olivia-still
Mostly looking at old poems now and beginning to edit them. I find poetry fascinating in the fact that I will go through periods where I'll start reading a lot but then can't look at them again for weeks. It's a love hate relationship with them. I would love to hear comments or to have some poetry shared with me that you think I would find interesting!
Alice took him out to the mountains she had once driven, and they sat on a pull off in front of a scene that replays in memory.
“He brought me out here, and we hiked,” she started. “He asked if I was considering moving here. And I answered truthfully. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I have things I need to finish in New York.’ And I kept walking. But I remember pausing under the trees, and smelling the pine, and seeing his white cap placed backwards on his head as he drove, and the music that carried us up and over the mountains. ‘But then again, how could you not love this?’ I said as I spun around under those trees. What I meant was how could I explain that I had loved him enough to move, but really the winds were telling me that this is my land. That my soul had been here before, and that I had to return here. He is a love that propelled me to the things I needed to go to. And that was all that ever would be. I am grateful for that love that convinced me to move west, even if it wasn’t what I expected it to be. Even though that was never the love that was meant to be.”
She turned to him.
“But what I was meant to say at that time, and the times before to that love and chose not to, was that I loved him. And I couldn’t say it then, because I didn’t have the vocabulary to say what needed to be said.
What I mean to say to you now, new love, is that I feel softer when you are around. I have felt softer around you than I have felt in a long time around someone. I am grateful to know you, and to have known you as I have. And I may not be the love that you are looking for, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been happy to include you in my story, as I had with old love before. We are tapestries of that love, and somehow it is all tied together in ways we could never imagine.”
“How do you mean?” He asked.
“Oh well when I was home with Old Love for the first time, and woke up in the morning, we watched Indiana Jones and made food. A lot like what we did the other night. And you couldn’t have known where that film rested in my heart, but for some reason that is the one you had chosen to watch with me and make food.
So it felt familiar, like that feeling of slowly opening again. And on the way home I saw a coyote in the middle of the city, running around, telling me that it was a story that I had to revisit again.
The weavers of the universe are weaving some great story, and we sometimes just have to wait for the threads to continue to play out. I don’t know why our paths in particular have crossed, or if it’ll be greater than it already has. But don’t turn away from your story, just yet.”
The pair sat and listened to the wind blow across the valley, and watched as a spider dropped from a tree in front of them. A sports car flew around the corner, waking them from their reverie. Neither said anything more, but got back in the car and went back to their own beds.
Oct 31, 2022
Oct 31, 2022 at 12:27 AM UTC
Stay,
digging
and digging.
The rocks are sharp
and tear away at skin
until rawness
sets into the muscles.
The air is too thin
to fill the lungs to send the spark
that jolt bones into action.
Blacker and blacker.
Climb up?
The tunnel has turned and twisted, the way back,
collapsed because the structure wasn't strong enough
in the first place.
The new landing point is unfamiliar.
The darkness, however, is an old friend.
Feb 24, 2018
Feb 24, 2018 at 10:23 PM UTC
Opening a heart is ripping apart a cage.
People talk of keys, but I have
Been locked away without light.
And then I saw
Us walking down the street
Later than we should have been
And I kept hoping you wouldn’t notice how I stumbled.
It wasn’t much
But a fleeting time
Wasting nights and
Stealing days.
And then I --
Sitting in a stairwell
Later than it should have been
Hoping that you noticed how I stumbled
Upon you.
But it wasn’t much
But a fleeting time
Wasting nights and
Stealing days.
And I noticed that while I had stumbled upon you,
You didn’t catch me.
It wasn’t much.
But a fleeting time.
Wasting nights and
Stealing days.
The thought of you, and what had been.
And then I dreamed
Us walking down the street
Later than it should have been
For the kids
And you stumbled into me.
It wasn’t much
But a fleeting fantasy.
Wasting nights and stealing days.
Jan 26, 2018
Jan 26, 2018 at 9:33 PM UTC
You
Your smile
Your arms.
Me.
One look
One confession
One acceptance.
Two weeks,
Love.
Long distance
Doubt.
Your voice.
Labels.
Intimacy.
Just all of you.
Sep 19, 2017
Sep 19, 2017 at 10:50 PM UTC
Laying in my bed
airplanes overhead
trains clack along
cars spout music I can't understand
Poster on the wall moved by the wind
drapes dance, tied to the souls
that still waltz among us.
The heat weighs down
constraining me to my thoughts.
Don't fall asleep, there are worse places than this.
Leave them to tomorrow.
Jun 19, 2017
Jun 19, 2017 at 12:14 AM UTC
It's you again.
Clearly I have
a short memory
Because, somehow here
we are. Roles
seem a bit
more reversed this
time. You have
the world to
conquer, and I
have the chance
to watch as
you grasp your
happy ending.
Congratulations, you deserve it.
I have
this nagging habit of
not saying what I
mean. You are growing
and that is all
good and well and
I have the small
problem of wanting to
steal away your time.
