Thursday, July 19, 2018

I Know the Devil Fancies Me


*inspired by a line from the song, “St. Ideas,” from Macklemore (in italics)


I know the devil fancy me

When the light fades from my heart
Walls are constructed in minutes
Doubt, in a hard hat, bossing the workers,
    megaphone turned up
Fear laying down bricks after anger applies the mortar
I guess Love is on an extended coffee break
    because the truck sits empty

And there is the devil, smiling over the blueprints
    of the house we will live in
He dreams of family dinners alone
Drinking his favorite spirits in a dark living room
“Oh what a life we will build,”
    he whispers into my soul
“Think of all the empty photo albums we will fill
    with what could have been
The minutes, the hours, the years recorded with just a dash
    on a headstone that no one visits
I promise you these will be hurtful years”


But that don't mean that *****  gets to dance with me

I grab a backpack, fill it with a few books,
    past love letters, paper, and pens
Turn toward the devil to throw him the keys
He rolls the blueprints tightly in his hands until the ink
    flows like blood between his knuckles
Hate drops the iron door he was preparing to hang
All construction stops
The devil takes my hand as if to dance, inquires
    “Where do you think you’re going?”
I pull free, declining the invitation to move
    into a house that isn’t home
“I’m joining Love for coffee,” I say as I walk away

Tuesday, July 10, 2018

Denotation Life


Happiness is just a cliché
A simile that is supposed to paint a picture perfect smile
To cover the cracks that show through your skin

This is not a hyperbole
Darkness outshines light, let’s be honest about
The paradox of this existence
The connotations are just too cloudy for anyone’s point of view

See this anecdote doesn’t have a happy Hollywood ending
There is no sequel to this short story,
only flashbacks that interrupt the narrative
Disrupting the tone of my verse
The rhyme scheme off
    because I write in free verse
    but with a sonnet mindset

I know no one will save these words as an allusion to explain
The irony of a story with no symbolism
Just a one star rating for this autobiographical soliloquy