I have a hard time
linking words to emotions
and emotions to actions
and all this to meaning.

I'll slowly build up
my library of feeling.
But I wonder exactly
what I was missing.

When I scrutinized us,
I did so without seeing.
I thought I knew all.
I saw my own meaning.

Life doesn't have meaning;
what it does have is people.
Now I say what I mean,
and I listen to feeling.

I've struggled with friends,
with parents, and with brothers.
I knew motivations
without knowing them.

Now I start to see people.
We're closer together.
Done connecting the dots,
we connect to each other.

Don’t think too much
About forbidden touch
Or legal abuse of such
Little creatures like dairy cows and fabric workers.

Don’t feel too much.
The homeless man with his crutch
Can disappear, hush.
Turn your head dear, eat McDonald’s chicken fingers.

Don’t love too much.
Why on real people crush?
People slip through your clutch.
As flashing lights reanimate Rihanna, both your eyes close the shutters.

Our world distracts us from seeing,
Persuades us we need a break.
Deserving one after a day going nowhere.
Turn the TV on to the latest ‘Bachelor’.

So loud. So loud. So loud. Too loud!
I shut my eyes from the too-bright lights.
I need to escape the escape, to find solace.
I put pen to paper and hear its whisper.

Poetry softly roars while TV screams shrill.
You’ll remember the written words for time
Degrees of magnitude than you’ll remember
(consciously) that singing cat meme.

Real love takes more effort
Than a heart reaction on Facebook.
Writing truth takes longer than re-posting.
Yet I want to share myself, not another gif lol.

Mute the volume for a second.
Can deaf ears hear again
the music of
the pen?

Think too much.

Sometimes when I'm tired,
I'll think that I don't want to exist
This life is suffering, striving,
And why should I continue
I hate the life I've made.

But there are other things
There are dreams
There is presence
There is support
There is beauty

When I'm in these things,
I don't think life is suffering.
I think issues can be managed
I don't think, really.
I just love.

Kitty cat kitty cat
Stole his place this evening
Kitty cat kitty cat
No more competing

Kitty cat kitty cat
I won't mind you stay
Kitty cat kitty cat
I'll leave as well today

Kitty cat kitty cat
Do you care if we go?
Kitty cat kitty cat
To me you felt like home

Kitty cat kitty cat
You don't feel my dread
Kitty cat kitty cat
Sleeping on my bed

On a scale of 1-10, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest:
1. How cute did my **** look as I walked home from school?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
2. How old must a girl be before you catcall her?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
3. How many miles is a girl allowed to travel from her home before she is a target?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
4. In this deadly hot summer, how many layers must a girl wear to protect herself from your cries?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
5. How many times has this method of courtship ever been effective?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
6. How many boys does a girl need in order to protect her from you?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
7. How many times has someone catcalled your mother, your sister, your daughter?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
8. If unable to answer Question 7, how many times have they come home crying, holding their clothes tight to shield themselves?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
9. How many letters are in my name?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I'm sorry. That last question was unfair.
You would never know my name because,
despite all the curses and jeering,
you never once asked for it.

My name is @@@@@@.
I am not your "baby."
I am not your "**."
I am not your "****."
I am me, and I belong to no one.

10. How likely are you to allow me to not be anything else?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

The man invites me to his midnight walk
He’s having a rough night.

We walk through freezing cold
To a destination never right.

The circles our feet pace
Mirror his spinning mind.

And I am kept heart running
As I match his pace in kind.

I’ve walked too many of these walks
To think yours is benign.

For I can say, that none have ever
Left us healthy fine.

Don’t lead me on another chase
After the shadows of men.

I’m putting my foot down firm.
I will not walk again.

I wake up and the day begins

The sun rises
The cup empties

I go back to bed

The shadows change
The clock ticks

I get up and try again

Packing my life into little boxes
Did I forget something?
I caress parts I can't take with me.
People, cats, bed are staying.

It's 2,000 miles away
What I wanted but also not.
They'll be there for a phone call,
but still far out of eye shot.

And I know that it's time.
I've done all I needed here.
Time to go, so why cry
When it's time to disappear?

The suitcases are full.
Soon to go out the door.
I'm left feeling hollow.
I've left my fears on the floor.

