i bloom in lowercase
soft-spoken, afraid
petals opening
like a wound learning
how to be called beauty.
Rupi Kaur's Flowers
Endlessness
Of course the nuclear radiologist
that my oncologist urged me to see
does not take my health insurance
Of course the liver specialist
doesn’t think surgery is an option
of course the phone calls loop back
to menus and hold music
to polite voices that cannot help
of course the numbers climb
quietly, clinically
as if they belong to someone else
and yet the days keep arriving
with their small, ordinary demands
light through the window
coffee cooling in the cup
I keep waking up inside them
inside this body that is both
home and horizon
as if time, despite everything,
has not decided
what to do with me yet.
that my oncologist urged me to see
does not take my health insurance
Of course the liver specialist
doesn’t think surgery is an option
of course the phone calls loop back
to menus and hold music
to polite voices that cannot help
of course the numbers climb
quietly, clinically
as if they belong to someone else
and yet the days keep arriving
with their small, ordinary demands
light through the window
coffee cooling in the cup
I keep waking up inside them
inside this body that is both
home and horizon
as if time, despite everything,
has not decided
what to do with me yet.
Between lost chances & never again.
I have lived so long
in the space between
you and me
where words used to meet us halfway
and now only echo
back into themselves
I still find you in small things
in the timing of strangers’ laughter
in the way certain evenings
forget how to end
there was a version of us
that almost stayed
that nearly learned how to last
but it slipped away
not with a sound
just a soft rearranging
of what we called forever
now I carry your absence
like something warm once was
and i mistook it for mine
and still, some nights
I catch myself reaching
as if love were not something lost
but something still arriving
and then, quietly, I stopped reaching
not all at once, but slowly
like a tide forgetting the shore it knew
I learned to leave the door unlatched
to let memory come and go
without asking it to stay
there is a kind of mercy in moving on
not forgetting, not erasing
just no longer waiting
for what will not return.
in the space between
you and me
where words used to meet us halfway
and now only echo
back into themselves
I still find you in small things
in the timing of strangers’ laughter
in the way certain evenings
forget how to end
there was a version of us
that almost stayed
that nearly learned how to last
but it slipped away
not with a sound
just a soft rearranging
of what we called forever
now I carry your absence
like something warm once was
and i mistook it for mine
and still, some nights
I catch myself reaching
as if love were not something lost
but something still arriving
and then, quietly, I stopped reaching
not all at once, but slowly
like a tide forgetting the shore it knew
I learned to leave the door unlatched
to let memory come and go
without asking it to stay
there is a kind of mercy in moving on
not forgetting, not erasing
just no longer waiting
for what will not return.
the shadows of my doubt
i am a carousel parasite,
spinning round and round
on this blue marble,
doubting when the end
will come and marveling
at my life and demise.
i circle the same questions,
worn smooth by repetition,
each answer dissolving
as soon as i touch it,
until even my doubt
feels like something alive inside me.
and still the world keeps turning,
indifferent to my battle,
light falling where it wants,
oceans rising and settling,
as if to remind me
i am not the center of anything,
only passing through.
I Could Use Some Good News Soon
My liver cancer is worse
that prognosticated
which makes me
count the minutes.
Each one is less like,
like a clock
watching me wriggle.
So I pick up Taco Bell,
put the Yankees game on,
take out the garbage, act normal,
and call it a devil of a day.
Pinch to Zoom
Random thoughts while staring at Google Maps...
There are people lifting off from Daytona Beach International Airport right now,
and people touching down at the same moment,
arrivals blinking, departures already gone.
There are people who work there
who know the rhythm of it by heart,
the hum of escalators, the language of gates.
Someone is late.
Someone is early.
Someone is saying goodbye like it might stick.
And from here it’s all so quiet,
just lines, labels, a clean blue grid,
as if nothing hurts, as if nothing matters.
But every pixel holds a life in motion,
every runway a thousand small decisions,
colliding, separating, continuing.
I zoom out,
and everything shrinks into pattern.
I zoom in,
and it breaks back into people.
And I can’t decide
which view is more true,
the map that makes it manageable
or the moment that refuses to stay still.
Beechwood, Again
Bring me back to the beechwood café
just below the Hollywood sign,
where the hills hold the morning
like a secret they might spill.
I’ll order the chilaquiles,
we’ll split pancakes for the table—
too much, exactly enough.
the coffee will come fast,
the light even faster
sliding across the tiles like it owns the place.
maybe a celebrity at the next table,
trying not to be seen
the same way we’re trying to be.
maybe we disappear for a minute—
the bathroom, the mirror,
that brief feeling of being nowhere at all.
and then back—
to the music, to the clatter,
to Harry Styles on the speakers
singing like time is something you can hold.
but it isn’t
it’s this—
this table, this morning, this almost-remembered life.
already lifting
already gone
even as we laugh like it won’t be.
just below the Hollywood sign,
where the hills hold the morning
like a secret they might spill.
I’ll order the chilaquiles,
we’ll split pancakes for the table—
too much, exactly enough.
the coffee will come fast,
the light even faster
sliding across the tiles like it owns the place.
maybe a celebrity at the next table,
trying not to be seen
the same way we’re trying to be.
maybe we disappear for a minute—
the bathroom, the mirror,
that brief feeling of being nowhere at all.
and then back—
to the music, to the clatter,
to Harry Styles on the speakers
singing like time is something you can hold.
but it isn’t
it’s this—
this table, this morning, this almost-remembered life.
already lifting
already gone
even as we laugh like it won’t be.
