thisinbetween

[thisinbetween]

Tastes Good

he says I taste good

should I?

I have been understood and misunderstood

(haven’t we all?)

I have been tasted and taunted and put

on the bed. on the pedestal. underfoot.

I am old and new

I want you

to taste me

carbon date me

give me an estimate

delicate, exquisite

it’s not got any etiquette

just connect with me

touch me

taste me

tell me if I taste like I should

tell me if I taste good.

[thisinbetween]

Hercules

I don’t quite feel myself

I’ve heard I’ve got to delve

into that feeling

dealing with it, pulling back the layers

strangers taken and misshapen-

written, dictation, to paper

loving is a labor

like Hercules

I have hypotheses

to explain the realities

I got a mind for asking why

and never being satisfied with the answer,

I want to striptease

in a way so the universe sees

look at all my blemishes

get glimpses of what convinces

this truth-

no man is left unmarred.

Hercules killed his family

with the same hands that strangled the lion.

it’s hard to love the dying.

Hercules, listen

when you killed your wife and children

did you feel as yourself?

or are you distant

a vision instead

you ripping the crimson red

a labor too much:

loving the dead

[thisinbetween]

I See You

Suddenly I see you.

I see you for the you that you are.

I see that same energy

enough to power generators

lighting up your eyes.

You are beautiful as the originator,

The original,

The creator.

I feel like I knew an expression like yours,

that I’ve seen your face before,

that I’ve seen it somewhere once,

and someone else, the same expression, joy. Utter joy.

You’re almost devastating to look at,

sunset-esque

you are the hues and the changes of colors,

over the Horizon.

I would die a dozen times

to see that look again

even on someone else’s visage,

I don’t want to put a single person on a pedestal,

but I would do that with this image.

That light up expression.

With that sense of only sensation.

elation worth devotion

I would swim the fastest river

and dive the deepest lake

I would climb as high as our mountains go

where ever it takes

just to see that expression again.

I have seen those eyes before,

I have seen those eyes before,

I have seen them in a million hue and colors, I have seen the faces of others

In death that smothers

Between the sheets and covers

In life that mothers

Climb high and swim fast and deep

I have those eyes before

And I will see them again.

[thisinbetween]

From Rough Waters

I don’t think we speak the same language

let’s salvage from our unique damage

something we can manage

package it up and ship it

from the lips to eardrum dock.

here’s this I,

the version and revision

the billion little decisions

the I as I am now

that’s all I got to offer

that’s all I pulled from the rough water.

here’s this you

alien, yet canny and kind

I could spend hours in your mind

my brain doesn’t understand your signs

at all.

More melody, less words

more calm, less worry

more wait, less hurry—

I could become someone who understands-

and you could become the same

or we could just relax

and let our differences wax and wane

you talk on axises without name,

dialectics and dichotomies

I talk on growth and spheres

grafting, invasive sort of mental ecologies.

and so you are the you

as you are now

the you as you were made to be

the you as you made yourself to be

and I am the I

as I am now

the I that I was made to be

the I that I made myself to be

we don’t need to speak the same language

to see the same things

I’ll look open eyed at you

let the words slip into the quietness

of silences

and you can look at me

let our stories and words matter less

than ships on a distant sea.

[thisinbetween]

Party’s Rain

the partygoers come

in from the storm

a swarm to the dorms

shelter

they helter skelter,

laughing,

drunk and ecstatic

sipping from the red plastic

a frantic, manic sort of panic

shivering,

the quarter hour spring shower

came early in the season

late in the night

we might

slip and need to right

the water is warm when it’s spent

enough time on the pavement

Patient, be patient.

[thisinbetween]

Sunshine

like sunshine, sometimes

along those lines

those times

it was like rays raised, erased the face,

you could make the world photosynthesize

suddenly like by just touching

you could be growing

and making grown

a symbiosis

notice, you open like a lotus

a focus but unfocused

closest to honest, calmest

you could almost brave it

in this slit, spilt moment

you feel like you could

look at birth and scythe

equal, just right

otherwise how could you be here, now?

you feel just like sunshine, sometimes.