He took over my mind
I let him, willingly

I wish I'd be taken in someone's arms
It could be his
It could be my mother's
It could be God's
Any would be a comfort

I reach into myself
Find the tiny strong voice
Who knows who I am

Present in the moment
Assured in all my actions
Aware of all my value

An un-earthed superpower
I'll grow to become her
The strong woman inside me

Would it be wrong
To confess that
I want to take humanity
To church?
Including the churches?

I don't go to hell-fire and damnation speeches
But could we all see
The beauty of love and goodness?
Could I quietly
Take your hand and pray?

I was shocked
When my feet refused to move to communion
It's been so long since
I forced myself into any human religion.
Forgive me, but I can't.

Would it be wrong for me to just sit in the beauty?

Lay me down to rest:
A puddle of mucus
covered in the softest white blanket
of tissues and paper napkins

She is so demanding
No pride, just begging

Haughty kitty
You have food
Quit your mewing

I don't drink
I don't smoke
I just pick my face 'clean'

I hate how I look
How I cope
How I think

It's distracting with sensation
But I'm learning new things

I'm learning about breathing
Soothing kinks
With harmless stings

I hope this time I make it
I hope the habit's choked

I'll keep going through new motions
Taking the reign's what makes a king

Forget houses or apartments
I call three cities home.
Drop me in one of these
Disparate points on a map
And I know I belong.

Just as I can’t commit to one life project
Too in love with everything I do
You can’t receive a straight answer
When you ask me to choose.
Where do you call home?

Why not call everything on this planet home?
Why not call my loved ones my home?
Why not call the slivers of neighborhoods
Forests, mountains, deserts familar to me home?
Why not call it a state of mind, not of place.

Though the three cities are thousands of miles apart,
They form one map for me
My home.

Hear my voice.
Listen. Is my tone
mysterious, exhilirated,
ironic?

Find my asyndetons and epithets.
Analyze and synthesize my words;
Words I am just spewing out
I promise.

No tricks.
I just wanted to talk.

You might be dead tomorrow.
The weapon might be your own.
I wish you'd stay to see though
That it will be okay.

"No it won't!" you cry,
But I need you to realize
There'll be another beautiful day:
Trees and books and stars and hugs will be here still.

One day you will die.
Another day I will too.
There'll come a day when Earth will sigh.
The planet will end shriveled and weathered.

I love this world with all my heart,
and I love you with another.
But when the galaxy falls apart
something will keep walking.

Somewhere out there will be mind-shattering beauty, and
It will be more than okay.

Just let me be invisible
The too-beautiful wraith
Will put a bag over her head
So you won't stop to stare

Let me not change
This imperfect world still
So precious to me
So wondrous to me.

I will live on heels of bread,
Come at the end of the day
To steal food seconds from
Becoming ******* in a bin

I have an affinity for
the smallest red cherry tomatoes,
but I can carefully rearrange the pile,
hide the absence of a few.

I will ride my bike into town
When town is closed on holiday.
No (carbon) footprint left
I'll only slip indoors behind someone's feet.

A stranger. A fading memory. No trace.

The aliens who had teleported into my room asked me a question.

        When had I last seen the stars?

I answered truthfully that I’ve stayed up late many nights, when the stars come out.

“But when had you last seen them?” They insisted.

It wasn’t for stargazing that I was up late, I admitted to them. Besides, there’s too much light in the city for the stars to shine here.

It must have been several years ago, when I was a little girl and my father showed me Orion’s belt, the last time we were camping in the middle of nowhere.

         They teleported me to space.

The stars were gone. And I hadn’t noticed.

       They teleported me back to my room, because there was nothing to see. I went back to my studies. It was still night.

Three tears dripped out of my eyes. I finally stared out of the window as they fell.

Orion’s belt shone brightly back at me.

I dig deep and find
so much gold among
the clutter of man.

But all too often
passion wells up, spills.
I don't ask for love.

I just wanted to be friends.

My heart feels numb, lifeless
And I have to keep it secret
No one can know or understand
What he meant to me

I wish I could shape myself
Become the woman he wants me be
But I'd be abandoning
The life I live, the life I dream

I hear you like a poem about love
About grief
About joy

What happened to poems about lizards?
Coffee makers?
Toys?

