downstairs. the voices. i lay awake to the voices. they crescendo in no particular time, die down slightly (i may close my eyes) erupt again. in a cadance they can’t control. in a swirling tsunami of sound. they swell around me. they form a cocoon so that i may lose my skin. so i may wall myself in, shed my regrets, live vicariously through strange voices choosing a late hour. choosing to pet each others questionable decisions. i am becoming them. i am rocking ever so slightly to the hum. shadows on the walls dance wickedly, my naked little fears run away. i shed them overnight in this chysalis. in this safe haven humdrum silent bed fed by voices. pick up a storyline from a deep baritone, drift off as a narrator in a lengthy surrealist novel, one where sweet home is nothing but a painted highway running past an apartment filled with voices.
Category: insomnia
-
3AM
a sudden chill –
i own nothing.
not even this love
or sweat
or all the piles of regret
i accumulate
or the quiet dust
i lay with
or the way we framed
our bedroom.i take nothing with me
save this
one last thought –
your shadow leaving
is a distortion
of its former self.
-
untitled (darkened opportunities)
like the empty hollow
growl of a stomach hungry, i lean into the sound of arms wrapping around me
oh i love how shallow
these men can be when confronted by such shiny darkened opportunities
-
i am a ghost
i am a cold vapor— i feel
nothing when gliding above
wooden floor boards. Dust stirs slightly
but that is all.i want to be a spirit who
throws china with a resolute crash.
i want to be memories
that raise hair on your arms.
i want to be a phantom
you call to in the night, when no one is around,
and darkness
provides a cloak of opportunity.But silence is my lover.
Leave
the light on
to see glimmers like tears that
won’t wet my cheeks.(revised poem from 2010)
-
black eyeliner morning
black eyeliner morning
thin lines so intensely dark
dredging up emotions like those rock n roll
evenings of cigarrettes and skinny
black jeans smeared
sticky lines of whiskey, black dirt under
fingernails cracked
eyeliner like rebels haunting
a low e
-
battlefield glory orange
oh! how my heavy bones
trudge the hall
with the defeat of
an apparition
who, in death, has
accepted a weary
soldier’s marchat 3:39 a.m. the
house instead
settles down to
a definitive rest
and basks in the
battlefield glory orange
of streetlights
Poetry by JC Snyder 