
and you land in the snow where you sit and watch the flakes twirl across the sky and fall hard
 onto the ground
and onto you
until you're buried
a ship wrecked