Monday, November 28, 2005

turning 21

and here it is. your moment
you've been waiting for it
with bated breath
and anticipation that grows but now
here you are. did you expect
it to change you,
to radically alter the world?
you're still sitting alone
on your birthday, knees drawn
to your chest as the world sleeps,
this only means
you don't have to hide your drinking
past the arbitrary line
added another year to the garbage heap,
another fucking miserable wasted year
out of your sight at last.
what are you waiting for,
what did you expect to happen,
do you really think
this changes anything?

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

mercurial *

no mere mistress
i slip through the cracks,

pull my fingers into traps, the
“gaybistraight,”
the songs i sing in
my head, i am ill-defined, please
talk to me now tell me i am still
breathing.
i am, am i, i

am?

time seems quicksilver in these darknight hours,
stay with me now i need to talk. i need
you
to take
my pulse, my blood, give
me breathless pain and aching
until i am more closely
approximating
the woman
i appear to be.

hurt me, dull and
sharp, until i know who i am,
until the world falls
into ordered pieces around me,
until it will be easier to leave,
and i am either dead,
or stone.

my hands cover my face, and yesterday’s gashes
on my arms throb
in the chill of the air-conditioning, until
my time with you is up.
you leave
and i walk on, unattached.

i assume only that rules are for breaking,

that the ones you love the most
are always the ones wielding the knife



*senior thesis poem

Friday, November 18, 2005

sonnet in the key of swingwset

and our swings make sounds like children screaming
or sighing, i can't tell which. a longing
for you fills my chest. the park is teeming
in the day but nights you sit there fondling
your cigarette and i stare at my shoes
and we are alone. i say i love you
and you flick ash and try to make me choose
between a future with or without you.
and it all comes with conditions, you see
i am trapped. even as i walk away
from your fierce hug i know this ends with me
blinking through my tears at the vast array
of stars as i pump my swing through the air
wanting to run, but i just swing and stare.





this is probably the best sonnet i've written. it was an assignment from a teacher who knew i hated form, and so made me write in nothing but, for a semester.

Sunday, November 13, 2005

sans nom*

i cannot explain why your mothlike
fingers kept me up all night,
mentally
reaching
for your touch
but oh-so afraid to move
for fear
that you would stop moving your
hands over my body,
stop letting your fingertips

memorize my frame
and validate the melding
of our skin.
what
is this? not
overwhelming desire
but the longing
to have your arms hold me close
all night long

but
i am not made for these things.
my mind will not slow or bend to
my longings and you cannot stay awake
to talk

but oh, just
know

i desire to let you grip me
fiercely to you for the days
we may number together,

know
there is something here,
even if we have no name for it.




*B.A. senior thesis poem. a large bulk of my senior thesis was pulled from 2005/2006. which makes sense, as i graduated 2007...

Saturday, November 12, 2005

four feet

four fucking feet.
the lines of my book bend
and blur and i am cold yet
sweating. you do not speak.
i could touch you from here,
reach my body over the flimsy table
and take your cigarette, drag that
poison on down, and you would stare
in disbelief
i, too, am capable
of change.
i'll have you know
a camel's been
to my lips more often than
i care to admit
and the taste is you
and you are the reason
i do not immediately wash the taste away
bitter, acrid poisonous
in so many ways
the stress hits, now, and
i desire that poison
and long for anything
that would take away
the shaking of my hands,
the sick pit of stomach,
the flutter and twist of my heart
but a simple cigarette
accepted from your hands
will more likely only
compound it
so i'll sit silently
and try not to stare
and think,
what i wouldn't give
to put your fingers in mine.
what i would not forfeit
to cradle the base of your skull
in my palms
and inhale the smell of you
fingertips to scalp,
masking
the tears dripping down my face
that i will never show you

Wednesday, November 9, 2005

in time to come

why my eyes tear up even at the thought
of you touching me
eludes me but
i don't have the heart
to dig it any deeper
i want to say, oh
an endless fount of things,
but won't.
if i am
to stammer out anything
it will not go near
the things i most desire
to tell you - it will be trivial
things, how are things, my writing
is fine, work is good, what about
the band, fine, fine.
we're fine.
sure we are,
fidgeting in our chairs
occasionally trying to flip a page
before more awkward conversation trying
desperately
to keep from looking
into the eyes of the other
and having that desperate recognition
in the moment of silence.

