I think he’s worried that if he gives me the keys I will walk into his heart and immediately start redecorating. He has things set up the way he likes and he doesn’t want his posters torn down for wall decals of birds and quotes about love. He knows (it’s happened before) that most people can’t help but want to change things. No matter how much they like the way it looks, they can’t help but get started thinking what if… They have their ideas about how it should look. They want to put in their night tables and their paper lanterns. They want to make your heart theirs.
And when they leave (which they inevitably do, we are all some sort of nomad) they take some parts and leave others and you are left with a half full, cluttered heart. You have to make the long and painful decisions about what belongs there; try to remember what was there before she came. You try to sift out which parts of you she built, and which parts are worth keeping.
What he doesn’t understand about me is that I am not in the habit of making homes. I don’t like too much to stay. A blanket, bed and books are all I need. So he can keep his posters, and hang whatever lights he wants. If I admire the décor its only because I can see the way it lights up his eyes.
So I keep knocking, I keep peeking in the windows. And he keeps stalling, putting things in their right place, worried that if he lets me in I’ll start knocking things down. And I can’t claim to not be a master of messes. I can’t claim I wont throw my laundry on the floor, and forget to scrub the toilet, and get sugar in the crevices of all the kitchen appliances for some late night cupcakes.
But I am not the type to move furniture. And when I’m gone it will be all yours again, every quiet corner. Maybe just a fingerful of sugar lingering behind a clean coffee mug will remind you that I was ever there at all.
Apr 24, 2018
Apr 24, 2018 at 9:56 AM UTC
She is the closest I will ever get to meeting myself
Her waist thinner than mine
Like she was pulled out a little longer in the taffy press of life
In another life we would have been best friends
But today I don’t know what her hands mean
Are they stronger than I am?
Is she?
Because she only shares her wildest dreams
And her paper smiles
Are the ones without the scissor nicks
I would like to see the version of her that she only shows herself
I would like to see the mistakes
And the first drafts
Instead of the paper doll
She pretends to be
Because how can a woman who refuses to acknowledge
Her rips and tears
Ever ask for tape?
Jun 24, 2017
Jun 24, 2017 at 11:05 AM UTC
When I am told that mistakes are beautiful, I laugh
Because they are not.
By definition mistakes are ugly.
Beauty’s name should not be corrupted by that which we regret.
I did not want to kiss him
I did not want to break his heart
I did not want that to be the last time I saw her
I did not want to leave her there.
Mistakes do not give color to life,
They add gray, and dirt, and darkness.
But though they are not beautiful they should not be discarded.
There is a difference between beauty
And that which is worth appreciating.
Without the ugliness we wouldn’t notice
What is gorgeous.
We wouldn’t be able to tell
When we did the exact perfect thing.
And though they are often small, hidden
Amid the endless gray catastrophe of our mistakes
Our perfect moments do come
And they stay with us.
May 24, 2017
May 24, 2017 at 12:19 AM UTC
After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,
And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning
And company doesn’t mean security.
And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts
And presents aren’t promises,
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open.
And you learn to build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.
After a while you learn…
That even sunshine burns if you get too much.
So you plant your garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure…
That you really are strong
And you really do have worth…
And you learn and learn…
With every good-bye you learn.
-JLB
May 22, 2017
May 22, 2017 at 1:28 PM UTC
There is something sweet about us.
How you never stop telling me I’m cute
And I won’t let you believe you’re stupid.
There are so many details of us
They have all blended into a rhythm.
It is the kind of rhythm you can dance to,
One two
One two,
Like a heartbeat.
Like your skipping heart beat,
Which has become my favorite song.
The tin foil around the chocolate I ate today
Said “get lost on purpose”
So I got lost in you.
And when I picture you
With a guitar in your lap,
I forgot that I am afraid
Of change
And loving too hard
And bears.
Somehow no part of me is afraid of you.
And so I hand you the light bulb of myself.
I let you into my museum
And I ask, “please touch”.
