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

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]

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

sometimes a bit further

when you refrain from wiping the tears away

they drip-drop, soft, down between each breast

and sometimes a bit further if you're lonely.

they'll dry on their own from the heat of the

ache. on chest and cheek

the pain might burst into ugly puddles if you let it

but you can't begin to heal if you won't

let yourself be broken, isn't that

what they always say?

all-right, all-right,

goes the beat-beat of the handsome heart --

he forgot to wear his tails

but you still pine for

him to hear you and maybe

catch those tears for once.

but soaked in salt and simple sickness

your breasts can only heal

and give you back the edge

your eyes have let go of:

be like the wind and know where you're going.

easier said, but those tears

at least will dry on your shirts

or in the naked air, eventual.

09.2012

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

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

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

tip-toeing

i love words

and having words and

knowing how to use them

but i do not love

how they can shatter

worlds and bring tears

from nothing

it's easy to speak

it's not easy to think

before speaking

that song once found beautiful

now ruins you

words with new meanings now

profound whispers tip-toeing

across land mine hearts

09.2012

so long, January

don't flatter yourself, January.

you promise a new year,

new beginnings

but it's more of the same old shit.

turmoil in the static.

you're not fulfilling my needs

and you know how i thrive on

immediate satisfaction.

so go fuck yourself, January,

or else find me a way to deal with

the sudden burst of nothingness you've handed me.

for you found me at a difficult time,

but for once it's not the fault of

a man or

a friend-in-passing or

some other convenient betrayal.

it's only me,

my fault,

all my doing

but it's been going on like this

since September,

so you can see how i was anticipating you

to somehow rescue me from this

ready-to-expire horror story

i'm creating.

i'm sad to say

you couldn't offer me anything more

than high hopes abandoned on window sills

by one who was too afraid to jump

for keeps.

the January thrill of snow and speed

were lures into a game called life

that i'm not sure i'm ready to be a part of yet,

so forgive me if i'm not

ecstatic

about my current situation.

for we both know i've never been the type

to be tied down

to anything,

least of all

what's expected of me.

my alter ago,

the side of me no one sees,

is way ahead of its time

with things you could never provide for me,

January.

you toyed with me and now

i'm over it

and i'm over you

and the thirty-one days of

shit

you offered,

so you'll again forgive me

for not mincing my words.

i'll move on to the next

who promises some kind of salute to love

and perhaps i'll find something

whole

or something that will make me feel

whole.

so long, January,

you mother fucker.

next year

you'd better bring it.

02.2010

muddy

i don't belong here and i am well-aware

of that but still you force it

down a swollen throat like

knives i can't hope to abate,

fighting the death of me. i don't want your pity

but i do want a chance in your muddy eyes

to be more than obligatory waste.

07.2011

of you i only remember the last week (II)

of you

i only remember

the last week in March, the

day before you were to return to Germany

i could not fathom having

gotten so close to you so quickly

and now oceans separating our laughter again

just like that

those parties chez toi

they always made me nervous, cringing

to think of conversing in French for three

four, five hours, hours of exhaustion

before i came i indulged on red wine

the sweet kind from the Loire just nextdoor

and you moved out so it wasn't your business now was it

my head got foggy on purpose

i had to have a foggy head

to fucking stand another drawn-out soirée

where you are the guest of honor

you were always the guest of honor and

i never felt good enough to be sitting on your right side

the joke of the Loiret who knew no way to be happy here

but i had my trusty wine in my belly

and i was golden, conversational wiz

confidence surfacing from the too-conscious parts of my brain

and i giggled perhaps a bit louder and longer

and you asked me with a smile if i was already drunk

yes! i wanted to scream, yes! i am!

because i don't want to fucking be here

with these temporary people who tolerate me!

you can at last stop tolerating me

Veronika gave you a necklace but

you did like her more than me didn't you

i gave you some perfume of mine

to remember me, if you can

if you are capable of remembering

you handed me my give-a-damn on a polished plate

i should have thrown it to the floor

and enjoyed the crash instead

08.2012

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

Daddy finds difficulty in this

Daddy sent his leftover tears to Wisconsin

for you to stumble upon

when you arrive,

among other things.

he just wants to be remembered,

he just wants you to remember.

he has nothing left to give you.

Daddy can't pull off

being the tough guy anymore;

he wore that out

when he was shaping you to enter the world.

he doesn't know how to hold back

from exposure,

and his soul is terrified

of that helpless feeling that comes

when someone is suddenly, completely

bare.

he doesn't know

he'll be forgiven;

he can't find a star to pray on:

he doesn't want to let you go.

Daddy finds difficulty in this

but he'll never let you know

until you're opposite those watery baby blues

watching them shrink into tears

he'll send along ahead for you.

[my father is one of the most compassionate men i've ever known, and because of that he so elegantly inspired a series in my writing. i love writing about him. x]

05.2010

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

two meetings

she holds his heart so close to hers
and all i can do is notice mine aching wearily.
he remains oblivious to all affections,
but how am i to break her heart
when mine is halfway there?
his smile entrances that which betrays me,
swallows all doubt of regard,
illuminates my nights,
but it proves similar for she.
i'm left to share diluted tea
with only my unheard self
as i assume the masquerade
i've been avoiding from the beginning.
how can i give my love to him
when i'd be competing for his?
he knows me, yes,
but he attends to her willingly.
two meetings cannot accurately demonstrate
what many meetings can.
maybe the world would prefer my alter ego
to my honest heart;
the masquerade has become my shelter.

04.2005

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