Our minds focus on relationships
Emotions
Things that annoy

I wish my mind was expansive
Collected facts on clean energy,
Plants, alloys

Instead it's still rerunning
Dumb thoughts about
Past lover boys

Don't give me all your kissing treaties
Don't pry my heart open.
Maybe I was better off
Sipping waters from my dreams.
Now ****** shores are all explored
Looted, torn and left to burn.

This land left an isolate isle again.

For a time I thought my soil had healed.
Then I saw rain for seven days.
My eyes are leaking again
And the ground proves still unsteady.
Floods return in an instant
At a whisper of Celtic ballads in the wind.

I have layers, sediments.
The undergrounds bump unevenly, uncomfortably
Uncovered in areas of sunken swamps and ponds
Sometimes discovered, but mostly revealed
To strangers who are not kin
To kin who should not find them.

Do I dare be found again?
Do I want to be conquered?
Laid claim to, or too much my own?
Shall I remain alone?
Perhaps, it would be better
To sink quietly beneath these waters.

                                                        ­                 Goodnight.

Shouting into nothing,
We tell strangers secrets
We'd never tell a friend.
Therapy isn't cheap.
We leave ourselves empty.

I’ll get there someday, I just know it
I’ll get it right
I just have to get out there and
Keep trying
And refuse to compromise
With less love than what I give
I’ll get there but it’s scary
To get out there again
I have my memories
I have my comfort
I’m not ready
To let go
Yes
Go ahead,
Say that I’m a coward
But I just need more time
I need much much more practice
Saying that things can get better
Saying that the pains of leaving the status quo
Would be worth it for a happy love

It is when I intently idly
Walk in the woods,
By the stream,
On the grass,
Over high mountains,
That I find a peaceful place.

A place where I look down at
Sunflowers, rising
Butterfly wings, fallen
Earthworms, crawling in
The soil.

The soil.

The soil I plant my feet in,
A part of a huge whole.
It greets me heartily.
This soil of my soul.

There are warnings
You are always warned
Don't eat the candy
Stay in at night
Lock the door.
There are always warnings
Always warning you
But for the second
You are tempted
You remember vaguely
The constant background warning
But you were never given
The stories behind them.
You are tempted
You forget
You fall, and end changed.
Now you are a story.
Now you warn.
There are always warnings.

Why am I scared of myself for myself?
Why do I have such conflicted desires to be desirable, be desired
and destroy myself,
see the ugly, hide from the eyes who would see me?
Perhaps it would make more sense if you witnessed:

the invitation to Thanksgiving dinner
the brush of his hand on my knee
the same hand guiding my back around
the good food and home
the message thanking me for coming
and commenting that his girlfriend thinks I'm hot

Or rewind to every spring break
as a child
receiving lessons from the best musicians
"They're ***** old men who like a beautiful young girl next to them,
don't worry they know your father will keep you safe,
treasure the education you are given."

Let me giggle cutely as you leer
Let me cry quietly in my room
Let me wear my pretty frilly bouncy dress for you
Let me rip my face to shreds when I stare too close in the mirror.
Let me count my blessings for you my saviour
Let me count my calories for a slim figure

I've never felt pretty enough
I've never felt skinny enough
I've never felt good enough
I've never felt clever or proud or smart enough
Except to be used
By me using you using me again.

But

You make me smile and laugh
I think of you when I am in a mood
I know seeing you would make it better.

You peel away my shields,
I spill my heart
And you listen intently

I listen too, to your stories
Neither of us conquering the conversation.
We are too two distinct characters.

You are a type I know will not work
I've said this to you,
As we go to the gym, walk, eat together.

In one of our talks, you asked my stance on friends with benefits
Just in general, not propositioning explicitly
I explained no, that's not who I am.

But here we are two planets captured in elliptical orbits.
I brush past your back as I walk away
You hold me from behind to show me a video on your phone

In my head, I think:
You are too young to understand this
This is me being lonely
This is you being a fair option
This is a stupid idea
This is destined to fail
This is destined to happen
This is waiting waiting sweet aching anticipation.

I swear my kisses are innocent
But you take them in so deeply
My breath catches
Your hands tighten
And we are lost in each other

Whatever is the matter?
Pitter patter

Go away

I'm only getting fatter
More dreams shatterd

Every day

Nope, your stomach's gettin flatter
No more chatter

Come out and play

.
.
.

