no one is my warrior

on days like this

the mirror doesn't know what to do with me

and tries not to scream, in fact,

avoiding shattering both of us at the same time. i

wish i'd been born with snakes in

my hands so i'd have an automatic release

from the ugliness of such states of mind.

i'm not anyone's heralded warrior.

i do battle with myself because

no one is my warrior, either.

i think it's somebody's holiday now

but i've been anemic since September

so don't expect my sympathies; i

usually stay in bed after the war:

some days it's entirely too much effort

to put my boots on correctly.

04.20.2012

something there

hidden from view, her heart was evolving;
what was this feeling here and now?

she didn't believe she could let love in
like this: what else was she to do?

she thieved a glance, peering out at him
unawares: was it supposed to feel so invigorating?

the heart she possessed she knew she could not fool;
how was she to betray it now?

she returned to the comfort of sheltering tree
musing, intrigued; was it she who'd learned to love him?

04.21.2010

heart's too big

heart's too big

can't love you

too often stolen

too often held

it's betrayed me

i follow it

knowing it's wrong

can't help that

heart's my life

i'm not bold

just another idiot

caged-up bomb

possibly i'm jaded

self-destruct button

still in tact

do not press

red red red

red blinking red

capital letter words

do not press

but of course

you will press

yes you will

ignore the warning

you'll ignore me

you will press

04.10.2012

wait around now

i'm leaving again -- why

do i always feel like i am saying

unnecessary goodbyes?

life should be full of hellos and see you laters, i

can't take finality like i can't take

not remembering where i set my hat down at age twenty.

well the way i see it

au revoir means "until i see you again" anyway

so let's leave it at that

pretending i don't need to feel like

a lovelorn desperado

shouting across fences i got tired of sitting on.

i never actually wait around now

long enough

to hear anyone answer.

04.19.2012

sense

world -- struck blind and deaf,

no sense left to make some sense --

judged me anyway.

04.21.2010

Wednesday

Wednesdays are hard for some people

but not me. i think Wednesdays are good

for me and there should always be something

to break up the week a bit. September 11th

was a Tuesday and i once broke a man's heart

on a Sunday. Wednesday is good.

Thursday is almost-weekend but not weekend enough.

give me mid-week sunbeams dancing over my floor

or even the consistency of third-day rain when it's been too long

without. i like Wednesday,

it's some kind of momentum into

things to come and i don't have

to look back anymore. my

grandmother passed on a groggy Saturday morning

so as much as i enjoy sleeping late

and bacon breakfasts with eggs

i don't think i'll ever go for those, really.

i'll have Wednesday please.

it hasn't betrayed me so far in this life.

04.11.2012

a man like him

i feel sorry for all the girls and also the boys

who grew up without a good father

because i have the absolute best one

and i am so sorry to them for that

i am sorry that my dad has been fantastic

i am sorry that he makes sure there is money in my pockets

when i don't have any

i am sorry that he came to my softball games

and that i always played poorly because i knew he was watching

i am so sorry that my father cried when i left him at the airport

to go live in France

and i am sorry that it made me not want to go

i am sorry i left you there daddy

i am very sorry that my dad never went to college

but he has worked harder than anyone i know, and better

i am so sorry that he paid for the majority of my college education

and i am also sorry that my father has been there

at my graduations and birthdays and triumphs and failures

i am not sorry that he has been spectacular to me

i am sorry though that you do not know him,

i am sorry if your fathers were not like mine

i am sure you deserve a man like him

in your lives

at some point

04.18.2012

box

a box of Pandora proportions --

time to escape.

it's a sign that you're in the wrong place

when masochistic walls

begin to move in on you,

encroaching on space that's your own

and sprouting barbs to match the count

for each day you remain

where you aren't supposed to be.

suffocating into the ordinary

you're tortured,

whittled down to shreds

of a former self,

stripped of all that's genuine,

crudely molded into what

they've designed for you --

a shell not conducive to adaptation,

no room to grow,

stained with stale expectation.

time to escape

the box --

the only thing

holding you in.

