Shrieks into the Void

This collection of poems was written as a final project for my Rage, Romance, and Resilience During the AIDS Crisis class. They are inspired by both my own experiences and personal interviews from classmates. Closure-19 i tap through time feet brushing the water creating ripples in the blue-like waves, Soles barely touching  Lifted with fog surround me and fill full chest fill up pour through my temples press against gray matter slowly slowly slowly  slower still breathe and keep breathing in the green haze teal-blue malaise of days to come the pond the lily pad Still drifting across branches hanging with moss settling reaching to the ground in dark emerald sheets  eyes filled with calm-y thoughts sit still sit still sit still and wait green-blue-purple-gray— thick molasses fog—run faster faster faster still for nothing stays here for long Midyesterday Walk A walk, you say. Only a walk. Necessary. Exercise get outside only a walk. We gather masks, water bottles, inhalers,...

two lines allowance at 11 pm.  But listen here, Mother. Have I not already failed in my quest? Do chapters upon chapters of phantoms mean nothing? Riddle me this if two people climb a wall but they never climb back down did they ever climb up at all? the ladder keeps growing reach upwards or downwards i can’t always tell at some Point it probably lead/led me thirty - one nights of  N othing and when you look back all you see  are paper bags littering the sidewalk; clogging up the gutters. the endlessness that stretches on and on and on once your trail of cranes leading you home have flown away and you’re left with only your own heartbeat and  the blood—Your blood—rushing through your head. Your hands, I’ll remind you you folded those cranes One by One created a magnificent chaos from the senseless order Churned—churning—the endlessness into infinity

Someday I’ll find you in the pages of the books I have not written. Split between me and your wildest ambitions. We’ll find comfort in the small and reach mountaintops and waterfalls within fingers interlocked Someday Run to me through fields of grass spinning until we float off the ground allow my voice to fill your ears—sound that pours into your mind and paints your thoughts with mine a prism brilliant colors Yes,  It’s been a long time since we’ve met in my dreams. I’ve imagined this moment in whispers of scenes Patched the connections and prepared for a split I know it’ll come Just let me wait a while longer Longer and longer as I grasp at the cords Until the friction burns my fingers And the rope slips through.

i I used to hate poetry. Number 6 says that “I’m not a huge poetry fan” (Pasternak 2016) and I believe me. I used to hate poetry because I was taught that poetry is meant to be analyzed. We took scalpels in our hands and sliced the verse into bite sized pieces. Easy to chew. Easy to swallow whole. Easy to— I used to hate ii Poetry.  Grade Three we sit and read each other’s work. Desks aligned curriculum signed off by teachers and force-fed to students who do not know better I liked poetry. Pretty, it sounded. Complex was  better. A closet-full books-full pencil shavings lines that wrote words that meant nothing. But she said it sounded nice. I liked hers as well and we shared it and I liked poetry because it was [italics]poetry[/italics]. Somewhere there were words and sometimes there were thoughts that, if met with tiny black patterned notebooks, made sense but the yearn did not come— I liked poetry— iii I used to hate poetry and then the fog rolled in. The margins did not ad...