while we wait

violently purple, the pages this time.

my pages are prepped for adventure,

my pages are patterned for poetry.

i should have said that before.

the pen + the heart have met, here.

i have been waiting for this moment.

the far-off eye-catch. the initial hello.

it's only a matter of time. let's dance while we wait.

oh, the spin of thought that makes me

has been set free, allowed to play with others,

called on for its opinion. criss-cross the color wires

and i'll have a helping of humble pie,

ankles relaxed into flight

while the hand + the head do the work.

08.2013

all he is not

the bathroom wall is so receptive

as i ramble aimlessly to no one.

this charade has gone past the breaking point,

i tell myself with an air of dubiety,

trying to convince myself of the opposite

but failing miserably at both

at the same miserable time.

maybe he doesn't, maybe he does

has become a sour mind game

with no clear conclusion or consequence.

maybe he will, i plead with my heart,

knocking halfheartedly on its fragile doors

and knowing it's on the brink of wholly shattering,

leaving me to pick up the pieces

to this glorified mismatch made in haste.

maybe he won't, i advise the realist soul;

we know he's been broken before

and we know he's not been

as diligent as perhaps he should --

and yet his imperfections matter little

when his charms unravel.

the game, the game, it weakens; it unhinges me

from all it made me see

down the street from rationality.

typical or true?

the past makes me wonder

if the present is what he needs

or if it's a consolation to his quest for stability.

the light flickers and so does the clock;

too many nights for him

are probably a good indication

of all he is not.

in too deep now, i wonder, clinging to what i am,

where from here?

such incessant wonderings

keep me awake even more nights.

09.2006

off the map

i knew a place once; it was wondrous, magical for me, which was most likely enhanced by my youth, but i think if i still knew it today it'd hold the same intrigue.

it was a little Pocono cabin in a concealed corner of the planet more often than not run over with snow, for we only ever frequented it in the winter; it belonged to my grandfather who had in fact built it up himself, rock to wall, as a haven for family and friends of family and their children and sometimes pets. 

no one really could tell what town it was in, but i'm pretty sure it was somewhere between White Haven and Blakeslee, Carbon County, Kidder Township or something. the exact blip on the map was irrelevant; people went there to escape, not to be found.

the street was private, a small development but not like the overdone ones in the Philadelphia suburbs. it was nearly hidden from view just off the exit, past the Ramada and that little restaurant that kept changing every year to something new and odd-sounding like The Fern, as if that would make me want to eat there. down the street from Jack Frost and Big Boulder, the two biggest ski resorts around. adjacent the dam that i so loved to explore but couldn't ever get to because the roads were flooded, as the signs had warned they would be.

so many years i have to remember there.

there was the time when Howard and Kat's dog jumped on my brother when we were kids in the middle of the night and he screamed bloody murder out of fright. then the next day he and i were poking around the bedroom and we found a trapdoor to the basement beneath the floorboards, but it was too dark and cold to bother exploring. we still reveled in the fact that we'd found it, our own paradise lost.

sometimes i got to sleep in the bigger guest room when Howard and Kat weren't up and i felt like a rightful queen with the king-sized bed and the private bathroom with two chambers and the full closets and nightstands with random items in their drawers. i loved that i could stand in the kitchen and the living room at the same time and that we could watch television while we ate, a luxury we never had at home. the fireplace was always roaring and my father delighted in stoking it every half hour or so, a nervous habit.

Mom never came to Big Boulder with us; she wasn't much of an outdoor person. she'd catch up on her reading and Dad would take Tom and i to ski or snow tube, whichever we preferred (and i hated skiing). one time when my cousins were up for the weekend with us we all went tubing (little effort for the fun). Joe went off-course and slammed into a tree but he was fine and it led to uproarious laughter. my dad and his brother and nephews wanted to make it over the big snowbank at the bottom. it was a frigid night and everything was icing over -- just the momentum they needed. they hopped in double-rider tubes and got running starts and raced in adjacent lanes on the way down. and over the top they did go as onlookers stared in awe at a feat not many had accomplished.

i remember watching the Daytona 500 on or around Dad's birthday the year Dale Earnhardt crashed into the wall; we all thought he'd be OK, that it hadn't looked life-threatening on screen. he died, though. i vowed to support his son from then on although i didn't follow NASCAR that closely to begin with.

