Joyce

Joyce 6d

I wear your gaze like it’s the end of May.
Your eyes meet the dark of night.
The clock tower fades into one, two, five bursts of sheen
you wear city lights turned dusk at the stroke of midnight.
I could tell you about the last meal proper before I **** unicorns up my sleeve;
Or the way your nose crinkles when you think I’m not listening;
Or how each step down the mud is feather muck cumbersome;
and traffic turns beautiful when cigarettes replace churros.
The streets are empty without hearts on yellowing pages.
I could count the days when even water on me feels wrong.
I could tell you about my latest tweet and why it’s a waste of time;
or how a cup of bad coffee almost drowned my impatience.

And even then, I would never give you the keys to my apartment.

Maybe it’s in the way you abuse upper case letters to get my attention;
Or the way you right handedly stir your hot tea counter clockwise;
Or how you never settle on one TV channel;
Or how you skip songs instead of deleting those you never listen to anyway;
Or how you grace the ocean with arm floats from a rabbit hole;
Or how you marvel at vacuum cleaners, like you were living under a rock;
Or when you feign ignorance over the missing last slice of pizza;
Or how my Emas are suddenly aligned hanging neatly on the clothesline;
Or how Matt Nathanson is suddenly just a guy with a guitar dad -***.

We could spend daybreak arguing about marshmallows for breakfast,
but I would rather not.
And you would rather leave.

I could call you just to say it is almost 2am,
but I already know that I am;
And we would never make it to lunch.

#freeverse

Joyce Aug 2015

It's fine, I was awake (on a good day)

On a good day, the Sun shines on you.
You are in a Disney movie, stretching your arms,
As the first light of day hits your toes.
And all the sores of the previous nights,
Reduced as mere soap suds down the drain.
Last night's shower is a preview of the first one today, and coffee smells like the freshest brew straight from a pre-packed foil. Nothing beats the thrill of a morning cup.
Life is a sitcom, waiting for the supporting characters to show up and raid your ref, and then! The punchline.
You plan your day.
You invite a good day.
You laugh out loud.
On your best day, you lounge.
You drink your cup and eat breakfast straight from the pan, and the pan loves you for calling the kettle black.
You write your notes on some discarded tissue previously used to wipe off dust.
You are free versing with the staunchest disregard for tones and rules of archaic poetry; sometimes, disavowing a semblance of order.
Because the best is you.
It is now.
And you are but a small supporting character,
Patiently waiting for the chime of the next five punchlines

#good #day #catnip #airports

Joyce Sep 2014

Hearts and Bones

I pray to the Man on the Moon; he listens to me every night.
He knows when to send fireflies in green and white glow; I believe in him
just like how I believe in road trips and their gram of health benefits.
I do not believe in sunlight, in daylight, in blazing heat that cuts
my skin without honor or grace, or respect. I believe in the Dusk and the
precedence of Dawn, and the exchange of whimpers between the now and five
minutes before that; in the dust that cannot seem to settle when I hold my
hand against the first greeting of the day.
I am made of dust and sand; I am made of clay, of sheds of disappointments
and blisters of neverending tomorrows. I am skins and heart that skid on
a swinging tire loosely cramped on a tree branch. I lift my feet up before I
do that huge push, and it is the closest to flying. I believe in flying high
and landing deep, with bruises and cuts on my forehead, and splinters on my
palm.
I believe in the Man on the Moon and the truth he tells me. I believe in
looking up, closing my eyes and smiling as I feel the first drops of heavenly
drizzle; I catch some in my mouth. I do not believe in the truth spoken and
outside; I believe in the whispered honesty of tongues who cannot lie, who seek
clapped eyes and receptive hearts. I believe in the witch doctor and if he says
run, I will go.
I believe in quiet nights spent curled with old pressed pages on Earth that
reek of ink and strings and speak of hopeful hearts and bones. I believe in hope.
I always hope. I believe in unmade beds on a Saturday morning and why the sheets remain white.
I don't believe in shared moments spent talking, mouths moving against skins;
I believe in looking, in always searching, in intertwined hands that talk more
than mouths and sharp tongues, in gazing and waiting and understanding that
waiting is the Man on the Moon smiling at me, in the unspoken kindness of
being held.

#young #roadtrips #carefee

Joyce Feb 2014

(There's no) Sweet Pain like Rugby

I stood across a fiery red

and ended up purple.

Greased thighs, dripping down and

rested on knee caps

too brittle.

“So this is how you fall apart.”

I say,

“this is how you fall apart.”

When it isn’t as glorious as others make it seem

and the only sound you make is an

inner monologue, where you berate yourself.

“This is you, you **** of a train wreck example.”