Monday, November 7, 2005

the silence of a park at four a.m.

as i pump it high,
my swing creaks bittersweet
like children screaming
or sighing, i can’t tell which.

i look sideways at you.

you sit on your
swing,
scuff your converse
in the dirt, your mouth
a band
of steel,
clamped.

you sit there, fondling
your cigarette and i stare at my shoes
and we are alone.
you flick ash and try to make me choose
between a future with,
or without you.

my mind is a racing,
ticking bomb
counting down.
please,

don't go
having you here is like breathing clear

(for

the first time in years)

Saturday, November 5, 2005

six a.m. waffle house *

i plead with my
stomach to at least
keep down the coffee
as i try not to
stick
to my space at the counter.

i need the caffeine.
long night? why yes, it
was. is. nights blend
into days into
nights i cannot
remember. it matters
less and less that i
can't, or didn't sleep.

i broke us both a
week ago
and hit
the pavement trying to shake
the chasm
you left
in me

this morning i watched
first the fog come in
and then dissipate as
my car worked the
curves in the road.
i drove to remember,
or forget—
never chose.




*B.A. senior thesis poem

Friday, November 4, 2005

tell me directly

say the words i need to hear.
you do not care
how this breaks me.
it does not matter that the only thing
i was holding on to was your
broken, shattered promise
of silence.
your words are far sharper than
any blade i could ever
take to my skin.
tell me - why bother
with the lie?
how long did you wait
before you stomped your oath
into the ground,
spelling me broken, mutilated,
crying rocking with my head slammed
against a wall (you did not
touch me, or try to help my pain)
my stomach is wrecked and bleeding,
i am raging angry at you,
you promised
i want to scream at you and break
your stuff and hit you so hard
you hit me back.
the pain
should bloody well fucking show
and it shows
but never enough.
there is not blood enough
to show this sufficiently.

Tuesday, November 1, 2005

why memoirist might lie

what scares me more, i wonder -
that, in time, these scars will fade
or that their presence
will never leave?
i do not know which is worse:
self-negation, or self-erasure
will white lines haunt well
into my tired, old life,
or will they, like
the rest of my past,
leave me standing,
grasping at straws?

Thursday, October 27, 2005

insomniac *

watching others sleep
in a strange house
amounts to: alone
so i mouth the word
in every
language i have a grasp on.

solamente, seulement.


my breathing
is the only noise because i've
muted the television

my limbs
graze the sofa,
and clink ice in my glass.
i
wince when
every gesture i make
echoes through the living room
when i walk, and the soft pads of my feet
thump against the bare wooden floors
but i know
no sound really matters.

the toilet flush and my restless shifting
in your bed did not disturb before, and so i won't
annoy you now with whisper-soft footfalls
or the sneaky hiss and hum of
the refrigerator
when i refill
the ice
for my scotch

although it doesn't stop
me from attempting silence like
the intruder it seems i am when
i see you two curled
around each other
shrimp cocktail
on
your
bed

when four hours ago, i was holding
you.


will the alcohol
do for a sleep aid, or do i
try
to smoke myself into
oblivion?
the tv light flickers
across my book’s pages. tonight is chilly outside
and ideal for the kind of rambling, blind
pacing i plan on engaging in, losing myself up
and down the streets, through your unknown
neighborhood, until my
body is worn and collapsing.
sleep (or not), heavenly fucking peace.




