Poetry Collections (Chapter 1)

I wanted to have something scheduled for Saturday,* so here you go. I'll probably be doing more poetry collections obviously, which is why I called this one "chapter 1." Not all of these are finished.

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Every little thing becomes part of me, and it's so tightly wound, I'm afraid to let go

Because if I let go, then it all might unravel, and if it unravels, what's left there below?

So I pull on it tighter, until I might pop, and I wonder how tight it can be

Until every little thing fills a hollow little shell

That once held the idea of "me"

Where The Trampoline Stood

At the end of Loyer Lane,

On Ashbury Drive, there's an ugly green house.

Unkept, unfinished, forever.

The house that brings sirens and big loud machines.

The grass gets too long in the summers,

The snow builds too high in the cold.

Inside are three bedrooms,

One with too big a bed for the mother that lies there, alone in the night.

And there are three cars in the driveway.

One car for each person inside.

The stumps of two trees in the front yard,

Three trees still alive in the back,

missing all the branches that were any good for climbing.

There's a fence 'round the backyard with so many holes

that no creature could ever be kept there.

Some days you might see a young man step outside

And he paces, and paces, then stands in one place.

Maybe climbs to the unfinished treehouse.

They say once you could see him outside every day,

Now, you hardly see him walk to the car.

And this house is surrounded by oddities,

You'll find gray feathers strewn all about.

There's a bird that will visit one window

As if to say, "please, sir, come out."

They say you could see a father working

That was almost four years ago now

And he'd paint the house, change the floors, fix the roof.

And he'd never quite finish before he moved on,

But he kept the house ever-changing

There once was a couch on the curb, just outside

After the first of the sirens had come,

And the fourth of three souls slipped away,

The son wanted the place where his father had slept,

Where he'd found him and wept,

To be set aflame, torn to pieces,

But he'd settle for throwing it out.

They say that a decade ago, you could see

Children gathering in the backyard, every day

And they'd play, and play, and play, and play

On sunny days, when the ice cream truck came.

There's a bike, now, that sits in the garage.

With tires that have been flat for months

And somewhere in a junkyard, one might find the pieces

Of the trampoline at the center of childhood games.

They say that the son is to leave soon,

And the daughter will likely go, too.

And the mother will say,

"Now this house is too big,

and I must find somewhere else to move."

And the son will cry,

as the memories die,

but he knows that this house

is no longer alive.

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When the credits roll

I remember reality, remember myself

Oh, how insignificant I feel

When I hear that final song

Suddenly the real world doesn't mean much at all

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Is this love, or just hyperfixation?

Does your face bring me joy, or just stimulation?

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I walk down the section

of books about Five Nights at Freddy's,

past the Golden Girls coloring book,

into the DVD section of Walmart.

I pass DVDs of Doctor Who and Supernatural,

and when I turn the corner

I see Stranger Things shirts

and BTS Funko Pops.

Walking down the aisle

of action figures and plushies,

I decide that I resent the fact

that I couldn't have liked

something more relevant.

I move past the merchandise

and toward the photo kiosks,

to print designs

for the clear phone case I plan to get.

I put the blank T-shirt and fabric paint

on a stool in front of a broken kiosk,

sitting in front of another kiosk

and putting in my code.

My designs pop up on the screen,

a collage of screenshots from Night Court

and a cutout screenshot of the It miniseries

against a blood-splattered background.

As I select the sizing of the prints,

I come to a new conclusion.

I doubt I would've been this creative

if I liked something more relevant.

*It's Saturday night and I just realized I scheduled this for Sunday. Oops.