Poetry

Poem: Issues
Author: Harper Kingsley

I get outraged and up in arms about various matters of the world
even as I grow annoyed by people trying to force their issues and concerns onto me.
Regurgitated shit is still shit, only perfumed by the vomitous source it came from
and I do not want it and I don’t care
concerned as I am by the things that matter to me.
You can try to change my mind, rewrite the person that I am and should want to be
but your efforts are fruitless, as all your yammering does is make my stubborn heart grow cold to you
and my brain shuts its doors and refuses to accept anything you say, no matter how inconsequential.
The more you say I should care, the less I do, about the things you press on me and you as well.
I look at you with empty eyes and closed ears, letting your experienced words wash away
you’ve lost me and you don’t know, caught up as you are in your news reports and casual bigotry.
The world is more than the tiny corner of it you let yourself see,
and I am not an echo of you or a continuation of you or anything to do with you, you, you,
not everything is about you, or about me, or about anyone at all.
Sometimes the world just is, with generations left gaping apart,
wallowing in different wants, needs, and fears.
You cannot change my mind, I’ll try not to change yours,
you can be you and together we’ll be the way we were, pretending at being happy,
as long as you know that I am not you. I am me.

FINE

This is my life
crappy and small
no one will love me
or need me at all.
I’ll wither away
a bit at a time
pared down to the bone
no one to call me “Mine.”
I’ll walk like a shadow
down regular streets
I’ll pick through the garbage
with never enough to eat.
I’ll hold out my hands
I’ll silently plead
“Anyone out there,
won’t you help me?”
I’ll die every day
a bit at a time
I’ll whisper the lie to myself
that everything’s gonna be fine.

PEACH

The heavy weight of hottest summer,
sweat oozing slowly across heat bared skin,
the smell of sweet delicious flooding every sense.
Ripe flesh pulled taut over golden-hued globes,
juice threatening to burst out, sweet freedom, untouched,
mouth flooding wet with the need to taste,
to lick syrupy drops out of that split crevice,
to drink down every drop of ravaged flavor,
to bite down and consume,
to reveal the wrinkled knot hidden within.
Sucking on that core, lips pursing as tongue works,
wringing free every taste, face and hands sticky,
tongue tingling, scraping against the pinching crease,
nibbling away until every trace of flavor is gone,
the core is left damp with saliva;
desire lingers, but succulent flesh is completely spent.
All that’s left is to wait for time to bring ripeness and fresh fruit,
the sun heating fuzzy pink flesh,
as life renews, hungry desire comes again,
and golden-tinged globes swell with delicious fullness,
ready to taste.

APPLE

Red flesh bit crisply to reveal juicy insides,
sweetness with a little tart floods across the tongue,
the hedonistic thrust of flavor,
teeth biting down, crunch, crunch,
chewing, swallowing, savoring each bite.
Fingers damp with fleeing moisture,
tongue licking up every drop,
sucking on the discarded core, trailing around the fertile seeds,
then lusting after fresh new fruit, hanging heavy on the branch,
red succulent flesh unbroken, bathed in yellow light.
Mouth watering in hungry desire,
while sticky juices dry sweet against the skin,
mixing with sweat, tacky and salty,
as hunger grows to eat again.

Haunted by the ghost of you,
the things you said,
and made me do;
the darkness that called out to me,
pulled me in,
set me free.
I lie here in my bed at night,
dream of you,
our Maybe Life,
regret the choices that we made,
the love you took into the grave.