the stone driveway at the cabin, when it wasn't ridden with knee-deep snow, was littered with daddy-long-legs and garter snakes and behind the house were woods with trails as far as the eye could see and i never knew where any of them went.

the thing about living on a private street in the mountains is that when it snows there are natural sledding hills all around you. i was always a bit of a wimp when it came time to do it but the sleds were unsturdy and i didn't know how to steer them and i was afraid of crashing into frozen snowbanks and breaking my arm or worse. but it was good bonding time with my brother.

i always liked when it wasn't that snowy and i could walk down to the private lake -- the one reserved for residents on the private street -- and walk the trail around it where wild blueberries grew; my mother and i would pick them and put them in pancakes the next morning.

there was so much i adored about that little cabin off the map in Pennsylvania and there's so much i miss about it now. before he died my grandfather sold it to a stranger. with it went the magic of my old haven that i would never have again. my heart aches to know that someone else -- and a slew of renters to follow -- is now enjoying my grandfather's handmade refuge and all the wonder it contains.

they will never be able to appreciate it like i have.

02.2010

like sand

like sand through fingers

i fell from you, not sure yet

if i meant to fall

07.2013

[written in response to the prompt "Sand" over at Haiku Heights. xo]

hostage heart

a recluse.

i believe that is the word

you more often than not

choose for me, perhaps

because you don't see my emotion

until you call me one.

a recluse, indeed.

ought it offend

i'd throw it back but

the truth to it is that i do not

share nearly enough of myself with you;

green and gambling on the passing of trains,

that's what you make of

my folly

through a world that will not forgive

should i not dance in its melée.

i have no use for what's written:

i want to break the lines

and make the loudest of waves. and also

i want to give the explosion of love inside

of me

away.

there is a reason you cannot see

my head and my heart: there is

good reason why no one can see.

they are flawed and brimming!

they are mad and forlorn!

they are in sync and evergreen!

it is too much for strangers to handle;

you can't handle them, dear brother.

you must be considerate of

a heart held hostage

and a brain on overdose.

surely your faith must extend beyond

the paper doll girl

to what she is

when she has form

and breath.

you must let the recluse be

a recluse

around you; she doesn't

know you're knocking,

in pursuit of her hostage heart...!

06.2011

when the makeup and masks are gone

when the makeup and masks are gone

unkempt girl doesn't believe in

the woman everyone tells her she is

unkempt girl

throws salt over her shoulders

and tries again tomorrow

08.2011

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

live again (Connor's song)

carried on high, the news
of you was a welcome circumstance,
not expected but certainly
not to be denied, for it had been
only years since we'd had anything worth being
remotely elated over.

though you were to be the first of your kind, you
had potential to be the greatest,
or at least unique;
maybe you'd bring some sort of
a new outlook on this life,
something worth hanging around for.

but even the most hyped expectations would
undermine the value you bestowed, and
right on time;
mostly we were just grateful you
arrived and renewed a long-lost zest for life that must have
needed your charms to live again.

01.2010

i could get lost

i.

i could get lost in a graveyard,

in the company of

only

stone sentinels, markers to set each place aside

so that God can distinguish them later

when He summons His souls for their reckoning.

the names carved in

stand for mortal remembrance,

a name, a legacy, a life;

recognition among a sea of thousands,

tombs tumbling and tumbling

eternally

into the folly that death affords.

the paths winding through lay themselves out

for me attentively,

enhancing the trance

induced by

such diverse history,

still life upkept

in marbled cherubs and crucifixes

preaching epitaphs

only heard

by those who stop

to care for a stranger

for a minute or so,

breath offered up where it hasn't existed

for years.

i talk to them sometimes,

the graves, the dead,

when no one's around;

less to communicate with a ghost

than just to acknowledge a presence,

to eliminate the eeriness of fatal silence

and to reiterate to myself

that life is short and finite.

it may sound gruesome but

cemeteries are one of my favorite things.

ii.

i could get lost in a library

where ink-stained pages beckon,

portals to places that have

in one way or another

emerged

from some sort of thought in time

that stuck around long enough

to warrant a permanent remembrance.

a story for the masses, a story for the fantasies,

one for me and one for the next

and always right where i left it;

like the finest of feasts

i sample the menu

and absorb the pages bursting with flavor,

pen strokes washed down

like wine.

it is the most reciprocal relationship,

trading time for a tale or two,

oils from skin transferring into page turns

and dog-eared placeholders.

