small shadows, warm attic

The afterthoughts of Codi Rose

[smallattic]

red

I climb into the loft above your bed

to see what colors you’ve been using

a deep glowing orange red

and talk to your friends

watch the films with you all

where you hold my hand

but under the covers.

you tell me,

you’ll explain later.

always giving me an inch.

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I forgot

really

how those hungry looks were hungry with love

I close my eyes and I’m smiling

like looking at the sun

or catching raindrops on my tongue

I feel the warmth settle on my eyelids and it’s like

I was fucking baptized 

and this 

this is how I used to feel

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love in jordan, israel, and egypt

It’s strange how love can manifest in different ways. Sometimes it’s rooted in lust and ferocity. Other times in compassion and care. Other times in humor and happenstance. Some rooted in family, connection, blood. Some people become your family the more you love them. Some you’re drawn to hug and hold and carry through the world with you others you are drawn to help and trust and hide in. I’ve been thinking of the word love. “I love you.” That phrase means so much. There are so many small ways to say it to someone that don’t quite mean the same thing-- “you’re so special to me.” “I love our connection.” There are so many little ways to show someone love without sharing the words that scares us most-- that we’ve been taught to be scared of. I don’t know why we as a society think love needs to grow and grow. Sometimes it slaps you in the face immediately and teaches you a lesson about life, and time. It’s quite relative. I’ve fallen in love in 1 year and I’ve fallen in love in one moment.  How to show love? Touch, mostly. It’s funny-- like apes. We need to be physically close to one another. Tactile. The skin to skin contact. Have you ever kissed someone platonically and suddenly felt so close to them? Hold someone’s hand. Touch the nape of their neck. Play with their hair. Place a hand on their shoulder. Feel their heartbeat. That is another living and breathing human being that is basking in this moment with you-- reminding you that you’re alive. Reminding you of the good in the world and in people. Reminding you we’re here for love. In all its forms. In all its homes. You will never lack it.

[smallattic]

at night

I wish I could bottle your scent up

You say that when you love me

Did you always love me?

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10/6/15 or when you lied

in exploration of late venus

and the chill that caught the air

“flu season like never before”

this twenty-third fall

and skin still brown

in celebration

of the deadly weather

of droughts

and storms they’ve named

and empty pantries

and the mice

the imminent end of days

they have found water on mars.

a constant web.

a box within.

I enter

I don’t emerge again.

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8/21/15 or when you let go

there has always been that memory

the polka dot bathing suit

and her in the pineapple

3am pacific and you don’t feel a thing. 

or pretend to know the difference

between thread counts

between life and the living

brass and gold

and she holds you lightly

the way she always does

people don’t hug like they used to

can you feel it creeping away?

like a draft against your cheek

ice upon the reservoir

but that chasm is there

progress needs a catalyst

and you have never been one

it goes as far back as we can remember

to the Shawangunks in august

and your cicada shell gems

imagine

the way they’d crunch between your teeth

and we say a prayer

to the cicadas back east

gently thanked,

by a puff of santa ana air

and you know, time is sitting all alone at home

black with charcoal

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5/11/15 or when it stopped

in a new place

things can either become new

or not good enough.

like attempting to teach an old dog new tricks

how many things to pass through these hands

and used things feel more alive, don’t you think?

what will become of them when there’s nobody left to see them

makes me want to buy all the 25 cent photos in the world

[smallattic]

9/11/14--10/24/18

to hold something crisp and new.

that fear of a crease in the binding

a smudge on the silk

marred prose-- an omen perhaps

downy fluff and ink cracked

or maybe, some other liquid

it is hard to tell in the dark.

it is a harvest moon. 

the type of slack-jawed sort of translucent wonder

causing traffic accidents across LA county

and only fitting

for this beginning

halfway towards regeneration

one to two to one

I’d say urge is the word to best describe it

an urge in every sense of the word

wrong or right

as it’s always been

sour sweat and coal tar

footprints on the wall

at least 200 fruit flies on the peaches 

I always seem to forget

the peaches

[smallattic]

a storm

It started in the rain and the scent of summer. Grey and grey and grey and lonely asphalt and the dripping of the gutters.

It reminds me of the bird feeder outside of your window, and the little snakes of water on your face as you would tilt it to the sky in search of me. Blinking, blinking, away from me, and blinking, blinking back. More snakes.

This time I found you in your car and I wasn't surprised to see you with the driver's door open and one leg out, one leg in. The dull drone of music from your phone in the cup holder and the look on your face that said "hello".

The rain was hissing against the roof.

The house felt small today and empty as you left it and it sat there unholy and sinking into the backdrop of the overcast and your face, overcast too.

I hung back and you didn't beckon-- you never beckon, anymore. Just staring at me with that "hello" and daring me to say goodbye.

The rain was relentless and I couldn't hear you if I tried.

I tried.

You were wearing a flannel that reminded me of autumn. Your forearm peeked out in a reminder of it's strength across my chest and I could smell you through the rain and, in a way, as always, this was all the beckoning I needed.

I took a step towards you and stood in the open door of your car and you didn't say hello.

You told me I could keep your shirts and I told you they were mine.

My fingers damp and searching. Someone has opened the door to the house.

Somehow your hands in my hair and your face in my hair and it's deafening.

Somehow still frozen in place and the snakes they live in the gutters.

I live in the gutters.