I leave all my best and worst qualities out on display
Knowing you might break them
I invite you to break them.
Because even if you leave me in pieces,
I will be better for knowing you,
And the drifting way your eyes fall shut
And the way you jiggle your leg during movies
And dance your fingers up my spine.
Nothing makes my light bulb quite as bright
As your wide smile.
And I, just a girl, didn’t know what beautiful meant
Until I heard my name on the tip of your tongue.
I have grown a lot since I wore a Dalmatian suit
And dreamed of dragons.
But something about you and me
Reminds me of magic.
May 17, 2017
May 17, 2017 at 11:39 PM UTC
There is a sudden break between my life
And myself,
Which lives in the shattered midnights
And soulful musical notes.
I like to think I have it all figured out
Because my autopilot is more efficient than most
But I am still standing helplessly in the cockpit,
Napping and winding through endless garbage
Waiting to be woken by some breathless clarity.
Shock me awake, dear world,
Take my breath away.
I want to be electrified with feelings again.
Drowned in sorrows and held
On a trembling high by love and beauty.
I am tired of autopilot.
I have eaten enough tiny bags of peanuts
And I am ready to land,
Ready to reunite with the world,
Grab hands with all the closest humans
And tell them that I did this.
I flew to the sun
And back.
I did not fail, no matter how much I may have seemed close.
Some things I cannot achieve,
But I will not know that for a while yet.
So I will keep trying to tease love and life
Out of every meaningless instant,
With my hands in his hair
And the sunshine on my shoulder blades
And “I love you” too soon.
It is only a matter of time
Until the engine turns off
And we coast down the runway
And I put on my captain’s cap,
And take the helm.
May 17, 2017
May 17, 2017 at 11:35 PM UTC
If I were to take a Celtic cross
From every casket I have knelt beside
My basement would be very crowded
Even more than it already is.
All this old Catholicism
Is sitting down there, waiting.
For us, God has become a collection,
Reminders that so many are no longer with us.
My family,
They don’t talk about death very often
So I turned to stories.
But the movies and the books,
They don’t show you the hardest parts.
When you miss them every day
When you are sad but it has long passed the time for crying
When your world is softer, less in focus,
The colors less bright.
They don’t tell you how to tell your father that you love him
When you are afraid of making him cry.
They don’t let you know how to call your sister at 1:32am
Asking for her forgiveness, and her apology,
And wishing that the heat of the phone on your ear
Was the heat of her cheek against yours.
Maybe they don’t tell you because we are trying to keep the hardest parts
A secret from ourselves.
Maybe they don’t tell you because you already know.
Maybe we are hoping that the hardest parts will become easier.
Some do get easier.
But some get harder too.
There is a difference between depression and sadness.
I didn’t know that before,
But I know it now.
Depression makes you feel as though you are dying
Sadness makes you feel alive,
Softly, without shouting.
Death has taught me that I can be happy when I am sad.
Death has taught me to love, without fear.
Death has taught me to cry, even when the time has long passed.
I miss you.
May 17, 2017
May 17, 2017 at 10:20 PM UTC
I am afraid that the next thing I give
Will be the last thing I had left.
I don’t exactly have an inventory.
I haven’t checked in recently
To see how my stocks are doing.
I put my money on the wind
And the howling wolves
And the impossible way that two people’s bodies
Fit together sometimes.
I am afraid that I do not have enough left
That is just me,
That came from something that I am.
I worry that every time I open my eyes and ears
I breathe in other peoples’ lives
And other peoples’ stories
And now when I let something out
My stories and theirs get jumbled
Like the air in our dead end lungs.
And every kiss I give to you
Is a thousand words
That I can no longer say
And every wink is a painting that I won’t finish.
Every word I let go
Is another that I can’t have for myself.
I don’t want to be selfish
I want to be able to give it away,
But I have seen too many women that I loved
Give themselves to people
Who collected all of their kisses and words in greedy fists
And never gave anything back.