Okay

Leaving them never gets easier
Friends and family, teachers and babysat kids.
When you live apart from them
You live in two different worlds

Constantly:
The world
                                  where you are
and
                                                      The world
where your heart is

When you love people and things in both worlds
Remember you'll visit the other
Forget that their lives will have changed
You have to keep your mind here                for now.

Oh it's just that I'm ex-Mormon
Well I like to be in control
Ah, no thank you really
I'm not judging you
I'm judging me
I just don't drink
(or smoke or swallow or shoot)
because I see
My brother,
My uncles,
My grandfather,
The pain it's caused them and their families
My family
Has a history with addiction
I feel in my genes this predisposition
So I'll keep going to bars for
The setting which has been
For millenia in human civilization
I'll keep learning the compounds
Brewing my own mead
But I won't consume
The things that could consume me

After all the pain he's caused me
The thought still invades,
A beautiful nightmare

Does he love me?
Does he love me?
Does he love me?

A meaningless question
That'll only cause me pain
Neither of us will allow change

My therapist said that
I would still be awesome
Even if I change my dreams in for him

It's my choice, as well as his.

My boyfriend said that
He is trying to manipulate me
Because he wants to keep me around

It's my choice, as well as his.

My friend said that maybe
He keeps me as a FWB rather than one of his casual relationships
Because he'd want all of a relationship or none with me

It's my choice, as well as his.

It's my choice, as well as his.
It's my choice, as well as his.
It's my choice, as well as his.

And he is a passive aggressive
Boundary-ignoring
Egotistical child of a man.

You know me so well
We talk solely in code
One winks backwards
The other laughs

I am your goat
You are my monkey
The sweetest nicknames
Because they belong to us

I lie in bed with you for hours
Feel your warm skin and
Wish I could be forever closer
Languid yet excited to have you

This is not a spark
No fireworks
This is the stage
Of a slow deep burn

I've wanted to write something for days now.
But what?
What's worth putting to pen?
What matters to me now and here?
What matters at all?

A paper that will never be published.
A song that will disappear into the abyss of music memory.
A website for a startup that could never take off?
Countless countless research papers to read for a research project that I'm not supposed to work on yet.

How should I be spending my free time?
Is there something inherently wrong in asking that?
But really, I need to know. Is it correct that I'm spending my vacation finishing projects?

Perform a song. Move on to practice a different song. What song? Except I need to practice something an hour a day.
Meet a friend for coffee. We go to a museum we've both been to too many times . Why are we here? Except that we want to be together.

What does it mean to want to spend the day with someone but have no idea what to do?
What does it mean to have so many long meaningful conversations that you can't remember the subject of?

Is it the people that matter?
The common agreement to keep a bond?

Is it the exploration of creativity that matters?
The continuous honing of skills into activities I enjoy and take pride in?

Am I perfecting my projects? Am I perfecting myself? Is that what is correct to do on vacation?

Perhaps this poem was just another item to check off an arbitrary to-do list.

The day expanding
Colors bursting from the ground
The glow beginning
Winter surrendering

Spring is coming 'round

Tell me,
If I'm not gay
Why
Does my
Heart break
Knowing that
She's gone?

Listen to me,
When I say
Who I love is
No consideration of yours
And raising me
Did not give you
The right to
Constrict my heart.

I wish you would
Stop complaining
That you can't
Talk freely to me.
It's your thoughts
That need to change
When you hurt me like this.

Sincerely,
The daughter of
The woman raised
By a gay brother.
Sincerely,
Your daughter.

Now that my dreams have come true
I have to decipher what I need to do
To be my dream person, but no longer a shrew.

Old pictures look picturesque
Back when I was in perpetual arabesque
I was fighting for my place at a desk

I'm free in my paradise
I'm feeling like I don't deserve a slice
The perfect fit, but I'm still imperfect ice.

ungrateful. born broken. made broken.
it's all my fault, mom's fault, dad's fault, can't be spoken
it's all his fault, hospital's fault, when I run
it's all my fault after all, I'm undone.

I have the chance to fix my faults.
I'm ******* it up, going back to default
While I'm calling the doctors, showing friends secret vaults,
Finding how I can be my full person and dance a new waltz.