i'd not dream of defacing

the sacred marginal meadows

as some in academia would advise;

the only words worth their salt

were set, neat with justification,

ordered by author

to remain

so each that comes after me

might have the same fair offering.

in their categorical home

they are so many enigmas

shelved for whenever;

i kidnap a desolate corner

and begin one

without a look back at the world

that's already abandoned me once or twice.

it may sound childish but

libraries are one of my favorite things.

iii.

i could get lost in a trainyard,

down on the rails

that make no clickety-clack sound

without an engine to caress them.

my shoes are left to forgotten dirt piles

as bare toes meet iron,

and i could teeter all the way

into the next town

following the one predestined route,

balance beam calisthenics

only for me.

and should a resonating whistle

warn of an oncoming traffic jam

i'd gladly return to rocky terrain,

broken up by wooden planks at intervals

exact and unchanging,

continuous.

neither threatening speed of passing train

nor conductor's shouts of disapproval

could shake me from gravely ground there alongside;

magnetic, majestic, mine.

i'd watch for the patient panorama at the end --

the serenity of far-off horizon,

steam bellowing from the front,

caboose growing smaller with distance,

postcard perfect

though less chaotic in such regard;

in closer perspective:

hair being tossed about from such velocity,

that old clickety-clack returning

but much louder than remembered,

paired with the roar of engine and wheel,

car after car after car.

then it's long gone

and it's back to

my juvenile reverie,

lonely track welcoming me again,

glad for some in-between company

to pass the time --

both of us there

to pass the time

not doing much of anything.

i hum the rails an easy tune,

a serenade for myself

in a moment when thought gets lost

in reality

as i get lost in dreams.

it may sound lonesome but

railroads are one of my favorite things.

i could get lost.

05.2010

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

follow

my skeletal feet are still dappled with sand.

the beach wouldn't let me leave it behind

and oh, do i know that feeling,

even too familiar. don't leave me behind,

i'll follow.

it takes awhile for me to bloom,

a corporeal flower arriving late to springtime tea.

with sandy toes i'm knocking; i hope

you don't mind that i've lost my shoes.

08.2012

accessory

i met him unexpectedly

someplace we both wanted to be.

he claimed to be a friend

of a friend

but turned out to be much more in the end.

his face could erase

all the empty space

in my head

and replace it all with humility instead.

i didn't like what he did to me,

or maybe i did;

it was too early to tell

and i was sometimes independent,

but my heart knew me well.

i found myself stumbling over him,

dangling from him,

and soon it became clear

i was into his ways,

and so went the days

as i took it all in stride

and for once, vowed not to hide.

he didn't require words

to dutifully inquire;

just needed a beat

and a place for hire,

a full-blown choir.

he struck my every chord

and i'd beg someone's holy lord

to keep him in my weary life,

by His will or by his own accord.

a long time ago

i cared for one so

but he turned out to be

naught more than shadow.

he haunted my nights

and it took an end-all plea

before i could break free.

this one knew the time

and without reason or rhyme

was nothing with which to compare

the desperations of despair,

for he knew me and although

i couldn't really say

i was his favorite show,

it wasn't hopeless as long ago.

he brought me to my knees

with the greatest of ease

and still i was unsure

if maybe i was tangled in something

more than my heart could handle

or just kindling a new candle

of adventurous aspiration.

could be my damnation

or my salvation.

come what may,

he was perfection

and his aura in its reflection

told me not to fret,

that he wouldn't sell his soul

for anything alive

or objectified.

he made a vow

and i didn't understand

but i know it now --

he won't drag me down,

make me cry, steal my crown.

he'll be

an honest accessory

and i shall then be

valiant exclusively.

08.2005

checkerboard friends

red and black, checkerboard friends.

here we go.

i'll be light and you'll be dark

like our souls

and the first move will be mine

because you always prefer to have the last word.

diagonal pawn

i am

calculating my next move

and then it's all mind games and ticking off turns.

back and forth

ping-pong

on the fence and on the move.

the shape of an L for

the nobleman that you are

but you can't fool me.

i'll take the straight line to the end

to get a piece of myself back.

you'll return it because you have to.

those are the rules.

the king seems to have all the power

but his moves are limited,

and therein lies your mistake.

it's truly the queen,

i,

who has all the power,

command of the board now.

watch me as i defeat you

thought by thought

word for word

piece by piece,

swimming

fluidly through the madness

across numbers and squares

and the awesome force of your hand

can't do a thing

because the control paradigm has shifted;

i had to crouch to your level and

play this despicable game with you,

a game you've gotten good at over the years

but haven't quite perfected.

