Potbelly’s
I am eating potbelly’s by a fountain. I am on your turf. My mouth is tingling from those hot peppers. Chimes on my tongue. A good feeling. The last place we ate as a couple was potbelly’s. The last place we had sex as a couple was in my basement. We were quiet, because my parents were unpacking upstairs. It has been 2 years. Now, I am on your turf. I will be here for the summer. On most days I like being alone. I wish you would leave my thoughts and lock the door behind you. Part of me wishes. Only part of me.
Posted April 30, 2012 at 3:33pm in Spoken Word Poetry The Excelano Project Collab The Miseducation Spring 2012 Poetry
|
4 notes
The Shape of Absence
A man in the shape of a monster.
A monster disguised as a father.
The houses are full of them.
A man caught exposing his bad teeth in a photograph
next to three women who grit their hurt into smiles.
It has always taken effort to be a family.
A man driving his slumbering daughter to her first swim meet.
his breath curled in the clavicle of her snores.
I used to trust my father to lead me in the right direction.
A man drunkenly cursing at his wife.
a wife biting his words and spitting them back.
the stars collapsing one by one outside my window.
The easiest hiding spot for fear has always been behind a closed door.
A man watching the birth of his second child,
promising to break his bad habits,
promising that his habits are breakable,
but he is too selfish to break himself for the sake of anyone else’s happiness.
A man letting his plate go cold on the dinner table.
A man chain smoking in the garage.
A man taking off every weekend to play golf with his boys.
A man who loves to cook for his daughters,
but prefers to simmer his time in someone else’s kitchen.
A man who hasn’t been home since last May.
A man sleeping soundly next to a woman
and a 2 year old boy I will never call brother.
I see this image every night I wake up crying.
I can never remember my dreams.
I can never remember if the woman looks beautiful with her eyes closed,
or if the man and the boy resemble each other.
maybe this is a good thing.
I was taught to honor both my mother and my father,
but I am attempting to be honest with myself so I won’t say I miss you.
You,
too shrunken to fill the jacket of man,
undeserving of being sung father by anyone’s voice,
rotting under the spotlight of your conscience.
Do you even have a conscience?
Do you ever listen to it when you think of the three women an ocean away?
Does it take three sets of locks to bolt your smile to your face,
Do you check three times every morning to make sure they have no way in.
I have no desire to come knocking.
I will never drive the wilting car in the garage,
and no matter how many times you dive into dumpsters
to chase the sound of the first time I called you baba,
you will never find the diamonds I once spit out so freely
for the man who defended me against the blows of my mother.
The last time we spoke on the phone, you said you would see me soon.
It has been soon everyday for the past six years.
Soon is just another fallen tree in a forest of unkept promises
I don’t believe in anymore.
Even when we sleep inside the same walls,
I know your spirit is wandering another continent
too far away to ever return to a family that would still
bleed itself dry from loving you empty-handed.
But you are simply
A man melting into the afterthought of his daughters
among the paralyzed pieces of his wife’s heart.
There are new cracks in the walls every time I come home.
A man shaved down to a postcard bookmarking our distance.
a silence I have grown comfortable in.
but please don’t let my ten year old sister forget she has a father.
I don’t need one anymore, but she does.
Posted April 10, 2012 at 2:40pm in Poetry National Poetry Month The Excelano Project Spring 2012
|
3 notes
come to my show!
The Excelano Project Presents: The Miseducation
Friday, April 6th and Saturday, April 7th at 8:00PM
University of Pennsylvania
Harrison Auditorium, Penn Museum (3260 South St.)
(via iamyates)
After the Crying Child Ordeal at Buffalo Exchange
Baby wails in the sale aisle begging to be held.
She craves a mother’s love,
but Mama’s face is an empty plate,
and Baby is too naive to know that there is nothing cooking in the kitchen.
Baby tugs harder on the tablecloth.
Mama is a punctured balloon.
She has nothing valuable to offer to another’s hunger.
They say she swallowed her boyfriends’ punches.
They say she’s bloated with their fists.
They say she deflated when every single one left her unplugged.
They left so many times
she named her toes after their shadows.
Each a wispy reminder that she walks just like them:
away.
