maxwell

all my friends are twnty-2 and tired

i.

the autotroph

THIS is a GHAZAL

rope off a patch for the garden in your bedroom
hope to god this flora's enough to help you bloom

ivy green clings at your walls without a lattice
hope they grow over your woeful apparatus

cattails and wheat stalks sprout sleepy by the doorway
hope this overgrowth doesn't reach the spot where you lay

hold yourself tightly and stifle all your deep yawns
hope this grass mows you down til you're buzzed like a lawn

fireflies and june bugs are dancing near the window
hope their summer song makes the green around you grow

moss and pebbles at your kneecaps cause a tickle
hope you can still breathe through their overgrown trickle

is this garden enough to keep you company?
hope alone, locked doors, no one to share your plenty

the shadows beneath the door, those sounds so bestial
hope you're an autotroph this solitary while

ii.

WHO ((THE HECK)) PUT A SONNET HERE!

does ur bedroom beckon big breaths from open windows 
like mine? do untucked curtains saunter out 
til they tickle raspberry blushed cheeks? 
does candle flicker flush ur face with marmalade light? 
can u hear raindrops patter on brick the way i can?

how far are u? sixty-something perennial paces?
but oh arent you near : skin scent of sweet saltines 
laughing like homesick windchimes & banana blonde hair 
tangled up still in socks & in bed & wrapped around fingers

i wish i could hear u smile. polaroids taped to my wall 
idle chitchat bubbling on screen
the pinkbrownblue shimmer of a love story
lingers on our faces and now
distance is only single a breath long

in your mothers home 
someone’s happiest memory of texas. 
farmhouse living room 
hearty gold straw poking up in the corners 
we tumbleweeded down 
the prairie in the kitchen 
to the open ranged breezeway. 
outside snow still suspended
we huddled beneath stout pines 
with smoking twirling 
beneath our fingers 
a deer came right up to us 
the left ear twisted back to hear 
puffs of air hung briefly in sharp air 
its hesitant compatriots 
lazed in the snow field behind 
til it walked on 
with sweeter things to tend to
you looked at me 
with crowded eyebrows 
because you definitely didn’t 
believe a word 
i was saying 
but seeing you shiver 
and smirk 
made me want to wear color again

everything below this photo of my friend abigail (who is not twenty two but is tired) is a draft

ONCE UPON A TIME THIS WAS A GHAZAL BUT NOW IT'S JUST A NARRATIVE POEM
we woke up and rolled round, for half a while longer to stay
smoking under white pines, we fed some deer and watched them prance away.

your house decorated like a memory of texas
prairies in kitchens, cacti on couch, open range in the breeze way.

cross-legged in the hallway we thumbed through ur mom's tattered books
i am charmed by : these yellowed pages, old warming new hearts this way.

blew denim overalls on, daisies tucked behind ur ear
a smile that's food for sunflowers. i think of u only this way.

THE PAL I WROTE THIS SONNET ABOUT FUCKED ME OVER BIG TIME
yeah it was prolly when u kickflip’d in the kitchen
that i thought u looked most like a flamingo
arms stretched legs cocked the air around u slow
((but also your punch-colored jumpsuit)) and then

ur tight laugh hit me, i listened again
i melted , giggling turnin all to dough
then we got drunk, drew on walls like van gogh
we were childlike silly, augmented men

.・゜-: ✧ :- i wouldn't leave this moment for anything -: ✧ :-゜・．
                      it occurs to me, watching u make fun
                         posed like a ballerina balancing

but u collapse in fit, tripped like a spring
flamingo flat this moment done
we’re just people now. we’ll never feel this way again

WHAT A PLEASANT NARRATIVE! TOO BAD IT'S A GHAZAL NOW
bedroom botanist 
sweet pea boy 
crosslegged on the floor 
of his bedroom 
dreary-eyed he ropes off a patch 
in the middle 
for his garden 
ivy clings to the wall 
all without lattice 
cattails and wheat stalks 
and cottonwood seeds 
sprout sleepy by the doorway 
the overgrowth tumbles nearer 
but he stifles all his yawns 
the ones coming from deep 
in his chest 
and then fills those lungs up 
with grass 
because nothing can be worse 
than this 
fireflies and junebugs 
dance along the windowsill 
all for him 
please listen 
the moss grows over his kneecaps 
stones at his thighs 
close-eyed 
he wonders when this all grows 
who he will share it with 
shadows under the door 
the hiss 
sounds so bestial 
he is an autotroph
save yourself