I.
My mother keeps my letters to Santa
in a drawer by her bed,
and my father keeps my baby teeth
like a handful of tiny ghost
of the innocence that has been lost.
II.
I used to be 6 once,
I WAS MAGNIFICENT.
With arms outstretched
I could fly if I willed it;
now I barely move
without trembling.
III.
I smoked my first cigarette
when when I was 12,
and it wasn’t until I was 16
that a boy named Frank told me
I had to inhale.
I blame him for my addiction.
IV.
When I was 18
someone took something from me
that I could never get back.
I hope they keep it safe,
and sharp in their memory
so they do not forget
the tone of my voice when
I let go of my Gods
and said,
“yes.”
V.
This week someone hurt me
and I took it as punishment
for the time I cheated on my boyfriend
when I was 21;
like any former catholic,
I always have to remind myself
that I don’t believe in God.
VI.
Last night I went to a party,
and a man told me
I was pretty,
I believed it for the first time in a long time.
I laid my head on his shoulder
and told him I was tired.
It was late June in New York,
humidity was at about 98 percent
and random rain storms
left my hair and face
in a state of disaster.
I looked like my mother
wearing curly hair and defeat
like it was summer’s hottest trend.
Andrew said something about
us Californian kids being pussies.
My lungs were too heavy to fight back.
“Just 10 more blocks,”
he promised,
as if that was supposed
to comfort me.
When we finally made it to his building
we walked up 7 flights of stairs.
Each floor served as a rest stop
where I would sit and make quiet snide
comments like,
“It’s illegal to have a building
larger than 3 stories
without an elevator in California.”
We reached his floor, the 7th heaven,
I threw myself on his air mattress
and he turned on the window a/c unit.
I slept until nightfall,
when I awoke
he had prepared dinner
and opened a bottle of Canadian wine.
Bob Dylan’s The Freewheelin’ spinning on
the record player.
(Andrew would later gift me that record as a parting gift.
And I would later listen to it
every time I thought of him
or New york;
It’s still in heavy rotation.)
After dinner we climbed up the fire escape
to go smoke joints on the rooftop.
Andrew asked me how New York
was different from California.
I pointed out that you can’t
see the stars in New York
but told him that the skyscrapers
that painted the dirty skyline
were surprisingly just as beautiful.
He smiled to let me know that
there was hope for this suburban girl yet.
There is a tree in my room.
It sheds leaves
that look like everything I have ever lost.
I put them in bags and
take them outside to burn,
as if it would stop the leaves
from falling all together,
but I know they’ll be back.
You are the ghost of all the people
I have loved
and been loved by,
that feeling I get when I remember
what it felt like to be touched by someone
who meant it.
You are the fear
when I realize I destroy
most things I touch
and am unworthy of ever
learning to say your name.
You are a poem that my weary hands
have yet to learn how to write.
They tremble with so many words
wanting to bleed out.
You are the empty spot
in my bed
when there is so much room
that it aches.
You are a planet full of
beautiful things
I have never seen,
so many light years away
that I could not possibly
scale or comprehend the distance.
I am tired.
My heart can’t trace your shadow
for much longer.
You must be near?
I laid on my side like a mountain that admires the city lights below.
Your gentle face, the object of my attention.
Last night,
our shadows on the walls
were giants dancing.
I let you come closer,
I bet you could taste the smoke in my breath.
You slept quietly and only made noise
when you would turn your body from east to west,
and like a child watching a wave unfold,
I would move back as if
to not let your ocean touch my feet or
catch me looking.
There’s very little you reveal about yourself,
you’re a mystery that I’ve known of for a long time
and I know that watching you sleep
is the closest I will ever get to you.
I’m okay with that…
Nothing last forever anyway.
Sometimes throughout the night our hands would interlock,
our legs tangle like vines,
and If ever you faced west you would kiss me softly on the forehead.
I would smile
but with your eyes closed, I’m sure you could not tell.
Your mouth,
I bet it is a garden
where buried secrets
make flowers grow
and nobody will ever know.
I want to know.
I.
You are magnetic
from across the table.
There’s something about how your
smile dances with your teeth;
in slow motion with such symmetry,
II.
If no one has ever looked at you
and felt the way I feel about you now,
then no one has ever really seen you at all.
And fuck them for that.
III.
I remember being a child,
sitting in sunday mass,
taking in the the bright
stained glass blues and reds.
The sunlight would leak through the cracks
drowning my small hands
in color and warmth…
Color and warmth;
That might be the best way
to describe you
IV.
I have to remind myself
that staring at you is like
staring directly at the sun,
eventually, I’m going to go blind,
whether it be with love
or complete and utter inadequacy,
I can’t help but prepare myself
for what I will lose
at the foot of your charm.