04.22.2010

hum away

i want us to stay

right here, and we'll hum away

lazy afternoons

04.12.2012

slit my wrists with ink

i wrote the word 'love' on my arm

twirly with hearts for flourish

in every attempt at being artistic

but i didn't know who i was writing it there for.

i marked my wrist with a pretty word

just so i could say i did it, that i'm honoring the day.

but the disconnect i was left with

was written all over me,

scribed into telltale limbs that needed validation.

some girl somewhere had taken blade to flesh

right below her capable hands

because they'd called her ugly,

because she'd believed them;

pain in person to equal pain in soul

and she could hide in her sleeves

so no one would know

of her mutilation --

soon to become afternoon ritual.

when the boy she liked

agreed with her toughest critics

she slit those shiny wrists in the bathtub

and she slit them good

so she'd never have to slit them again.

she'd never have to endure such bullshit again.

they found her lying deep in her sickness and her sins,

which they hadn't seen until she'd sworn them all off for life

in the name of death

and all the legacies she might have left

were erased from the history of the earth

as if she'd never been a part of it.

it seemed reason enough to slit my wrists with ink

for only a day, for only a day

which to her had been more of an eternity

of insults damaging her worth.

i dug the pen in as far as it would go

into malleable skin,

pouring bloody ink into bloody veins,

carving the word in so it wouldn't leave,

a word she hadn't known,

a word that might have spared her life.

i scraped the word 'love' across my arm

pulling pain from her undead flesh,

remembering a stranger

who would have written 'love' on her arm

if the world had shown her any.

[this was written following the "To Write Love On Her Arms" event one year, a day where people are encouraged to write "love" on their arms to express their support of suicide prevention. i was feeling disconnected to it all even though i wanted to participate, so i wrote about it until i found some sort of meaning. i quite dislike the final line myself, too cliché for my tastes, but i didn't know where else to take it. xo]

04.2010

i have something dire to tell you

i have something dire to tell you

naive girl

how i admire you, dear

your hair kept clean, your eyes aglow in photos

and don't forget those rosy rosy doll cheeks

no one can ever tell if you're embarrassed

or if you've had a bit too much wine

or if you were just born that way

how i admire you, dear

naive girl

but it'll burn you, baby

how i wish i could tell you that

your phone number is not for free

neither is your body

or your pride

how i want to tell you

men don't want to be your friend

they want to insert a coin

and make you light up

hoping the payout will be sex

and one of these days they will break you

taking you for all you're worth, jackpot

naive girl

how i wish i had told you that

[this is part of a series that began this past year writing about girls i know in real life. women in general are interesting creatures, but sometimes they can be quite baffling and so i write about them. the "girl" series is one i'm quite proud of, hope you like it, too. x]

04.2012

she tasted fine then

before the ship sinks

we're grasping for glaciers

and spare planks of wood or
thought.

how did we get here? it's
not my fault; i was overdrawn
and i certainly had my
moments.

now i lay open-faced on the table
hoping i can still complete a breath
tomorrow. when you feast,
please

leave me a crumb or two of
what i used to be: i don't really
miss her but she tasted fine
then.

04.17.2012

[shared this week at the Poetry Pantry over at Poets United. xo]

let her go

if she's never allowed to stumble
into the muck's tempting tendrils,
desperate to drag her out screaming
and make her wish she could go home,
she'll never start to miss
the comforts of what she knows.

if she can't lose her bearings
in the overdrawn map she's scribed for herself,
becoming absorbed in ornamental details
that turn out not to be so,
she'll never accept the role of designer
when life hands her a pen.

if she doesn't betray the fickle cord
binding her to what she's been told,
drawing her back in to the rigid frame of still life,
she'll never invent ideas, create surprises,
fool the conformists who've trodden paths
worn thin with footprints
everyone's stepped in.

if you refuse to let her go,
she won't ever make her mark
on streets paved in cement
that's already drying
without her.

