Category: POETRY

sooo.. 

Cristian Leonardo

 

 so
October 28th. the day before it had arrived

pumpkin leaflets, summers leaving, volkswagon sedan on a drive

gusts of season. flannels. & walks through 10pm suburbia nights

blasts of orange harvest, olfactory senses concise.

lakeside and beverly creak. Lake Nelson just over in reach

the crossover between the fur elise and berry stems in the streets.

the very first time we ever had kissed

and unlocked sundrops. whirlwind storms that soon would commence

to convince ourselves that this wasnt pretend.

october 29th 2012, we watched on the news how much sandy had caused

wondering if our love was the somehow the cause of it all

visiting coach. 6 hour dividend coast.

whiskey & hope. woodford reserve on the millbury slopes

3000 miles. a year later. psychiatrists, and displacement was born

the forecast was sun, sun, sun, roses without thorns on the stem 

feet dangling off the gondola lifts. balm on your wrist to soothe the sore on your lips.

a feeling of emptiness with her finger not adorned with a gem.

telling me time heals all. something you accustomed me too 

and i believed you cause your wristwatch covered your wounds

blood drunk. hungry for more, hungry for passion

That gets robbed from me, the moment our hands clinch

i was embarrassed. ads on the walls about marriage

false interpretations of love, made the gray areas bland

endless carousel wagon, help reveal this fairytale land.

October 22nd, 2015, three years after it happened

i’ll never forget. i visited you after two years from the norm

thinking it was calm, but it was just the eye of the storm

we walked home from the bar, silence spoke a desolate rage

makeshift disarray. maroon merlot in a vase 

she undressed before walking in the room as to say

she had it with life, and it’s incessant display

of obsessions for sex. and temporary embrace

of this modern day culture of sultry distaste

bra clinging off her shoulders, so i just let the metaphor hang

mama let out a cry and said it wasn’t the same

so i touched her lips with mine & understood what she claimed

inebriated, insane. on your breath, Cabernet

full bodied, at the tavern they knew you loved it that way 

stroking your hair. i muttered, i know, its okay

knowing it wasnt. and knowing we’ve changed

we were both naked, and touching, but felt a silk layer in haste 

and it sucks that i had nothing better to say. 

gray goose swallowing pain

these scars don’t define you, these scars are displays

to let the next person know you made it out, not stronger, but strange 

head in my chest, hair in my mouth, hole in my brain 

nestled in the crevices where the tension exclaimed 

a lie is just a story where its ruined by truth in mistake

karen o and the kids on the record replays 

squeezed each other hands. a two people submission

inside of delusion. to sobbing in fetal position

relationships never play out as we have them envisioned

its true what they say that life is a bitch…es.

keeping the ring box in my pocket mightve been indecision

the next day, on the plane she said to send her a text

thousand kilometer stretch. its something we wanted in jest

when i landed she asked me if we could ever work out the distance

to feeling the neglect in between the pause in her sentence

as the autumn air in newark port, teared through my throat

love rendezvous became my de ja vu. a hurricane i had to fare on my own

You’re Stephanie and I’m Paulette

Cristian Leonardo

blossoming beauty. bud bellowing britches
we reap what we sow. i’m sorry, my harvest rescinded
behold love at first sight, to love at last minute
i melted my nucleus cause my base was acidic
it’s not that we grew apart, we just didnt grow to begin with
want to create a spark that embarks on your soulless division
ammunition like fuel to mobilize the holes that we sink in
apparition. the venom that fills the abyss to the top
’til i get thirsty and drink its malevolence
visceral. bottomless. listen, i’m shot
digesting the scintilla, dissecting the plot
touching the scars you gave me. and i connected the dots

i can’t win.

you touch my jawbone in a moment of silence
i kiss it your fingertips, cause that’s what i’ve been exposed to, and i’m
tired of thinking, affection needs affection in turn
a disservice to the deterrent you never deserved
the other day someone said they loved the way that i wrote
to just feeling a difference in the tone in which they uttered my name
inflection so infectious, conundrums like a blood lust.
i could feel them touching my vein

Protected: then and now: im sorry. the gray just isnt beautiful to me anymore.

Cristian Leonardo

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July 19th, 1991.

