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Kristen Hain Feb 2017
My head has become a very hard place to survive in
It is not a wasteland, no,
It does often grow these flowers
But acidic waste does sometimes
Drip in the rivers and streamlines
Of thoughts, floating carelessness
Down canals and connecting neurons
Under bridges that young couples walk over
And the older ones stop to peer to
It oozes bright yellow
Staining the rocks and sand
And bird’s winged-tips
Dying the world a mess of
Fluorescent greens and blues
Illuminating the cloudiest of days
The characters of my brain
Enjoy the toxicity
Jump in the pools formed from acid rain
Raise their faces to the red burned sky
And let each drop absorb into their skin
I do not know why my head has become
An expert on chemical excesses
It is survivable if you let it all
Soak in
Kristen Hain Feb 2017
When your work has sprouted from the cracks between the blacktop cement
It only makes sense to write when a new coat of tar rolls over the weeded plant,
a sunflower composite that seemed to have ignored the signs of the inescapable end

I do not know if it shifted the soil underneath,
A mixture of clay and dirt, bursting with life
from ants and beetles and worms moving like clockwork
without reason but knowing a purpose
Perhaps they captured a seed, passed from
The ants to the beetles to the worms to
The designated placed underneath the back top cement

I do not know if the weeded plant as a seed
Had died many times over underneath concrete, tar
Or how many years of pushing in to the darkness
Not understanding why, it was there and so intolerable to move
Weaving around blind in the underground hoping for a weakness
To explode through it, breathe the air it has been deprived of,
To feel the warmth of the sun, finally
Exasperation of holding your head underwater for too long
Not knowing where to come up at

I do not know why the weeded plant has sprouted
Perhaps it has nowhere else to be, perhaps it was meant to grow
In black tar places, knowing a purpose in it
Perhaps it cannot not be but to grow and push through possible cracks
It’s inability to die, it’s contract with cyclical nature to take back what belongs to it
Containing something far too important to give up to the pressure of the tar lying on it
Containing something far too important

When your work has sprouted from the cracks between the blacktop cement
It only makes sense to write when tar has rolled over the weeded plant that has
Sprouted in survival
In an inevitable beginning
Kristen Hain Jan 2017
Poetry has taken me to faraway
fantasy places
none of which I can ever truly achieve
none of which can ever be true
Kristen Hain Dec 2016
I made the mistake of searching for answers in love poems
I made the mistake of searching for answers in poems
The either realist or idealist finding meaning in love
in life
that is neither here nor there, it may be entirely fiction's compromise
Assumptive righteousness in lines that speak ten forms of beauty
simplification of a word people have been trying to conquer for so long
with no map, across seas, looking for jewels in desolate wastelands

I made the mistake of searching for answers
Kristen Hain Dec 2016
What a fool to be afraid of falling
Asking for reassurance as though I needed more
than response, a hand held, a kiss planted
drunken nights and sober days
"If love is not passionate, do not participate"
What a fool to not have trust in yourself
a foot hovering above a pool or
Pacing thoughts trying to ride a skateboard
Trust yourself, but do not trust him just yet
but what a fool
To be say it is as though I haven't fallen already
18 flights of stairs, each individual bump
From every single height we have watched the world from
The cliffsides of the Appalachians
The 1800s towers of Bowman
the landscapes that connect beach to sea, wondering when we'll reach over there
An abandoned building east of the city enamoured in fluorescent light
A skytop birdsnest of an arboretum
from the back of old Reggie staring onto pavement in warm summer rain

I fall from such great heights
clamored on each step,
I do not know if there is a bottom
but I surely hope not
Kristen Hain Dec 2016
At first it was only words
written on paper
surrendered from heart to hand
But then it became hand to
a dissolved in acidic waste
Flesh to the tendon, tendon to
muscles and nerves to
Melted body part solutions
pretentious misgivings
And to the heart
floating in chest cavities wide open
bit by bit
removed with surgeon credentials
And then it was even the paper
printer working on overdrive
jammed and out of ink
Kristen Hain Dec 2016
I had to leave you
because I could
not love you enough
I hope you understand
that I have locked
my attic, my basement
my mind, my soul
the key, I have swallowed
it's somewhere in me
but I must find it
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