*senior thesis poem.

yes, i realize, at some point, i have no doubt titled another poem (or two) the same thing...
this is the one with "insomniac" as the official title. official, as in published.
to be frank, titles are very fluid with me. i tend to either get stuck on one thing (no matter how bad) or change it countless times. or to pick something randomly, stick it on there, and years later be so confused when i come across the weirdest working titles in the universe. it is, without fail, the very last thing i edit on a poem.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

type O[negative] *

october music

settles
her down in her niche,
she feels herself
slip
ping
back in.

hello blood,
razor
blades,
(ohpositive),

wrists,

madness.

sleep
becomes a memory. it does not seem
to matter the little sleep she had
the night
before
was really
passing
out,

coming down
from stimulant, hallucinogen,
depressant,
[mix

liberally].

she tries
not to
sleep. it feels,
more permanent, a
forceful takeover
each morning requires
sys-
tem

shock.

sleep
snatches, terrifies her
here it comes, she can feel

the signs. the middle,
tripfall—this is less certain.
the madness,
an endless thing
takes her over
again.


it will only be
later, through the recollections of others
that she will remember anything at all.





*senior thesis poem

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

what we do not let ourselves feel

it's to do with fingertips, the travel
on skin
up and down, light enough to
tickle, the hesitance.
it's to do with kisses so soft they
don't even pucker , but brush me
and leave goosebumps
in their wake. it's to do with
being awakened in the night
just to touch and be touched -
the realization that i have been
caressed the entire night through.
it's the new attractiveness of melting,
stuck together with sweat,
that look you give me when i
appear to be paying no attention.
it's to do with what i can feel for
someone silently, on the other end
of the couch, while you burn away
(but keep to your side, to be polite)

Monday, October 24, 2005

it only hurts when i make you cry*

i realize now how much i missed
fingerpainting my blood into
poetry
i am what i am,
insane.
(i do not pretend otherwise)

a warning, of sorts
prophecy, if you will.

i
can’t stand
to see your face
when you fail to tie me
together, helpless against the
bite
of the razors, the
tremor of my hands, the tears or
the haze when
i lose myself.

i do
not get close.

i say it
like a mantra
(someone else will come first)

should
leaving be necessary, my
litany
is well-rehearsed.

my oft-repeated organized flight
into my small,
dark mind where my blood
cements everything,
black is always my color.

i begin to sink
into my wonderland.
take my drugs as i like it,
feel the tingling limbs jerk
in
feeble response.
i am not nearly numb enough, no.
i do not know if i ever will be.
i pull
down
my sleeves
over my slashed arms.
yes,
i do cut and mutilate myself and
no,
it is none of your business.


Stop
Fucking
Staring.




*part of my senior B.A. thesis. yes, i was highly controversial.

Sunday, October 23, 2005

i really can't*

love (no, not
at all, not
even a little,
okay, maybe,
maybe i do.) you




*senior thesis poem

Saturday, October 22, 2005

unquenchable

this is a pretty predicament,
an ironic note too good
to be kept quiet,
oh why
didn't i see it before. my
cunt has walked me into
another way to shatter my heart.
i will fill my small self
full of bittersweet memories.
i will let you know the capacity,
the meaning of the moments
i carefully hoard.
hand in mine, rub thumb
to fingertip, lips to palm, feel
the pull of warm body
pressed to you, holding
arms, crooked smile.

Friday, October 21, 2005

white quartz dawn

if you have not made the trip then
i cannot give you a clear picture.
the blurry pre-dawn light, your
headlights on and ineffectual -
it is still night for you. you
have not yet slept. you are
fresh from your lover's arms,
skin prickling in the relatively cool air
of the morning, makeup smeared
down your face. your roommates
greet your bleary night face with
morning energy.
eyes blurring, head
pounding with all the reasons
you had to leave and all the
reasons you wanted to fiercely beg
her to let you stay.
the incident
is inconsequential. it does not matter
why you left or why you
could not stay.
the only thing left
is the utter isolation of being
the only person awake from the night before
as the sun streams through your curtains
and the rest of the world awakens, drives
to work and drinks their coffee.

