Norris Cancer Institute - Sholeh Wolpé

He, dying.

Air dancing, sun shining

somewhere out there.

And I walking the corridors, looking

for an exit.

Walking Around With A Broken Umbrella - Noor Hindi

Because sneezing my emotions onto the fibers of your

Kleenex isn’t working, I’ve spent my days punching

mailboxes, and taking victory laps around childhood

graveyards. I know you think I resemble a Sour Patch

Kid, that my thoughts are just silly string. Maybe my

brain twitches too much and maybe I was born inside

of a teardrop. I’m all passion. But to me, you are the sun

and I’m hanging my thoughts on a clothesline for you.

If I told you to disentangle our straw house, if I told you

that I feel like a puddle that is gliding towards a sewer,

what would you say? If I asked you to set fire to the world

using only the warmth of our hands, would you do it?

                                                   *

Yesterday, I became so angry that I ate a quesadilla. Then I

smashed my desk with a snow globe. I once cried for three

days about a purple butterfly kite that refused to fly. Weeks

later, I sobbed at our toaster for burning my optimism,

and when you called me unstable, I kicked our floor pantry

just to prove you right. It was inevitable. You would spit me

out as if I was a watermelon seed. You would ask me three

times a day how I felt about broken backspaces, but my eyes

were already decomposing. Days expired. I was the rotting Jack

O’ Lantern left outside our door. Every time you told me a

truth, I used a magnifying glass to find all of your potholed

lies. Eventually, I fell silent watching the image of you,

dad, melt like the icicles that later formed on our house

gutters. I tried to hold them once, but they only burned my hands.

For the Dead - Adrienne Rich

I dreamed I called you on the telephone

to say: Be kinder to yourself

but you were sick and would not answer

The waste of my love goes on this way

trying to save you from yourself

I have always wondered about the leftover

energy, water rushing down a hill

long after the rains have stopped

or the fire you want to go to bed from

but cannot leave, burning-down but not burnt-down

the red coals more extreme, more curious

in their flashing and dying

than you wish they were

sitting there long after midnight

"Sorry" - Ntozake Shange

one thing i don’t need

is any more apologies

i got sorry greetin me at my front door

you can keep yrs

i don’t know what to do wit em

they dont open doors

or bring the sun back

they dont make me happy

or get a mornin paper

didnt nobody stop usin my tears to wash cars

cuz a sorry

i am simply tired

of collectin

i didnt know

i was so important to you

i’m gonna haveta throw some away

i cant get to the clothes in my closet

for alla the sorries

i’m gonna tack a sign to my door

leave a message by the phone

‘if you called

to say yr sorry

call somebody

else

i dont use em anymore’

i let sorry/ didnt meanta/ & how cd i know abt that

take a walk down a dark & musty street in brooklyn

i’m gonna do exactly what i want to

& i wont be sorry for none of it

letta sorry soothe yr soul/ i’m gonna soothe mine

you were always inconsistent

doin somethin & then bein sorry

beatin my heart to death

talkin bout you sorry

well

i will not call

i’m not goin to be nice

i will raise my voice

& scream & holler

& break things & race the engine

& tell all yr secrets bout yrself to yr face

& i will list in detail everyone of my wonderful lovers

& their ways

i will play oliver lake

loud

& i wont be sorry for none of it

i loved you on purpose

i was open on purpose

i still crave vulnerability & close talk

& i’m not even sorry bout you bein sorry

you can carry all the guilt & grime ya wanna

just dont give it to me

i cant use another sorry

next time

you should admit

you’re mean/ low-down/ triflin/ & no count straight out

steada bein sorry alla the time

enjoy bein yrself

Icarus, The Fool - Riley R.

It is easy to think me a fool,

the foolish boy whose foolish dreams

melted his wings and

broke his father’s heart.

What is harder to see:

I knew the math of it all,

remembered the geometry of

wax and feathers

so well I could taste it on my tongue

scraping like cardamom

and sour sweet like tangerines

on the roof of my mouth.

Height and wind speed,

melting points and velocity,

lift and thrust,

bird wings turned to equations

I held in my heart.

But oh,

to fly is nothing at all like math.

It is nothing at all like diagrams of

birds and insects and cloud formations.

To see the sun, The Sun, oh,

to spread your fingers through it’s warmth

as the air becomes tangible like the sea,

oh, there was no room in this heart for

the coldness of figures,

they were melted long long before my wings.

So judge, though the sky has never loved you

and I will yearn for the sun, The Sun,

oh,

from the bottom of the sea.

dial tone - Riley R.

The saddest poem I ever wrote

was the “goodbye” I whispered

on the skin of your temple

so softly you didn’t hear it

until the fifth time you called

and I didn’t pick up

when the voicemail you left

was ten seconds of silence

followed by a sigh

as you took the phone from your ear.