While you know Kamryn to be talented and established she so kindly indulged me, allowing me to present some shoddy poetry alongside her grace. Thank you for your patronage, enjoy.
Kamryn-
Cowgirl Boots
They look like chili peppers ate my feet.
Or like I’m the wicked witch with the house fallen over me.
When I first saw them, they sang out,
“Buy me! Buy me! You know you love me!”
Even if there hadn’t been a sale,
Nothing could’ve stopped me
Strutting
Up and down the street
In those cherry red,
Heaven sent,
Leather smellin’ boots.
They catch compliments
Like a gun shoots:
It’s just what they do.
Leading him on…
I met this boy.
I’d tell you his name but
I hardly call him by it anyway.
To be safe, us girls use nicknames.
Black hair, broad shoulders, sweet face.
His grays belie his age but
I don’t mind it. In fact I like it
How he’s young-young and gray.
Anyway, I think he loves me.
Or at least he’s headed that way.
His green apple eyes like to look me up and down. They go bobbing like an old autumn game.
And for a second I think of my name in his mouth.
What’s the taste- what’s the sound?
I’d eat him up like the rest, I’m sure,
Once he feels my honeycrisp gaze move through him,
Searching for ghosts of boys who’ve come and went. Each time, they left less and less human.
At first, he’ll think it’s sweet the way I can’t forget Any and everyone I’ve ever met.
In time though, each boy I’ve held between my teeth I went on to devour or regret.
But he doesn’t know that yet.
Thoughts on the Way Home from a Birthday Party
I have never seen the rain fall so hard
And I have never been this far from pain.
Yes I still weep when my heart is stuck
Or when old wounds keep sleep at bay.
But my laughter renders different wrinkles Ones wriggled tight around the eyes.
And you can hear my joy for miles.
My smile bites the taste of hate on-site.
I’ve never been as happy as I’ve been of late. I give way to what shall be.
My God is too good to me.
My friends, like tracks of a train,
Bring me back to a place
Where they call me by my middle name
Grace, all they gave me
And a kiss for my crinkled face.
Jacob-
Small
It’ not as if this town has such an abundance of light, being relatively poorly lit and undermanaged.
Yet we fell in love with and within the landscape, birthed into a sphere without rigid shape. What we saw as dim were instead deep lights that seldom are remarkable yet contain amber luminescence, a bath of bliss and warmth.
This experience is not random, but clandestine, so that you’d seen the light at birth.
Unabashed love adorned upon a moment of infantile fear.
From love rises all other means of action, causations.
We seek no finality within the light, only scope. To see ourselves with it, living alongside it for whatever duration fate deems just.
You are to leap towards it should it show itself beyond its usual luster.
Caution as to not attempt to conquer or pursue the light in the post, although fleeting in nature it is not fickle in presenting itself.
Duality, or something
The soapbox you stand on is often of the same origin as the insecurities you can’t sleep with. All I’ve ever hoped for was to be me. Yet they didn’t forewarn of the danger of that knowledge, its seeping stagnation, and turbulence even in the quiet hours.
Qualms
Hindsight, foresight, sight, in general, is rendered useless upon peering into the lens of reality. Any level of vision lacks touch or awareness, ideology falls short when it jumps off the porch. Eyes, opened or closed, lack the headspace to speak truthfully.