Tuesday, April 27, 2004

$3.76 is

the price of a ticket
to buy solitude
music in the background like
a trance -
the words don't matter, or
the chords
just the feeling of being alone
when i want nothing more
than to run away from everyone,
i would pay any price to fade
into the obscure crowds
so you'll forgive me if
i don't think the price
of a big coffee is too much
to become nobody.

sometimes you ache
for another's touch
on your flesh but
sometimes, nobody
is not a bad person to be.
when lost in the crowd,
when walking alone on the street
thinking how nice it would be
to be somebody

Tuesday, April 20, 2004

i don't regret knowing, just feeling.

he doesn't know what to tell me
how immature
how sad my smile
how trouble seems to follow me
in waves
when i say how i'm doing fine.
and i am
when i've stamped the
suicidal screams to
faint whispers,
when i cease to mutilate
my arms
you're beautiful,
he says, why you date
the guys you date...

and i'm thinking how i'd
much rather date
no guys at all

Wednesday, April 14, 2004

you wanted to know who i am.

one who once knew your every curve
who would lie beside you and
try not to breathe
for fear of waking you
who would hold your lithe body against mine
who loved you.

now i am cut by your words
instead of a blade
i am the one who stares at you, numbly
when you look into my face
and you don't say a goddamn thing
when we once talked in the language of blood,
pain and tears.
your pictures, i stare at
out of the corners of my eyes
memories i did not make, merely borrowed
from the photograph albums of friends i perused,
hoping to see your beautiful face,
and averting my eyes in sorrow
when i saw your smile.

disappear

imagine the ease of her leaving
hugs her family,
boards the behemoth
alone, not grieved.
it is a breath let out
a weight removed.
imagine you never have to spot
her in the grocery store,
or at your favorite coffeehouse
her poetry no longer glaring
from the pages
imagine
you have no more links to her words,
her anguish falls on deaf ears
in the town she has abandoned.
imagine taking your hand
and deleting her presence
as if she has never lived for you.

everyone walks straighter,
as if a burden
is lifted from their shoulders.

Wednesday, April 7, 2004

which drugs, how many, how often, how soon?

i can feel the concentric circles
around my body
can feel the walls pulse and sway
contracting around my outflung arms.

i do not remember the reasons.

Saturday, April 3, 2004

your company

when your heart turns actress
and you cannot stem the ebbs
and flows of that creative tide
when your mouth speaks words
that make you cringe
inside (no, no, don't go,
please stay, i didn't mean it)
and your hands, they let go
of everything you've been holding,
what then?
how do you reposition your lips
around your traitorous mouth
how can you stand to touch
yourself with those hands?
how do you forgive yourself
for banishing
the one thing you'd kill
to have?