holy grail of a man, holy grail of a savior

brand new poetry blog (@apatheticskeleton)

[pomegranateichor]

the upsetting thing about it is i have always ached for this, even when despite all my wishing it did not exist.

[pomegranateichor]

but i loved you first, and best, and most of all.

m.c. @pomegranateichor

[pomegranateichor]

this is the moment of giving up, this is one second where the world gets tilted the wrong way, and everything starts changing.

i was alone, walking on a beach made of glass before its glass, and the water looked like glass. the sun cutting itself into shards on the surface, my life a mosaic for once. there was a mosaic in the first house. and it looked so out of place, among the shabby, function-made clothes and the worn furniture. it was a picture of some battle, some war i didn’t remember. none of the people had faces. that month was the hardest month of my whole life. so hard, most days the sun went down like something was forcing it to. most days i didn’t see the sun at all. and all through that i never gave up. but then after that there was another house, and more mosaics, turning battles into victories instead of just bloodshed.

turning people into people with faces. another month of not giving up, of holding a ball of steel in my stomach, getting used to not sleeping. all that and more. the first day of paradise, i wasn’t ready. i knew what everyone else had wanted of me. and i knew how to give enough of it without losing myself. but this one was different. all the walls and the floor too were bare. no battles. no bloodshed. i wasn’t ready for it. i went six weeks without giving up, and without being asked to. when i finally did give up, it was a very gentle thing. more gentle that it had ever been in my entire life. more gentle than i thought was possible. when i finally gave up, i did it unbound, un-coerced. uninhibited.

[pomegranateichor]

a brief list of feelings. 1. those nights that are made of glass. the kind you don’t even meet until you’re an almost-adult and some things are starting to make sense but they’re all just pieces of cloth you can’t quite grasp.

2. the adrenaline rush that comes hand in hand with hurting. the sort of cruel twisted pride you feel in a hospital bed.

3. the illusion of doing it right for once. you managed a month and then it all starts crumbling again. coming away from itself like charcoal.

4. there are so few things that still feel good.

5. wanting to come out of all of this unscathed

6. knowing that last year it was all different and you’d give anything to go back even for a day just to get away from this, like the world has been sitting on your shoulders the whole time and you’ve only just noticed except you keep noticing and it just doesn’t stop.

7. not really wanting it to.

8. not really ever asking for help.

a list of feelings, part two 1. the kind of tired you only get at airports. static from the tvs and stale air. where everyone is trying to get somewhere else, but they’re all stuck here, with you. 2. the night sky after a rain storm. the night sky after an atomic bomb. do you think we’d feel guilty if we both survive. 3. maybe you’re warm enough. maybe you’ll keep the shadows at bay, maybe things won’t get dark this time. but i’ll light these candles, anyway. one for every heart break. 4. the sounds of glass breaking but it’s happening behind your ear drums. 5. something you can’t quite name, always sitting too far down your throat.

6. that sort of loneliness that holds you like something alive would. that rages and wants against you. the sort of thing that quietly falls asleep but never at the right times. 7. saying good night and meaning it

8. saying i love you and meaning it

[pomegranateichor]

the weekend came too quickly.

at five pm you start to leave your house with a bag in hand

before you remember that nothing like that happens anymore. and suddenly you remember her house always smelled like coffee.

like saturday mornings and running way too late and the sun rising way too early. like coffee. you wake up on a sunday, with a new tattoo and empty pockets.

in an empty house, in a bed you recognize but can’t remember. you make coffee the way she likes it, too dark and strong. you drink a whole pot before you know where you are. come monday time slows down, but time always goes slowly here.  Molasses-slow.

Like the first taste of a peach in summer, when the sun melts itself down the sky, molasses slow. like tasting your own heart before someone has a chance to rip it out before you are ready. it’s midnight. she is making coffee. you tip her a smile and say it’s midnight and she tips you one right back and says

but don’t you remember, silly? time is an illusion, and caffeine doesn’t have any deadlines. You smile once and turn out the light.

[pomegranateichor]

you went running, you remember that?

the way the rain slanted everything just a little, hiding your tears for you (as if god was looking down at your red heart) and all the lights in the whole town were suddenly forgettable.

and the world forgot.

forgot the headlights, and the streetlights, and the lights that were supposed to be on the sneakers you threw at the sun, the light in your eyes and the one in your heart, pouring yourself out to save something.

i said that all the lights went out.

and that’s true.

and while i was busy wishing for light,

light was busy rushing in.

two lights on a car you didn’t see.

two lights on a car that couldn’t see you.

you, in the road with a dead bird in your hand, wishing it back to life.

pouring yourself out, mixing in with the rain, all the lights back and too bright,

and me screaming your name, screaming

“please god do not let that boy die”

and he didn’t.

instead he took my legs for a while, and i swear those casts itched more than anything in the world.

more than the questions, and the praise and the tearful gratitude, as if i made a choice to do that. to save you.

the one thing you weren’t worth saving for was that itching.

we don’t talk about it, i close it up inside a lockbox and drown the box,

i keep you from talking about it, because it makes you cry.

you talk about it anyway.

and after you move too far away to talk about it, you write about it instead.

i take all the letters and lock them up to, but i keep this one safe.

in the end, it’s the space of the matter.

all this wide open space to be small into.

all this wide open land to become something, under our feet kissing the ground like a lover.