Thursday, October 20, 2005

[tweaked and unhinged]

i could speak of blood, but
you have heard it ad infinitum
from me.
i could speak of love, but
i have none to speak of,
save something that flutterwings
around, transparent and intangible
so that even your arms, strong
as they are, cannot cement this,
nor our expectantly fearful faces.
i could speak of loneliness, but
it cannot be described concretely
enough for you to see me
knees drawn up, feet resting on
the sideboards of my bed, i tight
in my corner, four am, the realization
that i will be sleeping alone.
i will not speak of blood, fascinated
though i may be, or of love because
i have no one to speak about.
loneliness one can imagine, or remember.
i don't know why i am speaking,
or about what. i have only two
certainties: my room is too silent,
and i wish you were holding me.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

i’ve been marked by better than you*

but suddenly it is your absence
that
bruises me, although my hips
still ache with the insistence of
your touch last night,

and oh,
i have to let this go
i see
the way it plays out.

you left
as the sun was coming
up and i am still not
tired i am
jit tery awake
but
exhausted, knowing that the day
will begin again, in only a few hours.
i am beginning to think
i am meant for
betrayal.




*senior thesis poem

Monday, October 17, 2005

cathedral*

i can't
leave a secret be, i pull myself into
hiding places, the cold wide metal ladder
on the third floor ascending to forgotten
niches
i lose myself in, the hole in the ceiling
leading to boards laid, not nailed
across rafters which lead to
steep wooden ladders, unattached, and rickety
with age.
light filters only
through the supporting framework for the
rose window, the two tiny arched gothic windows
covered by wire to deter
the birds
and bats.
and i sit
on the highest point i can reach, the
narrow walkway slatted with ancient boards, nailed
by long-dead men,
which raise the highest
arch of the interior, the soaring ceiling
i now sit over.

my phone glowing in the dusty
dusk,
i called her, whispered
i miss you
to her recorded voice,
may as well talk
to myself in the mirror, but even
my looking glass is
unreachable.
any private place
may do, but tonight's
the burrow that lies
disregarded
on the top of cathedral arches,
the hole i lie in
to hide the abscess at
my core,
[wholly, holy, holey]





*in my thesis, edited quite a bit, but the original intent is all there.

Saturday, October 15, 2005

fork

spoon with me,
either
side is fine
i just want you all
hot body pressed
to mine, i want
warm naked skin
next to me all night

goosebumps though i'm sweating,
i want
small lithe frame
wildly escaping hair
come on, lie
next to me all night

let our bodies ballet
in the slow languor of sleep
or we'll stay awake laughing,
and kissing, together
close
all night

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

do not deny *

the message
gets mangled in the afterglow.

the glint of white, iris, pupil
that flicks to your eyes, arms,
staringintospace,
[guiltily into] eyes

cannot become the cure,
or the substitute
for the blade
you’ve taken to your crying veins.

nothing can be.

you have
tasted a poison sweetly sinister
it settles into you
nothing else
will do.

let the red
run. coping systems die hard, or
seldom do. the virus goes under-
ground, unchecked,
unnoticed for
years

until you find yourself again
crouching down, spilling your blood.

how, then, do you
learn to let it go?
the
vividly visual wristual evidence
that screams out no, i
am not okay.
(thank you
for noticing)


how do you live
without it?
the familiar
burning ritual,
the nod
to the fuckup inside?


stand straight,
tall, proud.

bear your scars.




*senior thesis poem

Wednesday, October 5, 2005

choka

sometimes i wish as
you walk to your car i would
move to your side and
tell you how lovely you are.
you do not know that
i stare at you in class and
imagine you were
willing to agree on how
lovely we could be.
beauty like yours should not be
wasted on a man like that.

