before i sleep.

Unforgivable

Turn the loans back on With the flip of a switch But don't tax the rich Don't tax the religious Instead, just dangle the prize Student loan forgiveness To keep them in line

Triolet Poem #58

I said, you can say that again. But this time not under your breath. You spoke about what happens when - I said, you can say that again. Don't think about dying, cause then you might manifest your own death. I said, you can say that again. But this time not under your breath.

"Say That Again", JEP

it can't quite explain this feeling

I've heard so much about mending broken hearts, with time, with love, with the right person

but I never hear about the hearts that are so shattered they can never fit back together

I never hear about the hearts that have been betrayed and tormented countless times

I never hear about how guarded and closed off our hearts become, and how truly nothing feels as though it can break through

I never hear about how deep, whirl wind, soul tied love feels impossible - is my heart even capable anymore ?

I never hear, about hearts like mine

Into the Dark and Away 

When you've learnt by heart the patterns on the carpet The grain of the floorboards pressed flush against your cheek When you've grown sick of counting the dust motes Staring dazedly as they dance in the draft And collect under the dresser As so many discarded dreams When you’ve bored yourself numb and blind Stand up or perhaps crawl downstairs Sneak through the window, into the unlit dawn Light as a sigh, since no one is here to stop you Heavy as a sob, for no one is here to stop you. Through the garden, barefoot across the flower beds Bending the pliant necks of your mother's tulips Her ancient tabby cat, keeping watch from the parapet Wailing and whining, rasping its bitter refrain Won’t you wait, won’t you listen, Won’t you please try and understand You headstrong girl, You silly girl, You golden child But it’s too late for pleading, you’ve been halfway gone a long time So go for good, Go over the fence and into the fields Over the fence and away

Go and sleep under the willow tree Where its long fingers will trace its sorrow upon you There you might find rest and forget Forget the lonely sound of the leaking faucet Forget the unlived life And even your own name

When the alarm clock rings with echoes of school bells Tolling mercilessly, striking the hour When the chirping of birds turns to nasty singsong Twittering their teetering chant When you haven’t closed your eyes in weeks And yet morning still comes And yet duty calls, clamoring for another ounce of courage Another shred of surrender, another pound of your bloodless flesh Open the backdoor, let the radio fry itself hoarse Let the phone hang and cry its phony tune Let the gate slam behind you, swaying on screeching hinges The old house, full of ghosts, nagging and begging Look back, turn back, come back You stupid girl, You lovely girl, You small, small thing But there is nothing anymore you wouldn't dare Nothing now they can forbid You’ve been halfway gone a long time So go for good Go, into the dark and towards the forest Into the dark and away

Go and sleep under the walnut tree Where breath is rare but the slumber is deep There you might find rest and forget Forget the taste of bile of every family meal Forget the endless list of tasks And even the grudges you keep

When you are all out of time, of hope, of composure When you've crossed all the days, all the Ts Dotted the Is and scratched them out in every Christmas picture Spent the last of your restraint And turned all the dials on the stove Walk to the end of the driveway, to the end of the road The tar still sticky with the day’s heat The faces of the whole neighborhood, Peering through curtains and keyholes And that voice, sickly sweet, tugging at your sleeve Pinching your upper arm Telling you not to make a scene in public The crunching gravel, coaxing and cajoling Stay here, within reach Stay near, within sight Sit, stand, beg, play dead Stay, stay, stay You stubborn girl, You dear girl You odd duckling For once, let it fall onto deaf ears Go, through the thistle, through the thorns Following the cool rustle of rushing water You’ve been halfway gone a long time So go for good Go, beyond the bend and along the river Beyond the bend and away

Go and sleep under the manchineel tree Where every touch is seared and etched into your skin There too you must sit still as the world eats at you Each brush like the lash of a whip But, at least, here you can ponder in peace As patient as a boiling frog Your head busy and buzzing With thoughts sharper than a hornet's sting You may think and think and forget Forget the whistled scream of the hissing kettle Forget the many reasons for your rage And even the way home.

I hold your picture in the moonlight

Your smile peeking through the glass

Your eyes begging to be seen

In a way only your first daughter could know

I can’t save you

Just as you couldn’t save me

I’m making my peace with that

Day by day

I walk alone amongst the people I love

Patiently putting out fires in my mind

And one day

Someone will smile at my photo in the moonlight

And my eyes will smile back

Salt Disney Whirl

Reckless repeats

of rocks on your window.

Retrace the cracks

of before you were known to me.

With water rising,

the leaks refuse to relent,

so we bail out.

The carpet sulks,

still soaked with salted moments and broken cassettes.

It’s better to swim forward

than continue treading water.

it's feb. 15 and i still love you

that flock of hearts down broadway— i see them go by through the windows on the downtown bus today. they're spinning on string from trees just low enough to catch and read, and i wait for the readers

when i can. at the stoplight i see a young woman pause her stockings ripped at the thigh and hair fallen from a bun so she is human. but through that window she has no flaws when she reads the fluttering heart and smiles just long enough for me to catch her smile.

then in traffic slow at five minutes a mile the little boy is hoisted on his father's shoulders and his mouth is stained blue so he is human. he reads like each word is new even as his father's back must be aching. but time

is here for all of us today and i catch his smile, too, blue and uneven in unpractised happiness

Only a dream

I wish I know what it’s like to be loved by someone like you, but all I will ever know is how to love you in silence.

To be loved is a blessing, but to be loved by you would be a different type of blessing.

You are what I’ve always dreamed of, but will always remain to be a dream.

You are my love that I won’t have, so deep down I know I have to let go of the false reality of you.

But having to let go of you feels like having to let go a piece of myself.

