it's a lot harder than you think.
you have to be from the South, like me
or the North, like I want to be
or somewhere entirely more interesting than Dallas
and you have to have the ginger gene
(because there's no way I'm having
blonde children)
and you have to like aquariums
specifically the seahorses
don't wear too much cologne or
pastels and don't ever smell like
frat parties, barbecue, or beer
and DON'T ever say that ballet is stupid.
you have to ask before we choose
the restaurant because I don't eat Italian
or Thai or Greek or Subway
and you have to hold the door open for me
even if we're in my own room.
listen to my monologues for class
and rattled-off to-do lists
as you lazily push the basket
and I grab it from you because you're going too slow
and mockingly call you a princess
know that I am busy, VERY busy
in fact so busy that I may not see you
because I am an independent woman
and there are stories to be built, dragons to be slayed,
and there are things my hands must finish
before I can start on holding yours
make fun of my Crocs
and the way I hiccup out of nowhere
and the days that I don't have time to eat breakfast
so I bring a Fuzzy's cup to class
full of off-brand Cap'n Crunch
shoving handfuls into my mouth between
snide remarks about Morrison
while you laugh inside your eyes
about what a cynic I pretend to be
hate me when I tell you
that I don't need a hug
and that I'd rather be dating Hemingway
or that I have rehearsal
painting cities, building histories
ignore my comments about you needing to shave
or on how I think I'd rather I'd never get married
and live the rest of my days writing stories
with organic vegetables and rainy days and
walks in the Carolinas
call me a ***** when I'm being one
(because I know I am about 97% of the time)
and tell me you would help me
if I would ever let you
whether it be Christmas lights or
physics lab or the gnawing pain
of lonely lonely lonely
let me read my books, propped up on
my pillows and nestled into a glaze
and let me have my expectations
of Rochesters and Darcys
even though I say I don't
and when I have to sew a blanket for class
and I say the stitching looks awful
tell me no, it doesn't
because I desperately want you
to know that my favorite color is lavender
and I love watermelon and stationery and
online shopping at 2 am
and I desperately want to know
your elementary school, your favorite song,
your middle name
even though I pretend I don't
and sometimes when I say I'm right
and you know that I know I'm wrong
just pick up your spirals and turn to leave,
then stop and say
"my favorite book is Gatsby, too."
and smile and call me crazy.
it's a lot easier than you think.
Sep 20, 2012
Sep 20, 2012 at 12:46 AM UTC
you always seem to be around when I do
the stupidest of things
like that one time
at three in the morning
I asked Katherine to roll on the ground with me
down the hallway of our dorm
and you happened to come up the stairs
and I made eye contact with your California smile
and that one time I told Sarah I was going to diet
until I reached my birth weight
of six pounds, seven ounces
and you overheard the conversation
and awkwardly walked by
and that one time
that I had a craptastic day
and you happened to sit next to me in at dinner
and a rock got caught in my Croc
(why I was wearing these I don't know)
and I accidentally fell while trying to get it out
and you just took another sip of Diet Coke and left
and that one time
that I for some cruel reason of fate
decided to count the exit signs in the cafeteria
like that was a brilliant idea
and you happened to be on the other side of the door
so I basically ran away
only you followed me
look, I know you think that I
was doing these things on purpose,
even though your face is always blank and expressionless;
I know on the inside you think I am
the biggest idiot on the face of the planet.
It has been exactly six days
in a row
of me doing the STUPIDEST ****
and you always happen to be there,
waiting for me to spill something,
sing something,
trip and tumble down the stairs
for your own amusement?
maybe so.
or maybe I'm just clumsy.
and I also know that you probably think
I have a massive crush on you,
that I stalk you and wait for these opportunities
to make myself look like a genuine freak
just so you
with your sun coast hair
and your summertime lips
will notice me.
but I don't.
I was just too bad to be a good girl
and too good to be bad
and you were just beautiful.
Oct 19, 2011
Oct 19, 2011 at 10:59 AM UTC
i wonder
if someone else called you
to tell them a story
because the nightmares wouldn't cut their ropes,
would you kick your heels
upon your desk and spin
a tale as long as the night itself
until they fell asleep?