[sunsounds]

late-night exorcisms

this isn’t a poem / it’s an exorcism / hunger running fingertips inside my flesh / ghosts licking at my mouth

tell me this is how carthage burnt / salt & scorch the earth of my organs

i don’t want to start a revolution here / but make the inside of my ribcage something good / make me something good

& i’m mixing my metaphors but / this poem is a metaphor / this poem isn’t a poem / it’s cutting something out of me / hot water & soap pouring in my guts / like scouring every rotten thing away

just execute me / & call it salvation

this isn’t a poem, not like this / it’s an exorcism / & listen i don’t want to be what i am / i don’t want this to be what it is / so let’s call it a metaphor / let’s call it palms scrubbing at the cavities opened beneath my skin

this is not a revolution / no gods with hands wrapped around swords & flames / & this isn’t anything clean / but it’s trying to be

i don’t know what this is just / what it isn’t / i don’t know what i am / just what i want you to make me

i am nothing good / make me better than this

[pomegranateichor]

you and me are skipping rocks on a lake that we love. there are other people here but we’re so far away from them, they don’t even exist maybe. so we’re skipping rocks and you’re okay at it, and i’m downright terrible at it, and i’m telling some story that’s thirty percent made up. you pick up another rock and skip it four times. i’m impressed. “i fall in love too quickly.” i cut myself off. i didn’t mean to. the made up stories just fall out of me nowadays. i don’t even notice half the time. it’s cold today. the lake is freezing around the edges, and still liquid in the middle where it’s warmest. my hair froze when i came to meet you here. my hands have been frozen for half an hour. i don’t say anything. you and i are skipping rocks, we’re skipping class, we’re skipping steps on this path, cutting corners. i told you i fall in love too quick. you pretend not to hear it. i pretend i never said it. i want to apologize but you told me to stop doing that so often. i said “sorry i can’t help it you know that” and you said “i should be charging you for these therapy sessions” i’m still not sure if you were joking but i laughed.

[pomegranateichor]

darling, i’m writing this poem to you, indecisively. this is for you. for you in love with the sunrise, for you watching the sunrise over a lake, watching time move slower than it’s meant to, watching the day wake up into the palm of your hand. for you, tinged red and wanting. on a hillside, you count the lights in windows as they turn on one by one, and lose count right around a hundred and twenty. this poem is for you, to be delivered to your doorstep, to be handed over and marveled at. this poem wants to be marveled at. it’s you, golden/yellow and shining. it’s you being happy and you being sorry and you being loud and laughing. what it means is this: there’s nothing to fix if you aren’t broken, but we’re all out here breaking, you know that? this poem is saying goodnight, is closing a fist on a full day. this poem watched the sun go down and thought of you, watching it come up.

day 11/365

[pomegranateichor]

here is a thing that everyone wants: a miracle. i’ve got a skinful of something untrustworthy, and a sky full of trust. which one wins? which one turns dusty and chalking? which one dies? where does the miracle come from, and does someone have to die to get one? would you do that? could you? what do we do when our prayers are answered? what happens when everything we wanted gets put at our feet, tied up and wanting, what happens then? when the sun is melting itself out of a deep purple sky and the trees start bowing like they want something. what do you do? i know i’m asking too many questions. and i know the answers are hiding so impossibly that we’ll never find them until we’re something outside of ourselves, something unrecognizable to the past. something that won’t even remember us, when our bones are charcoaled. we all want a miracle. but what happens when we figure out how to make one out of thin air. what happens when you warp this life just enough to make wishes come true?

[pomegranateichor]

there’s something dead here. i mean there’s a part of me that went and got itself killed, went and asked for it. is it possible to be alive if you’re part dead already? how much of a person can die before they behead them out of mercy? have you ever wondered what the aliens think of us? this blue planet all the way out here, full of us, who are lonely? full of us who are weak, who are smart but can’t get along? do you think they’d hate us darling? do you think they pity us? (i would) out here on this rock that keeps hurtling towards something we can’t even imagine, we wish on things that burn.

day 9/365

[pomegranateichor]

I think if I met your demons I’d tie them to a chair and demand to know what you’d done. I’d take my fist and I’d take their cheeks and let them meet in the middle, like Romeo and Juliet would have. 