Saturday, October 1, 2005

places of power

in my mind this building
pulses, it holds the revered -
the powers that make certain places
sing the spiritual.
energy abides here, the thousands
of yearnings of centuries of reverence3
to deities has gifted this place
a hum that's bittersweet
and attracts those searching
for more.
days ago we discussed the meaning
i said there wasn't one,
because in all the chaos
i have found the patterns, but
even these do not have answers,
only order.
i pick up the resonance,
but this, too holds no answers,
just energy that i
cannot hold,
only the knowledge
that the supernatural exists.
so
i let it touch me

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

waiting for fall

the wind
gusts sideways and back,
raining leaves down
on the concrete
and dragging them in circles
and patterns
and their dry scuttle,
like a dance devoid of choreography,
their minuet with the spirits
fitful and hesitant until
they fall from the breeze, stick
in between the crevices of benches
and the cracks of sidewalks,
dry and crunching beneath her feet.
she stands on the sidewalk
looking down,
but she is seeing something
so far away from this place.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

blind and numb

yeah and these days
i'm waiting for something
that has value and heft
but i end up grasping nothing and
staring at my blank
computer screen.
i am seeing and not
finding, if you know
what i mean.
yeah and these days
i rarely see beyond
the end of my pipe; its haze
is familiar and far
more comforting
than the tableau that greet
my unveiled eyes.
so i walk in a cloud,
that is fine. i am lost
in the inner recesses of my mind.
no doubt the calm exterior
is a welcome change.
but even after all this time i find
i still rasp the wrong way,
stubble against delicate skin,
leaving bruises and blotches in
my path.
i never meant to become
this hard, or
off-putting
or mean. yeah and these days
i don't set my purpose
to making others flees;
their impulses must be
auto-pilot, knee-jerk, save-our-souls
reflex - a survival mechanism
they are perhaps right to heed.
why muck down with my messes? why
see past a surface armored and
weapon-filled, to the naked,
cowering creature behind?
these questions are useless
yeah and these days
i can see it scatter right in front
of my eyes
and i don't know anymore
and maybe i never did
but i keep looking for something
with weight and,
every time
falling short.

Friday, September 16, 2005

come full circle

how many years
did i long
for you to bend your body
to mine and take
my lips in yours?
how many times
did i play the scene?
of course, as life
often plays out, it
was nothing as i had imagined.
it was me,
who brought you close, and
tilted my head
and took your lips for my own.

i don't know where it goes
from here,
although i'm pretty sure
i know this time
the feeling's mutual.
but here's where there is
no trail - no connect the dots,
find the ways it should play,
to lay out what will give us
the ending we are looking for.
even my expectations must now fall away.
i have no idea what i want
out of this, i can only watch -
we could be everything - or nothing.
we could find folly,
find a happiness unimagined
by us both.
or, looking back to this moment
we could see something
that needed no changing -
here we are,
element introduced,
moment taken -
irrevocably changed,
if only for a night.
where do we go
from here?

Monday, September 12, 2005

it is

so strange that
the years have not diluted
my longing for you
to lean in
and kiss me.
i believed i was over this,
years ago
but i suppose
some loves never die,
after all.
why now?
we were so blind when
we were younger, more
similar, both
longing for the pretty
neighbor kid something
fierce.
now
i cannot fathom a way
it could possibly work - yet
like two magnets,
we are opposite poles
and we are irresistibly drawn in
every time.
i can see it in your eyes.
but i am everything
your morals
stand against
you don't want what
i can offer.
but i saw the way tonight
you hesitated, held your face
close to mine.
i made the decision for you.
it was not the right time.
don't get me wrong - i
wanted it to happen,
wanted my fairy tale ending
more than i can explain.
but i am terrified - to give in
to this would jeopardize our
hard-won friendship, the
painstakingly built trust,
and i know
your heart only wants mine
when mine's unavailable.
so perhaps
if i hold back enough
from you,
then i can make you look
and see me,
really see me.

