I used to write letters
to everyone I wanted to see
me. Now I write poems—these missives
to nobody save those who would live
in the ruined unknowing
of a city’s underground ocean.
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Note: The title comes from a line in Emily Dickinson’s poem “This Is My Letter to the World”
What if the branch is
rotted or hollow inside?
With one snap, I could tumble
backwards + tear through the air.
I would be heading dangerously
toward blue + green water
or gray + brown rock
between now + soon.
I could die
for god’s sake.
Then what exquisite freedom
to pierce the atmosphere
as a human knife
preparing to cut open the sky
to pull out its heart.
I see colors before words—
a viable warning in shades of yellow.
The top wisdom teeth pulled,
the Novocain wears off. I pray
I don’t get dry sockets
the summer I swim
in quarries + reservoirs.
New Order’s “Blue Monday”
plays on repeat. I won’t die tonight.
It’s not a Sunday. I was born
on a Sunday. I will die on one.
Blown away + beautiful, I fall
off the porch into the arms
of an oak tree.
No questions asked.
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Mahpiohanzia is defined as “the disappointment of being unable to fly” from John Koenig’s The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. Also see Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello’s poem “From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.”
I try
to untangle
a muse
for me
from amuse
me. Till
their family
moved away.
At the
top of
our lungs,
we sang
Beatles songs.
Still without
bait, still
without results,
the creek,
then a
rural route
ditch. We
played freeze
tag and
tried to
fish for
trout, my
imaginary friend
and her
sister. When
I was
a child,
I ate
dirt.