Poetry: Selections from John Tustin

Heart Rubbed Raw

Every carefully constructed plan

Drowned in the miasma of life

And a heart rubbed raw

By anger and sameness.

Alone, alone, alone.

Alone in these disconnected rooms

Of ashen sameness,

Of gray anonymity.

 

Love is a bullet

That always pierces my heart

And leaves me bloody

And jabbering.

 

The forest is black.

I dwell in the forest.

The soul is black.

The forest is my soul.

 

The sounds of the loveless morning

As insufferable as

The itchy heat of endless night.

Every room is full

Of only me.

The sun

Is a curse.

 

Heart rubbed raw,

Heart rubbed formless,

Heart honed into cold obsidian.

And still it aches.

Sometimes sharply, sometimes dully.

But the pain is ever present.

 

Someone is chiseling away

At all that I am.

Something eats away like acid.

Someone is taking my children from me.

I am almost done here.

I’m ready to go.

I am cowed

And I am finally a coward,

Crying into my useless and lazy hands.

 

Goodbye

Has become my favorite word

Losing Me

I have this recurring thought that I will die

And leave my children to the wolves

And what will they do without me here

And what will I do without them

Wherever I will go?

 

I can’t sleep at night, obsessed with the thought

That my children will not learn what I would have taught them,

Will not love the way I do – the way they do now.

I will not be forgotten, but a distant photograph

Yellowing at the bottom of the desk drawer.

 

Who would watch for cars when they cross?

Who would hold them when they suffer defeat?

Who would lift them when they fall?

Who would love me without condition or fail?

I’d miss making their beds and sitting next to them at breakfast tables.

 

Talking about books

And talking about cartoons

And talking about everything

So easily, so jauntily, looking into their eyes

And seeing myself and liking who I am because I like them.

 

I know this poem is no good, really, I know it.

Poorly written, scattered, no tempo,

Swirling snowflakes easily dismissed.

But I am so afraid of losing them, you see.

And of them someday losing me

 

And I had to let you know.

 

Paid

I am left in the street in the end –

My clothes in rags, the rain coming down

And your passenger door still swung open

As you peel away down the wet pavements.

 

I look at your tail light vaporizing in the distance.

I sit like a child spread-legged in the mud and the gravel,

Not wondering what happened

Or why

 

And even though I am the one

Who paid so much more than money

For your love,

I sit in the street, in the dark,

 

Feeling like nothing but a whore.

The Room is on Fire

The room is on fire

And the lightning strikes

Again and again

 

I stop masturbating long enough

To see the smoke fill the room

Through the murk of my tears.

 

The rain outside

Falls hard

Upon the roof

And the ground,

All self-important

Blustery noise.

 

As the room fills with flames and smoke,

The sky with rain and lightning,

My last thoughts

Are of the moments

You touched the place

Between my secrets and my fears

Where my desires rested

In streams of a soft easy

Happiness;

 

My last thoughts also

Of the first moment

That

You didn’t.

Throat Slit

I try to cry out

With my

Throat slit

And the blood

Gurgling

Beneath 

And it is

Scarcely

A noise 

It is

Just a

Squeak 

And yet I hear you

Coming

Through

The thorns

Through 

The trees

Through

The brambles

Through

The smog

Of dead

City streets

Flailing

Naked

In the

Night You hear

My noiseless

Plea 

And

You rush

To my side

With exquisite

Lips

With immaculate

Hands

With binding

Words 

And eyes

That could

Kill

But do not 

And you dress

My wound 

And you recover

My voice 

And you restore

My blood 

Asking only

That I never

Ever

Cut myself

Again.

John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals in the last dozen years. For a complete list of his publication credits click here.