Monday, September 5, 2005

watching velvet night begin

my hands shake i
know the signs
the quick, darting movements
where precision becomes impossible
i am fluttering paper blown
by the wind, the breeze moves
my transient ways, my hair flows
in an unseen force
we may only experience
by noting how it changes
everything else.
the sun goes
into its descent and evening begins
to set claws into the passive sky.

Friday, September 2, 2005

so steve says, “if you fuck her, do you think you’ll get her out of your system??” *

her breaths come quick
when she is kissing me, her
soft sigh
starting up high

and then descending in
pitch, “hhmnm,”
slightly

muffled by my lips
that
insist

upon knowing the very
best of her tonal ranges
and gasps

while my fingers
slip and hold, she swaying
against my taut arm
cheek crushed againstinto my shoulder

(those gasps come quicker
now, the
rise and
fall
of
winded lungs)

moans

delicious

her curves rest
their weight on my flesh
and i support her
trembling limbs,
and run
my fingers
down
her back and sides




[hardly]






*senior thesis poem

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

near the eye august 29, 2005 *

i.

i’m watching the back yard
dance in the winds, trees
moving their hips in a circular
motion to match the salsa
rhythms
of the wind.

it’s

seven or eight.
the light is
filtered

through dirty
dishwater clouds
and
lightning
flashes as the day darkens upon

the city.

and i with my open
window, blinds shoved upward,

am awake alone, my roommates long since sleeping,
as i watch the trees
shake
their hair and tango in
the gusts of the wind
to the music that
cannot be heard, only watched quietly

in awe
of power, and beauty.





ii.
the sky is misty, all
the water in the air
thrown by the winds

back and forth
splattering buckets against
my window
in a cycle of nature’s finest
powers of destruction

and i am watching the pines

bend down,
like supplicants
down

no vegetation untouched
by the dancing winds,
the four foot
weeds in our back yard
crushed
as
they start, and slow
bend
and blow
in the buffets
from
all sides, a
beautiful
synchronized

chaos as the trees find the
rhythm and ride,

body swaying, hips
beating a life well-
lived.




*senior thesis poem.
about, obviously enough, experiencing hurricane katrina as it bore through mobile

Friday, August 26, 2005

go obfuscate yourself *

we play with the meaning
of nudity,
only cover the
important
parts.

suspended
in a haze
of smoke, and liquor, and girls,
you can lose hours,
whiled away with searing
glances, the play
between the sexes,
false seductions, alcoholic
flirtations that
sway
and bend

when asked for veracity.
an atmosphere of lies,
few things as they seem,

and i flirt with these men,
i do
i lie with my body and say
things i’d never mean; buy
me a drink, buy time with me,
buy my hot body gyrated
over your lap so you can
run to
the
restroom
when your time is up

in grim imitation
of longing, of desire, of being
close to someone,
being held.



* B.A. senior thesis poem. i'm sure it's not everyday the students turn in poems about stripping in their thesis. i'm pretty sure i hold the title on that one.

Sunday, August 14, 2005

confession

and yes, i worshipped you

i bent to kiss your scarred ankles
and held your broken body
in an attempt to make you feel
anything other than pain.

i lived for you, your breath
alone was my religion. (if i keep
you alive, then i will not die)
but my adoration you turned to
heresy.
i cannot forget
the utter despair of realizing
that the love of my life had looked me
square in my eyes
and turned her back on me.

Saturday, August 13, 2005

barfly

lately, i have joined the single few
who go to bars
in an attempt to make the
ache fade.
time stretches and slows
opposite my longings, races past my groping
hands, rocketing into the no man's
land that means i must start over
again.
i am tired of new beginnings
that excite, and then let down.
time
marching forward
does not slow for
my broken psyche, my muttered pleas,
the unwillingness to be thrown back
into the race.
i am still wearing my
hobbles, desperate to hold onto
the familiar, yet dying to be free.

