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?

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.

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

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)

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.

i really can't*

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




*senior thesis poem

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.

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.

[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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.