Post-it Note Poetry

post-it note poetry

leaving letters at bus stops that say ‘WE ARE FOREVER’ when i mean to say timeless because forever doesn’t exist. the difference between me & you? i understood what would happen when i left and did it anyway. you mean to say forever but say timeless because you can’t remember the symbol for infinity but want to know how being left is a metaphor for buses leaving. somewhere we are strangers together ‘WE ARE’ on a post-it note poem someone’s version of forever because they thought red lips on two girls meant roses meant timeless.

ABNEGATION MEANS REFUSAL

i write a love letter to the way you refuse to make sense, defy everything. gravity, physics, that small thing you kept warm inside your hands, fighting death when it came calling. fighting the world when it refused to get out of your way. said, you can’t. says you: watch me, & you storm the barricade like a natural disaster to break everything apart. these doors stay open because you’re afraid of the dark, folded in on the couch, & even while you sleep your hands are curled into fists around roses, ravens that claw through the night. you unravel between slotted fingers to fall petals, ghosts, a chainlink fence & a body, stand defiant again in abnegation. your shattered ribs & shoulders hold feathers, drift soundlessly out to sea. i love you again every time you say no, each time you prove them wrong. you stand, you’re breaking, you are selfless because you give to hold on. one time you brought home anything you found that looked lonely. quantified this scales to a monstrosity, an unimaginable heart to make its resting place behind your sternum, heavy in its beat, steadily giving out. you don’t know how to give it up. you don’t know how to say it hurts without pushing past the collapse. you shudder & the thing within you trembles, that smallness tucked inside those hollow bones, how no one can make you do anything but how you are trying to make up for everything. i don’t understand how all of you can be contained, why you don’t burst apart at the seams, if you are sheer will keeping yourself inside. your hands hold tender still the world, shut doors with cautious keeping, fight on in spite of bloody apparitions. you, the brave. you, the selfless. you, refuse to stop loving with every inch of your body, refuse to make sense, refuse to give up anything that makes you what you are, & i write to pay homage to that godless magic. they say: bow down, give in, cave to something greater. leave that there to die, wither away, kill the hope blossoming, fly east in the winter, say yes three times and believe it say no and don’t mean it. drop the heavy heart inside your chest, so apathy can make a home. give us everything you are. & you: refuse.

G.O.D.

the g in god isn’t an acronym but if it was we’d have to talk about the a for allah and how guns and arms are too common a theme. shoot them up and all. guns and gods and girls are all the same, sawn-off shotguns pointing in no direction. listen for the crack of the bullet- (or the empty mouth, please, screaming) don’t shoot. don’t shoot. i always come back to this. or fire into the masses. after this god won’t care.

how awful innocence

you can take terrible things and use them to do good. yes, they are still terrible. but take that body and grow flowers from poison in the earth’s veins and you will still have a bouquet to heal and hold. seep aggression into poetry and write beautiful murder. kill every version of yourself that still holds scars and your weeping eyes will start to harden. from coal to diamond we turn combustion into love. firestarter heart that burns or tames; tempered into temperance from abuse. it used to be beautiful to be dying. we are still dying to be beautiful in a terrible, awful way. only innocence can think to turn decay into preservation, capture the spread of sickness from cell to bone and it looks like flowers blooming inside of shattered sidewalks. this thing is gonna kill you no matter what you hope and it’s gonna kill me too. crack the lightbulbs with a scream; turn the power out with heavy winds. open the window to run out. block the doors so no one can get in. you’re leaving behind something terrible and i’m trying to turn it into something good like you asked but that awful innocence of yours left no room for reality. you can be too good, too naïve. i can’t live up to these expectations. my terrible will remain terrible as i run away with anger and roaring winds to escape this good, your awful innocent and how your eyes looked at me weeping then turned to glass and hardened in your death. this thing is gonna kill you, flowers or not, and over your grave i planted marigolds: unspeakable mourning so from your sickness comes light. this body turned deathly into deathless.

friday i'm in love (also i have your pants)

i text a lot of things at you without meaning because i’m meaning not to say too much. i got milk and look at this cat have you seen my eyeliner today, also i have your pants. you know the ones i borrowed and then i didn’t quite give back. i’m letting go now, i swear. we’re nothing more than friends. also i have your scarf, you left it the last time you were over because you left in a hurry. apparently you’re allergic to tulips or in some way to me because i hugged you on the way in and you turned right back out. god i hate myself more than i hate this or you. i text you still a lot, but never first; chivalrous and always after you. am i easier when you don’t have to look at me? also i like to look at you. every also i say is something i haven’t said to you. also i miss you. i can’t really miss you because i never had you. as your best friend i have to say i’m glad that you are happy. also it’s only just that i wish it were with me. also i’ll never do a thing about it. so i’ll just sit here and say also that i love you just a little and i’m not sure why. not a little. also i have your pants. also you have my heart.

little teeth, little fists.

i never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. little teeth, we talk in small manners. cut sharp. little fists, hold on to what you know. don’t let go. we take what we want when we want. we are wanting, hungry, all the time. little, little body, draped in ugly hauntings. bite into the flesh of our wounds, ghosts claw to let the dark come out. see scars from needle teeth and swollen hands. living in the wild is what you know, hold, what you know: how to ravage. roll the skin you wear through your fingers, trick your body into thinking you don’t know. what it means that you can feel the crescents of your nails still digging in, the shine of a tooth aching with the rest of your moon-light jaw. carve your name with a knife into the trees, talking soft when you say i’m sorry, in a sharp twist spell out what lives inside, what’s taken over those ribs, you monster, monster, monster, monster thing without a home. don’t feel sorry. never for anything. not even for the wild thing eating you whole. little teeth, little fists, wanting always to forgive. forget. you could die and still you should have never once felt sorry for your wild, awful self.