Tag: quote

• turnpike.

  just beyond the runaway truck ramp
  ROUTE 80, NEXT LEFT illuminates beneath my headlights,
  a shoestring road 
  stretching taught between the tin cans of our hometowns.
  
  all i can see
  is the brightly lit booth in the distance,
  signs detailing price-per-mile,
  toll tag readers flashing against the moonlight,
  everything trying to warn me: 
  
  honey, 
  driving down this road is gunna cost you.

  Oct-14-24

  art, driving, heartbreak, love, poem, poetry, quote

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• at her.

     poison     comes from an old french word meaning magic potion
     venom     comes from an old french word meaning 
      poison
  
  such is the fantastically etymillogical treasure map tucked under my arm;
  where moments ago i was a poet, seeking precision,
  now i am headlamped, machete thrashing, tracing some legend's circular roots.
  Diana Jones and the Synonymous Sisters.
  
  i find them 
  peering silent through the mist of history
           the misery
           and mystery. 
  aphrodite stands with her hand on the shoulder of her twin,
  venus,
  this goddess of love,
  name soured, spat,
  gone from injecting veins with the addled haze of lust
  to now
  the adder; a dark curse, a death knell. 
  in a way i'd always known i'd find some 'her' here;
  XX marks the spot.
  feminine wiles 
           to guile 
           to guilt.
  
  
  in The Dictionary of Fine Distinctions
  a page clarifies
        poison     is when you bite it
        venom     is when it bites you
  
  and oh how i cycle 
  through all the things men never needed be afraid of 
  they simply needed to let be.

  Aug-25-24

  aphrodite, definition, poem, poetry, poison, quote, venom, venus, women

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• love:

  v. laying cornerstones with express intent; an anchoring, a leap, a prostration, an overture; the lifetime build of an infinitigon

  Jun-09-24

  definition, leap, love, poem, poetry, quote, re:definition

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• and maybe all this is the party

  lorde.

  Jun-05-24

  friendship, liability, lorde, love, music, poem, poetry, quote

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• live, testimony that your warmth is one of many; be, a promise that there are still others.

  Jun-03-24

  friendship, life, love, poem, poetry, promise, quote

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• much ado about nothing.

  a friend hands you a novel,
  feels you slipping between her fingers, tries to stuff them with pages instead.
  months later you think you confess feeling there’s nothing
  to latch onto. she hums into the sweeping familiar;
  that feeling of balancing on the fulcrum of stagnation,
  having to watch the tension in your own lifeline slacken.

  you part ways, coast between your coasts
  and when the waves soak your socks,
  realize the ocean is as much a blockade as it is an expanse.
  set sail, it mocks. you’ve run out of road after all.

  you return home, pluck around. no lead singles emerge.
  it’s all b-sides, filler, weeks later you can’t make out your own notes –
  was it over/through, or overthrew?

  even sacred rituals are suddenly colored by the unanswerable –
  on your daily listen, a debate – ‘does bracing worsen injury?’
  studies claim ‘debunked’ but there’s an edge in the voices of those EMTs.
  relaxed muscles bend to chaos;
  to harden against the unstoppable could only cause more pain, right?

  you think,
  this is why they peered with curiosity into the Jonestown dixie cups.
  this is what sent Columbus into the pitch black with kerosene lamps and sails made of linen.
  this is what happens when the only breaks in thinking about what you cannot live without
  are filled with weighing what you may be able to live with.
  
  
  so you try.
  to relax. to remember those lyrics. to chart that course.
  you assemble a swath of available new years,
  set your polaroid camera on display,
  a decorated comrade in enforcing that some shit takes time to develop.
  you think of your younger self: how many identical fears you still share,
  how starry eyed and slackjawed they look.
  at you.

  you finish your friend’s novel
  mostly out of stubbornness, but still. it feels good.
  enough that the next time you pass the store down the street
  you wander in,
  philosophy, poetry; man’s search for meaning tied in an alphabetical bow.
  between them, you pass Shakespeare. the shopkeeper has taped cardstock to the shelf,
  a handwritten fact for passersby to enjoy:
  
  “generally speaking
  the more complex the plot
  the more likely the play is to be categorized as a comedy.”
  

  May-14-24

  books, friendship, listless, lost, poem, poetry, quote, shakespeare, writing

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• in retrospect, was the impetus meaningless, or the only moment absolutely critical?

  May-01-24

  limn, poem, poetry, question, quote, retrospect

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• what are we even doing here?

  
  maybe it's a hall pass 
  a gasoline can
  a trapdoor.
  
  maybe it's the thrill of collusion, 
  a firecracker that wouldn't light,
  a pocketed twenty discovered years later.
  maybe it's the zodiac (killer or birthchart, both are relevant in their way) or
  an inside job or 
  an inside joke or
  a nutcracker. 
  
  maybe they're portholes or periscopes, epigraphs, business cards,
  flipbooks, cigars, a safety deposit box.
  a stranger wordlessly giving up their seat on the tram,
  a fiftieth floor railing that couldn't possibly pass inspection,
  a traffic light that flashes yellow after midnight.
  maybe their calls come from inside the house.
  
  oh,
  okay, sorry,
  you just wanted an answer. 
  what is a poem?
  
  well
  a few are a thumb on your cheek.
  they are all two fingers on your neck.

  Mar-16-24

  definition, poem, poetry, quote

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• every breath swollen with the doing of her dreams until her whole life was nothing but aspiration.

  Feb-18-24

  aspiration, breath, dream, limn, poem, poetry, quote

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• i’ll be along when i’ve finished my song

  rachel zegler.

  Feb-17-24

  ballad, music, poem, poetry, quote, rachel zegler, the old therebefore

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