Wake Up (and other poems)By JayJay Conrad
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SNAPSHOT
Without hesitation, we
consume youth like a pill—Watch:
the sunset crushes into the sidewalk
spilling shadows in its haste.
Tendrils of smoke mummify the wide open spaces
we’ve come to know, billowing grey,
bitter to the senses.
Moments in passing flash white hot;
like a scandalous midnight, the
door is locked behind them.
WAKE UP
Bathed in the light of morning
a body splayed out before Gods:
all fading curls and sultry angles,
provocative only through self-renounced beauty,
built not of Sinew and Sweet Marrow and Raw Muscle--
rather spooled ink bled out by oncoming June, cradling
together an Artist’s armory; splinter-grooved wood
pallet smeared with earthly pastels.
The shadowlines draped across your face are creases
of the Universe, where it collapsed in on itself to introduce
a road-map I plan to Trail wherever the Sea
spills over the edges of this Planet.
And Back.
Inhale—a violin whisper of breath, your chest stirs,
expanding over and under and inside hopelessly tangled bedclothes;
the pink fragmented Dawn, sifting through flimsy slat blinds, playing
over your twistandturn train bridge frame,
dances a diminuendo dismissive of remaining skystains.
I rarely stretch with enough vigor to Grasp
a Morning’s self-sacrificial offerings
nor frequently bear witness to its comet tail arching
out against tawdry night-hollows
and blooming a convex shape of birdsong--
blackbirds’ red-winged flight pattern
—but my eyes roll and flutter.
Cumbersome, I will my sleep-caked lashes apart with intent to
Never miss the sunrise that is
You.
Without hesitation, we
consume youth like a pill—Watch:
the sunset crushes into the sidewalk
spilling shadows in its haste.
Tendrils of smoke mummify the wide open spaces
we’ve come to know, billowing grey,
bitter to the senses.
Moments in passing flash white hot;
like a scandalous midnight, the
door is locked behind them.
WAKE UP
Bathed in the light of morning
a body splayed out before Gods:
all fading curls and sultry angles,
provocative only through self-renounced beauty,
built not of Sinew and Sweet Marrow and Raw Muscle--
rather spooled ink bled out by oncoming June, cradling
together an Artist’s armory; splinter-grooved wood
pallet smeared with earthly pastels.
The shadowlines draped across your face are creases
of the Universe, where it collapsed in on itself to introduce
a road-map I plan to Trail wherever the Sea
spills over the edges of this Planet.
And Back.
Inhale—a violin whisper of breath, your chest stirs,
expanding over and under and inside hopelessly tangled bedclothes;
the pink fragmented Dawn, sifting through flimsy slat blinds, playing
over your twistandturn train bridge frame,
dances a diminuendo dismissive of remaining skystains.
I rarely stretch with enough vigor to Grasp
a Morning’s self-sacrificial offerings
nor frequently bear witness to its comet tail arching
out against tawdry night-hollows
and blooming a convex shape of birdsong--
blackbirds’ red-winged flight pattern
—but my eyes roll and flutter.
Cumbersome, I will my sleep-caked lashes apart with intent to
Never miss the sunrise that is
You.
JayJay Conrad's work has been published in reputable literary journals, both print and online, including Breath and Shadow (twice); Counterexample Poetics; Drown in my own Fears; Canopic Jar; Slipstream Press; Squawk Back (twice); the Creative Writing Out Loud podcast; Babbling of the Irrational (thrice); lumiere (thrice); Broken Tooth Press; The Awakenings Review; The Finger; and Better Than Starbucks. Their article- and essay-styled work has been featured on Queer-Voices, an online magazine seeking to raise up and amplify the voices of marginalized demographics at the intersection of Queerness; they can also be found in the print anthologies “Why Do Millennials Think Like That?” (ed. Doug Smith) and the Disease and Disorder Anthology (ed. Chris Mason). JayJay has worked as an editor of Joel Carpenter’s upcoming Chapbook, “The Things We Lost,” and won awards for creative writing throughout high school and two for the same at the college they currently attend.