A Verbal Ecdysiast

Morgan. From Chicago, live in Amherst, MA. My other blog is lets-set-this-world-on-fire.tumblr.com.

[lets-set-this-world-on-fire]

kill every bug in the room

i have a fear of insects

crawling into my body while i sleep

through any orifice (mouth, ear, cervix—

read this as fear of intimacy).

[lets-set-this-world-on-fire]

i am twenty years old. the world grows colder with each passing minute

(they say its climate change—or chance, i can never remember—

but i don’t believe them. the air stretches like the snapping of a starched sheet

across my skin.) i dream of universes like pillared forests and palatial mountains

[lets-set-this-world-on-fire]

There are days

when the sky is filled with ravens

when my body seeks out dark corners

and empty closet spaces

when my hands are no one’s hands

that reach out for power lines that look like nooses or veins,

and the tumbling weeds along the road

remind me of rodent exercise balls.

These days

I...

[lets-set-this-world-on-fire]

i am twenty years old. i grow out my armpit hair and drink only when i feel like it. i write poetry about love and death, tho I’ve never really known either. i save my meals for the darkest hours of night and feel guilty about spending money on food. it seems less necessary. i like to think i’m...

[lets-set-this-world-on-fire]

A Tableau

For Pat

A young man lazes on the bed, arms outstretched, body flat like yet another layer of blanket. Tattoos are scattered across his body. A woman curls against him, thigh resting across his stomach, her fingers a water lily on his chest. She traces constellations on his...

[lets-set-this-world-on-fire]

Bruce Springsteen—Born to Run

the skies were like God’s trench coat,

a constant challenge to look up her skirts

lips rouged, eyes like planets

we soared

through space

a constant race for admiration

a man’s respect is woven in leather

tassels rustle in the wind like tree branches

or...

[lets-set-this-world-on-fire]

Is it tragic or appropriate that two ticking time bombs with blood under their fingernails would fall in love and chase each other across rooftops? Can two people who have slid knives between each other’s ribs be fated to fall in love?

I want a love that rushes through my veins like rooftop...

[lets-set-this-world-on-fire]

the snow is so cold now and i can’t see anything

id see something if the snow would pass but it wont

it has seeped into my skin

i am bathing in the moon

it tastes like crumbling sawdust

it coats the air in static, my skin can’t be technicolor

find me at the bottom of your radio, im...

[eecummingscamewhenhereadthis]

People are like Puddles

In conversation, I find myself

looking at mirrors, windows

and eyes, searching 

for myself. I remember the first time

I went puddle diving

brisk, autumn leaves in white pages,

unchurned knees dipping 

my nine year-old eyes were as eagles soaring

depths into the ground. Infinity tastes like burnt paper

in pooled water, one inch deep, or maybe 

flakes of mascara in stranded eyes, lingering.

People taste like infinity, brazen in warpaint, 

challenging know me

children dipping toes into rippling worlds

children walking on sheets of ice

that are only ourselves

pacing. In conversation, I place my hand

on  your cheek, and dream of knowing you.

[lets-set-this-world-on-fire]

we will never remember this night

it will fall, as stamps between letters in the drawer,

into miles of memory

that we will carry with us

like a blurring set of film

flashes of kisses and dishes and

all of those years, wandering around in the dark.

no, my friends, we will never remember...

[lets-set-this-world-on-fire]

I, a selective amnesiac, am fed-up.

I tell them, “I don’t remember myself.”

And they believe me.

They brought me to my dorm room

at some politically-correct anthill of a college

let me wander through the heaps of litter,

with the warning, “Memories often leave you bare.”

I led my...

[eecummingscamewhenhereadthis]

Magnet Maggie

She couldn't touch her feet

to the floor or her hands

to the walls or her head

to her pillow. Graced with flight,

her body repelled itself

away from objects, floating,

inches above the surfaces around her. 

(The witch had cackled that

she'd never touch the ground again, that

flight was too addicting

for a girl her age.) She cries now,

her limbs craving the comfort of a bed,

the arms of a friend, a kiss

from a lover, how can she go on

knowing

that relief is only inches beneath her,

that release is just out of reach. 

[midnight-charm]

Daiane Conterato by Adam Whitehead for Wonderland Winter 2013/2014

[johnnydeppes]

[zon-prins]

Finished the first one, Vivi for Booger! c:

[explore-blog]

Happy 100th birthday, Albert Camus! Complement this lovely poster of his best-known tenets by illustrator Marcela Restrepo with the story of Camus’s unlikely and heartening WWII friendship with pioneering biologist Jacques Monod. 

[eecummingscamewhenhereadthis]

Dylan's Poem

A smile like melting butter, a laugh

like a giant's foot steps through green valleys

(loud, yet muffled by the foliage), he frolics 

from one tree's shadow to another

unsure 

how to keep his feet still. His name

means a tide flowing, intensely, and

I could certainly believe it, with rushing 

strides from one place to the next--

people have asked me why

he keeps to the shadows, when

he's so wanted in the sunlight.

I could never answer, could never 

relinquish his entrusted secrets

to anyone but the sea. 

He never locks his bedroom door

(though he keeps it shut)

forever moving tchotchkes

from one end of the room to the next

hoping to pin down

the essence of sexuality or maybe even

his Self. His room takes on identities:

male, young but

not too young but

still young enough to know

that jumping between shadows like a frog

between lily-pads makes you a moving target

difficult to shoot down. A smile from this man

(or boy) makes me want to be a martyr,

want to die for his sins so that he

could keep skipping from one shadow

to the next.