1AM, i was
gently shoved
out of a dream
in which i was
thrown into some
type of parallel
where
you
and
i
had never spoke
more than a mere
"excuse me"
walking into school
one morning
holding a glass door
open
i have spent
the last 5 hours
trying to get
this scene out of
my head.
even in a universe
where you had
never squeezed my
hand twice, like a
pulse, or sat on
your porch with
your cigarettes we
shared and two
glasses of orange,
i left my lipstick
on everything
you'd have thought
i would be more
permanent --
even then
i spent the rest
of my dream
thinking
about how
7:45AM
looks so
good on
you.
Nov 15, 2014
Nov 15, 2014 at 2:12 AM UTC
something snapped in me earlier this month
i think it was the bough that held most of what was rotten inside of me
but it could've just been the breath i was holding ever since the day i declared that your absence was never permanent, but i realized that this time it is
but this is not a poem about hoping that what goes up must come down, and what leaves you has to come back around
it's about how the clouds are looking more like laughing children
and i hear the birds in the morning without mourning you at the sight of an empty chair
i have found truth in a kind of beauty that has nothing to do with you
two weeks ago, all i thought about was what kind of person you have become and if they are anything like the person i fell in love with, but
if i've learned anything about love from you
it's that sometimes it means screaming until your voice shatters and other times it's found in silence
or growing out of old ways and apologizing despite only having fallen so hard, you left a crack in the cement
i've learned that the only reason anyone could ever replace me is because i left a hole big enough in their chest to need replacing
and by the end of it all, i got to laugh and cry and *** and be the truest, most human version of myself in the presence of someone else
i have a whole lifetime to do it all over again
i loved the things that you would do when you were you
that is enough for me
Nov 15, 2014
Nov 15, 2014 at 2:12 AM UTC
i write all day like an adult,
i am learned and i use big words
and i know how to accurately craft
a metaphor about pain and harm.
but at the end of the day
i return to childlike phrases,
“it’s not fair,” and i feel more
of a release from that than
a composition notebook
filled from cover to cover
with a million different ways
of saying that i still,
despite everything,
am not happy.
Nov 15, 2014
Nov 15, 2014 at 2:11 AM UTC
It's okay darling, I know you're not in love with me
j.f
Nov 15, 2014
Nov 15, 2014 at 2:10 AM UTC
and i am eleven again
feeling like tomorrow
is a couple yesterday's ago
smothered in cayenne pepper
hot enough to take off taste buds
and tonight i am eating a meal
only worth burning
it tastes like my parents anniversary
it tastes like a zinfandel
left on the counter too long
it's a bad story, see
there's no silverware
'cause my mom sold it
to keep the lights on
and somewhere in heaven
somebody in a suit
doing commentary
on this fiasco
is telling someone else
in a suit that
"you have to eat love with your hands"
so we sit, four plates on the table
for the two of us
my brother's long gone
dad's even further away
& he's not the one who's buried
i carry both their names like anchors
that i cannot unmoor from
while she looks at the empty table
and says something about the news
she says something else
but she's not talking
we aren't proud of this, see
my dad likes to wax his car
he's proud of it
and my mom says
she sees a lot of him in my hands
says, i touch the things i find
like they didn't belong
to people sleeping in the ground
she says i touch photo albums
the same way-
you know,
i never used to believe
that history could repeat itself
not until i could
fast forward seventeen years
and still wake up to smoke alarms
how i would go into our kitchen
to find it empty
and the dinner smoldering
& my mother in her bedroom
looking through family photos
like it's a just another summer day
and the sirens are just the birds
i don't ask, i never say a word
in this moment
i am an archeologist
afraid to dig up the past
cause history repeats itself-
you see
my brother is dead
and my father is gone
they have been for some years now
and my mother
sometimes forgets
and sets their place at the table
like they're still here
and in the confusion
ends up ankle deep
in pictures of how it used to be
she let's dinner burn
and douses it in red pepper
hoping i won't know the difference
Oct 13, 2014
Oct 13, 2014 at 4:43 PM UTC
i love you this morning
it's a come home safe morning
fog on the road
& no seatbelt kind of morning
the sun is over easy
& nothing's on fire
there's punctuation
where i don't want it
and extra love
in the glovebox of my car
been thinking about being honest
how these poems are all me
but they tell the story
how someone else
might believe it happened
within reasonable doubt
no copy & pasted love letters
