Dorothy Quinn

Dorothy Quinn Jul 2013

let's stop moving and see where we're going

What if I told you I was ready,
and that I finally learned how to bear the burdens
of the world and not bend my back to the point of breaking?

What if I told you I think there’s a reason,
we shower each other in kisses
every time we open a bottle of whiskey?

What if I told you that
I haven’t been happy in eleven months,
but I was close enough when I woke up with your arms around me?

What if I told you I’m sorry for all of the times
you tried to touch me and I flinched,
what if I told you I was ready?

This is super cliche and not one of my deepest pieces but I can really relate to it right now, more so than when I actually wrote it.

Dorothy Quinn Jul 2013

explorer's trials, e.g. 1

You offer me no peace,
no sanctuary, no bliss.
Only strife, only angst.
But if you are a cave,
damp and seeping,
tiring and twisting.
I am an explorer,
faithfully trusting,
a grand optimist.

If our love is a journey,
we planned it all wrong.
If a crack emerges
and light can be seen
I will not relent,
I will explore every bleeding crack and crevice
even as venom seeps through the pores of these walls.
You can be poison,
I have no cure.

I will tent in dark hollows
where jagged rocks speak words
that should have never been spoken,
whispered, murmured, or breathed.

Light!
I will not relent,
I will not turn back.

Dorothy Quinn Jul 2013

He is what you are not and please try to understand that

I fervently hope with all
the burning passion
of the Sun,
that one day my smile
will reach my eyes.

So that you won’t have
to gaze into empty tombs
and pretend you see
meadows instead.

Please, try to understand
why I couldn’t be there.
I’ve been wrapped
in chains
for nine months
and I’m just now learning
how to squirm out alive.

I pray with all the
hope and optimism
I have left that you will
hold my hand
and expect nothing more,
and that you’ll let me stand
on my own, because
you are not
my Savior
but I wouldn’t mind
if you tried to be.

Dorothy Quinn Jul 2013

leaving you was the hardest thing i've ever done

I’m sorry
that I fell in love with you.
I promised I wouldn’t - you promised too.
I truly didn’t mean to, at all.
Today, you told me you missed someone
and I had never
heard you speak her name.
No, it’s not okay because you keep
things you love tucked away like a
loose piece of hair. Do you love her?

She has to have patient, selfless, love spilling out of
every single pore.
She has to love
the world enough to make up
for your hatred of it.
She has to be gentle, and tell
your sister she’s more beautiful
than all the Birds in Paradise
and your mother she’s the best chef
she’s ever met, and she has to know
not to mention your father
and not try to fix things that will
always be broken.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry
because I know she’s not all
of those things
and that no one will ever be able
to deal with how much you hate yourself
and your family, and how everything you try
to love ends torn into ****** shreds.
I’m sorry that she won’t stay because
you don’t actually know how much force
you use to push people away.
I’m sorry that the only reason
you stopped kissing me goodnight
was because you promised you wouldn’t.
I’m sorry.

Dorothy Quinn Jul 2013

you're insulting my strength, i'm immune to you pt. 1

It’s okay, I understand that you
think about holding her hand and
her being the first person you let inside.
I understand that you will eventually push her away
because you are the most difficult part of the puzzle
and the piece needed to solve it has to be a complete
antithesis to everything you are.
I’m sorry, love, but her puzzle piece
is almost the same as yours,
she can help you, but she can’t solve like you want her to.

It’s okay, I understand everything,
so don’t worry about me.
I can handle being your friend.
Would you like to know why?
It’s because nothing could possibly
ever come close to shattering my will
to love again as you did. You can’t
destroy my heart and leave it in more
pieces than you already have. I have learned,
and grown, and have already glued it back together
with an anti-venom against your poison.
Anti-bodies flow peacefully around my healing heart
and attack and burn every single fleeting thought
of you so that you can never possibly break me again.

So, yes, I think I can handle just being friends.

Dorothy Quinn Jul 2013

it's okay, you're not broken, and i love you.

I thought I screamed at you long ago
to stop,
to stop digging your Curare laced fingers
into my heart, and dragging me along by
twisted twine, but I didn’t.
I didn’t because you needed someone,
more than I needed relief and safety,
someone to heal you - not fix you.
Don’t ever try to fix people.
They are not clocks, but beautiful,
marvelous creatures with souls and fears,
and a mother who either loved them
or wished that they never existed.

I love you, I love you, I love you.
I’m sorry that you never learned that
you were never, or will ever be, a demon
trapped in angel’s skin, or that
your father treasured his shot glasses more than you,
or that your friends never loved anything but your wallet.
You are living proof that the world may be evil,
but it’s saturated with good. You are good.
I love you, I love you, I love, you.

I never screamed at you to stop,
not even when your nails threatened
to slice my aorta, because I have been healed
with the strength of a thousand sun-kissed dawns,
with a million drops of dew,
making something freshly new.
These things can heal you too,
but first you have to believe that
I love you, I love you, I love you;
I am a healer and you are good.

Dorothy Quinn Jul 2013

I need God to teach me, not you (but I do love you).

I wasn’t lying when I told you
I never learned how to love myself.
I’m not blaming anyone, it’s only that
my mother screamed at her reflection
and only God himself knows where my father was.

I loved many people
truly, I loved them as I love
the lake and her loons,
and the Moon and her wolves,
I just never learned to love myself.

I never understood why you could tell me
to throw away my scissors and razors and shot glasses.
I only understood why I could cry
when you wouldn’t throw away yours.
I never learned how to be okay.

I only learned fleeting and fickle,
lonely and lost,
I learned seeping and searching,
because when she picked up
her kitchen tools - I did too.

Please, be patient, don’t say
that you love anything about me.
I know, I know I’m stripping clouds
from the sky when I’m telling you
not to love me, but I’m only saying not yet.

Not yet, love; I need you
(and I don’t need people) but
I need you to wait for me
Please, for me, be patient
because I’m learning how to love myself.