What I mean is I’d kill them for you. I think if ever met the devil that sits on your shoulder there’d be hell to pay. (and I know he’s there, and I know you’re used to him but baby, those whispers aren’t coming from god.) Because of course in this story the angel is right. I mean the angels are always right, but in this story they love you. But listen, that devil, I know he says pretty things, and I know they hurt like fire might. And I know you got the moon shining on a lake in your eyes cause of it, from walking at night all the time, but listen. There isn’t anything he can say that could break you. You’re too strong. Made of steel, you are. Steel backed spine, you can’t do much else but stand straight and keep that chin skyward. And you can do that, I know, you’ve been doing it all these years and nothings gonna stop you now. god willing and the creek don’t rise, nothings gonna stop you now.

day 8/365

[pomegranateichor]

but how do you know? where’s the grave? and the body? where do all the bodies go? you always asked so many bright questions. you, filled to the brim with lightning, shooting arrows from your crossbow mouth. meet me at the crossroads, i’ll spell a new word out in every direction and end up toe to toe with you every time, your name on my lips, every time. don’t drive away like that, baby don’t. i’m telling you now everything i won’t do. i’ll never make you uncomfortable on purpose. i’ll never make you the butt of the joke. i won’t exchange your attention for time i already lost. i won’t let you win; if i do it's only because i want to see you smile, even if it kills me.   darling, you could kill me, with those skylight teeth of yours. let karma kiss her way into this household, and then watch you bite the ferocious out of her. tell karma to back off, tell me to step forward, tell us to take each other’s hand and keep stepping forward, even if we can’t, even if we couldn’t possibly. remember when Pam from the office ran across hot coals and then fell in love. remember going to the beach and only whispering in my ear about how scared you are of the ocean. remember the first time i took you swimming, and you wore waterproof mascara, to hide the shaking. are you sure she’s gone? can you prove it? where do they keep the bodies of people who didn’t deserve to die? where do they keep the ones that did?

day 7/365

[pomegranateichor]

there’s a heaviness here that keeps letting the birds inside the house that sits on my shoulders. leaving the cobwebs where they were built, blowing out a candle that i lit, opening the curtains that were falling apart anyway, biting into my knuckles, bright as a sunday you waited for. wanting something from me that i don’t have, holding my hand (or not), drinking coffee like kissing someone, sitting on the ground with me, on the ground, saying honey, saying darling, saying did you miss me there’s a static up here, dusty as an attic that everyone else forgot, disappearing and falling in love, touring a life as if it might be worth it to give me a chance. knowing it absolutely won’t be. there’s something alive in there, taking up space where common sense used to sleep so recklessly.

6/365

[pomegranateichor]

I mean i really would’ve bitten the bullet, i was so in it for the kill shot. and we are all destroying ourselves slowly. and there’s nothing else to say. there’s dust here, dust in places where that full-love feeling should be. it’s nothing, honestly. and that’s the worst part. the nothingness. knowing that tomorrow’s today will be the same as yesterday’s. knowing i should change and can’t. there’s a canyon here. it looks like an ocean died there. it looks like somewhere you’d find a dead body and be caught up in police business for weeks. it looks haunting and sacred and wrong. every time i visit i think of bringing a parachute, so just once i could know what it’s like to leave this world behind, and then at the last second pull the string and convince myself of better ways to spend my time. every time i visit i think of bringing a faulty parachute. and you know all the usual things to say here. my heart is mended with gold, i’m better than i have been, ill wake up with the sun and try to be better, and so on. but honestly. where’s the finish line if you don’t know what you’re running for. where’s the finish line if you don’t know what you’re running from.

[pomegranateichor]

Cedar 1996 Her own dog howling at her heels — it’s a betrayal. she writes that down in her book, and then wakes up and keeps being betrayed. Insidious and starving in the parlor — they’re everywhere and they aren’t fucking leaving. god please, there's no one left. Ancient book with golden cover — they said it’s a cure. they said they would fix it, all bandaged up and wrapped in gold leaf and ready and waiting and we’re all still waiting Specters of both grandmothers in the sunroom — they came back, said they always knew how, and only came back to narrate the situation Remember what brought you here and what drove you out — it was sickness both times. and it will be again.

[pomegranateichor]

my family said this place would never be as good as it had been, after the drought. after new year’s day, when we went and saw all the dead things leaving their homes, all the fish in the sea gone, and then the sea was gone too, and there was just a beach of salt, inside a canyon. first it was the fish, corpses smaller than a finger and some bigger than houses, and one that was so big the government came to cover it up. and a week later the sky turned green. didn’t I say so? didn’t we warn you? there’s no place for you left here. of course we adapted. we tried to. there’s something that happens low in your gut when everyone around you, and you too, are dying. something deep and loud and primal. there was a new technology, turning the air back into water. but it was slow, and humans are too fast, they burn too bright. it didn’t help much. the birds were next. falling like dry leaves, turning every front yard into a final resting place. sickness spread like paint thinner after that. with the birds rotting into the ground, the air was thick with the scent, and you could feel yourself getting sick, feel the cells turning against each other, wanting out, wanting better. first, it was the sea. then it was the sky. then it was the ground. we were surrounded by our own undoing. we were trapped. and eventually, we stopped fighting back.

day 3/365