Cristian Leonardo

all little boys need father figures

not to be normal, or not to be sane. You wouldn’t turn on a lightswitch without seeing where all the conduits placed. You grow up with a fist full of hurt. A surge, like a missile, without hearing a ‘miss you’. But one thing is certain, nothing makes you question your integrity more knowing that your very existence is burden. You’re a burden to breathe. I was just a curious boy. Curious George. Curious Cristian. Tried to talk to friends, but the look on their faces. It hurts just to listen. A burden. “How about a counselor?”. Yeah, I know the in-and-outs. I’m a soldier. Here take my money, let me cry in your shoulder. How do you plant your feet in the mud? And how do you turn your feelings to comfort? And how do you know what you’re feeling is real and isn’t some misguided daydream, cause you’re weak, and well – younger. I’ve broken off my hearts pieces asunder. endured the most embarrassing trial and error in the world to learn how to speak to a lover. It sucks. Questions I wanted to ask. Questions that needed answers. How do you express greediness more than leaving a son? Upset cause I proceeded to ask ’em. On the cusp of 24 without never really knowing how it is to have one. Just shells of people that didn’t want to take up the task. Another week is another meek undercover. Another daydream took a plunge. Now all i wanna do is scream. I want to go into the streets and scream ’til I don’t feel any nothing. ‘Til I summon beams full of thunder, till I shutter streets full of anger. ’til my fucking teeth shatter and bust into a dozen pieces of rancor. ‘Til you see a fucking beast take refuge on the streets with an anchor, and he won’t leave til sun-up and sunsets over under. ‘Til you fucking learn my motherfucking pain isn’t something to play with, motherfucker. There’s a bloodbath of ink on this pale sheet. I’m on a smooth pace of spilling, a new space and ceiling. Its a tragedy that I had to reduce my father figure into newspaper clippings. How my favorite ballplayer scored 30 points. There’s a new wave of emptiness intended for millenials
and I write most of everything in metaphors. Soft explanations. so the interpretation gets lost in translation, cause as long as I know what I meant. Your misconception is void, cause I felt those words when I wrote them. 100 years from now when I’m gone, children in classrooms will be dissecting my verses. With no intention or purpose. I scribbled them into quotes. A message deployed. Through rejection. Through rage. Through an affectionate ploy. An inception became a reflection of my own inevitable pain. Cause remember, for everything set in stone, there’s a knife where the edges are frayed. Irreverent. Sane. I clutch an invisible pendant made out of being ashamed. Every individual second is captured in a thousand frames. And those frames are just lost, they never see light. They’re just gray. There’s a judge that looks exactly like me, handing out a sentence in vain. Bail is set at impossible, and the bailiff is me too. At my funeral, I want Beethovens 5th set as the prelude. Every physical sentence I mash out is obsession. I’ve invented the abstract. & what’s next is a flash. I sit alone at the dinner table, 3 hours past supper. Spinning my index finger in the red wine, staring into the glass, as if it’s gonna stare back up. Every masterpiece I created is crap. And my own perfection is lackluster. I don’t know. I’ve been so hard on myself, that the quality is starting to lack. Quantity takes its place to tackle an impossible task. Ive’ tacked on a badge of honor; madness bottled up, swallowed up by a flask of somber.

I already know what you’re going to say before you say it. it’s non euphoric. and even if I were to become complacent, it would be out of boredom. What a soreness to wake up out of touch with the world. Like yeah, I see your pain, and I raise you my void. I’ve coughed blood into buckets. I’ve sung songs that have trumpets. It’s better to have love lost, than to, fuck it. Making people laugh is a drug and I love it. And then I run out of punchlines, and realize my life was it. Feeling implicit. Two decades confined to fetal position.

Don’t you get mad when there isnt’ a word that encapsulates your thoughts? So you write sonnets and songs, and poets and hymns, haikus and shit just to sorta capture it all?