V.
You might not know it yet,
because things always
come easily to people like you.
but you will realize soon
that I can’t give you anything
that you can’t get from anyone else,
without half the battle.
I don’t blame you if you go.
(Source: dreamt4lightyears)
As I walked through my old room,
I stopped and swept
my finger across the dust;
My room and I,
we were both empty,
no one tended to us.
Every vacuous corner
a reminder of
that which had been lost.
My mother she held me
but it wasn’t close enough.
She could never again,
I was too big,
and she knew
all my sins.
My father with fist up
fighting shadows
to attempt to protect me from that
which we both knew
he could not.
Last time I was here
I slept with lights on.
In this bed I lay with bended knees.
Bended knees like a bookmarked
page in your favorite book
to remind you where you left off.
To remind you that you still can come back.
I am
an anchor
at the bottom
of this sea of people.
Sea - of - people,
funny,
the smallest things
always make me think of you.
Everybody drinks too much,
everybody talks too loud,
everybody laughs at things they don’t find funny,
and sometimes they dance;
bodies so close
I bet they could feel each other’s heart beats.
Heart - beats,
Do you remember
how you laid your head on my chest
and claimed
you could hear the ocean?
When we kissed
you said our lips were the waves
crashing
against our body’s shore,
over and over
and over again.
I can’t believe
I thought this would
help me to forget that I love you
or maybe more so
forget that you don’t love me.
With a drink in hand
I watch these fools
engage in one night stands,
and it makes me so incredibly
lonely.
I fucking hate parties.
My dear I fear the ocean will swallow my ship whole
…It’s only a matter of time now.
I was once its great captain
but now I am merely its captive,
begging to no one to be set free.
I wish I was like you,
I would declare war on the merciless hands of the ocean
and lord knows I would win.
…if I was anything like you. I am not.
Although I know the water will burn
through my letters like fire,
instead of fighting,
I cowardly continue to compose the most beautiful words
that you will never see.
You’re the only one that knows
that I am nothing like anyone here
And I know now that loss is the only kind of pain.
ii
resting on the ground;
i left the best parts of me
in your tousled room.
like the trash, disregarded,
they sadly collect your dust.
iii.
if they call your name
slide them under the couches,
quiet them for now.
amongst your things they will hide;
erased from your heart and mind.
when I’m alone Friday nights,
I imagine you all alone too.
You’re probably watching action movies
and eating frozen dinners.
I think about all the things I would say like,
I’m sorry,
or I was wrong,
and would you like to fuck me,
or can I have my record player back at least?
P.S. Have you seen my pea coat?
I.
My memory of you plays like an old film
I know it word for word, and scene for scene:
YOU fall sleep on my shoulder, and
I whisper something
into your tousled brown hair
in hopes of instilling these 3 little words
and this feeling
into your subconscious being
I and LOVE and YOU.
rewind, replay, over and over and over..
II.
I yearn
to be
that close
to anyone again.
III.
There are days like today
when I remember that
YOU are still breathing,
and someone knows YOU better
and holds YOU closer
than I ever did
or could ever again…
and I begin to understand
why good men go mad,
write poetry,
smoke cigarettes
and drink too much.
My God, what a fucking gaping hole
sits inside of me today.
It eats at my sanity and
I’d like nothing more than
to fill it with vodka,
and Bob Dylan’s The Freewheelin’ on vinyl.
When you’re this alone no one calls
and if they do it’s just the bill collectors
and they only want what you can’t give,
much like everybody else.
I Spend Most NightsTrying Pt. II.
I.
Your fingers danced on my knees so gracefully.
they knew their stage well,
the had danced there many times before
but never so freely,
this was the first time we had ever been alone.
II.
There was a band aid on your finger and
you told me about some sander wheel,
or something or the other.
I showed you my scars from a previous job
but we only discussed the scars
that were visible to the eye.
I’m still convinced
you wouldn’t understand
the ones that lay beneath.
III.
The bar lights had a blueish tint;
while we waited for our drinks
I watched them
gently grace your brow,
you smiled.
You have such a genuine smile,
it always seems to whisper, “come closer,”
even without a spoken word,
IV.
You pulled my hands into yours
and asked why they were always cold.
I thought it was because
most of my time, I spend alone.
Just the thought of being alone made me
kiss you, and wish to own you
for just one liquor filled, cold handed, blue tinted moment.
V.
As much as try to fight the idea of you,
and I fight it with both fist up,
as if to prevent you from hurting me
before you even try.
I’m starting to notice your absence
and even have come to detest it at times.
