Saturday, February 15, 2014

Pattie Flint- Two Poems

Heartache on a college budget

He fed me almond butter toast and hot cocoa,
naked in his bed I wonder why he loves me still,
after I broke his heart on the ride home from
collegiate dinners in clothes we had outgrown.
The rain is never rain enough; I tried to tell him.
I wear his boxers and mention that my thighs hurt.
His eyebrows sternly narrowed at my dark kisses.
The shadows are starting to blink tonight, my love.
Tell me about the sad movies you watch when you
need to cry. I'll share all the songs playing over and
over when I run towards places I will never reach.



I, voyeur

Lock the bedroom door and
turn the volume down low.
There is a pressure behind my eyes:
the world is lonely tonight,
do you feel it?

The best occur in classrooms
fathers and mothers squeezing children,
or football games
when crowds roar unanimous approval.
There is patriotism and sex appeal
in a man returning from war.
Banners read WELCOME HOME
WE LOVE YOU and WE ARE PROUD.

I watch these reunions
on Youtube and Vimeo;
invading the intimacy of families
that are not my own;
they do not know that I am
crying for them
in the middle of the night.

I, voyeur,
to their pangs of separation
weep in comradery and wonder;
who am I waiting for, to come home
to me?



Author Bio: Pattie Flint is an uprooted Seattle native toughing it out in New England and spends her days as an editor at Medusa's Laugh Press specializing in hand-bound books. She has been published in InkSpeak, HESA Inprint, Hippocampus and TAB, amongst others. She is currently working on her MFA at Cedar Crest.

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