Cristian Leonardo

sigh. the streetlight kissed your eyes & created an impression so pure.
its whiteness
i bring this up, bceause I fell in love by remembering my reflection off your iris.
expression in its highest form, sensory designed to cure, destinies arrived.
analyzed the sculpture, of course. – then vandalized your structure
leaves falling aimlessly, in it’s phantom-like flutter
randomized in the sputter of it all, only to capture geometry
if love reaches new heights this colloquys written in masterful mountains
parallel streets, architecture of houses, potential surrounding of impeccable scenery only strengthened and balanced, by the powerful breath breathed into me, when your mouth pressed out in between, the sound effect of the pucker so loud, so vehemently i remember a shroud of evenly distributed, heavenly eloquence – where blood cells held an exodus to swell in the realm of my lips
visited palace of hymns, where people would sing forever
rectify the devilish sin, held in the pits that existed cus’ well- we relished in them
to intensify my sensory limits, so inexplicably wicked, touching a galaxy
lungs breathing love, lost & found, but what were we hide and seeking from?
under an elm. deciduous. it was funny, cause that’s when i decided.
where the brushing of wind from Sandy slighted me above the stratosphere
we’re out of here, cusp of your hand became the new life vest where if it rained, i knew right then, to hang by you, to clutch, til’ the waves subdued in horizons
hell- bent over control of my conscious like i poured everything, and stanzas decomposed into options
the perfectness? prose couldn’t match with it
gravity didn’t have an emerging role in this drama and thesis
portrayed through my soul cus i swear it rose.
and nirvanas capricious
picture a boat, now picture it floating without water beneath it
still rocking along the coast, unbeknownst to a force that governs its beaches
once I pulled you close to me, and spoke in a manner, boldly enamored
dissolving distraction, your hips close to me, after.
it was poignant i told you to kiss me, with the grip of your jeans intervening & lingering memorizing the seams, & create macrocosms just between what I felt in my fingertips
elevate my scarlet shard.
that’s the end of discussion i could feel the eruption of your blushing, emanate my arctic heart
hurricane winds made you clutch your arms in defensive posture
this next sentence is a toss up, between a metaphor for intensive form or comparing your sensual heart hugs to a tropical storm
loveboat wasnt enough to capsize in waves of charm
awestruck.
star-studded raindrops baptized our naked arms
established an anomaly so vastly diverse; i could only deduce it in calculus version
gauge the geometric perversion & argue that it was mathematically perfect
and by that?
I came to animate, inanimate objects abstract art splattered paint so simple, my only explanation is that it had to be complex

CONSONANT ART.

Cristian Leonardo

Processed with VSCOcam with t2 preset

I don’t even care for breathing air, like A.) it’s clearly a mission. B.) Decided not to get angry today. It’s barely decision. Think life should be more grand than it is, but it isn’t. Can’t have regrets with being wrong, that’s why I love indecision. Sweater against chins, found myself looking for trouble. I love when the thread gets hooked to the stubble. Everyday that awaits is merely a presence. Trepidation dismayed, Come on, spare me a second. Deliriums weighed out of space, a variable essence, just savor today and take care of the present. Valiant way to go about positive pulses. To distract any and, all cognitive focus. Bottled emotions are false, I recycle with candor. Light a candle for the fervor, yeah, I’m slightly enamored. Find me an ember, then signal me over. Superstar to the blackhole you stitched in the nova. Pray to thy father for all lucrative sin. Indifferent with my efforts to feel human again Making deliberate errors to feel human again. I don’t feel human again. Oh my god, I don’t feel human again. Crippling endeavor, how loose can I get? Mixing leisure with whenever = hows the hubris in print? Ballad of blueprints I script; valid Freudian slips. That the entire, massive audience gets. Parrying my worries off with a quart of vodka and gin. Cocky with grins, cordial to the ghosts that i sleep with. Blood alcohol at about .8 for a better portion of week. Speak in harbingers. cohesive volume bleep. Final cut of Lost in Translation in scene, ironically explains my solitude deeper than any audible scheme .what a phenomenal feat, I still dream about the hairs on your neck. To tell this real boy that he’s still a marionette. Cut my heart strings, in all fairness, respect. Your stare down had me speechless at my ventriloquist act. Webbing off surrealism, with tarantulan siege. Gargantuan in a glass jar, with nothing to reach. With nothing but handprints on the outside that acted as speech. Palpable. Weak. I wish when I talked, that my verbal drew in circles with supersonic aplomb. And my vowels would nonchalantly evolve through a canvass. through a gospel of songs that I draw within language. Go into a lobby, as if I’m talking to god, to what I embody; through an army of my consonant art.