Friday, August 12, 2005

please pardon

i don't know where the hours go
i sit, unmoving and time flies around me,
for i am but small impedimentia in the way.
i blink and the sun is coming around my
curtains and i am wondering where
the hours go
forcing my insomniac eyes
to close before it is too bright to sleep.
and i know that it is on purpose that i
avoid the oblivion of sleep, but
my reasons are obscure
i'm wishing that the few minutes
i had with
her hands stroking my flesh tonight
could have lasted into the early
hours. i am more lonely than i
have the right to be.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

gasping and shivering

you used to say wings were for you
and i don't know how much
you've forgotten, but i've had to remind
myself every so often of the
nearly three years of space
between us,
i have clung
tightly to the memories
of what we were and
remembered your words,
our whispered promises
in the dark, your
talk of wings swelling
my heart.

i don't
know if you still
desire that pattern of ink
on your skin, but
baby if you're still
yearning to fly then please
oh please
just let me know

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

hindsight

you spend your whole life attempting
to be like all the others
and you wonder why your heart
won't cave and
why the boys
they mean nothing.
you chide yourself for your cruelty
and expect next time to be different
yet it never changes,
and then
you meet her
and she inflames you
like nothing else
and you spend years chasing her memory
and crying because she is gone.

you do not realize the importance of this lesson.

Tuesday, August 9, 2005

passing through

it's the loneliness i can't handle, the
feeling that i am utterly alone,
disconnected from the world
devoid of any ties
i've developed to a
fine tune the skill of ignoring
those around me, yet now
i long
for physical contact. i have not
had so much as a hug from
anyone but a stranger's mother, who
greeted me cajun-style in a bar
in new orleans, where i began
perfecting the personae of the
girl who sings, and doesn't mind
if her skirt is see-through.
so forgive my habit of observing
you in the late night hours

Monday, July 18, 2005

you i worshipped

i don't know
what to feel anymore
a sense of finality, a peace
that covers the mess
of lies between us
an unfinished conversation, we are
a letter half-written, with
no reply in sight,
the unfinished novel
that moulders on the writer's desk
and i loathe this
i am not okay
with our unfinished state,
i needed an ending
i could understand, an encore
as the applause faded
into the night air
i don't know
it's a past of what-ifs and why-mes
and i cannot detangle the good times
from the times that felt
like dying
the picture blurred and spotted
even in my mind.
her limbs around me,
i cannot even remember this bliss
without also the times she would
not touch me she would not
and she will not
touch me.

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

roles we play

if i just let go
of all of it,
then what
will my identity be
shaped by?
who else will i become?
what else will open
for me,
as the years begin
to unfold?
i am buzzing
the pulse of the energy
i cannot manipulate, only
sense with a fierce longing
and an inquiry,
what are you,
what am i
a part of?

Monday, June 27, 2005

they realize what the scars are from

my sickness outed,
i can feel the eyes on me
as if i do not have the perfect right
to blow myself
spectacularly
to pieces...

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

heart drop down

it's the letting go, the realization that you're
not all right
but it's okay, and you
are ready to go on,
bare body in the
moonlight again, half shadow and half
blazing with shimmery light
as you
clutch your wounded heart with the
transparent, fragile beauty you do not see
in yourself and you wait to love again
while you swear off the whole mess entirely

but you can't escape love, it snatches
and tears at your heart, begging a night's
lodging, and you know better,
but you always let love in.
despite the struggle,
the constant reality of pain versus the fairy tales
the cutting of her abandonment, the sting
of his lies when you discover the truth.
love is a game, a battleground, a muddy
field slick with rain and gore
as you sink neck deep into the refuse
you weep and realize that yet, if not
for this feeling, the despair and
tumultuous passion, you would
never be able to feel truly alive.

