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

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'm turning you
In my mind
In my writing
Into a figure of longing
A trope of star-crossed lover
Losing sight of who you are

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.

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

You aren't unique
In the way that I love you
I'm not unique
In the way that you do

It is still bitter
To leave one another
We want different lives
We want each other

We don't dare to change
The other or me
I support your dream
That leaves me lonely

We will find lovers
At our destination
But though I'll find him
You set me in motion

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

In real life
No boy (or girl)
Falls for
The crazy girl.

In real life
She goes to therapy
Works on herself
Heals to whole.

In real life
She sees an old friend
Browsing records
At a book store

In real life
They get married
An apartment and dog
A divorce soon.

In real life
She learns even more
Buys self-help books
At the same store.

In real life
She starts yoga
Laughs more
Makes peace more.

Once in life,
A girl in her yoga class
Congratulates her for
A successful peacock pose,
Introduces herself.

One time,
The two go for tea
At the cafe downstairs
They start to talk about themselves
And laugh a lot more.

Once upon a time,
Their hands
Warm with tea
Touch and hold
Together strong.

Once upon a time,
In a dynamic relationship
After a long time
They find a place
A cat and child.

Once upon a time,
They grow old
The cat is buried
The child moves out
The girl lives on.

Once upon a time,
She dies of course
But she faces death
After she's lived
Whole and loved.

Ahh but when I'm distraught
You comfort me well down
And when I'm careless to my health
You protect me from myself

We joke and shove and ****
Like children in schoolyards
Yet we massage and cook for the other
Like years-long dear lovers

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

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

Waiting
Waiting
Impatient
To scream

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

Out in the wild world
I felt the wind whirling around me
I enjoyed sunlight dancing on my skin
I craned my body to absorb as many of its footsteps

Back at the house
I hide in a bathrobe
I clean dishes carefully
I pray I do not wake a beast hidden within

Out with my friends
I laugh and sip at good coffee
I play violin and her piano accompanies me
I steal touches and photographs to preserve her love

Back at the house
I am in bed again before noon
I hide behind doors and to-do chores
I hope I appease the beast hidden within

I wish the house was a home filled with the warm happiness outside it, so I open the windows and doors to let it in.

He is taking care of me,
making me dinner or picking it up,
buying me groceries,
massaging me with ice cubes.

He comes into the room with a mask,
to ask me if he can hang out,
and we cuddle in bed watching Better Call Saul,
a mask over each of us.

I’m realizing I can’t kiss him with a clear conscience
for seven more days.
Somehow he keeps testing negative.
I'm glad he's not sick, but I'm annoyed too that we can't be together

This is part of why I love him
This is part of why I know he loves me

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 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.

Oh god she hates me
Wait she JUST made you tea
That's not hate
Don't take the bait

There you go again
Going from zero to ten
Try some reality testing
I'm just suggesting!

Like the Matrix or Inception?!?
No no different direction
This isn't a movie
It's about brains being goofy

So what's that biz?
Assess a situation for what it is
Rather than from our emotions
Get rid of anxious notions

See other perspectives
Try being objective
Start doing the logistics
Keep your thought life realistic

#Therapy

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.

He stopped me on the sidewalk
And I almost walked away

My politeness stopped me
Perhaps he's lost?

But then, he was very cute
Charismatic, bright-eyed, skilled

Show a girl a picture of his sourdough
Yeah, he wins her heart

Later, I confess my unacceptability
He thanks me, and still asks me out

Now he breaks the touch barrier
Now we're holding hands
Now we're walking home
Now we're in his bed

Over the intellectual conversation
The latter part of the night is what stays seared.

I feel like I am watching myself apart
An anthropologist, an endocrinologist

The hypothesis is: I've warily fallen
Romance is truly odd

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.

If you had it in you
To be just a smidge less of a troll
I'd sing you sonnets
That would make a siren blush

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?

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

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

Have the energy go through me,
Absorb me and I absorb it

Bang my head
Stay stock sill and stare

I sing along
Listen to sounds I've never made

Make me an artist
Make me human

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.

At the concert of an artist we've both listened to for years
The opener soothes us so that
I finally put my head on your shoulder
You breathe an audible sigh
And lay your head on mine
At the next song, you yawn exaggeratedly
To put your hand over my shoulders
I giggle, and relax into you

The next time I see you, a Saturday morning
We agree to make muffins
You find a recipe and lay out the ingredients
I direct the baking process
Our coordination is natural
As if done for years
I end up staying til after dinner

Soon after, we lay in bed
I ask you what you would like
Lay your cards down before I do
Partners?
Partners
Of course
Why would we call it anything else?

We are very different people
But on the same page
When it comes to who we are together
Hours spent together, talking and not
It is not eroutic, it is not platonic
It is companionship
It is our partnership

The luck of an easy love

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.

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

Endless waiting
Someone asked
When will I be happy?

They hurt me
But that was years ago
And I'm still waiting

I remind myself
Happiness is in the moment
When it comes, I hold it tight

I remind myself of too much
Repeated conversations
Painful memories, waiting to-dos

I remember to look at the numbers
At my energy, my feelings
Nope, still not the right day

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.