04.2010

it's funny

it's funny, i finally interest myself
in something other than me
and it's like i'm not in my own body
but still somehow gasping on the surface for air,
treading glue because i didn't see it coming and
no one knows what to do with me.
well this i say to you:
i'll take the dive if you ask me to walk in step-by-step
up to my toes. so this means of course i am
going out not with a fizzle
but with the most spectacular bang
you've heard

04.16.2012

the birds, the humans

the birds showed off in warbles

of approval and distaste;

to mate or not to mate?

the humans grew weary of love games,

energies gone to hurried waste;

they halted and left it up to fate.

04.2010

drag-dropped

i don't mind the lonely bus rides
to a town with a train station like
this morning, for instance,
the sun rose behind the six wind turbines and
you know how much i hate the country;
it was the kind of picture that makes you think
God really exists and that people could be born
good. the clouds had been drag-dropped in,
you'll have to drag me screaming
from this kind of prophetic proof.

04.13.2012

last in line

i.

it is not a crime

to be last in line

in someone's mind.

it is a shame

to be last in line

in yours.

ii.

to be last in line,

a meaning

altered over time.

children are told

where they should go

and the last is forgotten,

subjected to ridicule.

at fifteen

the last grows mad,

paints her fingernails black,

makes love to a razor

and never looks back

at the world

that didn't look back for her.

into adulthood

and it's the hell with you,

on no one's wait list

and confined to solitary musing,

slowly falling back

to last in your own mind.

iii.

in someone's mind

is the wish;

better yet,

in the heart

and stuck there,

adhesive affections.

iv.

it is a shame,

the connotations

of last place

that have become standard.

last is nobody's

favorite number,

yet it's never least?

an unfair juxtaposition.

sometimes last

wins the race

but it never feels like victory.

v.

to be last in line,

every time;

it's draining

to remain there

in the mind.

vi.

in yours

i have always been last

in mine

you have always been first.

it is not a crime but

it is a shame.

04.2010

shouldn't still

i'm angry at my heart.

it still beats fastest

for you

after all these years

when i'm well aware

i shouldn't still love you.

you've given me reason enough

to have gotten over it:

misinterpreting playful words for offensive ones,

calling me out on things you were ashamed of,

never berating your unruly ego

for trying to compete with mine.

it's clear your self-worth

relies on how many people

have downloaded your songs on iTunes.

i have never denied your talent.

in fact, most days i envy it.

but if all those soul-searchers had seen

your darker side like i have,

they wouldn't revere you half as much.

your darker side

seems to be the part of you

that you never reign in

when it comes to me;

have you discovered my game

or do you simply think me idiotic?

either way i suppose

i ought to stop telling strangers

that you're my best friend from high school

so they don't get the wrong idea.

...and even if i did

it still wouldn't be any less true

that all of the love poetry i've written

now or long ago

has been for you,

you moron.

04.2010

a new girl now like always

i nearly forgot that i have to write

a poem today, and then i remembered

that there are only two pages left

in this poetry journal here and it

made me want to go write

right away because i love i love

the finality that comes with completion

of eight months' worth of thought

put deliberately on so many different days,

in so many different states of mind. i'm

on the very last page now and it feels

fucking fantastic to be here; what

a journey it has been and i am of course

a new girl now like always

when i reach the end and it's

bitter and it's sweet and it's

time. a mirror to my own life --

it's time for something new for me,

too, an adventure i can ride through

beaming from the rush.

04.14.2012

word bath

put me on another poetry diet,

some days i can't get enough.

it's good for me to bathe in words

trying to find some i haven't yet used;

i depend too much on others to inspire me

when i can't make sense of what i've

been given. but without seeing what others are

creating i'll never be able to create

something better. we all have philosophies

and i try hard to follow mine.

when i'm done pulling out hairs still

attached to my head i'll make something up

and hope it matters. if not i'm slinking back

to the word bath hoping it will throw me a strong enough line

before i drown in recycled filth.

04.15.2012