#wormypoems

[thewormy-boy]

hi everyone’ thank you for making my local zine fest so fun (:

here is a full catalog of what I brought (aka all the art I’ve been making for the last 6 months)

I will be adding more in the reblogs!

Here are all the the items laid out (sans one print oops!)

[thewormy-boy]

porch flowers

threading the needle in the space between my eyes

vision blurring where the lines cross

i often think about

what i would give

for a nugget of that paradigm

to stitch up the column of my spine

in neat little rows

the knots in my heart laced and dressed

alas, my flesh a quilt of lesions

eyes wide and gaping

waiting to be fastened shut under the weight of whispered words

your gaze television static,

beating dissonance in my ears

and once upon a time i would have said there are stars in your eyes

it’s easy to pretend that we’re perfect

when you’ve never picked wilting flowers from a store

so i stitch my self up

piercing through stem and shell

into a pretty little bouquet

wilting just for you

-tols

[thewormy-boy]

threads

to the thrash of the drum

that awakens the sky

i hear the beat of your heart

my lungs burst at the seams of my collar

from the sound of your voice

thundering in my ears

the vertebre in my spine come undone one by one like the buttons on my shirt—

neatly stacked in a column

i don’t think i’ve ever been in love before

and maybe i’m more in love with an idea instead

so i choke my ego down and gaze at your shadow

just out of reach

your face rippling away before i can catch it

the futile nature of trying to scoop up water with open palms

an inevitable fate reserved for fruitless endeavors to calm the endless waves that lay downstream

the red threads holding me together loosen

and yet my heart stays stitched too tight

- tols

[thewormy-boy]

Fish-pond 

I swallow my pride 

Two spoons of sugar and a dash of milk

Just the way you always liked it

Now soured by your own misery 

That curdles and breeches the rims of your eyes

and glimmers with little iridescent flecks 

Because we are fish hiding from the sun

sparkling and shimmering as it bounces off your scales

No tears to be found 

And I try to smile

With muscles straining to bare teeth

gaunt at unnatural angles 

And I try to tell myself 

Maybe it's better this way 

Separating my spheres of influence 

like a child watching the river for the first time

rippling outwards 

destructive and enigmatic 

And I try to tell myself 

That not everything has to “be” something 

Because the sun is setting now and I’m on the moon 

Your scales dull with no river in sight

And I try to tell myself 

Maybe it's better this way 

Because fish aren’t concerned with how 

leaves that once bloomed 

fresh and green 

Are clutched

swept up in the breeze

Far from its gnarled roots

- tols

[thewormy-boy]

epilogue

Red crashing tides pouring out of my mouth (ten)

with made up minds and lashing tears

on the brim of your eyes

In turmoiled waves and hollowed cries

for the realization that (nine)

love is not bubbly champagne and heels falling over heads and heartbreakheartbreakheartbreak is not your velvet covered lies or daggers piercing my heart or the way you said my name so softly that i almost cried and (eight)

love and heartache

two sides of the same six sided dice where none of the numbers match

and suddenly the deep ocean is closer to any heaven i’ll ever reach and the pressure builds

seaweed a more attentive lover than you ever were (seven)

the current drags me down down down filling the void in my lungs (six)

my heartbeat my only company moving so fast as the world blurs blurs blurs (five)

built up pressure and numbed eyes and substituting love for life blood as if they were one and the same

with no sense that everything’s moving fast like the folds in space time

pulling and crushing and stretching me thin

the pressure builds burning the skin on my fingers

phantom shards of your broken touch (four)

mangled skin of my invisible tears

the pressure builds salt scraping my throat

sulfurous acid rains on venus more comforting than the realization that love isn’t candy bubble hearts and heartbreak isn’t something i can parry or riposte to protect a over-ripened plum of a bruised beating heart squished in the palms of your hands (three)

juice flowing down your arms shedding my blood my tears my heartacheheartacheheartache

salinization of soil a fossil record of my life my pain

a crescendo of static building in my ears (two)

not a sweet or lyrical cantabile nor songbird cadence but a disjointed staccato waiting for the scale to tip

building pressure cyclical like the ebs and flows of the revolving tide

i always thought every story needed a beginning but ours only truly started with the bitter end

(one)

-tols