a parting glass, baby

Cristian Leonardo

the moment was so existentialist. I brought 3 apples.
one for the both of us. & 1 for the road
if it comes up I suppose we could split it
undisclosed disposition. hanging from the hammock ropes
in the stitching. there was hope, for half-robed demolition
bungalow; almost out of a dream- quite a bit intensive
fictitious; in the sense, paints peeling from white picket fences
Strange feeling, in front of the mowed lawn
in between the solstice of summer and spring
molded from the cumbersome explosions you’d bring
love when she hands me her half bitten apple – as if it comes with an asterisk.
an ad-lib example, of italics in the back of the index
take a bite out of the apple or take a bite out of me
fall in love in the castle. fall in drown to the sounds of the sea
comparisons to the moon – thought were drastically measured
but noticed high tide receded sunrise where my gravity centered
upset. I bite my lips till’ blood spills in the battlefront mist
not to inflict pain, but deflect the traces of that dispassionate kiss
teeth marks turn into tattoos covering the mistakes from the past
the china vase that bloomed flowers, but shattered, is only serrated as glass
like lately i feel, sort of amazing. yet displaced and unreal, unsanctioned
revealed. abated. idealistic adulation unveiled. just waiting
unrelated, too anxious to seal the tiny indiscreet places unfilled
out on the rock, by the creek. placing your hand on my cheek
detached since forever. you help me make these connections I seek
never thought i’d be formal, but you make me feel normal. at least..
enthralled in coercion, your neglect changed me overall as a person
love was linear, so now i write love songs and sonnets in cursive
despondent. subversive. tire swing made from your 91′ Cherokee jeep
which showed me you still used parts from the past thrown away in the street
connective to the stylus of the records through music created
overuse of the grooves from the vinyl discarded my humanlike traits
describing an incentive to twist, a sigh and a scent of distress
its funny & sad, i write to remind myself to remember to live
if you’re reading this right now, i probably need to reevaluate my resolve
dissolve in the valium wake. retaliate from the maxims til’ i can barely walk
i could barely talk. my adolescence consisted of wishing i died.
living without really having lived, now i don’t even think im alive
now even feeling a feeling is feeling contrived
cause six feet seems like such a waste to shovel. just let the sediment dry
Chesterfield smoke on Elmora and 5th, such a vivid annoyance
beginning to fill my lungs with smoke, that i’ve come to avoid
now i play villain cause i just simply enjoy it

Cristian Leonardo

If I get to the point where no ones’ love embroiders me,
I’d mix the oil, the clay, and color coordinate the sordid seams.
Then simply voice it, & wholeheartedly agree.
Tend to wounds, but then forget the ointment/gauze.
Intensely consoling. The pensive motions.
Embark through the darkness and depart from my esteem.
That’s the only thing keeping’ me going,
from disease the fleeting emotion you feel in your bones.
Like, deceiving, but more than, deceptions a curse.
It’s a deceptively curved timeline, where perceptions a blur.
It’s the way you make tye-dye, entrenching the shirt.
You mix a bunch of complexions and spin in reverse.
A fissure, hypnosis, once the colors combine, a mixture, fists closed-in,
a fuller divide. Null, but awoke. Dull, not asleep.
Where the knots in your stomach turn to contortionist schemes.
It’s full-blown. Bow-ties and croissants. An assortment of odds,
mathematical rain-cap. Getting even to stay glad, even after the pay-back

my last shot, i swear, man.

Cristian Leonardo

Sweared it’s my last shot. Promised it was. It was the electric flow to my conduits buzz. Been left alone, shadow unfollowed me. but, I got 40 ounces that say I’ve done everything but bottle it up. Hairs falling out, play a game, (because I’m so ugly, I’m fucking shot.) Count the follicles, ‘she loves me……. she loves me-not’ Proudly logical. Gladly pick you apart. Sadly, and single handedly pulling the strings from your heart. Stitching compartments, living fancy. livid and darkness. Living apartment, shelling angry, felt the shift in you when I put my fist through the door.   Sometimes, I listen to the pauses you take, the breaths, and silence in every word set astray. I don’t listen to you, or me when I talk, it decays. I just change my demeanor, and dock. It’s okay. It’s a struggle between me and my ego. A masturbation, heat sensing. I’ve feel in love with the inaudible between the masqueraded pretenses. I lost track of the bridges I burned.