off you go to a comfortable corner

where hiding has become a futile excuse

to all you are,

but laid out here in front of me

in plain view --

checkerboard friends,

checkerboard life --

i can see your thoughts

before you can voice them,

what otherwise might evolve into insult or injury.

and for the first time

the flaws in your thinking are apparent, too,

the flaws in the righteousness you claim,

the flaw in the plan

and now you'll offer a waltz for peace,

one-two-three,

one-two-three,

ample chance to trip me up

and then make your final kill.

but if you'd been anything close to sincere

you'd have seen

the trap i've been setting for you

from the get-go.

i'm here and you're over there,

hand outstretched for a dance

but in the midst of your inaugural bow the queen has triumphed.

ivory over ebony,

good over evil,

woman over monster.

a whispered farewell now

for you

and some sort of closure now for me

in the form of

checkmate.

here we go, here

we go.

02.2010

at nineteen

well, well
it's a fine time for rustling up feelings
of dogwood summers
i left behind for you
back when i was wide-eyed enough to do
such a thing. and
i left a lot behind for you.
but we're not untouchables.
i laugh that we were ever considered so
in such web-crossed minds as
ours at nineteen.
i didn't quite know what to make of you.

i chose my wave not knowing
it would turn me black and blue
and drain me of the rest of my color,
transfused into your veins
when you were finished with me
(so you could go on living
and i could become parasitic, pathetic).

how i tripped over you.
your play-thirsty lips were begging
to be slaked
and i did not want
to leave them parched
but i did
and immediately wished i hadn't
for i lost you then
right then.

ignorance is not any sort of bliss
when it comes to you and me;
i spent months as your shadow,
dumb and matching your moves
but always a minute behind. when
i let my voice mix with your broken harmony
i also found that i was jaded.
how does it feel, i wonder
to know that you're the one who jaded me.
i have known many versions of love
but yours was by far
the most brutal.

i want back, if anything
except time and some tears,
the faith in love i abandoned
to breathe to your
he-loves-me-nots.

06.2011

intentional

i wonder if you're all happy

now or if you're defending lives

you've gotten accustomed to, lives

you ended up with but never

actually chased down, lives

tethering you to the place where

you grew up, where we all grew up.

i wonder, as the flame still alight for you

in a corner of my heart finds a

bit of new air for rekindling --

i wonder if this is the life you had imagined.

i hope you're happy.

i hope that no one has called you names

or judged you for being a small-town boy

who had a child out of wedlock.

i hope your marriages are stronger

than your parents' ever were

and that you didn't do it

because it was the cool thing to do.

i hope we've all moved past that notion

of doing things to be cool.

i hope you aren't stared down in hallways

or tripped in stores accidentally-on-purpose.

i hope your shoes are always with-the-times

and your hair, not yet graying.

i hope you are making your own money

and realizing how hard it is to keep it for yourself.

i hope you smile at more things now

and that you've had to swallow your pride

once or twice. i hope that

for myself a lot, too.

i hope that you don't hesitate

to help someone when they ask

and that you help them even

when they are too afraid to ask.

i hope that all of your struggles,

everything you've lived through,

have enabled you to learn

about the kind of person you are

now.

i hope you think of the people you've hurt

with fondness, especially those

you didn't know you were hurting

and i hope you forgive the people

who have ever made you leave the table

to go cry in the bathroom.

i hope you forgive the people

who offered empty apologies

just to make themselves feel better.

i hope you never get tired of hearing or saying

i'm sorry.

i hope we are contributing members of society now

and that we think seriously about the future

even if we aren't sure

or don't want to know

where it will take us.

i hope the diamonds on your fingers sparkle

as brightly as your eyes do

and that you remember how good it feels

to be complimented sincerely

by somebody you don't know.

i hope you've found something lonely

in this world to believe in.

most of all, i hope that we don't forget.

whatever it is that you still hold on to

from then until now, i hope

it stays with you, welding itself

into the workings of your psyche.

i mostly hope that you are

better, stronger, kinder and humbler.

i mostly hope that we have all

changed from imbeciles into adults,

into human beings who matter to somebody.

that is all that i hope

for all of you, whom i'd nearly,

intentionally,

left behind

08.2011

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

another shore

how freely we think we are immortals,

our word most certainly each the last.

today we threw out love

and instead rode our high horses ably

into the jester's parade.

i'd like not to be thought of like that;

i held my wary tongue, wavering.

i know the limits of this, and i've received

every bit of it on another shore:

the piercing of a well-timed heart,

the assassination of a beat-bitten soul.

so i need a sort of puerile grace now,

something delicate to counteract the

greed of knowing what's best for everyone

(you only ever know what's best for you

and that's a fortunate science).

i fold in threes, triangle faces and fingers

keeping me from lashing out.

this isn't my desire, to mudsling, to steal the throne.

i cried yesterday so i'm not a martyr now.

