Hearing your name ripples
mountain ranges down my arms.
I can't help but grimace
in complete lack of surprise.
I no longer find my interest
in you to be amusing, and
I'm reminded once again
that every mistake has a shelf life.
I wonder when
I'll stop finding myself here.
Backed into a corner
by my own misguided taste.
Oct 23, 2020
Oct 23, 2020 at 4:43 PM UTC
Letting the water rush around my ankles,
I whisper your name to the seafoam.
I roll my tongue around each syllable,
as if enunciation alone could draw
fate lines between us.
The water recedes,
and takes with it my breath.
I see now that the ocean is what taught you
to leave me gasping for air.
May 8, 2016
May 8, 2016 at 1:50 AM UTC
It is often in the most mundane moments that I am caught by sense of perspective altering awareness. Awareness of the ache in my toes from straining to see through the window of what might one day be. Awareness of the truly humbling way that life can take everything away, leave you sweating against the rock floor, only to show you the beauty in having enough strength to pull yourself back into the light. Awareness of the gratitude that pulses in my veins for the people I have landed amongst. It is here, in these moments, with pressure reminiscent of hope, disbelief, and wary elation expanding against my rib cage, declarations of affection catching in my throat, that the floors drop. Endless free fall is the only capacity within which I understand what it means to adore another. With feet firmly on the ground, I'm guaranteed to lose my way.
Nov 18, 2014
Nov 18, 2014 at 2:26 AM UTC
Some things exist behind curtains of experience.
Those whose tongues have
tasted the holy fire know the touch
of something divine.
Those who have laid eyes on
their sleeping bodies, and walked
away to places unknown, can grasp
the idea of an inbetween.
Those who have groped in the darkness
for something to believe in again, who
have longingly looked over the cliff edge,
know that true despair does exist.
As for me,
I know that true fear can
come in the form of footsteps
behind you on the empty street.
The person at the bar who insists on
hollow compliments and free drinks.
Friends who scoff at your anger for
men who yell out their passenger side
windows about the treasures beneath
your clothes.
True fear can come in the middle
of the afternoon, as you face
off against the four floor staircase
to your apartment, when your steps
are echoed by the man in 2b who has
a wife, son, and a taste for resistance.
Don't tell me I'm overreacting,
when the single most terrifying thing
I can do is walk alone under the street lamps.
Don't tell me I'm too uptight just
because I've learned that flattery
can come with a horrifying price tag.
Don't tell me I'm wrong just
because you don't understand.
Look me in the eye when you have
waited until a security guard can walk you
to your car. When you have held your
breath in a shared elevator. When you have
lowered your eyes to the men who yell
obscenities at you, because standing up
for yourself could prove deadly.
Look me in the eye when you have held back
the curtain of experience, and walked in the shoes
of someone who lives every moment knowing
this could be the day someone decides to steal
from me what is only mine to give.
Then look me in the eye when you tell
someone of your wound, and they reprimand
you for daring to walk this world as a woman.
Aug 29, 2014
Aug 29, 2014 at 9:26 PM UTC
Don't tell me the pieces of us
fell from my careless hands.
As if I was the Medusa
who turned your veins bitter,
and your skin to stone.
Anxiously hunched shoulders
can only hold up a relationships for so long
before giving under the pressure
of resentful looks and strained silences.
It wasn't I that scattered
eggshells in our home,
ear posed for gentle cracking in the
unfaithful hours of the morning.
My hands spread wide still aren't
enough to cradle your expectations,
and here I am, struggling to hold on to the edge,
as the gap between reasonable and unattainable widens.
I won't be blamed for leaving.
Not when your eyes have held ghosts for far too long.
May 25, 2014
May 25, 2014 at 12:15 AM UTC
For as long as I can remember,
I've been practicing safety drills.
school, home, the work place, even planes.
Everyone wants to be prepared
for those so-called natural disasters.
It's stunning how they never think to
prepare you for heart break.
It's so much more common.
You are the earthquake that has me
braced for an aftershock. I am hiding
under doorways, diving for the protection
of restaurant tables. My survival kit
is fresh out of healing, and my wounds are
growing agitated. Why wasn't I prepared for this?
Algebra and Grammar won't help me
get out of bed tomorrow morning.
Testing door handles to see if they are hot
will only keep me away from flesh wounds.
Zoology taught my to dissect a frog,
but your vital organs are so much harder to locate.
Is there even a heart inside your chest?
May 6, 2014
May 6, 2014 at 11:18 PM UTC
I've been so focused on trying to survive without you,
that I forgot the years I lived before I heard your name.
I tried for so long to make peace with who I thought you were,
that I didn't realize who you were actually becoming.
I've spent so many hours wondering why I wasn't enough,
that I failed to see how much I truly deserve.
Apr 22, 2014
Apr 22, 2014 at 6:33 PM UTC
Sometimes it feels as if I am tattooed
with all the roads I refused to walk.
Whether they made me who I am, or shed
me of who I'm not, it's rather hard to tell.
I suppose it's all the same,
since I kept on walking anyway.
Oct 1, 2013
Oct 1, 2013 at 11:02 AM UTC
You can't fall in love during the summer. There are no shivering hands or burnt tongues or worn out coats. Sandy beaches are a poor substitute for autumn leaves, especially in the Midwest, and the heat will burn out new passion much too quickly. Love requires coughing on bonfire smoke and learning the difference between grey skies and rain.
You can't fall in love during the summer, but that's when I met you, and I think I'm starting to realize that not every rule is made to be broken, but every broken rule is made with consequences.
You can't fall in love during the summer, I know because we tried, and look where that choice has landed us.
Sep 30, 2013
Sep 30, 2013 at 4:13 PM UTC
Every minute without a word from you, was a reminder that you were thinking of someone else.
And every hour was another reason why I understood.
And every day caused another piece of me to go numb without your touch.
And every week reopened the wounds I had stitched up with your smiles.
And as the months have broken me down, I realize soon there will be nothing left to break.
Sep 30, 2013
Sep 30, 2013 at 4:11 PM UTC