Monday, June 20, 2005

thor*

it is beautiful outside.

thunder
rolls across the sky and the rain
quickens from a sprinkle on the
roof to rain
so thick it makes the air grey.
i am really ready for it


i've nothing to do all day but get wet
and watch the deluge form puddles
and rivers on my street.
days like this i miss being twelve,
when you're not old enough to
be embarrassed by wearing a
swim suit outside in the rain,

to
frolic in the flooding streets.
but i am old enough to have the
excuse of
run-
ning
to my car to get wet,

and i'll go

with that.






* in my B.A. thesis as well... almost completely unedited.

Saturday, June 18, 2005

in days, i will break up with you.

it's that heartstop realization,
the dread
twisting you into nauseated knots,
the place where
"what if it doesn't work"
becomes "how can it?"
but it's not over
it's never
that simple that easy that clear - emotions
are see-through as mud
and you fumble through
knowing you're doomed
yet attempting to change the future
with the wrong tools and the wrong person
and the wrong heart

Saturday, May 7, 2005

wasting time

i have often wondered
if love can ever be wasted
like always wanting
and never being able
to touch her, kiss
her body
does this waste love?

am i wasting -
have i wasted my blood
in aimless love
hoping she would understand/

we all hope we aren't failures
throwing away our love
and our lives
learning how to break our own hearts

Monday, April 18, 2005

i can see that

soft boots, scarves tying
back your hair, clothing
scavenged from thrift stores
or sewed by inexpert hands.
i've been there - i've stitched in my
uneven way, and rescued
soft and flowing things from
scrap bins and enjoyed every
uneven, raggedy hem from
my own hands. i
can relate to that. the need
to create your own life, instead
of buying it prepackaged off a shelf.
they were hippies, or poor college students
or dancers who liked to recycle or
children of the night who bought black by
the yard and draped their bodies until
they finally believed that they, too, were beautiful.
it's not an isolated theory - so many
live by the same principles, no matter
the era, or what precise thing you abused
to transcend a deadened life
you could not remove yourself from.
through the decades each generation tries
to separate itself from our diseased society
one religion, life-theory, commune,
drug, scar, eyeliner line, rip, and seam at a time.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

holding on

he says, let everything go
and back away,
but he speaks as one
who is used to people
who come to him to talk
i am afraid
that if i
withdraw any more
i will become as invisible
as i feel
standing here
in a place we used to come to,
and touch
and watching you
walk by me
as if i was no more
to you (or less)
than the rain on your shoes

Friday, March 4, 2005

remains

your lies were
not even
delicate
you did not
try to stain my world
a better shade
you just bloodied the water
left scars
and walked away
with stained fingertips

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

predictions

his voice drawls across the lines of verse
smearing metaphors and symbols off of
their pages and into his neat, labeled
& organized boxes where they drop down dully,
stripped of life and beauty. venerated authors
have their words amputated from their poems
[i shudder to imagine Plath's consternation at
his butchery of "Mirror."]
seeing this ripping,
tearing, ignorance of the meaning and truths
behind mere words - do i really want the
cutthroat treachery of fame?
for the priviledge of watching teachers rip apart
my heart and soul, watch the fragments
of meaning twitch and jerk, dissected,
devoid of the emotion i have invested so carefully,
trembling upon the cold steel of a critic's surgery table.

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

all i have left of him

a gaping hole he
used to occupy,
some snapshots
that seem so trivial now
the things left on my computer
that i do not need...
i leave crumbled in my hands
the useless dreams of yesterday
like chattel in the wind.
let the rain wash away
my heart - i have no use
for the filthy little thing.

Saturday, January 15, 2005

keeping the bad with the good

if i threw away
every broken promise
all the times i cried
while you stood
silent, across the room
every single caress
that later turned
to ash in my mouth
every time you hurt me
all of your phone calls
the touch of your hands
in the dark
if i ceased to remember
all the times it hurt
and the way syou let me down
then i could scarcely
remember you
at all.