Excuse me I know
that's selfish but I
am making up for lost
time. You see, I also
need the reminder to
breath and take care of
myself. Unfortunately, I know
staying in a relationship
with an emotionally unavailable
human hurts more at the end. The
labels don't matter. The time spent in
the same room in each other's company
will ultimately lead to the same feelings
and if you are unwilling to spend the time
to do so we will drift apart. I'm not saying that
feelings are a definite, and I'm not saying that you
don't feel similarly but I am feeling vulnerable and what I
know is I am comfortable in your friendship.
But we are already past friendship. And you
willingly stepped into that role, but
what I haven't told you is how long
it took me to step into it.
I get attached,
and I bounce
from one human
to the next
but out of
necessity you have
closed off your
ability to be attached
for long term.
I was just
warming up to
the idea. No
expectations is an
arrangement that I
have participated in
for a long time.
That path only goes so far.
I am not afraid of an end,
but limiting the scope of what
we are allowed to feel
hurts the friendship.
Distanced, we are,
from human connection
which is what this is all about.
At least from my end.
Put your trust in me. When
it's over, we will know.
May 1, 2017
May 1, 2017 at 9:24 PM UTC
Finally, someone to stick around again.
Too bad we don't know what will happen in two months.
I'm graduating, you're just starting out.
Too bad we don't know what's going to happen in two days.
Whatever these two weeks were is probably over already.
I hate Valentine's Day.
I'm angry with God for always making it
the worst time of year
in my love life.
Back to that thing that might end it all.
I find out officially this week.
Maybe you were carrying it, maybe I was.
Both of us were careless enough about it, so it doesn't really matter.
Perhaps you will surprise me, and come to the conclusion we can work through it.
Perhaps you have it, too. Then it doesn't matter.
Hopefully you don't.
I have to let you decide what you are willing to risk.
I can't ask you to risk anything for me.
What's worse? Telling you or imagining the scenarios that will come of it
God, please don't let me cry.
It's only been two weeks. This may have been over in a day but now the possibility isn't even there.
**** this, **** that, **** my ******* habit.
I didn't ask for this. I didn't ask for you. Why couldn't I just have been happy with myself, for once?
Feb 12, 2017
Feb 12, 2017 at 10:43 PM UTC
I have no job.
No finances.
And less skills than I would have hoped
leaving college.
But I have that piece of paper.
A roof over my head, still.
Some prospects of potential things on the horizon.
Everyone expects that once you graduate you can leave.
But then scoffs at you when you get into debt
for putting too much on credit cards.
I am sorry I can't afford to go get an oil change.
But I know I can't afford not to.
When your family almost loses their house,
and can on a daily basis
be called by debt collectors on final notice of some bill
we cannot afford to pay -
suddenly life is a bit too real to think that downing a bottle of
your choice
will magically make it go away.
Surprise. I don't want to be dependent anymore.
I want to work 80 hours a week
knowing that in ten years I will be able to afford that one dinner out.
Not only that we have leaders of our nation that will change everything
you believe to be good
and will implement everything
you believe to be bad.
That bubble rises.
A noose around my neck
of money drying up
it feels like I should put some semblance of beauty to work
and find some person to take care of me
No. I can find a way to support myself
with the skills I have learned at school.
Other students have before me
worked off the debt of higher education
and so will I.
Jobs will open up.
Opportunity will knock.
Failure will happen, but so will success.
Just one step at a time
not in front of the train like I have thought about
but forward towards true uncertainty of the future.
Don't worry, I will be still be here tomorrow and tomorrow.
as a force you didn't realize was there.
One day you might even remember my name.
Dec 26, 2016
Dec 26, 2016 at 11:54 PM UTC
This is writing about forgiveness.
It is about failure.
Do me a favor and think about a time that you have failed.
I can't think of one instance -
there's too many.
But this one will do.
I see the look on his face when I tell him I know.
Not acting.
A sadness created by a downward spiral three years ago.
And **** who am I to judge when I have not left mine?
And if it was an act he got me.
Things are complicated;
he can feel regret and still be self pitying.
At the end there was a moment when it rubbed me wrong, still.
He still blamed other people.
God I wish I knew what really happened
but only he does.
When an object is attached to a string and traveling in a circle it exits the path in a straight line ahead.
There are infinite points on a circle for the object to exit.
I see that same face on the girl who believed I stole her boyfriend from her.
I see that same face on the guy I told I didn't want to have *** with him anymore, on his birthday.
I see that same face on me, when the guy I had *** with counted me as a number. On a video.
Is the circle the person stuck in a spiral or is it the person looking down at the ball and string with a pair of scissors?
I am looking for confirmation that I am not crazy for wanting to forgive him for something he didn't do to me. He did it in the world I happen to inhabit but is it my civic duty, human duty, human right, friendship right to place him in a spot of an outcast? Everyone else has.
Nov 16, 2016
Nov 16, 2016 at 1:35 AM UTC
It was what I expected.
God, it was good.
Your words wrapped me like a hug. Again.
And I know I have to let it be,
never to talk again,
but just this once I'll admit it.
You are the most curious person I've ever met.
You'll always peak the curiosity out of me.
Oct 17, 2016
Oct 17, 2016 at 5:41 PM UTC