You’re like a paragraph in a book, he says, folding a dollar bill into an origami ring at the bar, and I’m not sure if it’s an insult. He slips the ring onto my forefinger: don’t get too excited. Should I apologize to you or myself or the woman who loved him before? I stay for the story. He is the only one who can make me laugh during an argument. …

Double-check you have not morphed into wax.Are the appendages protruding from the trunkof your body still soft skin, or have you hardenedyour armor like they taught you in eighth gradewhen a car flattened your cat at your Christmas party?You cried. You watched as he twitchedand his insides squelched onto the pavement,and when he became still, his b…

When the blues find where I’ve been hiding,They pile on like puppies—so damn excited to see me. These days, I’m into cats, brother. You know, maybe one will rub up against me,once in awhile, or meow enoughuntil I give it what it wants—usually my food and then, my appetite. But the dogs, man…they just don’t stop—yipping, nipping, slobbering—all fuck…

My mother’s half brother wore a blue herringbone tweed jacket with padded elbows to her funeral / The kind worn by a caricature of a substitute teacher or traveling salesman or a freshly sober high school dropout / He told us to call him Uncle Loser & used to whisper to us in the back of his trailer the same three ghost stories every summer / The o…

They call one bulldagger.I heard them say she spreads women’s legs that's all she does, but I know her. She builds entire worlds where their mouths cannot go,their eyes cannot perceive.What they wonder is who she fucksand how they are going to have more childrenin the world, and there is more to loving a woman. I know because I hold them two inside…

I want to be: a good boy, your domesticated coyote. My tongue’s handwriting is the shape of your bodyunshaved and without a shower.They need us to feel disgusted with ourselves, so you committo my appetite unreserved. You become tender only while listening to crust punk and letting my fingers impersonate what I really want. The moon is a cuck watch…

I’m on the floor again, and that isn’t a metaphor for rock bottom. My new therapist asked me how I did it. How I managed to keep myself safe all these years. For the first time in over a decade, I was honest: I don’t remember. The meds are working, too, I think. Though after they unfurl my patterns, my dreams of precision, all the rot turns to trem…

We open with a stationary shot of me in my office, a pride flag on the wall behind me. An offscreen bonfire flickers in my eyes, and the savvy viewer will read this as a symbol of both passion and hunger, and before they can ask where it comes from I begin to speak:“I’m a therapist and community organizer living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, this is…

In August it’s hard not to want – everything heavy with it – ginkgo fruitrots on sidewalks, sweat falls down spines,the whole beast city breathes in smog and breathes out low clouds dropping lightning. Confused,a little, reading subway signsfor revelation, it all comes upwonder – which pre-historic lizarddragged itself up into daylight justso you c…

We learned to love the birds. The backyard bird with her black cap and white cheeks. The flicker so flirty in his polka dot dress and red scarf. The bus-stop-bird who mocked us each morning with a mixtape of songsby someone else. We learned to love the bones. The mismatched shingles on the mansard roof and the pumpkin-colored door. The wrought iron…

We failed, you & I, to care for plants we potted at the start of summer—lamb’s ear & lavender, one for each pocket. You told me you loved to stroke the soft fur of the hedgenettle & the smell of your hands upon pinching a switch of lavender & I said I loved our hands together, futuring something into soil.Then we failed in miniature each day, forge…

They say it can’t be, but it is, perfect.What they don’t know is that clocks circle the drainlike pasta water,unasked questionswe both knowanswers for. Aftersome time weactually did becomepsychic—I knowanother life flickerssomewhere in yourmind, yet you comehome to guess atThe Price Is Right.It says I haveseen what God doesand the endoscopy,and I c…

It’s not about who made the mistake with the wrong address in the GPS getting us to Brooklyn an hour late, is it?It’s about your retirement and our finances,and a 20-something living in our housewithout employment but with a car payment.It’s about the four scrapings the dermatologist didthis summer to determine if I have another basal cell carcinom…

that's a euphemism—yes, i have cavities,but it means i am bullet train, boundfor collision. i am jar of marbles brokenacross a concrete floor. i am the riseof the seas. what i lack in control i make upfor in firepower and i should not be givenan excuse to start shooting. i am landslidetornado earthquake wildfire, ready to raisehell, ask questions l…

