“Brown Painting” by Chris Russell

Chris Russell: POEMS

Forgotten Robin

She has no clue I’m even here, or that I’ve spent decades bending my emptiness back and forth, honing the art of swaying and failing to stay, like a season.
Yards of Concord in Fall

I’m home with my feet up in front of the TV, and though I can’t make out what they are saying, I can hear the downstairs neighbors talking back and forth, the way versions of me talk back and forth inside me while I’m writing a poem.
Ducks Surfing

I thought arms would open for my work and together with an editor who believed in me, we’d chart a new course through oceans of literature as long and wide as the Atlantic.
Werewolf

I was trying to change the world from behind a cover story about helping and honoring spirituality.
Thoughtscape

I tell it everything we say and think is a song, is a kind of crying, is a kind of sad question that becomes more beautiful the less you try to answer it. But it doesn’t like that analysis.
The Cold Knife

I wish it wasn’t so, but because my need to be honest at all costs is sort of my tragic flaw, I’m pretty sure I’ll always be fighting.
I Don’t Know, Maybe

I am here to cry, here to give rise to Want itself each time I’m pleased and forget that there’s a heart underneath all of this stuff I call me.
Crush Story

I thought for sure I’d died in a gush of concussion and nose bleed until I looked back at my love, my feet looking for a tree branch to hook onto in the air beside her laughing face, her teeth long and demonic…
The Fastest Jab

I used to love being the fastest jab at the rec center, except the problem with being the fastest at something often means you’re always waiting for someone much slower who can tire you out by never arriving on time.
The Last Thing

I left the room and made it a point to lose myself in my work to protect myself, until someone told me to hold their water bottle.

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