Poetry

No Cheek Left to Turn

Lord knows how to love
His enemies,
but I don’t.

Times like these,
it seems every friend
is a weapon,

every peace-intentioned word
warped into an act
of war.

Love is still what I
want, just not what
I stand for.

I would lock my knees
and hold my ground
if I found

a rock to count on,
but instead my
options are

to dare the
ocean to a
floating

contest—see
who ends up
sinking first—

or play hopscotch
across a schoolyard
minefield,

learn to fall up from
the earth
and fly.

Every time I try
to mend us up again,
we only rip.

But I would sit with you
still if it were
that simple.

Hand on your shoulder
blade, breath on
your neck,

we would grieve
this blood
together.

We would believe
that love makes
sense.

Poetry

Unflattering Self-Portrait of the Artist

Lately, I can’t clean the anger
from the air quickly enough,
and it gets caught in my hair
like thick spider webs
stacked over each other
in sticky white layers.

They say to log out
for most of the day,
and I do,
but it isn’t enough—

because the anger has leaked
out past the screen protector
and settled here, offline,
beside me,

physical enough to pinch my ribs
when I try to focus
on anything different,
too abstract
to throw in the trash.

Lately, I think that
I am anger,
maybe.
Not the dream answer I whimsied up
in kindergarten
when teachers asked for
my future plans.

“I want to be deep hurt
darkened with bitterness,”
I didn’t say.
“I want to be others’ moral judge.
I want to be obsessively
never okay.”