I put my hair up today
Standing with grocery bags tucked under my arms,
Pearl earrings nestled just so out of the whisps of hair,
I stared hard at the mirror
I looked like...
Like an adult.
Prepared, studied, not so pale and flitterfly
I took down my hair
And then fastened the pin again.
I closed the mirror I realized I longer looked in for hours.
It was time to buy groceries.

She hates men
Because I spend time
with them instead of her

'Women are better'
She promises unaware
Of the jealousy in her voice

My darling man-hater

I am day
And you are night?
If we lived in a life of dusk,
Then, perhaps we could stay together.

I thought this loneliness was over.
I thought a year ago I learned some incredible lesson.
I remember it feeling so wonderful.


I.
I.
I.

I wish I would stop talking about myself.
I wish I could communicate without bragging.
I'd say this is a list of resolutions but

I.
I.
I.

I can't smile without a motive
I can't hear someone talk without thinking of theirs
I feel like they're usually motivated by hatred, lust, disinterest.

I.
I.
I.

I know nothing about these people.
I should stop making assumptions, but
I keep thinking how last year's 'epiphany' hurt me.

I.
I.
I.

I was so vulnerable, so gentle and sweet, someone had to shatter me.
I tried again and again more feebly to learn the lesson
I was crushed each time more easily by hatred, lust, disinterest.

I.
I.
I.

I have another chance here, the best chance anyone could have.
I can't believe someone would give it to me.
I wonder how good an actress I must be for them to have believed.

I.
I.
I.

I want a cram session of reviewing that lesson.
I want to be shaken back into that vulnerable, feeling self.
I have a new life I could give that self, a fitting gift.

I.
I.
I.

I met a beautiful boy, a vegetarian rock climber violinist environmental engineer.
I'm going through the motions because he is an incredible match, only
I can't put the spark back in my eyes, let alone light his beautiful

eyes.

I.
I.
I.
I'm done with I.

I want to write a song for this city
Sing it to my family, they’d understand why I left them
Sing it to the natives, and they’d roll their eyes
Sing it to the brownstones, and they’d echo heavy replies
Sing it to the innovators, and they’d see the cloth they hem
Sing it to myself, and I’d realize I live the life I dreamt

I want to write a song for this city
As many have before
Because I walk the same cobbled streets
As mythic tales of yore

We want to preserve the nature that is beautiful to us.
We travel an hour to leave the congestion,
A day to sleep under skies slightly less polluted
A month to feel we’ve migrated like geese
And left the world of men, us men out there.

We bring flashlights to see in the dark sky
We leave cigarettes and Clif bar wrappers on the soil
I read recently of a group of mountaineers
Who traveled a month to touch a mountain
(rumored) to never have been climbed.
They brought a TV for the local people

You see, we yearn for some untouched place
And only bless that as “Nature”
We forget to save the wildflower we crush underfoot
We ignore squirrels and crows and anoles
Find pleasure in killing spiders and hacking mushrooms

Can we find some way to love the world we have?
Utopias don’t exist unless you believe in heaven.
This is not a case for despair, there is no case.
Despair allows you to give up on the world we do have.

This is a case for overwhelming beauty
Everywhere, at every scale.
Look at the eight eyes of the spider, count them.
Stare at your hands as they become unrecognizable beasts.

This is a case for hope, if we can see it.
Stop crushing, stop climbing, stop escaping.
This is a time to stand up for beauty
That you join and do not destroy.

Grounded mind
Ascended body
Jelly arms
Jelly legs

I give you my trust
So that you will not abuse it.

I give you my heart
So you can keep it safe.

I give you my fragile hope
So you can build it.

Please God,
Let the Devil be wrong.

My toes are curling
I'm touching my neck
Grabbing my hair
Just like he did

Waiting
Waiting
Impatient
To scream

In lust I trust you
In love I cannot
But one is more seductive
Than the other thought

My love offered me candles
One smelled just like you
My body responded in a gasp
I wanted, then refused

My dear he loved me sweetly
And I wished that he'd be you
I wished that he would ravage me
The way you used to do

My sweet says you're a ******
I could only nod, agree
But my mind is still enveloped
You will not set me free