(2022)

 My osteology aches

With this new distance.

That I cannot go to you, 

hold your hand 

Gaze upon your sleeping face

— it surely has marked itself indelibly 

Into my bones, my joints aching

And nerves seeking out the cause

For the trauma my brain detects

In your immediate absence. 

My illness flares to life once more,

Roaring down the axons 

Looking for an impulse that says

Here I am, the part that is missing! 

Heal here! Tend here! 

Nurse this part back to health!

As though the distance could be soothed like 

The skinned knee you got from 

Running so fast that your legs and 

Your center of mass lost that 

Conversational flow that allows bipedal locomotion 

With kisses, cleansing cloths, and 

A moment to nurse calmness back into your spirit

Before you race off to the next adventure. 

(2024) I want to learn how to metal scream

 I want to learn how to metal scream

Because my feelings are no longer contained 

Within words and stanza alone

And muted by internalised convention

By the cadence if I speak them

By your imagination conforming them

When they are filled

With the fire

Of fear and rage. 

I want to learn how to metal scream

Because I can no longer stand

The reaction to my words

To be that I’m “so articulate”

That I’m well spoken,

That you want to hang it behind glass;

To be saited applause

Pleasant murmurs

And silent shares. 

I want to learn how to metal scream

So that when I come on stage

In a dress, makeup, done hair

I can scream my emotions 

Sweat out the hair & off the makeup

And grate on your perceptions-

So you go home After 

and want to do Something so that 

I share only words & Not truth. 

(2024)

 Is it too late, baby? 

To flay myself, wet and vulnerable

For your perusal?

I know 

I know

It is too late

(2025) Hey buddy

 Hey Buddy 

I know it’s hard now

That they are takin the money away

That would help keep your farm afloat

So why’s that

I’m hearing you beatin yourself up for what they’ve done?

Did they teach you so well to hate yourself and your neighbor, son?

Here’s the thing

It’s in all of our best interests to keep your farm going

You weren’t actually being selfish or stupid to take that check

You see

If the farmers go under we all have to pay the price

So ensuring that your farm keeps producing benefits us all

Please don’t let them

Get you believin that you have to do it alone

Don’t listen to them sayin each man is an island without bridges 

If you let them

Tell you to hate the work you’ve done and the things you’ve produced

You’re letting them sell this country out from under you. 

2025 Processing II

 I go to bed & think

About a tale of two brothers

Each done wrong by the world

Who instead of standing back to back supporting one another, 

Instead beg their neighbours to bring their daggers

To slice the other open

In hopes the blood spilled

Will keep their feet warm.

2025 Processing I

 In the cold of winter 

Two brothers

Egged on by neighbors 

And baited by “friends”

to hate each other

Into an inability

To cohabitate

Smoke silently

Lips and noses bloodied

As investors eye

Their unit 

For more profitable tenants.

(2025) several short poems on having left Appalachia

 I miss the mists that felt inevitable 

Rolling down the slopes regreened 

Over the lifetime of my grandmother;

Her childhood was browner, 

Before the roots took hold again

Keeping the hills from eroding,

And leaving verdant canopies I grew beneath.

———————-

I gave up my skin willingly,

And followed you far from my shore;

While my skin (and heart) are yours, still,

Being so far from my waters has gutted me,

And I long to bathe in them again.

————————-

My heart hears my ancestors 

And tries to crawl from my chest

Towards the mountains and hollers

To hide.

—————

I want to bury my feet

In pebbles

Worn smooth and round

By eons of water

Rushing around them—

The same water flowing over them

And the same in my veins

———————

Even the willing selkie 

Will yearn for the sea

—————-