Don’t Forget
I’ve pinned this sorry ribbon to my finger
to remind me of the path I am to follow,
or, moreso, the people I am to love.
The books I’m meant to read, vomit,
write at the dead of light.
I’ve pinned this sorry ribbon to my finger,
blue silk shining from the twinkle
of the eye bleeding clear.
Frayed at the edges, soft and fluffing.
Puncture wound pulsing, whispering…
I’ve pinned this sorry ribbon to my finger,
yet I still do not notice the move of
one screaming month to the next.
The grass fades yellow a million times a year,
there’s no way you can blame me
for the lackluster sympathy I award
to the sun’s losing battles.
The days growing terse as my Hello’s,
please forget I’ve ruined anything.
Sometimes I forget I tend to run
like that thinned ribbon fabric, cut
from the winding spin stirred
from a woman out of her head---
I‘ve got this sorry ribbon on my finger.
Anniversary Effect
“Anniversary Effect” refers to the heavy set of difficult
emotions experienced on the anniversary of a traumatic event.
I close my eyes, and the sun floats in a blotch of orange.
I move my face away, and I bask in absence, the cool
blues, blacks, greens of static stippling themselves across
my eyelids, interrupted by yellow streaks, white squiggles.
A familiar face floats around and around,
but it does not express, mouth closed and skin blue.
I lay on a dirty bed sheet,
grass poking me from under the thin layer,
ants inviting themselves onto my skin of wet salt,
dancing, biting, dying.
That face I know is also inviting itself—
still floating, stone-faced. I open my eyes.
The sun works like headlights in pitch black night,
leaving me stunned in a blanket of illumination,
burning its shape against my vision,
dotting about like that face with the open mouth.
That face I know is open,
eyes and ears and lips.
Each open orifice is shining,
rays of light spilling.
I turn, my face flat on the sheet on the grass from
the ground, my nose squished and my mouth
cracked, drool leaving it in tiny strings, sweat
driving itself out in bulbs, fat and expectant,
only to fall in streaks on the fabric.
That face I know is speaking to me,
and I do not know how to stop listening.
The voice smooths my hair, holds my face
and hugs my slick skin with hurting fervor.
