Sunday, March 30, 2008

wanting

i don't know what
to say to you, i am lost
in this.
i need to cry it out
but i don't know how;
i have lost
the reaction.
& i know it's not
what it happening, it's that
i want someone to really need me
call me up at night
saying come over, just
come over. talk to me.
i'm steeping in country
misery music, & i keep waiting
for someone who will want
to figure me out & show
the heart of the matter
i keep waiting, but
the opportunity is hiding
amidst my confusion
& i can almost feel tears & i'm
wanting it so badly but
it's a long time coming
it's not coming
it's not coming
at all.

Monday, March 24, 2008

comprehending

i need to know you
in order to escape you,
or to stay
i can't continue with
only glimpses of you.
now i know you won't call
when i said
you would, partly
out of spite,
but mostly
you're afraid of needing me
as badly as you do - scared
of letting me into
the spaces in your life
that have no room
for lying,
which is hard to do
while telling yourself
you don't want
what you do,
that you don't need a center
to hold on to.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

archiving it

i don't have to dig deep down
to find the center
of who i was, once
i wasn't so complex
composed of sneering anger
and most of all,
bubbling fear of life,
which now seems
more justified
than i would have given
the emotion credit due.
i fear more now,
knowing
what there is to lose.
i'd rather lose the chance
and make my peace
with solitude,
and silent walls
where books stand sentinel against
signs of life
and the only thing
that stirs
will be a bit of dust
raising itself in salute
as i walk past.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

specificity

i am not quite sure why
but "homeless"
is a smell

quite specific, and in no way duplicable
not the stench of hard sweat, or
the utter lack of baths,
which is still different -

more of dirt, and unwashed
clothing
off someone who still tries
for cleanliness when it's possible -
the lived-in smell of a
claustrophobic winter, when it's
too cold to strip down
and become bare,
as well as you can try
to wash something in a park
bathroom when
you have nothing else to put on.

i've had friends who've smelled so,
unwashed hair
and the smell of earth,
oddly familiar
and comfortable

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

reasons

when we fuck
you stare
into me as though reaching
for my core.
you're not far. you are here. right now.
in me.
we move together, and fit
tightly. we meld. slow and
stop. begin again. slowly.
like... yes.
touch me here.
i want you to.
come.

it is this:
hands, palms, arms and legs interlaced
your head
fitted neatly beneath my chin.
we're magnetized
together; thigh to thigh,
stroke hair from the face.
our inability
to disengage.
you
hand me a paintbrush, tell me
to make art of my words,
laugh off my frustrated anger,

you do not ignore:
you pull me back to you
when i'm far away

and one day,
because i felt depressed,
you brought armfuls
of baby roses. 217.
i counted.
that's it. that care, that desire

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

felines

i should take
what i want from you,
pry it slowly from
your unresisting palm.
i should make your body
my playground.

we spent the morning in bed,
working out our kinks.
i said,
bite me til i bleed.
i wanted to feel your hold on me.

you look far away now,
living out your fears in your head
while i relax, my limbs buttery
your guilt
i won't take part in.

i will say: touch
me, lick me,
tear my clothes off,
let's slam into each other until
the world recedes.
you'll leave your worries behind,
and i
i will purr,
like a cat
with a mouse in its mouth,
tail hanging limply down
between the teeth.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

my image on the negatives

downstairs on a mattress,
fucking
someone i barely knew
i was thinking of you

and the way you feel when
you crawl into my head
wishing it was you
inside me
feeling slightly guilty about being
far away from my body

but i've rarely been inside reality, recently.
your hands are the only touch
my body responds to.
i've made my move-on gestures,
left
your body behind,

but you are still inside my mind.
still curled around me like a cat.
now you creep closer on the couch,
wrap your limbs around me

you don't know how to deal with the
conundrum i provide,
so you don't
and change your body language
to fit the hourly mood

someday, i will find your cracks
and i will stand and knock,
knock
until you
build a gate
to let me through

so i tiptoe on your uneven ground
stubbing my toes against

Monday, March 3, 2008

gambling

you
will list a litany of reasons
it's not supposed to work

and i will think:
yes,
but in spite of this,
it's already working.

we fit into each other
you the sheath for my knife,
i the
pusher-and-puller of your boundaries.
i stretch you. you
calm me.
keep me still.

but you hold couch-side discussions still,
discoursing the fickle future,
and how the world changes
so easily.

i do not disagree.
but we parry back & forth, each time
repeating ourselves.

you say:
i am scared.

as also am i. but to concede defeat
to fear i find distasteful
i've always let those i loved
slip through my holes and leave.
i will not wait, this time,
so placidly.

i will say:
the only thing wrong
with us is your fear we may fail.


how sad, to never attempt
because you might not succeed.

i say:
chance it.

you say:
i don't know
if you're worth the risk.

Sunday, March 2, 2008

dizziness

making friends with the strange realities
in my head again,
i'm jittery
staring off at nothing
and watching
my hands flutter like leaves on the trees.

waiting for the shaking to stop,
trying to ease off the dizzy spell
that threatens
to crash in and drown me in its wake.
and my tenuous grasp on this pen makes me wonder
what i'm really doing,
i mean
where am i in all this,
what am i doing
to my body,
how long
will i survive this?

i need sensation or sleep
or
a massage or
a good fuck
a long cry
or all of the above
and i need it
until i can make my body stop.

still.

force my heartbeat (or just my heart)
into its proper place
& metabolic rate.
i will not throw up: repeat
until you believe it, or fail.

watch the page waver beneath
your frenetic fingers,
and hope with all your might
that when the person who relieves you at work
finally comes in,
he won't find you on the floor,
head slumped between your knees.

Saturday, March 1, 2008

and won't (no requiem for the wounded)

i don't want to say "itoldyouso,"
i'm not gloating
at such a high price.

i was hoping one of us,
at least,
could come out of our wreckage
smiling.
now, you lean on me
and i feel your heart pounding
under my fingers,
racing along with mine
and i
wouldn't wish this on a total stranger,
much less you.
there is nothing to do for it, we
may only pick up our pieces
and limp away, i
leaking my bloody tears and you
tearing a hole in the canvas
where your heart should be.
no, this makes me feel worse,
as if even
the slightest happiness this house
might have seen
has torn away
from your outstretched fingers

i fear our future
these holes in us both that
we haven't the skill to fix,
the ache
nothing can fill, fuel, forget.
forgive.