By Jordan DeWitt

Lips to Cold Glass

Love is built
140 characters at a time
in snapped off squares
candy bars
re-programmed to spit out tidbits of
connection

crinkling entire years into 30 minute
messages
massaging brains and hearts

touching lips to cold glass
miles apart

the abyss between lover
and lover
gets lower
and lower

thought-out thumbprints
spell out
lackadaisical
empty-headed
acronyms
archaic in five minutes
dead before the wave hits–

Banging your head against glass
door.

You can see the future
spread out
blue splashed with white
black letters
dead ants
floating in milk

bleeding out into the cosmos
into the black beyond
the absence of God
into empty glass vial hearts,

plastic tiles backlit sneering
slip silent “I love you’s” into each vacant tapping stare
circle backwards through circuit boards
to say it again
say it again
say it again

words clatter to tile floors
busted iMacs in
aluminum alphabet soup
tiny pupils ripped from
grasping hands
left twitching in tight blue jeans–

life becomes a backslash
a backlash to the backlash
the anti-hype
buzzes words, those old saw blades

Rusted, old

Never grow old
never die:

Facebook pages live forever

and we are immortal

with white cables tied to our shrinking wrists,

bleating to each other across the frozen glassy sea:

“and we are immortal”

Theme from ‘Halloween’

The end of space begins inside
an “o”
inside the word “older”

being young is dying slower
and slower
until your heart stops

The end of space begins inside
an “o”
inside the word “older”

balled up thoughts stuffed in boots
on their side
in a pool of lamp light

The end of space begins inside
an “o”
inside the word “older”

It cracks and peels back from the skull
a rubber Shatner mask
sliced down to the nostrils

The end of time begins in the curve of
lips
speaking the word “old”

Orpheus plummets into a chasm
spitting earth from
his bruised mouth

chunks of granite chunks of truth
weigh down
teeth clamped to the lyre’s neck

The end of time begins in the curve of
lips
speaking the word “old”

capital N Nothing cracks and peels
an unzipping
a blank stare in an awkward silence
those fire flower bombs

the end of time and space begins in the gap between
“I love you”
and
“I know”

in the ever-widening chasm mouth
of Michael Myers

in the gargling scabby mouth of Hell

in the cold conversation of sailors at the edge of the earth

in the curve of lips speaking the word “older”

the end of time and space begins in the gap between

“I love you”
and
“I know”

The end of me begins
inside
an “o.”

Charles Bronson Sings the Blues

Bare-knuckles splayed out on marbled floor
tell the fortunes of a thousand dead men
each crease stitching up
the blinkering tips of caterwauling schemes

with weary fists they kick at catacombs
slit throats with butter knives
entering into rooms without exit signs
they crash into flowerpots
yellow petals slotting into criss-crossed sigils
left by motorcycle boots.

Edges of denim frayed in patterns to make a God
cringe in his coffin underneath
the orange flag
with sails stretched out between his fingers so swift and thick
in the evening glow
with each right hook
he unhinges the universe
with each left hook
he breaks it apart

there is burnt sienna in his uneasy smile
speckled blood on nicotine teeth

The slatted cavern of foreheads pressed together
is shattered by a magnum opus crammed inside a steel casing.

When can I come home to a glass of orange juice and a poppy seed bagel?
When can I sit at a wooden table next to a screen door, and stare at the crinkling surface of the refrigerator, pockmarked
with photographs of horses?

Jordan DeWitt is currently a Musical Theatre and English double major at the University of Alabama. He is really into making cat noises. Also poetry. Although, if we’re being pretentious here, who’s to say that cat noises can’t be poetry? Right?