I curl around your finger, and you let me. I am wearing your shirt and it is mine and you are mine.

[smallattic]

as usual

In every morning you may think of me

Do I shine blue

Or red

Or gold?

can you smell my skin upon the ashes

Did you think you’d feel so old?

That shallow yolk of mattress

For all the hours you lay still

And tranquil in the din

Would you let me say hello

Will someday you let me in?

And in the fabric that you wove

A labyrinth meant to keep me lost

If one morning I came in

Tell me,

What would it cost?

If for the years you fought my musk

And the days you lay beside me

If for the knowledge of the rust

And the nights you tried to hide me

Come forth and hold me tender

In olive and in blue

If for the nights you’d lay in writhing,

I’m still held here, for you

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soft things

In all the ways

I’ve spent my days

Puckered from the heat

Amongst the sickly slick the sweat

the curling of my feet

In silver somber Saturday’s

And countless golden hours

In paint dried matte and white and stained

In powder and in flowers

And finding wrapped

Or warped

Or wrong

what you had told me all along

And cherry stems

Upon the tongue

Of oh so many others

In fuchsia find me bleeding strong

In honey, and your fading song

For all the beds you’d press against

For every morning you’d repent

To think to think

For all you do

I’d shake these tender hands of you

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honey

I’ll save this warmth

For someone’s porcelain heart

Like a song

On the eve of something wicked

Telling me you loved me

And I will think of all the other women

Who loved me when you couldn’t

Who’s lips I made my own

Who’s names you’ll never know

And taste sweeter

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dendritic shadows may find you

On rooftops and in trenches,

In beds made sour with age,

A hand clasped beneath be bedsheet and in your nudity,

A figure in the night.

Though you won’t wake--

Not this time.

And in this lonesome nothing, 

a tightness in your chest, 

a prayer for all things still and supple,

 a push, a will, a breath.

In everything you came for,

And everything she’s not,

This shadow still may take you,

Again you think of rot.

Rot after completion, and as the sweetness burns away,

You’ll find a new and worthy tartness, that makes you want to stay.

Across the world another you may be going about their day.

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I have seen you

I have seen you many times before.

In the light of the crescent moon and all you have ever given those before me,

I have carried your weight within me in darkness and in fear

In warmth and in passion

In holes bored deep and jagged and wet I have felt you tremble and sink

I have felt you enter in confidence in clarity I will feel you I will feel you forever.

Like spotted teeth I’ve felt too much of you and even after we are gone these spots will remain as a reminder of all things consumed too fast too soon too ravenously

And scraped against a salty floor

You lick your lips and remember

We taste the same from within and I can taste all of you

In the naked flesh of a bright pink night or a bright blue morning I become myself and if your eyes should find mine if we should be so lucky I will sink my spotted teeth into you and make you feel

So we may feel together

So those after us may hold us in their hand and cry

Tears to the salty floor

(no recuerdo no recuerdo)

I’ll take your hand and sing you to sleep

And may we crumble

In a way

That feels right

[smallattic]

heartbeat softer

Like the thin paper of leaves I shatter I shatter I shatter so pretty. For you to pick up and put in a box. Or kick on the way to work as you shiver through a moment or a memory or a day or your whole life.

If in the end I find out I was only ever a leaf I think that would make more sense. Bright neon green to deep depths unbound untethered and changing to brown to find the ground again like we all do, eventually.

Or press me between your pages and after years have passed, open me up to smell me. To see if my colors have kept. Brittle or eaten. Or not there at all. Where you thought you had put me. You had been sure I was right there.

Lavender and chamomile. It’s what I’m made of, some satin sheet nights of no sleep. When the world holds no sounds but for the leaves in the wind. When the dark smells thickly of bleach and someone is looking for you.

When I’m gone someone will think it was better with me here. Someone else better without me. A thought for every last person here who ever heard me who ever saw the fall and called it autumn. Made it pretty. The smell of crisp death. I’ve been falling for a long time and to whoever may catch me I need not be caught I simply want to be held.

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sometimes, you’re so fucking transparent

Why do people fall out of love/does anyone ever really fall out of love? If you do where does the love go? Is it stored for later? Does it stay with the one you love? Does it leave a hole? Can you ask for it back to give to another? Can you run out? Can you keep it and give it to no one? Can it go away for a little while and come back the same? Can you share it? How much can you love at once? Do some love more than others? What is it made of? Can you throw it away? Can you touch it? Can you sell it? Is tied to you like a thread? Red and frayed? Can you kiss it better? Can it hurt? Is it bad? Is it me or a part of me or a part of you? Is it worth it?

[smallattic]

snake river

Twice you bought me flowers

I’d always keep them far too long

Petals spilling to the table

Sweet rot

All rot

A thousand minds younger I only saw rot

Now I only see it elsewhere

My face is not a real face

To think,

I’ve never seen it, really

I’ll never know what I look like, to you

You look like everything to me

I’d kiss you raw, rotting

I’d kiss you gone, I did, I said I would

I’d kiss you back again

Bury me for years

I’ve found home among the peat again

Scrubbing off the surface mold

Never clean again

As if stark white was ever my color

I’ve found home within the bruise again

A thousand skies younger felt less vast

Sucking the meat from a bone

You let me lick your fingers

My bones, your bones

There’s a mouse that’s died in the wall behind our bed

And I can smell it in everything

But you

I can’t smell you

Anymore

I can’t find anything