"a beautiful red-haired princess
lived in a land
far far away
but she was so amazing
that the prince would scale
the highest of the mountainsides
to see her"
you were always writing me
into fairytales
and sometimes they helped
fight the darkness
did I ever tell you about those nightmares?
how I heard an old Chicano folktale
about La Llorona
and how she came to me in a dream
weeping and screeching
and clawing at her eyes
and shrieking "Ayudame!"
through the tangle of the black woods in front of me
twisting riddles through my slumber.
do you know that
sometimes during barre stretch,
when we shoot our legs skyward,
or when i'm filing college interviews
your smile-laugh ripples
through my ears
and I grit my teeth
through peppermint pain
and try to drown it out?
did I ever tell you
when I got the phrases
"La Llorona"y "la rana"
scrambled up in my brain?
La maestra told us we would be
leyendo un cuento
sobre la rana
en the pond
and I thought she meant a story of
La Llorona
the wailing woman
maestro of a symphony of screams
and my heart stopped working
and I told her, "No puedo, I can't."
and she said, "Silly girl, la rana es 'the frog'."
and laughed.
do you remember when
they took me to a grave
and you told me about cancer
and how you thought that you'd die young?
you said it
so calmly
as if the dead around you
were offering up their Easter lilies
as a bridal bouquet
to be tossed to a lucky relative
and i just looked at you
with sea-glass eyes
and you kissed me
as the tears spilled over
into silent rivers
down my cheeks
i wonder
if sometimes
when you listen closely
you can hear the bottle-sculptures'
mouths lisping with the wind
or la rana
croaking in the pond
and smile-laughing right along with you
at me.
if the story has a different beginning now
or a middle
or an end
or if you've written me out entirely
or maybe just changed my fate
"a beautiful red-haired princess
was punished for her vanity
and doomed to wander and wail
for all of eternity
for she had done wrong."
and am I La Llarona,
the weeping woman?
because that's all I ever
seemed to do
The dreams are gone now
or, rather, the nightmares
but there are some things
more haunting in reality.
i wonder if she hears
the coded tick-tock
of the static
or the shrill cries
of tortured souls
forever searching
forever lost
i wonder
if you love her
more than me.
Oct 23, 2010
Oct 23, 2010 at 11:22 AM UTC
I tiptoe hence from
crack to crack in the
asphalt of our parking lot
trying not to hit the yardlines like
we did in marching band
practice, carefully, steadily
with six steps to a stripe
six-to-five six-to-five
left right left
and I'm trying not to notice
that the trees, their leaves are
turning now to the colors of
the hairs upon my head
copper
and ash
blonde brownish
honey
and the sweetest of
auburn
on my left
right left
and I'm not doing a very good job
of not noticing these things
like how I pretend not to notice how
you smile when I'm not looking but
you are, you're smiling, you're
looking at me and perhaps catching
glimpse of the rainbow of follicles
emerging from my scalp
which is great and all, but still it
makes me nervous makes me jittery
pocketwatch in my ribcage
tickticktick
I scuff my foot across the yellow
paint of parking spaces and joke that
we would have pretty children
because that's always been a topic
that's one of those half-joking, half-not
topics that all
boy and girl friends have even if
they aren't boyfriends or girlfriends they're
just friends, it's still a tender subject
and today I'm feeling
brave except for when I
trip over a word and widen my
eyeballs in embarrassment
until they can see the very
tips of my eyelashes and I
feel very odd indeed
because I realize no one thinks of that
except of course for
six-to-five six-to-five
and I've mapped out my life in bottle caps
and those pepperminty things you
can only find at wedding receptions
and I ****** them in a jar until I stir
them into prophecy and they tell me
if you were another boy if you had a signet
for a seal and possibly a stallion or at
very least a cloak
or a practicality for inventions more useful
than those of divinities
but you aren't no you aren't
and in another life were you a
nine-to-five nine-to-five
and in another time you could've passed
and we could laugh our days away by
the fires and read Whitman to our
Siamese and drape ourselves with kaleidoscope
quilts in lavish armchairs and just
breathed
honey, honey for your toast
breathe, don't cry
crying is for
the weak
and in another life I could've smiled
without abandon I could've
let your fingers brush my jawline let
you read over my shoulder and occasionally
turn the pages for me and I
could've seen our future and let you tell
me I was beautiful and possibly loved you
...but I can't love you.
