Poetry By Tallen Gabriel

       Ellen Munro CC



​
for the man called Blue

In that story I read, the afterlife was
a waiting room
and souls only could leave when someone
on earth
said their name for the last time
Last night, over drinks, they said your name
(without knowing it is yours)
six times, I counted
There will never be a time on earth
when someone doesn’t speak of you





The Dress

i am wearing a dress that used to belong to my favorite singer’s ex girlfriend, there’s a song about her now so it’s relevant
i’m wearing the dress that used to belong to my favorite singer’s ex girlfriend because today is the birthday of a woman who is made of the moon but shines like springtime and she too loves this singer, because the singer is the sound piece for the sad girls, and if i am wearing the dress of her ex girlfriend maybe moonwoman and i can kiss a bit of the sadnesses off of each other
i bought the dress from the sad singer’s ex girlfriend because she was selling clothes in order to afford the court fees to escape a man who abused her, and today on the birthday of the woman who is carved from the moon, i was asked to applaud the man who caused me cold sores, who was the reason i could not sleep for nine days and the woman i turned to for protection led the applause and the woman who used to own this dress was sued for so much money because we must always instead of each other protect the fragile men in positions of power, his feelings have more social currency than my emotional well being, there can easily be a new me, the last time i wore this dress i was in new orleans with my ex boyfriend and he asked why i was wearing it, what was the special occasion? and i said i thought it was you, but maybe i was wrong





​And Still it Is So Good to Cry

it’s easy to look at the tears and say they’re for you but in truth
they belong to time

they belong to the 60 degree fluke february day that made the tulips bloom too early and therefore
die

they belong to the porcelain hours spent trying longing trying waiting trying
cracking, splat, oops - mosaic

to the words your smile used to mean i am slow to
relearn the language
an offering to all the unfairs that would have a hand in a double-heart demise, if i show them i see them
maybe they will
stop

they are for the stories whispered overnight over years that steal one’s own sense of worth
those hungry hungry thieves

if there are rivets in my cheeks they are asking to be filled by me as well with real effort real love, the
kind that comes in hues dip-dyed rather than a monochrome try, the kind you want to catch in a
polaroid and pin to your fridge
with real butter real leather but only if the cow was killed several years before we were born and the
memory of the pain has long left the jacket

if there are bags beneath my lashes it’s because i have to hold the confused crocuses that sprout from a
shrinking of self
somewhere
​



Tallen Gabriel is a Brooklyn-based poet, writer, and musician. Catch them behind a typewriter as part of the poet collective Ars Poetica, writing custom poems on the spot for event guests, or onstage performing original pop-folk tunes with their trio, Camp Bedford. Previous poetry publications include Grand Little Things, The Rally, and Groupie Mag. 
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