Short Poems

Webs of Fear

We are always afraid of something,

Our parents catching us in the cookie jar,

Teachers collecting the homework we never touched.

Hurting ourselves doing that one thing we were told not to,

Getting caught in the bedroom of our girlfriend by her father.

Pregnancy at a young age.

That midterm, the final.

Death.

And spiders.

Especially spiders.

Inevitable

Maybe you cried at birth

because you knew that from

that second onward you would spend

the rest of your life growing up.

Flowers and a Love poem

She throws a plate at your head,

ducking, it soars past your shoulder.

You hated its floral print anyway.

Picking up the phone

you order Chinese food for two.

5lbs 3oz, 1ft 6in

We measure babies

like we measure the fish

we catch because we all swim

in the same ocean of life.

But most importantly,

we all grow up shitting ourselves.

C.K. Fulfer

A Chemical Suicide

Trembling, he sits and waits for the news.

His mother called during a Chemistry

test, his favorite class.

“Tyler,” she said,

“I need you, come home.”

He never heard such sorrow

Soaked into her voice

Like water to an overwrought sponge.

It leaked from her, dripped

from every word and froze

on the back of his neck

while he ran two blocks home

his backpack left on the back of a chair.

He sat in the Emergency Room

listening to the mix of beeps from separate

heart monitors and the shuffling of feet

across the symmetrical white tile.

He found it hard to breathe

in the sterility of what they claimed

to be Oxygen in the large waiting room.

He didn’t have asthma but the way he took

each breath could have fooled the best of doctors.

A drowning man’s dying breath

couldn’t compare to the oxygen he lacked,

couldn’t compare to the battle his lungs

fought to keep working properly.

He desperately looked around

For a single air bubble to breathe in,

A sliver of hope that could possibly save a life.

A lone high-shrilled beep

and it was all done.

White lab coat walking over,

the sterility of his hands

Like the bleached bones of Death.

Apologies, meaningless words

said over and over to hundreds

of thousands daily. He stared

at his own hands that still twitched

with the answers to his chemistry test.

Hands that had only known a world

Of education now squeezing

Each other tighter and tighter

As if the pin-pricks of heated discomfort                      

could bring his mother back to him.

They Call Me Mr. Socially Awkward

The quilt laid out underneath you

Is wrinkled and dirtied with august sweat,

Stitched with the frozen

Temperatures of September.

Feathered pillows stuffed with an unknown

Bird cushion your head some nights,

others you toss and turn as the feathers

stick you in the neck. Scratches, drawings  

of a faded red pearl necklace across your skin.

You yearn to feel the warmth of the quilt

as a small black fan propels cool air

on your face, eyes closed.

A thin-lined coma

Entraps your mind for hours,

broken by the off-put eagerness

of an alarm clock. You venture

forth to the next class, bag slung over one

shoulder. Sweat sticks to your brow,

skin clammy as you walk, avoiding

eye contact with passersby. Cotton sweatshirt

clings to your back, but you shiver

as the morning breeze finds a path

up that one hole in your right

sleeve. Your thumb wiggles in and out of

the hole, nervously.

Seated among empty desks,

a sense of ease in the lack of CO2.

You don’t have to pretend

to interest yourself in that girl’s life

who rattles on about her high heels.

You’ve got extra space on the desk

tops around you to spread out.

Fooling yourself, no single paper

of yours will touch another table

other than the one you sit at now.

Hot needles to your skin, cheeks

red when they whisper into your ear,

right—but so wrong, a reminder

of the hearing aid you own

that’s not placed in the canal.

You smile and nod

as if you heard about the silver

heels she just bought off eBay,

checking your wrist all the while.

A lack of religion but abundance

of prayers for those patches

that lie on your bed in a quiet room.

Orphan Boy in the Arcade

He inserts his last quarter into the Pac-Man Machine,

bouncing on his tip-toes, his sneakers slap his heels

like flip-flops. Duct tape poorly covers holes

in the middle of his sweatshirt, elbow skin flashing

with the movement of his skinny arms

as he moves the joystick, avoiding another Ghost.

Skin black with dirt where his knee shows under

ripped blue jeans.

I never asked his name.

We formed a routine each morning,

he would wait for me as I raised the gate

to the small arcade, lights on,

radio set low as we exchanged money.

He never failed to show with a twenty,

a return of eighty quarters in a large green

bowl, his hands much too small to handle

the change on his own. He would immediately

return to his Pac-Man game and insert

the first quarter, toes his only support

in reaching the joystick and white buttons.

I checked all the consoles in the shop

before dragging a chair over to the boy

who was happy to kneel on the cushion

and rest his feet.

At lunch I would pull out

a turkey and swiss sandwich, Doritos

and a few Oreos. I’d call over the orphan

boy to share my stash before we both

resumed to our posts.

No words exchanged,

silence was all we needed,

a mutual understanding of space

and hunger was the building blocks

to our companionship.

The beeps of the game fill the room,

the boy could lose now or in ten minutes,

either way I need to close shop when he finishes.

A woman of medium stature stumbles

into the arcade, paper sack concealing

bottle cradled to her chest. I open my mouth,

utter an objection of her entrance and the time

but she flicks a dirtied palm in my direction.

She yanks the boy off the blue chair,

his sneakers drag across the dark

galaxy carpeting as his eyes widen.

The orphan didn’t resist, he knew

not to get in the way of a mother

and the child she cradled in her arms.

Dear Robert, They keep telling me I’m Dead

But everything is too white for that.

Did they really think that the endless

white space would remind me of death?

Sweet love, I smell your cologne

in the root of my nostrils.

Come on Robert!

I want to see something beyond the white walls

And stained tile.

There you are sweetie,

wearing those clothes?

I didn’t buy you white scrubs.

Why so solemn?

Reach out; give me your hand,

and let’s go eat at Mac’s.

A burger could do you good, Bones.

Love, you are walking away,

you’re supposed to take me with you.

Where’s that music coming from?

Robert? That’s our song, isn’t it lovely?

Our wedding song…

Take this sinking boat

and point it home,
we've still got time.
Raise your hopeful voice

you have a choice

Robert,

they keep telling us we’re dead.

I can’t get our song out of my head.

Our waltz, your callused hands

On my hips, your every step

So calculated, gentle, despite your large feet.

I don’t know why they try to lie,

I see you every day in your white scrubs.

You visit me daily, very much alive

With the heat of your hand in mine.

They keep forcing pills down my throat Robert.

once they even mixed it with my food,

but I caught the miss-shaped chunk of potatoes

and the oblong piece of corn among the rest.

The orange tic-tacs give me stomach

cramps, migraines that blur my vision.

I saw my mother yesterday Robert,

I nearly fainted in fright.

It’s been five years

Since she passed away.

They keep telling me you’re dead, Robert.

You visit me less now, whispering:

 You have suffered enough
And warred with yourself
It's time that you won.

In my ear, your hot breath

on my neck a pool of electricity.

Falling slowly, eyes that know me
And I can't go back to where it all began.

There’s a man in white scrubs

Who bathes me now, his hands

callused and gentle.

I don't know you
But I want to,

I’ve no time.