[thisinbetween]

Keeping My Breath From Me

Younger, younger, I grow younger

Moving as a salmon upstream

Between claws, between teeth;

— caught. I wriggle, I wiggle

Nothing to breathe.

Nothing to ease the passing.

Come now, thunder shakes my atmosphere

I’m breathing deep to bridle my heart beats

Eyes wide, white

With fear. Over oxygenating my blood.

My god! Can I die?

But look at the cruel vitality in me

My soul, my hormones, my brain, its stem, my face, my flesh, my memories,

It can all end?

What excuse do you have for me?

That this is it?

That this is rest, the rest, the end?

What a godsend.

Muffle me, my mind, my whole self—

Between claw, between teeth,

Catch my life

Keep my breath from me.

[thisinbetween]

Skinned

Dead man walk,

We turn,

We burn,

We talk,

I am made of children’s chalk

I am mostly imagining

I hung myself by my skin

Next to St. Bart’s on the line.

I am older, younger,

Weaker, stronger

Little and longer

I will be you,

Dead man walking.

[thisinbetween]

Crab Clawed

Shell-shocked as both

Crab cancer, crawling and clawing

I am trilobite in form

I am crustacean

I am hardened ocean

Have fins, gills

Liquid truth and life.

[thisinbetween]

I’ve got the same idea on my mind all about dichotomies the qualities of this and that I wonder if we would have such variety of societies, identities and lives without the pressure, the power dynamics-

can we move past our animal panic?

god fucking damn it

I think the world could be so good would and should if we mindfully made our societies our malice, illness is our own like biting into your dominant hand but if we tried

if we thought about it

our mind as flexible and programmable as our societies.

we do it with talk, talk, talk.

[thisinbetween]

Lay Down When We Speak

let’s lay down when we speak only for a moment, if only once a week, a month, a year, in a while, in a blue moon, blankets strewn, or on bathroom tile.

I seem to do the thinking for two not for you, but so I live twice as fast. I am always thinking a hundred things I’m scared it brings a bad kind of sign I feel twice your age, twice mine.

But maybe living doesn’t feel like that all the time.

I’ve no poker face, so I heard, my body and verbal languages sing the same tune, speak the same words I couldn’t tell harmony from melody which one set the tempo, which one leads, (do my thoughts come from feeling? or is my feeling all thought?)

but I only can tell the truth. or I try to, for you.

is omission a lie?

do I have to admit to my illness, thus early in our conversation? I’m trying conservation on my relationships, to keep you from evaporating away from between my grasping fingertips—

I’m reeling, stealing my healing away from people once beating my growth.

will you grow to me? or me to you? will we intertwine and accidentally choke, when was the last time we spoke?

let’s lay down when we speak so at least physically we can be on the same level I’m not special or any sort of horned devil my mental medium is more clay than metal lay down. come here. come between my arms.  holding me, holding you-

I have your head between my hands I run a thumb over your cheek and jawline.

loving is almost religious for me are you that sort of reverent too?

people leaving me feels like dismemberment I am their remanent but I’m trying not to be as impermanent lately.

I could be molding to you as we lay like this, or are you forming to me?

I could be hiding things from you, don’t you hide things from me?

I could be sick but everyone is in some way aren’t you?

Come on, come here I want to hear everything you could want to tell me

lay down, right next to me.

[thisinbetween]

Golden Throat

a soft and high note in the bird’s throat it seems to press the warble from its whole chest.

its face has yellow feathers still odd on the rest of little brown coat it squeaks again, that soft trill.

and it is small compared to the one that glides then rides quick and soft the air’s tide. alights beside the other.

they chirp, quiet chatter check one another like familiar or even familial. the large bird then coos and leaves for the tree’s leaves.

I am alone with it again.

I play and move closer, when it turns its little head away.  

I am so close almost as close as the other bird was the moments slows- then the bird rises on the beat of its brown wings’s brightness showing me the soft golden down still on its sides, hidden in the hinge between quick beating breast and wing.

it sings one last rising note maybe as it goes maybe as it comes a greeting, a goodbye coming from its young, gold throat.