My love and desire for you comes with the pain of knowing I can’t have you.

But if getting rid of that pain means having to let go of our memories,

I don’t mind aching…

-Roxanne

I am always searching for myself

and then you found me

but I can’t see you

I can’t touch you

I can’t have you

how are you a void so solid?

.

in this darkness, you are me

more me than I am myself

have I found myself, at last?

.

you ask for words

and I have none for you

you ask for love

and I cannot deliver

you look for my heart

and I hide it in the shadows

-Nidhi Bhasin

for @nosebleedclub jan 3rd 2024 prompt.

I wish my heart wasn't so full of hurt;

that I take it out on people

or situations in my life.

PTS from abuse of every kind

stays in my mind everyday.

Like it lives within me.

I question why people are abusive.

I despise the fact that the abused

have live with memories planted

in their brain.

That never wither

nor let you forget.

R.A.

401

Growing up is so incredibly strange

How can every thing change but really it all feels the same

I see other people changing - do they feel static inside like I do? do their same anxieties continue to swirl from what seems like decades ago? do they get told they've grown up only to see their inner child in the mirror

I am building myself a more confident shape.

Do you remember when you were small, and the world was big and mad and full of possibility? When you didn't think of who was watching and it didn't matter what anyone thought, because you had already

Moved on to the next game?

One day I will sing in the rain, and I will not care who hears me.

You can't live your life

In somebody else's box; I will not

Be small anymore. I want to be that child again, but wiser; I know what you're thinking, now, and I don't care. You do you.

And I'll do me.

Look at yourself

Alone in your room

Worrying if you did heartbreak the right way

If you’ve suffered enough

When you should really be focused on

How it feels

To be in your skin

How they make you feel

When they brew a fresh cup of coffee

At 2 in the afternoon

How the sun feels

Peeking through the window shades

Like wind chimes made of light

How the cows eat grass

Without worrying about the process

How the feral cats live selfishly

Amongst the trash and

Take a breath

And listen to yourself

For what seems like the first time

Where I Went

Just yesterday, I stepped out of the train and onto the platform Immediately engulfed in holiday chatter But I don't have answers for the questions I'm asked I can say where I went, not where it took me How I was touched and, in fact, altered By things so small and momentous As uncommunicable as the emotion within a dream Or the exact quality of the light On a worry-worn day when you look up to the sky And feel peace wash over you like a sigh

Today, I'll have to unpack my suitcase and stock my kitchen shelves again Foreign to the person who did all those tasks in reverse Only a week ago I'll wander, lost in thought halfway down the supermarket aisles Clutching to me the unexplainable The yellow of your dress that morning in the lobby

How we smiled at each other across the dining hall You backlit and me dazzled In the bright orange glow of those July evenings The absolute kindness of that sharp, expressive face The warmth of that 'we' you used so readily Giving from yourself like someone who has never been torn

The arms you opened and laced around me How baffled, how enchanted, how shiny new you made me feel Scoured clean from the grime of the past twenty years Filth I had come to confuse with my own skin With something akin to fate

I am spending the rest of the summer back at my parents’ place Back in my hometown Where everyone is nice and certain they know me As though I could still fit in the backyard snow angels, The chalk outlines of my childhood Or the version of it they prefer to remember I’ll sit at the dinner table, I’ll grab coffee I’ll drift through the unavoidable rounds of friendly catch up Eyes fixed on a punch-drunk fly knocking against the window pane I’ll drone on, saying the expected strings of words, Same old, same old The recycled stories we always tell Stale and small The inch of common ground we can still claim As we sit in the car and I stop listening Suddenly sickened by that nickname they call me By that blinking neon sign over the corner shop That no one fixed since I was seventeen The syrupy languor of this place That settles around you like quick setting cement I’ll shift uncomfortably, my thighs sticking to the seat My mind miles away, tuning out all but the distant radio And the flickering of other images

How you danced with pure, untethered joy Your lithe, lean body Like the still thrumming string of a bow After the arrow is released A one-chord instrument that always strikes true Thumping with the elastic tug and snap of a rubber band Beating in rhythm with the thunderous boom of the bass That moved the walls around us

How we mouthed shards of songs, circling each other And spoke, loud and close Other the stampede of sound Your hand pressed to the damp curve of my back

The sweet boozy smell of your breath As I rested my chin on your shoulder

How you stood on tip toes to reach the tap behind the bar And poured me water into your own glass Still tasting of the zesty alcohol you'd ordered And of your lips against the rim That cool rush on my parched tongue As intimate as if lapped from the palm of your hand

I could say I’m confused If there were not such clarity, such crisp edges to those moments When, drunk off your infectious ease, I brushed against what it is like to inhabit the world To feel trust and kinship, both unspoken and undoubted

A few hours on, morning brought departure Yet the sliding doors that closed behind you did not sever the luminous tie It didn’t feel like a tearing, like the terror of loss I knew I would see you again I knew that, even if I did not, Nothing could tarnish or undo this heliotropic change And so, even after the goodbyes, even through the frenzy at the station This quiet, serene stillness lingered This sense of unfolding I sat on the sticky floor, in the miserable, crowded heat Far removed from the other travelers’ frustration, from my own bruised-eye fatigue Aloof and mellow, I looked at the sky through the glass ceiling Its sun falling slanted, pouring hope into me like a new breath I could feel where my tailbone connected with the concrete I could feel myself rooted there, embodied One amongst many, emmeshed but unmoored Somehow, after all these years more than the sum of the parts I’m missing I thought: I am here, I do not need to be told where to go Or who I am I do not need to fear or fret The train will come, sooner or later I will get home And home is not what I once believed it was Life may, after all, have more to offer than a long aftermath.