hai

she's wet and dripping
holding her towel closely
until she sees me.

villanelle

i don't think i'm the kind of girl you're looking for
my emotions bend and sway
and you don't seem willing to put up with me anymore.

i'd look to even the score
between us but i think you'd rather i make my way.
i don't think i'm the kind of girl you're looking for.

and darling i just can't ignore
the way you always leave now, and never stay
the night. you don't seem willing to put up with me anymore.

it's in the way you don't touch me or
repair the tears that fray
our fabric. i'm not the kind of girl you're looking for.

and i don't know if i could have done more
to get you to stay
but you don't seem willing to put up with me anymore.

and this won't be a chore
i'll leave, though i won't know why i'm walking out this way
i don't think i'm the kind of girl you're looking for
and you don't seem willing to put up with me anymore.

sestina in the key of swingset

children are flying
they pull at the chains of the swing,
their voices crying
out, laughing, trying
to transcend from the sharp
daylight into worlds of their own construct. the creak

of the chains transports them as the kids creak
out hoarse chanteys, legs flying
and flailing. a sharp
ache assails me as i watch them swing.
there, at night, there i sat trying
(but failing) to stop crying.

and the crying
is not what made me weak. i had to creak
out the tears. my ducts were rusty. but trying
to remember the feeling of flying
with you by my side, on the other swing -
this gets me every time. the pain is poisonous and sharp

a sudden wash, a tired ache, sharp
and insistent, nothing more, or less. crying
will not make it stop. i come here to swing
when the children are gone, to hear the creak
of the chains, and to think of you. it's not flying
anymore, without you here trying

to fly too. but memory is sometimes trying
sharp
and clear, when forgetting would be a blessing. and flying
brings no freedom, only chains. i'm crying
with every part but my eyes. creak, creak.
the swing

sighs and moans. i could swing
for hours if the wind wasn't trying
to turn my edges blue but even the trees creak
and groan in the sharp
biting breeze. i'm sick of crying,
tired of flying

alone. the swing chains are sharp
with cold. and now i'm trying - i'm not crying
but this familiar creak no longer means flying.

indecision

the ways you treat me are ambiguous
and change daily
last week i was wrapped around you
and enjoying your mouth in mine

tonight your hands explore
my body familiarly
but no more
than anything a friend does
to another friend they feel
close to,
but share no spark
of passion.

i have made my feelings for you
as transparent as water.
you neither mirror my desires
not run away from them,
leaving me staring at your
beautiful face, like always
unable to see the answers.

desperate measures

sometimes it seems as though i've
simply taken a break
and any
day now
i'll walk back in the
door to your welcoming arms.
i know what i'm doing to myself
is torture but sadly enough
it seems to help

the ache of not seeing your face
light up with a smile when
you see me does not cease,
but sometimes i manage to
drown it out with the
right mix of drugs. i know
better this time.

trying to change things is like
attempting to turn my skin
right side in

you are
working too much and i know
what you're doing.
this semester i lost myself
and my grip

and i kept looking at the phone
and wishing so badly to hear
you speak on the
other end of the line.

there is no quick fix, no superglue
will hold this broken thing
together.
i'll hold the shards
in a small box tucked away
in the back of the closet
so i won't think, too much
of you.

a glimpse through the window

take a look see now
the tableau, the long fingers
that run over my body, what
does it say about me?
yes
what does it say? enveloped
in arms, what do i feel and
how do i go from here?
my hair falls into my
face, candles flicker in
the darkness, the melancholy
notes filter down, nostalgic.

miss you, mirror, i hope you
are happy with him i wish
i could see you.

heart still
beats.
take a breath and start
listening and lie back down,
eyes closed and spinning.