no 'who ever says hello first gets my attention for the day'
try a little tenderness
in my ears and today
there are instruments
in the back of my head
i think you love me
because i'm sunburned
felt it in a 'come hell or high water' kinda way, that 'touched from far away' kinda way that 'if i touch this piano one more time one of us is going to break' kinda way
and i drove over 17 bridges yesterday and today i'll do it again
and i think nobody gets
what that means except maybe you
i just tell them i love the scenery
that somebody must've made
these trees blush just for me
you know how i love
to change the subject
i bet they'd love the view
i bet you would too
and all these metaphors
for other things are beside the point
this is a metaphor
for why i don't wear my seatbelt
a metaphor for why whiskey
knows me better than you
could ever try to
all the buildings seemed to sag yesterday and all the stars
are doing that cliche thing
where they talk
quiet jet noise
& some lumbering giant
made everything shake
not those hand metaphors
not another one of those
& keep the sea to yourself
i think it was a train
it's sound hugged the embankment
for a moment
and then trailed off into nowhere
and that's kind of like me
how there's a town called 'rescue'
close to my home &
it's no coincidence
that i've never been there
Oct 6, 2014
Oct 6, 2014 at 6:51 AM UTC
you said it was the weather
when i asked why it is i'’m so cold
what you forgot to mention is
that it was the middle of the
summer and whether or not you
would be back by the time fall hit
well, fall hit and the leaves
crunching beneath my shoes sound
like door slams and i stay up thinking
if you weren’t around to hear it;
did it really happen?
you don’t call the next day and
i know for sure it happened
you say i should move on,
i picked the boy with your fingers
and spent the night thinking about the
way he would look on top of me
and spent the morning hoping you
couldn’t read minds,
because mine wasn’t on yours
this time and im sorry,
you say you will call and i think about
the way winter will hit without you around
to see, because it's happened but
this time it won't leave bruises
Sep 28, 2014
Sep 28, 2014 at 11:57 AM UTC
I always hurt the ones I love
with every inch of my aching heart
the ones I shouldn't hurt at all
I walk the streets and
pick the prettiest flower on the ground
and crush every beautiful petal
I always break the
warmest of all hearts
with my terrible careless words
so, if I broke your heart last night
it's because I love you the most
j.f
Sep 28, 2014
Sep 28, 2014 at 11:55 AM UTC
I have secrets written down on scraps of paper thrown underneath my bed but you're my biggest I took advantage of you and how you felt when I would make you smile I made you feel like a grain of dirt in my garden and I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I thought I was innocent and perfect that I could do no wrong especially to you but it was all a lie I made myself believe and you believe for so long I hate that I hurt you and I hate how I can't take any of it back I cannot stand the thought of you wandering around today or years from now thinking of me as a storm who did not do anything good but destroy it's precious surrounding I really pray that the thought of me does not pass your mind when you are sad and that I'm not pinned in the back of your mind but out of your mind I cannot stand to think that you will remember me as someone who broke you instead of someone who loved you
-something I wish she would say to me.
j.f
Sep 28, 2014
Sep 28, 2014 at 11:55 AM UTC
Don't ever fall in love with a poet
because they will indeed admire and watch your every move
they will write about how the pen marks on the side of your palm when you write
don't ever because they will trace
every single freckle you have on your face and
write about the color of each and every one of them and
describe how they smile so brightly under the sunlight
they will want you to want to know every little thing about them
even if it's just what hand they write with and want you
to be wondering why they write with that specific hand when in
reality it doesn't even matter
the poet will watch the way you dig
your eyes onto that book and your small quick remarks onto the 26 letters all crumpled together and will know that everyday at 5:28 p.m. you smile
they will look deeply into your eyes
to see if they can at least take a little
peak of your soul and they will write
about you like if you were the only
thing they see good in this world
they will want to know what you think
about when you look at them and
see if you also count each and
every freckle and hope and write
that you do but they will
love you endlessly and they will
show you that they love you and only you
but don't date a poet if you aren't
capable to watch them and
admire their imperfections
when they sleep late at night
beside you.
j.f
Sep 28, 2014
Sep 28, 2014 at 11:54 AM UTC