SELSUN BLUE

Cristian Leonardo

groove to the classics, velveteen smooth, devilish antics. Never seen through my pirate themed ruse, or the skeleton captain. x-ray embellishing, developing cancer. The elephant in the room, and the rest is in captions. Subtitled. And the lexicons added, for your pleasurable view, gotta penchant for adlibs. Subdued, to my intelligence, say hello to the masses, yeah, it’s just you, some gel tablets and the medicine cabinet. They’re like a presidents cabinet. Group of advisers  the vicodins the vice president, the alcohol the confidant. Loose on the side. Hide the bruises you captured. A group of counselors, grouped into family shit ending in -cillin. the chancellor, consultant, all there to mentor you. Chilling. In the living room, like it was meant to instill some impressionable feeling. Dandruff building, scratching till it bleeds where’s the Selsun Blue? Telekinetic view, light a match until it ceases. And recedes till the black hits my thumb. Black from the burning. The burn’ll bring me back from the dumps. Marvel at stars, watching the tv watch me from the sofa. Turn on the TV but drown it out with the garbage disposal. MY credit score is pristine, except, I crashed my car last year. Geico could save you fifteen percent.

close to regret

Cristian Leonardo

He doesn’t feel close to anything
Friends are placeholders for emptiness
He sings to himself while watering plants

or he wants to. He doesn’t even grow plants

Does thing he regrets, does things he doesn’t
Regrets them both. Regret that he’s done it
or did it, or was, or wasn’t.
Heartbroken. For what?
How does a heart go from golden to rot
I look at pretty faces, just hoping for something
Laugh at the way people conduct themselves
Conducting in stealth.

Ask for help by pretending I don’t need it
I don’t.

Just need me some hope.
Establish a ground rule, establishing sound.
Down on his self.

Doesn’t brush his teeth today

Memorizes the Braille his plaque forms
Doesn’t care, kills themselves in the routine

Looks at his friends smiling

Sunshine weather is a chance to bathe himself 
in sun rays, stretch his back and fingers in the air

ugh. Why? Ugh. Sighs. Disagree with your opinion

don’t even bother to tell why not

doesn’t matter
don’t support any of the million things people fight for

I don’t care

my war is up here in my head

it’s a tiny platform where millennia takes place

I can’t even breathe

Making non humanly noises, like a puppy moaning, upset at the sectional voices, that put him here.

Eyes watering. Sore throat. Sucks

tired and upset. The imprint of my

body in my bed has become art

I don’t even drink, or do drugs, to

bored to

become a

worse version

of

his self

at the doors

Cristian Leonardo

im in love with you, but I don’t want to be.
I blame you for my woes, but it isn’t you
you were just a tiny percentage
a smidgen of hope I hung unto, the glimmer
barely, there like the painting of glitter, the spark in the thinner edges of my mind
there was a hug you gave me once, at the step of your door, after you came
back. I knew you so well, I had a gift for you, I forget what, I want to say flowers. Your silhouette marched behind the glass doors. you didn’t know it was me. I’ve been messaging you, tiny hints of my departure, which you didn’t totally pick up on. You opened the door. And I uttered words, that didn’t matter, like “why didn’t you-” you hugged me. And I kept asking you the question. – this is important, because, I didn’t want to be overwhelmed by emotion, so I verbally tried to cut out your overwhelming intimate touch, just a hug, by spewing this verbal vomit. You hugged me
harder at the step of your door. Squeezing me, almost, but with this passionate reflex that, put me so far into you, I still remember it as if it happened a few hours ago. It’s been two years. It feels like a few fucking hours. But I know it’s not. What’s funny, to support this passage is, people ask me how long I’ve had my hair cut, I say “a few months” it’s been over two years. My tracking of time is just lost, like that hug commenced this time warp where im sucked into it. Today a coworker pat me on the back to wipe some dirt off. I didn’t want them to stop patting me, it’s like any real interaction with humans, something as simple as a pat to wipe off a patch of dirt, reminds me of your fucking doorstep. Now when I hug, I hug hard. I hug people hard. I want people to remember these hugs, maybe I could just give people the same feeling as you did and still do to me. Picasso, I would pay Picasso billions, and I would pay whoever could resurrect him even more, just so, we can go back in time, hell, you rose a man from the dead, so we’re going back in time, so he could photo frame my face, the moment your arms wrapped around me, in your black coat, I never seen you in. and Id want him to paint my face. Id want to see my face in art in that moment. it would be called “broken heart”, because in that moment my heart wasn’t broken, it was mended, melded. Sewn. it was just the following months, years- well minutes in my world that broke it again. I wonder if anybody has any slight innervation about what I feel on a daily basis, over a damned, hug. God damn, you. I just, wish, I could just breathe again.