When you hugged me tight and swung me in your arms
I knew for certain that I liked you

The conversation where you admitted you couldn't cuddle me as friends
Made me want to date you more than anything

The conversation where I told you not to touch me
Left me wishing to kiss you

I don't want to get away with just a hookup
I want to join that big sweet heart to mine and do everything together

I want to help each other on a bouldering move
Then make out on the mat

My friend tells me a workplace romance is ok if it's discreet
I'm hoping your girlfriend will give us her blessing

She's right that I have no red flags
I bite back my response that I'm a fantastic girlfriend

Oooooo forbidden fruit
Seems the sweetest

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.

I want to go back and take you and shake you and tell you
      “NO they are not right for us”
I want to make it so neither of us gets hurt,
   but instead we grow old and heal together,
with fewer scars and more time.

Binging 'content' because depression
Watching videos on losing weight
Making notes to begin a journey?
Realizing I haven't walked 500 steps today

Slipping on shoes
Smiling at the swaying bridge
Soaring skateboards pass me
Sand pressed on the shore

Discovering a new overgrown place
Dusting off my legs for deer ticks
Daring myself to sing and daydream
Dusk settling down

Coming back tired
Refusing to eat or socialize
Hiding in my room
Wanting to tear myself apart again

I don't find
Your line of friend and lover
Until you trip
My feet with its wire

My face and hopes crushed on the ground again

He took over my mind
I let him, willingly

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.

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

Spring is coming 'round

My worldview changed 2 months ago
I realized I couldn't afford grad school

Since then my brain has been aflame
Looking for jobs, scholarships,
ANYTHING

I should have a real job
But that actually doesn't pay?!?

I can get a scholarship
Yeah, and compete with thousands

I could be a sugar baby
You couldn't deal with the shame

And now
Do I even want to go anymore?

It's all futile nonsense
The nurtured dreams of changing the world?

There's no money to train for that
And you'll make no money in doing that

You work, you get kids, you move to the suburbs, you read them cute books and encourage them to have a career just like you but BETTER.

Until they look back after thousands in tuition and realize that
The degree they got in how to save the world?
Hardly pays more than McDonalds

Maybe I don't want to save this world
Maybe it doesn't want to be saved

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.

I'm thankful for ...
The squash handed to me by my nice TA
The apple cider offered at the meal plan cafeteria
The window display that shocked me with its Halloween decorations

Because otherwise, how can I find fall?
It seems these objects are how I can tell time without hay rides, fall foliage hikes, pumpkin spiced drinks in cafes visited with friends.
So much has been taken away from us, I'm afraid to lose time itself.

my heart hurts
but it brims for him

i drag myself down
but i hold him up

he is my love
my beautiful boy

my energy is low
but i'm determined to help her

little girl earnest to learn
what took me years to love

she is my hope
my student

my body feels hollow
but i move it again

i've not given up
on not giving up

i am my only soul
my own

God cast out Lucifer
And neither dared apologize
Over fast centuries
God's anger yielded to pain
Which told him all the more
He could not see Luce again

They were too different
The God and now Devil
Family so close
Separation was cutting off
A gangrene limb
Even when no longer painful
It was harder to move in the world

Unable to do
Tasks that used to be simple
The inability flashed the memory of separation
They would silently watch each other
Having spys tell them
When the coast was clear to try

In rare times, they would have to meet
Duty forced it for both
Then, Lucifer would stare through God
To the blank wall behind
Past to oblivion he smoldered in
That's all God was to Luce now
A nothingness

When God felt that stare, he shivered
He escaped him as soon as he could
Anxious to leave his right hand again
Lucifer, in eternal age, would never apologize
And what could God apologize for?
He was no capable of sin
He would not apologize for his holiness

And so God merely wept

Love, true love
Is a radical act
That I'm only now learning
Or relearning

Simply put, love is care, acceptance, trust
When the butterflies are gone
We are alone
And you still want to be there

I started to assume that wanting to date me
Meant wanting things from me
My work, my words, my body
Saying 'I love you' was a stage in a relationship
After you've been full of giddiness and longing
And before you move in together

I'm realizing that you care for me
You really really care for me
You want to listen to my troubles
You want me to go to the doctor
You want me to wear a helmet
You don't care if all we do in bed is cuddle

You love my good heart
You love my maturity
You love my views on life
You love my high and low energies
You love my stubbornness

You are committed to putting in the effort
To make a relationship continue
When I'm no longer giddy in love
You don't wish for me to still be
A manic pixie dream girl
You're happy to be with all versions of me

You are accepting
You are trusting
You are caring
You love me

Simple as that

You have taught me
that I can want birth and kids and marriage
You have taught me
that I can give myself pleasure
You have taught me
that mindfulness is based on curiousity, not belief
You have taught me
that I want security, as well as a partner and friend
You have taught me
to speak up for what it is my heart wants
You have taught me
some pieces in the holes of my past
You have taught me
to dominate
You have taught me
to receive
You have taught me
to massage
You have taught me
to climb

I'm sorry I didn't reply sooner

The truth is, I save your texts
Like chocolate at end of day

My sweetest escape
A stash for stomach butterflies