[thisinbetween]

Delicious

you look delectable, delicious

and I’m vicious,

in that two sets of teeth business

my grimace can play coy mistress

come on give me a few kisses

and your few inches

witness, sickness

I’m listless, flayed skinless

by that illness-

come on. you. come here.

be my victim and eyewitness

there’s richness to eating you

right before I pounce

don’t you seem

like you have

citrus sweet kisses

my tail twitches

my jaw unhinges

my breath hitches

part of me ravages you

unpackages your torso

and you are delicious.

[thisinbetween]

Dear Body (Version 2)

Dear body

first off, I’m sorry

I’ve been letting other people

Use you, abuse you

Treat you like a public park

It said dawn to dark

But we both know the marks

Always happen at night

When I’ve tried to shave bits off of you

I’ve tried to alter you

Twist you

For no purpose but my own pride

I’ve dyed and lied

Been on feast and famine phenomenon’s side,

treated you, body, like a rodeo ride

You were mistreated often enough

Other people weren’t the only ones

I have treated you with common cruelty.

So let me say my apologies

And act newly

according to these philosophies

I’m building boundaries around you

In a skin care regiment and tattoos

Praying between every rib like pews

That I’m going to treat you right.

let’s grow, let’s garden

I water, I feed, I work,

You’ve hardened

can we, body, you and me,

can we bargain?

I’d rather we be in consensus

Amend us, repent us

We could make a good agreement,

In harmony and equilibrium

crest this everyday oblivion with

a Homeostasis.

a freeing of the cages of social graces

Society desert and its oasis,

These same hand takes us and made us

Will break us

Come on body, let’s let go.

We could be as avid, and fly.

Body, we could be something together.

It used to be that I would feel

bigger than you

I stretch out and into forever

psyche lively, lightly

Existentially and purely mentally

I floated above you, body

I am sorry.

And I would come

back from those long, strong day dreams

I curl up so small in you, body

I would be so tired

And it what as if i barely fit you.

I used to try and carve you

When I’d come home

To your bones

Like this.

But body

I can love you now

I’ve learned about loving done right

I learned about fighting that good fight

I was sick and I’m not anymore

Together we’re alright.

I can hear the oceans of your red red blood

Pumping like pressure the shell of my ear

You are here and

I am here

I will let you

grow, realize, photosynthesize

we can compromise.

In you, body, I am baptized, fully actualized

It’s true

You and I will share a demise

But we did not have hands

In building death’s high rise

I won’t do as society might advise

and despise my body, I’ve grown wise.

I know there is no sin in my body’s dress size.

or because there’s no gap between my thighs

I know now that in you body

I am brought home, at last

Behind my own body’s two eyes.

[thisinbetween]

My girl spoke nothing but fucking TRUTH. Now that’s this kind of Women we need our girls to look up too.

[thisinbetween]

Body, my body

Dear body

first off, I’m sorry

I’ve tried to shave bits off of you

I’ve tried to alter you

Twist you

For no purpose but my own pride

I’ve dyed and lied

feast and famine phenomenon,

treated you, body, with cruelty common-

let’s grow, let’s garden

i water, i fed, i work, you’ve hardened

can we, you, body, and me,

can we bargain?

I’d rather we be in consensus

Amend us, repent us

We could make a good agreement,

In harmony and equilibrium

crest oblivion with delirium,

a Homeostasis

a freeing of the cages of graces and their oasis,

to be as avid, to fly.

Body, we could be something together.

sometimes i feel

bigger than you

stretch out and into forever

psyche lively, lightly

i floated above you body

i am sorry.

i am back now

back from those long, strong day dreams

i curl up so small in you, body

i am so tired

i feel as if i barely fit you

i used to tru and carve you down

but now i try to let you

grow, realize, photosynthesize

we compromise.

we could be

just one set of eyes.

in you, body, i am baptized

comprised,

brought home, at last

like a sunrise.

[thisinbetween]

I’m having a conversation with one of my friends and I ask him, “What defines you?” and he responded with, “Nothing. A definition excludes the possibility for change.”

This is one of the best responses I’ve ever received to any of my questions.