This is not another life.
this is mine I tiptoe fragilely
from crack to crack and breath to
breath to keep myself from falling off
the edge and so I murmur quietly in my brain
ash blonde brown auburn burgundy and
six-to-five
yes, six-to-five
and let me close my eyes to blink
you tell me
you're not foolish enough to tell me
what you really think
and you laugh and I tell you I'm stopping this
train
of thought before it derails itself and causes those
catastrophes where thousands die
of head-on collisions and
butterfly feelings
and stricken-through unfinished
like I'm in a game of hide
and seek but you're pretending
not to know where I am hiding
so I can be the last one
left
right left
so I halt myself at six-to-five
and let you kiss me anyway
you don't know that in those
few choice words
you've given myself away
Sep 29, 2010
Sep 29, 2010 at 7:18 PM UTC
I thirst.
You rip through here
a hurricane
biting through civilians and officials alike
until their bloodshed stains the streets
and the streams tick off the tally of your victims
your only aim to crush and maim
regardless of the death toll
or the reason
or the phasing of the moon
And then come crashing down again
while we are left, shaking our heads,
to sweep your secrets
into crematoria and coffins
Then dust off our hands
to wipe away your tears
and scrub away the fever
That leaves a ring of soapy sickness
in your bathwater
And then hold you,
bitter infant,
until the tide falls away
The constants, the healers,
What some call the mothers
though you are not our blood children
We are the ones that soothe your cuts and burns
Listen to your side of the story
And settle the fights of dollar bills
and ancestors
that you scorn without abandon
Hear you simper for a lullaby
As we rock you back to sleep
But the sighs don’t escape
until after we’ve checked under the bed for monsters
for the hundredth
or the thousandth
or the millionth time this week;
we can’t let you catch on
that the only real beasts lie within ourselves.
We would give you the moon
Had you not tamed it
And the deserts for your sandbox
But no matter what we give
You want it all you want it all
And we want nothing
NOTHING
in return
Just a single peaceful night,
vengeful child,
tea stirred with vanilla and sleep
but your screamings pierce our dreams
and nightmares
We are the worrywarts
The unsure
The cautious and the skeptics
Who don’t believe in jumping on the bed
Or in other such adventures
We are wrinkled brows and unpressed collars
The “it’s for your own good”s and the seamstresses
That stitch your heart back together
Before it’s broken one time too many
And you end up like us.
We are the aftermath, the backstory,
the prayers and dictionaries
that make it out of life alive
The Barmecidal harmony, the snatches of hymns
We are the scraps of coffee-tainted paper
that you slap against the telephone poles
As if the taste of scathing news-ink
is a bandage for the hurting
And we fold debris into our kerchiefs
saving them as souvenirs
And you call us close-minded
You call us cowards
As you snap your jaws and roar
down a vast and lonesome prairie
like the wind
Fast to laugh
and quick to run away
As we wander the streets lonely,
the gaslamps shattered on the cobblestones,
and stoop to collect the pieces
of the life you left behind.
Forgive them, Father,
for they know not what they do.
Sep 7, 2010
Sep 7, 2010 at 7:06 PM UTC
To my ex's friends
who all friended me on Facebook
even though I'd never met you
once in my life
I graciously accepted
your cyber-creepy gestures
and you all wrote on my wall
and told me I looked nice
three months later
I broke up with him
and now you keep your distance
and don't even like my statuses?
guess I'm not so nice anymore.
Aug 10, 2010
Aug 10, 2010 at 9:10 PM UTC
My grandfather's not dead
but you act like he is
the way you tiptoe around the closed oak door
way you whisper in a scratchy voice
when you talk about the future
way you pop in your
set of pearly whites
and bare your teeth too easily
when he asks you for a glass of water
and your brassy trumpet tells him
of course, dear, are you feeling okay?
You think that I've caught on
and know better than to trade him secrets
beneath the cracked door to your bedroom
like copper pennies for freedom
and that I don't remember him
throwing diving sticks at the bottom of the pool
then snatching them up and waving them above his head
far from my six-year-old reach
or when sitting upon his knee as a child
I would pick at the edges of the sepia photos
as he traced the veins of our family
back to seventy-second great-aunts
and royalty
I help you count the red pills
as I recall my favorite hiding place
(your fireplace)
and you shake your head and scold me
that was an awful place to hide
what if there had been cinders?
