freezing

the cold is not
from the milk i drink but
this sudden chasm
which has its hold
on my body - i feel
dizzy & i tremble
& feel sick why
do you avert your gaze
so avidly? why will
you touch every person in the room
but me?
no i'm shaking with cold but
that doesn't have to do with temperature
it is cold
because you've taken back
your sweet and easy intimacy
you will not touch me.
not until we are alone -
and you turn to me
as if i can answer your questions

and the only answer i have
is to this question:

are you in love?

mourning

i cannot decide
whether to let
this feeling cascade
into me
or not
let it touch me
at all

resist

[it isn't worth it
either way]

to let go
be let go

[or
to never
have grasped
at all]

just fine

it is what i do not lift
to my lips
that will tell you the extent
of my despair
and loathing.
what i will not consume
the strange passion
for counting, and lying -
no, not hungry,
just ate a bit ago, really -
i'm fine

rubbing it in

a layer of salt on the wound
is all i'm going to get
from you
so i don't mind that you're
not calling to tell me
why i won't do.
it is a relief; my inferiority
i know all too well, can plot
the timeline
of my mind's rise and fall -
the freefloating panic
and empty inertia of apathy

i know more about my
being unfit
than you give me credit.
so pardon your fucking trouble,
dealing with me -
some lost, fucked-up self
pardon my thinking
this time would be worthwhile,
that i
might have deserved this;
i erred.

i do not need you
to tell me
because i sing it to myself
with every solitary step
on the concrete,
each song i sing
to myself,
a lullaby
voice cracking
on the walk home.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

to my pathetic little uplifted hopeful self

i want to say,
what the fuck you were you doing
hanging a hundred stories in
the air?
don't you know even optimism
can die,
by falling so hard
that when you hit the pavement
they need to scrape up
with a shovel
what is left of you?

your wishful, smiling face
cannot alter the dangers
of suicidal behavior.

little self, you make me sick & now
you are hiding in the ranks
of my amazons
begging them
to protect you
with their arrows & shields.

try this:
hope all you like.
but next time,
take your own weapons.
buy your own armor.

breathing

sometimes it becomes
the hardest part
not physically, i mean
but the type of shock
that sets your head spinning until your chest
is on fire from lack
of oxygen.
what you hear
doesn't matter, the end result
is the same -
a racing heart skittering in sync
with your gasping,
the oxygen deficit
pounding in your skull.
blood
never hurt as much as this
razors never made so much
of an impact, not in a visceral sense -
a small cut never seized my entire body
and froze my senses, temples
pounding as your vision
goes black
and you sink,
to the refrain of
"hello, are you
okay, can you hear
me? can you
hear me?"

how to deal

i often wonder
if i couldn't stop screaming, how
you would handle it
because what i want
most
when i do
is to be muffled, crushed
against someone's chest
and held firm and still,
yes
until all of the chaos
subsides.

home calling

it's not so impersonal
as it appears
so many miles make familiar
voices easy to hear,
strangely
hard to let go of
once they've rooted, again
within you.
i still make my sweet tea
sugary enough to be a southerner.
here,
it's quiet, if cold
and the blankets on my couch match
the ones in my mother's closet

home is not
a location. it's a sense
of belonging.

who will watch

yeah,
it's sick, but she's really
getting the last laugh

we
are tied into knots desperately holding
our maimed friendship's wounds together
with bloody hands,
and our relationship's
remains, they are wheeling
morgue-bound.

so neither one of us gets
what we desire.
no

she's enjoying the reaping of this
in a half-guilty, fascinated
sort of manner,
the type of pose
you strike when you know nothing
of loss,
and stand
amidst the wreckage
untouched, saying,
"not me, not me, not me."