[auto]sarcophagy *

your mouth is bleeding
it wasn't intentional, you just
chewed it red,
a nervous
(guilty?) habit

you’ve done it for years
like your father before you
just another thing to make your sanity
suspect
: (maybe you’re due
for an inspection.)

understand
you could do worse,
have before.
a hole-ridden mouth
is private, known only
to those who are too
close
not to taste.
but blood flows for you,
no way around it —
comes when you least want
the obligation,
trickles
down your arms and fingers, a
wristful of mental case

your bloody show
your life-like girl

blood becomes a lifestyle,
a way of crying
when the tears
won't flow, when
you fade

into numbness.

blood
constant companion, friend
you always have
within arm's reach.
spill your life onto the paper,
ink, blood, passion, fingernails,
razorblade, tears, sweat, heartbreak

throw your wordy bloody gauntlet
down (you)
stupid fucking bleeding
poet.




*B.A. senior thesis poem.

for the uninitiated, the title basically means "self-cannibalism."
i am particularly smug about this one, i like it a lot.
(thesaurus power!)

privation *

this loss is physical it
hits the solar plexus, making the
air hard to
suck,
these
corrugated
metal
steep
stairs

a
dizzying
ascending
vertical
slog.

my vision swims but whether
from tears or
the ache you leave
in me
is unclear.


today i sat all day,
phone in front
of me on the counter.
i
do not want to hear the ring
which i already know will explode us
like a grenade held
in a soldier's hand, the
pin flung far.
my body feels what i will
not accept.

i have lost you. i
wait
for the call that ends
our fragile, uncertain ties.
shivers
shake my shoulders as i wrap
my arms around
my gut wound,
stomach cramped,


and empty.
is this desire, mourning,
violent anger? my body
knows only the terrible
wrongness,

the void.






*senior thesis poem

conflagration *

[part 1]
the cold eats through the
blankets, hats, gloves, but you
warm me so well i
let go these layers,
strip myself for you and burn us
both to ash, to bone.
my searing lips sprawl your small frame
on my bed

my thumbs on your nipples,
the buttons you love to loathe
that send
electricity down your
spine and through your arms
which attempt (but fail) to pin
my limbs.
you gasp. go on,
touch me. i won’t pull away.

i will burn us
to ash, to bone.
give me
power and your limp extremities
will twitch and jerk.
burn me, burn you
set us smoldering
and watch the sparks catch

in the white-hot heat of our connected hands.
scorch me now,
burn me, ash, bone, blood
burn you to nothing but
cinders
between us

burst into flames.






[part 2]

fire is
dangerous, but mostly
it elicits transformation — blistered palms,
flushed
sweaty faces,
flickering light that romanticizes
even the harshest
features.
fingers snatch
back
from the flames or else
accept
the burning sensation, the flames

jumping playfully from
candle
to bonfire
but
realize, please, that all of this
fun

with flames
will necessitate the fire
of untruths, the burning
lies,
loathed,
to
keep the flaming show from setting
life afire, from

letting the searing heat out
so that others might
feel the touch
of fire
and be hypnotized
by the burn.




*senior thesis poem

education

hours spent passing back and forth
the hose of the hookah, aromatic tobacco
scenting the air, dreamy.
our voices rising excitedly,
gleaming tidbits of information,
learning more in an afternoon about
life, love and other idiosyncrasies
than semesters of college
ever could teach.
hours lived in a carefree, non-
obligated moment, a brief gasp
of eternity
long limbs, hands that encompassed
mine, feel of a length stretched
down your side, close, whole.
unconditional love, words whispered
in ears that do not demand
reciprocation, merely the knowledge.
sunshine in the afternoon
that glints off of your white pages,
blinding in the ecstasy of a
lazy walk through a moment,
a beautiful brick history that leads
to buildings with antiquity
where you channel knowledge
as a conduit that passes
through time.

(last night i had) *

drinks in a stifling, smoke-choked
bar where i told a stranger we
should be friends. i am done


with subtlety. today, stale
cigarette smell clings to my
unwashed hair so i tie it back
to displace the offensive reek.
tonight
promises more smoke, a
whirlwind afternoon filled with
duties before drinking becomes
the only certainty in
the always-changing plan
of the night:
following the band van to another
disgusting bar to do the

only

thing i'm really up for—
watch the one who gives me
that fluttery feeling

on stage, singing into a mic,
stroking beauty out of the
mandolin with nimble fingers





*senior thesis poem

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?

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

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.

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...

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

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.

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)

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

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.