Discounted Poetry

In my teenage years, I wore a wooden cross Across my heart, Remembering, Committing all. The more my years, My life's increasingly A vain and cheap invention, Yet I grip it tighter. My sincere intention, Traveling the bloody steps The man of sorrows Pushed into the brutal dirt Before, Is hung with doubt And heavy stubborn fingers Curled so stiff about  Another empty twenty,  Thirty years of breathing Lacking purpose, promise. Do I grasp and cling From mere inertia,  Common groove of habit, A dependent thoughtlessness? Do I adore my sorry self This much? Thinking of my splintered pendant, I hear the whisper, "Follow me," And fear. - 4/3/25

Forgiveness Is a fragile Toothpick spine, Eggshell bone, Crunched beneath My angry sole Every time I spy you Yet again. - 4/2/26

I'm never ready When she drops that word Into her sister's lap And hurries off, A naughty child, Or how she pinches, Twists my nipple Till it stings, The laugh she blossoms From her chest Whenever I pronounce Often with a T. I know her cherished pleasures, Her instinctive habits, How she takes her coffee, But she's still a stranger. In the field, We mash a mesh of fingers Letting sunlight drip through Like river water. Everything escapes And slips right through, No matter how we press So tightly. - 4/1/26

She laughs Although my joke Is terrible. The years That scraped against me Till I bled, The years Eternally Against me, Leaving me here. She is grinning, Sketching me Inside her journal, Promising to show me One day. The kernel Goes into The soil. Patience, Even of a farmer's toil, Still I know so well. - 3/31/26

Our toes, They weave Like Per- Sian rugs Or coast- ers made In school. You cough And I Am sure I un- Derstand. And I am thinking You could be my final, Maybe be my home. Our hands, They search For sil- Ver un- Derneath The sur- Face or The brok- En glass Inside The prai- Rie soft. And I am certain There is not a final, Never be a home. - 3/20/26