#dufflyn lammers

[lifeinpoetry]

. . . there is a fate worse than death / and it’s living to hear eulogies / for the person you could have been

— from Chorus, eds. Saul Williams, Dufflyn Lammers & Aja Monet

[lifeinpoetry]

I need to wake up in the care of the sun. / I need to feel safe with my eyes closed.

— from Chorus, eds. Saul Williams, Dufflyn Lammers & Aja Monet

[lifeinpoetry]

if i could tell you i love you in a language where fear didn’t exist / i know / i would remember the earth as a piece of my chest

— from Chorus, eds. Saul Williams, Dufflyn Lammers & Aja Monet

[lifeinpoetry]

This grief is a hurricane / that passes and passes. / The eye. The storm. The eye.

— from Chorus, eds. Saul Williams, Dufflyn Lammers & Aja Monet

[lifeinpoetry]

fingers woven together are too fragile & intimate. / fucking is easy. fucking is easy? // i pick at my skin when i am anxious.

— from Chorus, eds. Saul Williams, Dufflyn Lammers & Aja Monet

[lifeinpoetry]

when I say you remind me of a book’s broken back, pages half-sewn and a coffee ring on its face or that moment in half-morning where the sun is hesitant or after the ground’s been cried upon and everything is soft and open or holding the earth’s guts in palm just to feel alive amidst all this concrete, my god, what I mean to say is this song is an off strum and I like the way it hits my ears sideways and how I might be cold and you’ll put your coat around my shoulders like the movies and I’ll show my teeth and say, who spilled molasses over the window, making the day golden?

— from Chorus, eds. Saul Williams, Dufflyn Lammers & Aja Monet

[lifeinpoetry]

Suddenly everything is so comforting:

lakes frozen to the bottom, a forest cathedral,

a trembling voice that sings.

— from Chorus, eds. Saul Williams, Dufflyn Lammers & Aja Monet

[lifeinpoetry]

And then, when you collapse, sprawled out like a starfish, you will love

with your whole body. You will bleed the earth

a sky.

— from Chorus, eds. Saul Williams, Dufflyn Lammers & Aja Monet