Writing About You - Undo - God - Painted - Sorry - New Moon - Prayed to Headlights Cleaning My Room - Stuck Almost Something Is Still Nothing you took a handful of pennies and spread them across the table, divided into two piles, and flung four spades and one heart at me. "choose," you whispered, throat sore with disgust; and in your eyes I saw current flowing beyond poker betting with copper beyond the summer shack we drink and play and sex in out of this town, maybe over the oceans, and that night I learned, you weren't waiting on me. I wasn't what you needed any more. "choose," you repeated, but this time there were no wilds in the game; and this time, I wasn't choosing which card to sacrifice I walk to the window and set the heart free diamonds thrown into my hand, nothing, I fold and let you win this one last time. Looks Like Rain "looks like rain," you said, eyes to the heavens, irises matching the clouds as a deeper thunder rolled within you. there, inside, intruders eating at you tourists greedily grabbing at free souvenirs, taking you away from me. and i have no umbrella. i even told you before i'd have no umbrella-- just that i'd stand beside you, here I am so now you're silent, (if you're even here at all) and you wait for rain to wash away your burdens like watercolors. "I know," i whispered, as if i could remember the last time i was dry. Bug i was caught in the hands of a little girl, and brushed into a jar with airholes-- and a leaf-- and she kept me in her room as a night light. i died. I Can't Find My Stars we swore by stars and watched them sing into an october sky, harvest season, and a new moon. now i press back beneath my window in silent horror, tonight the sky is dark, no stars, city lamp posts blind the sky, pushing authenticity away and grabbing the spot light, making room for silicone dreams wrapped up in scotch tape and forced upon my back, crushing my once wings. i can't find my stars, i know they're there but wonder if i'll ever see them again while the city surrounds me, lost in crowds and lost-- without you. you know it when your heart is cold and tossed upon ice and your head grows with heat, face red with a blush that could easily be mistaken as embarrassment but is nothing of the sort. when your lips grow frail and cold like death as touched you yet you still spout poetry, the mirage of feeling, as if you had at least an ounce of hope stored away. artificial light stole it-- because i'm dumb, but not stupid, and i know the stars will be shining longer and brighter than any such lightbulb, guaranteed a hundred years-- but they're so far away, those stars, those promises we made, that i won't know they're gone until it's too late. Writing About You I'm tired of writing how I think I lost you; lost love is pealing off like suburned skin, and now my cries are becoming annoying whines, even to me. Writing is soothing aloe, spread on, cool down, the emotions of a day compacted into several lines of pure, coded disdain, eminent with bitter longings, wishing, I had not spent all that time so warm in the sun-- I'm paying for it now. And I'm tired of waiting, feeling so helpless. I should write another poem, about the war, or anything; a million clichés would be better than scribbling down dying requests of the conflict in my body: I'm just so selfish these days. And in the end, I know, I'll suffer because of these hours I spent under your rays and warmth; breathing in the cancer with one fatal gasp of secret tanlines and coconut oil, and then, (if not now), collapse from exhaustion, of writing, about, you. Undo edit, undo, control, z, mess up one time, it's easy to mend-- but beware little girl that you don't fuck up twice cause undo is redo when it's used again. God your face was grim the day you stretched saran wrap over the horizon-- promises twisted but kept, bent, but not broken, and I can't blame you. I know sacrifices must be made, for the greater good. shut us out-- block us in, you turn us against ourselves; and we shatter silence; trip and fall-- and decide you were never there at all. Painted eroded landscape watercolor painting unfinished on the aisle, take a second to wonder if she painted it that way, or the rain forced the colors down the page mixed up into brown and flowing away. it doesn't matter in the end, the paint will seep into the ground it doesn't matter in the end, but it matters to me now. did she paint it that way? Sorry fist filled of flowers thrust into my face like a forced apology fuck you forgive this. New Moon I could not see the moon the night the ocean cried on my shoulder, at loss, my loss too. a change in tides, a mourning cry into slumber, while seagulls perched and flew at it's shores. summer eyes could not be frozen by the winter's snow and shameful we regret the way it's waters flow; but deep down inside myself I switch off the light and I sink into the waves, as our tears combine Prayed to Headlights like you said; "claim a star, name it, watch it, care for it, but only from afar, cause no one really owns the stars." how dumb was I to choose the light in your eyes. Cleaning My Room this room has too much of me in it: I strip down my posters empty my shelves and paint it white all over again; I can't blame you when I've done the same my own disappearing acts twisting forms in the back of my mind, I'm tainted and drenched lovely and laughable walking around with a blood drenched smile. that's what normal people do right? they say I'll live without you but darling, that's not the point. I know I'll live without you, the problem is I don't want to; I don't want to crawl into corners not knowing. I clean my room in a fury or depression-- I can't tell anymore. I put me in a cardboard box, closed it tight with duct tape and string and pushed it into the corner. I tear down my posters clear out the shelves and paint it all white: to lost ends and new beginnings Stuck maybe we threw a hundred promises down the drain and they got stuck, stuck, and maybe your "I love you"s became automatic maybe my feelings became manual and we got stuck, stuck, not even in nuetral, we're still in park and stuck. well maybe silence wasn't the way to go maybe you couldn't know all these words stuck, stuck in my throat-- I couldn't swallow, and maybe you had your own pills to deal with, your pain subsiding into fear as you were caught, stuck, stuck in your own world. well all this sticking and all this is clouded over and stuck, stuck, we're not getting anywhere, stuck, stuck inside this paper machete box, stuck stuck together in a world we couldn't change, stuck, stuck beside, watching the ending unfold at our feet. and maybe I'm over analyzing but I'm stuck, stuck, stuck stuck stuck stuck stuck and i can't do a thing. |