M: Favorites

Jun 2015 M

PoetWhoKnowIt

You know those really really really long events you had to go to as a kid. Ridiculous stuff- like family reunions, or church meetings or just plain ol' being dragged along? Sometimes fun stuff- road trips (if you fancied them), Disneyland or whatever equivalent, or to family you actually liked.

Leaving at sunrise and returning as bats and owls start to yawn and pull up their sheets. That time of night.

After a long day of this and that and that and this. Well, I wish I could relive one of those drives back. Laying down in the back of the car if you had lots of space, wrestling with the seat-belt buckles on your back; or constantly trying to re-position your head against your window or that uncomfortable and non-ergonomic plastic-type frame next to the door lock and above the handle only to be bounced by the car and woken up.

Long after my brain would give up on trying to sleep in said conditions I'd get into a semi-psychedelic state. Watching the sea of red lights in front of me, ebbing and flowing little dots- each controlled by the movement of the others. To the left a torrential outpouring of bright yellow/white light (blue nowadays with those LED's or whatever). Not a single stop-light in sight.

I often would tilt my head slightly upward, my head against the window causing my vision to vibrate with the tiny, ubiquitous bumps in the road and look at those tall "7" shaped street lights. They'd come into existence as fast as they disappeared in a consistent and wonderful rhythm. Mesmerizing to say the least.

Occasionally the sound of the turn signal would outweigh the subtle 'whirrrrr' of the car and the sound of the road, only to silence after a soft sway in either direction. Slowing down, the beep-beep-beep of the "hey your door's open", and the slight cool breeze worked like a snap to a hypnotized me. Slowly peaking up to regain my bearings- only to continue forward once there was ample juice in the car or less juice in the folks driving.

But now tis' only I who drive. And I drive myself, by myself. Trying to recreate the same feeling while I drive wouldn't be quite smart... And so like those street lights those times have whizzed by without a sound. Only to be appreciated once it stops. They say time goes. No.
truly- time stays, we go.

Jul 2014 M

submissions to post secret

Jul 2014 M

Tom Leveille

submissions to post secret

kissing you was like swerving into oncoming traffic

i can never tell if i am more haunted by empty picture frames or the ashes of their contents

you taught me that the saying "pick your battles" meant not answering when love was at the door

sometimes when i drink whiskey i swear i can hear your voice in the creases of my bedsheets & i sleep on the floor

i still catch myself running my hands over things you touched the most, looking for the echoes of your fingertips

i practice things i'll never say to you

i remember the day you told me you didn't like poetry, how "everything's already been said" & how "nothing meaningful can be captured without being cliche" you know, i don't miss you like the sun and moon, i do not miss you like tide bent waves crashing on the shoreline, i miss you like a chernobyl swingset misses children

rumor has it that drowning is a lot like coming home, that drinking bleach can **** the butterflies in your stomach

for your love of cigarettes, i would have been an ashtray

this halloween i want to dress up as the you when you loved yourself and show up on your doorstep

i never understood what you meant when you said i was an instrument, back when you would cup your hands around my chest and breathe through the holes in my heart, i still wonder if the sounds i made remind you of wind chimes

i never paid much attention to abandoned buildings until i became one

in my dreams all the flowers smell like your perfume

i am the only person who has ever wished for the same snowflake to fall twice

if i could go back, and rewrite the definition of audacity, it would be how when we lost the bet of love, you said "we never shook on it"

i love you, if the feeling is not mutual, please pretend this was a poem

the only apology i want from you, is to have you repeat the names of children we will never have in your parents living room until they *****

we are the same person if you find yourself up at 4am dry heaving promises, or if you are kept awake by the laughter of those who've abandoned you

nobody ever told you that goodbyes taste like the back of stamps

sometimes i'm convinced that the only reason we hug, is so you can check my back for exit wounds