I want to keep the unloveable,
Untamable, inimitable part of me
Close and secret.
So that when you break my heart
I won’t have to limp away
Missing a leg,
Missing an exit strategy,
Trying to fill the hole
I dug.
Apr 18, 2017
Apr 18, 2017 at 3:19 PM UTC
I saw a dog today.
It was running on the baseball field.
The clouds were puffy
Like in Toy Story.
The rust red of the distant buildings bridged the surreal gap
between the serene blue sky and candy green grass.
He was well built,
Tawny
Pointed ears,
Lolling tongue.
There was an effortless curve to his tail
And a sprightly spring to his step.
But he wasn’t exhibiting his strength,
He was rolling on his back,
Twisting with sheer ecstasy.
While I feel the grass tickle the back of my legs
He doesn’t let anyone in the world stop him.
I almost cried.
Or maybe I did cry.
In my shade
I felt as though he were so far away,
Shimmering in a sunny mirage.
Apr 18, 2017
Apr 18, 2017 at 3:13 PM UTC
When my sister is tickled
She curls, with her knees tucked up
And she pins her elbows to her body,
As though she is protecting her
Weakest parts from attack.
When I was younger
I was in the curl of her elbows and the tuck of her knees.
We played with ducks and dogs and dolls.
Our rooms were kingdoms.
I could hear her dreams through the wall between our beds.
We grew up and she went to school,
Equipped with a blonde head, full of learning, full of teeth.
The teachers loved her, and she let them quiz her and lecture her.
She has always known how to hold still.
When we go out I wear jeans and she wears skirts
And she knows how to cut her hair.
When she tells me it looks like I have a comb-over
I wear my hair parted in the middle for two years.
When we go out I notice how our bodies are different.
When we were younger
She held out her pristine hands and told me
That mine were *****
But her teeth were too big and her head was alien.
When we are both home we do the dishes
And we dance to music and laugh too loud like our mother taught us.
When we dance we dance like fools because grace
is not something that runs in our family.
When we dance I notice how our bodies are the same.
She grew into the alien head, cut her hair short, grew it again.
She got braces to fix the teeth.
The dentists loved her, and she let them poke her and twist her.
She has always known how to hold still.
When we were younger we had a dollhouse of toys
And a set of candles shaped like children in a Christmas choir.
The candles had painted faces and small, soft wicks, never lit.
She chose them; Two little candle girls, with aprons and dresses in starched wax.
The maids, they were called, because
To my sister
the fun in dollhouses was always in the order of things.
When we were younger I was a part of her world
And I was too young to really know what that meant.
I was the reason the maids cleaned
I knocked down kitchens
And played with hard plastic and rubber animals
And my hair was never combed
And my hands were always *****
I was a part of her world and I didn’t know what that meant.
By the time I learned she was packing her things away
The same way the maids cleaned their dollhouse.
She took the pieces I held out of my ***** hands
And knocked down the towers I had made of her blocks.
My sister realized that the more she was played with
The more the wax would chip away
Until the face was blank and the children were grown and someone mistook her
For a candle.
So she took herself out of children’s hands, and left only the parts of herself
That couldn’t be broken.
At my grandmother’s funeral people looked at old photos of Grandma and told Sarah how much they looked alike.
They groped in the empty space for a face they missed
and felt Sarah instead.
She let them grab, let them draw lines between wide eyes and big teeth.
She has always known how to hold still.
Sarah holds things together better than most.
Everywhere she goes she cares for children,
Or people who have let their broken bits fan out across the floor,
Because she knows how to pick up their pieces
And smooth out the knots in their hair,
And clean the dirt off their hands.
I like to think she learned all that from me.
I do well in school, and get my own braces, and smile when I talk to the relatives.
I have learned how to hold still.
At my grandmother’s wake, my sister opened up her arms,
Held me close, and we cried.
And I was in the curl of her elbows and the tuck of her knees again.
Apr 6, 2017
Apr 6, 2017 at 1:27 PM UTC