And then you stand and you cower

at the mere sight of a figure ahead.

You tug down the remains of your shirt

and you wipe your busted lip dry,

like it will hide the cut and bite.

You wince once sweat kisses your brow

and you hiss like someone hoisted you against a brick wall.

You never stand. You never stand

and you are excused for cursing.

All the *******, the dammits, the batshit *******, flow out

like breath – naturally, an incestuous inhale and exhale of

“someone give me that thingamajiggy for the pain!”

But it never comes.

And you are never cured.

And it never goes away,

when a quicksand of that stinky pile of unwritten brain farts start farting,

one by ******* one.

Blessed are the stoic ones, for they glorify aching.

****** are the loud ones, for the stoic ones are deaf.

Joyce Feb 2014

They Were Playing Our Songs

Dance to the violin, twirl me and then run.
Tomorrow’s a different day. You have gone cold
and I remain burned.
There were candles of periwinkle skies and sunshine,
I remember,
I have lit them one by one.
I watched the wicker ember glow and fade black
and blew some. Candles are meant as wishes.
It was 11:11, a shooting star, or the first twinkle of
the night.
I left, cold sweat glistening under your touch
too humane for me.
Let’s keep the box wrapped in silk paper.
Put the sheets and that cologne I like
along with your candles.
Stop looking for that old silver Nokia phone.
The umbrella’s broken, and everything else that I have given
are with dust under my bed, where your monsters are hidden.

I am no longer yours
and you, never mine.
And I’m okay with that
like how you once held me in peace under
your Mother’s watchful eyes.

* For Mark and his scented candles and boxes of different shapes and sizes. Forgiven but not forgotten.

Joyce Feb 2014

The Little Prince and I

Goodnight, goodnight.
A rocket has hit the man on the moon in the eye,
much like how it was when mermaids declared war
on every little babobab tree across Mars.
A pinch of salt to go with you eyes squinting with
desire. You talk too much.
Wheels could not take me up to the moon,
man on the moon,
oh, so miserably!
We were married once, he and I. He had my heart
in his mouth.
I flew across the galaxy, with my pink hat and
my pink shoes
and your grey coated nails that danced in June.
Happy June day. Happy birthday.
I see fretboards every Saturday morning, right before the sun
sets back south.
I’m quite hard to remember and even harder to forget.
I cut my own hair, why not? If it takes me back home,
then you have not seen me yet.
I rode a rocket that left me somewhere in the Atlantic.
I fell on you; once, I fell for you.
Do we dictate form when form has no meaning?
But you are so skinny, and someone should feed you.
One does not live on waves alone, nor does one become something
when the grounds start to shake.
Choose me! I say, pick me!
I was swallowed by the cracks on the pavement and I
felt guilty.
Do you deny, do you lie, do you dance in
periwinkle skies?
Do you think it’s too soon to quit the man on the moon?

I cut my hair today.
I heard you cry as I slashed them strands with a knife.
Samson cut his hair and so did I.
Good night. Good night.
The man on the moon has one eye.
The man on the moon is a Man and a Woman and I with one eye.

Joyce Feb 2014

For Peegee, who I forgot to thank 2 years ago

Mid day moonstruck cafe somewhere in the city
where hearts constantly swoon over brighter neon skies
and the brightest settled at the bottom of my glass,
I am madly intoxicated by the spirit of free speech.
I saw hips swaying with strawberry and kiwi atop
the mahogany brown by the kitchen sink.
They sold *** by trade for a dozen foes and fetish laden
throes of pink.
I heard someone singing Auld Land Syne at the height of
November fog.
There were cups made of porcelain blue; someone dropped a pair
right after the washroom saga.
She kept coming and going, and coming and going, and coming
until she sat on my lap; beet red, as I was, when she stood
and left a pitcher more than we could handle.
Did we eat? I remember eating and cursing because they forgot
our forks.
And spirits matched lone spirits; they tended to one another
as one performed the greatest story ever told; that of a tragedy
left undiscovered by three people, maybe more.
I fell for the bartender, as with the hostess and the
guard and that one glowing illusion made up of wishful thinkings
and mere repetitions of whatever you are for the day.
Do you remember? I counted one full mid year for the buzz to finally
kick in.
I learned a few things, spoonfed with it, that’s the truth.
Did I ever thank you?
Dogs never lie, as with kids, and we are neither.
So that one letter tied with a big plump red ribbon adorning
the bulky box of heat, with the sugary high impulse perfect for
an ADD bloke, and that monkey – he was hairy, and thus I named him Harry -
became a last-minute Thanksgiving that year.
Because friends don’t lie, and presents don’t always arrive.
Glasses break, phones give up, and people forget.
But I’m mafia like that, so I don’t.