Art Museum

here and now

Here and now I stand still.

Wind bends around my cheeks.

The earth is still yet somehow I move at a million miles an hour.

(yet my feet never leave the place they are rooted )

Life is frozen in time, yet everyone I know is fifteen years into the future.

My life is groundhog’s day, except that i can't get out. 

Trust me, I've tried.

Air doesn't fill my lungs the same way anymore.

Have I overstayed my welcome?

Where do I belong?

Who do I have?

I have nobody.

I trust nobody, yet I love so many.

I think that there are people who say they love me out of pity.

I miss having someone I could call and spill my tainted blood to.

All the lies I've told.

All of the thoughts that have fought their way from the pits of my stomach to my lips.

Poisoned by my own voice

Betrayed by my own truth.

A cycle of apology and transgression.

Here and now, I come to a close.

Haiku #1

Your hand is in mine  My heart beating close to yours  You, who made me love

*

j. sullivan

pretty

What do I have to do?

Paper thin and delicate

(So far from me)

Thin little lines, not the ugly kind

Bones of glass

Skin like water

Hands that fit into another hand properly

Canyon gap between legs

Face soft and structured

(not me)

Starve? 

Pray?

how am i going to get by how am i going to pay for so and so what am i going to do on my spare time so i can enjoy myself will i enjoy my life is it worth it to be alive is it worth it to go to work everyday

Sorry

Sorry.

I don’t mean to bother you.

I really don't.

I don’t mean to take up this much space. 

I’m trying to be better. 

I swear. 

Sorry. 

You say I apologize too much. 

I wish I could apologize for that.

I just have become so close with guilt.

He sits on my shoulder every afternoon when I get home.

He whispers in my ear.

“You should be sorry”

He’s right, you know. 

Because Guilt sometimes lets me call him by another name. 

A nickname if you will. 

(we are that close)

He tells me to call him Truth. 

He’s right here if you want me to talk to him. 

Sorry.

stupid

After all this time, I am still stuck.

I am still listening to your stupid playlist 

with your stupid songs

that only remind me of how stupid i was.

I can’t really remember why I used to think that caring for you was smart.

Was it because you were?

You answered every question,

but you couldn't describe why you wanted me.

Because you never did.  

I saw her sitting on the shoreline by the sea collecting small shards of light that sparkled in infinity, tiny twinkles that flickered in my eyes, and set the sweet night sky a light.

Her gown looked like a thin veil of fog with little fireflies floating about shrinking and growing while glowing then blinking out. Her hair was adorned with a fresh multi-colored crown of flowers intertwined with thin shifting vines that seem to be alive.

A cousin to the creatures a buzzing, childlike being with transparent wing fluttering, while thin limbs orchestrated the music mother nature layered, sounds of clicking critters, and rhythmic raindrops, with winds whooshing through the leaves and I could just barely see the silhouette of other fair folk and their family moving in unity, obscured by the beauty of mother nature’s natural graces.

Twas a night of strange delights, and I was drunk with awe from what I saw, until with a panicked thrill I witnessed the night succumbing to the burning sun’s unrelenting hunger as it devoured the eve’s softness and replaced it with heated harshness.

All that was mythic and mystical left and in its stead the mundane came to claim my befuddled mortal brain.

-2023

WARNING!