Here we are among snow and ash. Cracked from saw or harsh November winds. We are wood always moving. Bit of flesh from birch, oak, cedar. Stacked for burning. Once I was home to a little ant, he swallowed my bones. Built a little city. More crawled in. They made me warm in winter. Little curling creatures. I said, soak more from soil, make each spl…

On PCHsomewhereMalibu—going north not quite yet atPoint Dume,two biker boys,not quite men,stopped at a red light.Underneath hiero-glyphic hand signsa single red rosein handoutstretched.Electricity wrinkledbetween them,All-Americanrose received,ugly-beautiful bag scene.This scene was recalled to melike a home-moviedancing on the TV.————————————–Matt…

Talking shit, like you know about cracked knuckles and flamin hots with pickle juice. Or the broken heat lamps on the El, or getting high off a lakefront. Yesterday, I counted every duck at the lake and called them my woes. By hook by crook by crooked alderman, you learn that the trap that stays shut is the trap that starves. No one will beat or bi…

Bluster - Ola Faleti by VOICEMAIL POEMSโดย VOICEMAIL POEMS

Lambs Ear and Lavender - Tonee Mae Mol by VOICEMAIL POEMSโดย VOICEMAIL POEMS

Knowledge - Sandra Marchetti by VOICEMAIL POEMSโดย VOICEMAIL POEMS

Tabitha - Meghan Malachi by VOICEMAIL POEMSโดย VOICEMAIL POEMS

I Tell You I Grew From Dawn - Oisin Rowe by VOICEMAIL POEMSโดย VOICEMAIL POEMS

Survivor Audition Video Number 3 - Isaiah Newman by VOICEMAIL POEMSโดย VOICEMAIL POEMS

im overdue for a dream in which my teeth fall out - nat raum by VOICEMAIL POEMSโดย VOICEMAIL POEMS

The First Time a Man Fucked me Like a Man - Mary Violet by VOICEMAIL POEMSโดย VOICEMAIL POEMS

The Laughing Cinder Block - Marlanda Dekine by VOICEMAIL POEMSโดย VOICEMAIL POEMS

Psychography - Birch Wiley by VOICEMAIL POEMSโดย VOICEMAIL POEMS

Monter Drive - Colette Love Hilliard by VOICEMAIL POEMSโดย VOICEMAIL POEMS

Its Not About That - Maureen Martinez by VOICEMAIL POEMSโดย VOICEMAIL POEMS

Even Though I Hate the Movie - Mattie Lagan by VOICEMAIL POEMSโดย VOICEMAIL POEMS

Uncle Loser The Knight of Swords - RJ Equality Ingram by VOICEMAIL POEMSโดย VOICEMAIL POEMS

Make medim-witted. Oneof those days whereI can’t bare it—the humof madness. My belly wreakinghavoc up and down my spine,intestines in a knot.Garlic! Disgusting! or maybeyou called it gross & I called itget me out of here.A different morning: I’m spinningsex between my fingers.Cavorting with an old pillowcase hoping you’ll come alongand lift my top.…

It's a bus stop in South AmericaAnd crossing five lanes of trafficAt ten in the morning.It's quiet, More than we were expecting.The taxi is late for arrival and I am thankful for every second.It's not knowing the languageAnd our tensions so high,A tennis court in my chest.Love was being rewritten in my headYou were becoming the epitome of sacrifice…

This is what you are missing Melissa – dust turned to waves in the desert – okra coming up two monthstoo late – a forward-breaking gate openinginto someone else’s field – I walk bya window and I don’t understand how little I seeyou – but so clearly the wasp backing outof a hole inside a long-deadtree – when we were children we lived with our grandp…

There are few mornings like this –When the tumble day slowsand the sweltering July heat subsides;when memories of last night’s fire showresonate with a still-first sense of wonder.The footfall of Fatherhood feels fine underneath;I am comfortable here, at peace with astirring that has often lingered in the quiet process of thinking.My daughter turns…

barking up the right treesstuck on the double branch don’t climb if you can’t get down if you can’t get down better learn to jump the kids are so back vlog squad with baby teeth sucking back cinnamon getting pantsed by their dads tamogotchi death hits all seven stages and everyone knows that the moon is made of cheesethat green eggs go great on a h…