11.2012

a girl with a heart

i'm caught in you,

being tossed amongst your melée,

and i used to think it might be healthy for me --

i'm convinced

it's so good for my soul to love you.

should my soul, then,

be splitting itself down the center

in what can only be called a civil tug-of-war,

shredding me

in a juvenile game of

to-be-or-not-to-be?

a tragedy at best

written for only your benefit.

and suddenly here i am,

naked in the glare of a rogue headlight,

and i really wish you'd run me over,

slam into me head-on

and be done with it.

it would be less painful

than this.

i'd even venture to say

that i wish you could hate me

or that i could hate you

even though i know

it's not really in me

to ever harbor such emotions

or to let you know.

so could you please just sever this thread

that binds me so readily to you

so that i can be free of all this?

i'm coming undone at your feet

and i'm losing myself

over the pieces of us...

i can't be the done-up doll

the pill-popping priss

the mascara-smeared Marilyn

you chase

you drool over

you claim will complete you;

it's me,

this, just a girl with a heart,

or nothing.

that is all i can offer,

now or ever,

and so i must request to be

put out of my misery

or else risk

making a mockery of us both;

be attentive and real

or be done with me.

01.2010

sense

world -- struck blind and deaf,

no sense left to make some sense --

judged me anyway.

04.21.2010

only ours

you're not sure when you stopped

meaning something.

well, since you asked,

yes, i do miss the things

that were once only ours.

our favorite place to be

was in the front seats of your car,

you at unsteady wheel

and me picking up your misses on the road.

Matt Nathanson would happily serenade us

and you and i would serenade him right back

as if he could hear us through a one-sided stereo,

but we always did him one better

by harmonizing --

you so loved those harmonies

we shared.

they brought his music to life for us,

the too-true lyrics

resonating long after the songs had ended.

it was like

this guy

had taken our own lives,

read every page

and written about them,

spreading experience, emotion

across radio waves

and bedrooms

and iPods

and hearts

like the tastiest butter.

i still recall fondly

the concert he gave at our school;

at five bucks per head

it was a fucking steal

but he must have known

we were broke college kids

who'd wasted our parents' money

on beer the week before.

he asked what we wanted to hear

and we told him

and he listened and played it all

into perfection.

you got it all on camera

and sent me the videos;

i watch them now

and as amazing as Matt was that night

all i can think of

is you

because he was ours.

the best day i had last summer

was my 23rd birthday

when you visited me in Florida

and we spent it in Walt Disney World,

a place that had seemed only mine

for weeks

and then opened up to accommodate you

there in the midst of my dream.

we rode Mission: Space together

and Zach got so excited

to be a part of the journey

that he dubbed us Team Awesome

and there we were,

a cluster of young adults

who'd been transformed by the magic

into invincible kids.

we had a superhero stance and everything.

we rode it five times in a row

so we'd all have a turn at each role,

and that day

all of it --

the buttons on the inside that we couldn't wait to push,

Gary Sinise as our trusty flight director,

going to space and back in four minutes,

all of it

was ours.

the night before you left

in the hotel

we were in bed

talking about life

and i cried

because i'd been lonely and homesick,

because it had meant the world to have visitors,

because i didn't want you

to go.

you held me

and cried with me

and told me that you loved me

and that at last

you understood what i felt for you.

it pains my heart to know

how often you think of that moment now;

i remember it like yesterday

too.

but somewhere in between the beginning and the end

i got hurt

and in turn you got hurt

and the things that had been only ours

disintegrated back into

facts of life

for everyone.

i'm not sure when you stopped

meaning something;

i don't think you've stopped

meaning something.

but if we've lost

those things that were ours,

much of the meaning

has gotten lost, too,

all that ever defined you and me

has gotten lost, too.

yes, i do miss the things

that were once only ours.

05.2010