One Poetic Night in Pompano
I was starstruck that night, too,
and honored to meet your brother,
whose bass guitar hung real low
like a true metal head.
Wish I would've worn
my Pantera shirt,
and didn't know you took
a photo of me
while I was watching
your dad's cover band.
The breeze came off the coast
kissed the golf course
and gave the night an air of possibility,
probably because you were so pretty,
laughing it up with lunatics.
You weren't single then,
and I wasn't sick,
so I must ask,
what do we do now?
Tumescent
We can't date, Grace,
because I am battling cancer
and it's not fair to anyone,
but I'd love to kiss your ribs
under an overpass in the rain
with an emo soundtrack
and a few honks from passersby.
The Decades Disappear Like Sinking Ships
I swear I was just in my twenties
and now here I am,
looking at New Balance sneakers.
I remember the early months of the pandemic
like it was yesterday—
except it wasn’t yesterday,
it was six years ago
the 2020s are more than halfway done
the century already a quarter gone
my baby isn't a baby anymore
I’m not young
albums and movies I remember arriving
are now anniversaries
athletes I watched get drafted
are retiring
Fugit irreparabile tempus,
time flies, irretrievable
whole blocks of my life pass like that
and I barely notice while they’re happening—
administrations
winter to summer olympics
births, graduations, weddings, funerals
it’s all moving
and it’s only moving one way
I have to pay attention!
The Work of Tzvetan Todorov
give us stories to hold
when meaning leans on meaning,
how a voicemail becomes a bridge.
even in the quiet after,
my sentences keep walking
from one mind into another,
a small light passed hand to hand.
in the grand scheme
we are just things
doing things.
when meaning leans on meaning,
how a voicemail becomes a bridge.
even in the quiet after,
my sentences keep walking
from one mind into another,
a small light passed hand to hand.
in the grand scheme
we are just things
doing things.
Cucumbers
chunks of you
and chunks of me
will sink in the sea
and we will be connected
for all of eternity.
for all of eternity.
the invention of eyes
the beginning of a cell,
the death of a star.
it all happens
in my iris.
to be seen
by the universe—
as if the dark itself
leaned closer, curious,
and made of me
a small opening
through which the light
could enter and ask
its quiet questions.
what is it to bloom,
to burn,
to vanish so completely
and still be held
here,
in this brief wet mirror
of a living thing
that looks back
and does not turn away.
the death of a star.
it all happens
in my iris.
to be seen
by the universe—
as if the dark itself
leaned closer, curious,
and made of me
a small opening
through which the light
could enter and ask
its quiet questions.
what is it to bloom,
to burn,
to vanish so completely
and still be held
here,
in this brief wet mirror
of a living thing
that looks back
and does not turn away.
Horn
a poem appears
kind of like a ghost
that you make eye contact with
and hope it doesn’t fly away
or dissolve at any minute.
kind of like a ghost
that you make eye contact with
and hope it doesn’t fly away
or dissolve at any minute.
Hopeful Death
I want a hopeful death.
a death where you don’t have to be afraid
of renewal.
turn me into a turnip.
toss me out the window.
give me a good, growing adventure.
I want to be immortal.
I want to live forever.
I want to die forever.
in sage.
in an open kitchen.
in a lover's stomach.
Find me hopeful at the end.
that this is not the end.
but just the beginning of existence.
Sitting on This Side of the Matter
a good country song can't cure cancer
but it can give me a welcome respite
from the doldrums of doctors' offices.
with every stab, every vein,
I try to look forward and up,
at the horizon just sitting there.
I hope to never reach it,
because if you've made it there
it must be the end.
so I keep an eye on it,
make sure it doesn't move any closer,
as I listen to my music and live.
don't let the horizon
sneak up on ya, kid,
for it might be the end of the world.
Chemo Brain
I can’t comprehend
Pitchfork’s weekly new music newsletter;
my brain doesn’t compute the content;
it arrives like a language I once knew
now spoken underwater, through glass.
names slip off the edges of thought
like coins dropped into a couch I can’t quite find
and I swear I knew what I was looking for
until I stood in the doorway and forgot the room.
even the small things misbehave
keys become riddles, sentences dissolve mid-step
I start a thought and it wanders off
returns hours later wearing a different coat.
still, there are moments—
a sudden clarity like sunlight through blinds
a song I recognize without trying
a breath that lands where it’s supposed to...
and I learn again,
softly,
that forgetting is not always leaving
sometimes it’s just the mind
resting its eyes for a while.
Pitchfork’s weekly new music newsletter;
my brain doesn’t compute the content;
it arrives like a language I once knew
now spoken underwater, through glass.
names slip off the edges of thought
like coins dropped into a couch I can’t quite find
and I swear I knew what I was looking for
until I stood in the doorway and forgot the room.
even the small things misbehave
keys become riddles, sentences dissolve mid-step
I start a thought and it wanders off
returns hours later wearing a different coat.
still, there are moments—
a sudden clarity like sunlight through blinds
a song I recognize without trying
a breath that lands where it’s supposed to...
and I learn again,
softly,
that forgetting is not always leaving
sometimes it’s just the mind
resting its eyes for a while.
Clown to Clown Conversations
she sends me poetry
via text messages at midnight.
does she know I love her?
Charlie does the same thing,
and I love him, too.
he knows this much is true.
we all dance and dawdle
on down to death.
together, alone.
we are just clowns
having conversations.
covering up our fears.
with words,
we hold on to each other.
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