The leaving was such that each applein the orchard glassed over into ghost-formon a single night. Centers rotted, dropped out,only translucent orbs at the end of wooded knots remained.A buck arrives, noses them to the ground.His only want: to hear the shatter. First my grandmother,then my brother. A permanent Autumn settles across my face.Brinks be…

I’m waiting for the tram, picking plums but really what I’m doing is looking, longingly higher up where most of the fruit is sitting ripe.A man approaches — bald but for a crown of white hair, lightweight vest, faded tattoosof an old sailor, two breasty mermaids with red lips.Do you want me to pull down the branch, he asks and I say yes please than…

In front of the laundromat a cigarette grows out of stub and ash, smoke seeps from lungs back into sticky-dry tobacco, red hot cherry backs away from filter, reshapes as fire, jets back into bic lighter, gas condenses into fluid.Came back unsmoked to haunt our past selves down. Almost a room in the outskirts, we write each other out. Eyes like wild…

Begins with texts to my best friend.Do you want to hear my revenge fantasy?Let’s get iced coffee and be brats.Learned helplessness is a crime.Success is an art. I’m working on my MFA.That’s deeply stupid. I’m reviewing my life choices in this Greek restaurant.Not everyone needs to be a Very Interesting Person.Who needs a human man? Shadow Daddies e…

I am not mentally okay. I thought of you, or more specifically,I thought this would be something you'd enjoy. This is some news you need to hear. Here is some free therapy that I heard.This made me cry. Watch this cute animal & forget how the world is falling apart. I'm not mentally okay but I cannot say that to you so instead I hide the things I c…

I felt like masturbatingI felt like cryingIt was the twenty-first centuryAlreadyA quarter overThere had been artistic movements& warsMy debts had been repackagedCountless timesThe enemy of my enemyFollowed meOn Twitter, now calledEx-Marines shot themselves in the head in their aunts’ basementsWe lost touch almost as a wholeCategoryWe listened to mu…

Aishvarya Arora called us from Queens, NY.voicemailpoems.org/submit/facebook.com/voicemailpoemstwitter.com/voicemailpoemsinstagram.com/voicemailpoemsโดย VOICEMAIL POEMS

He gave up looking for a town, gas station, or house off a road or driveway The desert unfolded further than his eyes could see. In the stillness, the ground spread in glare, broken only by shrubs now and then. A swell of dunes lay below a jut of mountain range bulking up from beneath the surface. They were told it could take hours to traverse this…

To hate yourself and have sexmakes you a movie director on a street corner, seeingeverything in slow motion, scouting for bodies. When it’s too dark to see we clock out to edit more. After work, every night becomes dance. Re-cuts of thighs and light shows.A supercut is a cheap haircut, not filmmaking technique. But I know montage because I put move…

The cut on my ankle bleeds into the shape of an exclamation pointYou speak and it comes out ornateswirling, as if from an an ancient book I’m trying to follow those letterswhich are, inevitably, words, through the tall yellow grasses at the edge of the lagoon where your charm bracelet lays splayed in the sand and my nose disappears into the blue Le…

How their branches seem to extend without burden in the lengthening light, their star-shaped leaves of deepest burgundy, weightless, more form than texture, surrendering to autumn air in such a way that it’s difficult to discern where leaf-tip ends and shade begins; until, wind-jostled, they flutter like wisps of cordovan dust out into a blue expan…

I hope all my books are banned books, like, so contraband they start trappin’ them out the bando—people fiendin’ for my words with such fervorclawing at the door for just one more taste someone keeps the lookout to make sure twelve don’t see the weight:tiny baggies filled with poem scraps pushed out from every corner I hope my books become so obscu…

as silent and holy as an empty church. a polished row of pews. you, moonin the sky, how do you do it? your one-handed gravityholding still the earth. astral magic trick, you newly christened old god. every family’s forgotten dance is a scar on your surface. memory like a bear trap. worldfodder magnet. wise old sledgehammeronce smashed through our o…

remember bodies at night how they glow how they bend into us like refracted lightthe memory of where a body was after it has left its phosphorescenceyou cocoon into the spaces around thingsfind yourself in auburn eyes and hazel skin the red that flows from youyou learn that aloneness is a softness a sky that pulls you throughyou see bodies as they …