I tell you
we live in Texas
and tuck my wishes back into my pocket
and mention that Granddad thought it was
a fantastic place to visit
and that I would sit there for hours
and pretend I was a phoenix
from the old mythology books
in the musty back of your closet
You laugh as you slip him his pills
you can't possibly remember that
But I remember and
I insist on discussing college while he's in the room
his wrinkly eyes smile when I plot out my dreams
and he knows that I know
but I keep our secret anyway
you simper at my mother
oh, isn't she precious
hopeful and hoping a cure will be found
but you don't realize I've already discovered it:
Pretend like nothing has happened
Don't let them see the ticking hours on the mantelpiece
As long as we know that we're not older
beneath these transcripts and chemotherapies
the real world doesn't matter
not really, not at all
My grandfather's alive
even if you think he isn't
but he is
and he's sitting in your drawing room
so why don't you pop by for a visit?
we're only pretending, anyway.
Aug 8, 2010
Aug 8, 2010 at 8:33 PM UTC
I saw a baby picture of myself the other day
Not much has changed
I was smaller back then
less hair, quite a deal
shorter
But most things seem the same
Same piercing green eyes
even as a baby
they never were blue
like normal babies have
Same long pale fingers
itching for keys to press
A defined widow's peak
with tufts of ginger curling around it
And a glowing mysterious smile
that my parents' friends swooned over
even without teeth
The constants vary though
My eyes are pillowed by exhaustion
my fingers are chipped at the ends
I am too busy to push back
my long red hair and expose
my widow's peak once more
Something about that picture puzzled me
something different
when I looked into the mirror
at night while brushing my teeth
examining my pores
scrubbing away my eyeliner
and crawled into bed
and staring up at the cracks in the ceiling
it hit me.
Smiling.
I don't do too much of that anymore.
In other words, I was
an extraordinary child
that grew up to be
quite ordinary.
Jul 27, 2010
Jul 27, 2010 at 8:51 PM UTC
a stripe of asphalt on the blanket of green
I stare wordlessly out into other people's lives
peeking past the violet-tinted windows of the freeway
as your chat-chatter spills from your coffee cup
filled to the brim with handshakes and impatience
You clutch your earpiece tighter, scowling
as I trace the horizon across the glass
smudgy fingertips that sigh boredom
and the Mexican workers in orange vests
peer back at me curious and wave
turn to their left and shout something in Spanish
tongues dancing, slick with dust
I smile as they crumple their lunch sacks and
pitch them down into the rubble then hoist
brick by brick, stone by stone
no natural-made boundary
into the chalky air and perch for a while
to mop the sweat from their brown
creased faces and sing rowdily to their neighbors
and the immobile in the SUVs
You lock the doors fast
and pat your hair into place
I've got no time for this construction
you say, can't they build this highway somewhere else?
as you drum your fingers along to the siren song
of CEOs and business connections
You're just the same as the rest of them.
Man forever building bridges
that will only topple down.
Jun 23, 2010
Jun 23, 2010 at 7:26 AM UTC
The waves slither over the rocks and wink
cutting into the soles of our flesh
whispering sweet nothings to the porcelain of skin
Our feet are not used to treading without shoes
and we’ll walk the waters
stalk the waters like panthers to their prey
carefully calculating where to strike next
so our toes can skim the surface without dousing ourselves in doubt
The velvet starlessly undulates like serpents overhead
nipping playfully at our ankles
hissing fog over the cross-stitching below
Our toes giggle and ease on our slippers of cold
and we’ll shift the waters,
sift the waters of their impurities and artifice
leaving the ingredients of ginger, sand, and freckles
so we can remember the recipe for when we grow older
A melody fits between the stones
caterwauling over the wail of the winds
humming through the salt and silt
Our laughter clicks like puzzle pieces
and we’ll see the waters,
be the water’s song resounding in low octaves
echoing inside the memories framed
so our tongues will never forget what to sing to get out of trouble
A beacon slices the shore with dancing lights
twirling between the universe and words
supping on the whip of the sea against rock
Our eyes well with the tears of de Leon
and we’ll feel the waters,
steal the waters back to our hearths in tiny blue bottles
watching them swirl around inside the glass
so our fists can hold resolute to the green light unattainable
Jun 4, 2010
Jun 4, 2010 at 6:55 AM UTC