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Your shirt was missing a button
and I couldn't help but notice
but you told me I was pretentious
so I pretended not to see it
but all day long it bothered
me and I couldn't help but stare
at the way the fabric bunched
and nobody seemed to care
 Mar 2014 Caitlin Driscoll
N23
Get your hand
off of my thigh,
it does not thrill me.

It makes me try to recall
the last time that I shaved.

But you seem less concerned
with the light fuzz
that could possibly be covering my thighs
and more interested in finding out whether or not I'm wearing a bra beneath this shirt.

I'm not.

But I'm leaving to go home
and shave
before you have the chance to find out.
Funny story: The guy actually found my napkin since he was curious as to what I was so intently writing while I ignored his advances. He actually grabbed a mutual friends phone and texted me saying, "Your legs felt fine to me." Which made me laugh.

It's not the best poem but the story behind it makes me like it well enough to post.
 Mar 2014 Caitlin Driscoll
kfaye
you were buzzing in the bathroom.
slapping yourself against the tall window

i thought to myself,
            i'll swing open the hinge and set you free
but when i went to wash my hands, you stopped buzzing-
and i stopped caring.
   and i walked away
a semi's  taillights lead us home
we litter cigarette butts along the highway,
our interpretation of breadcrumbs.

i hope that one day
(when our skin begins to slide from our bodies)
we are able to remember these nights.
people are always changing walls
                   new paint
                            wall paper
                            filling holes
                            knocking them down
walls would be so self conscious
    no one likes them
    the way they are
random thoughts
 Aug 2013 Caitlin Driscoll
UHG
It has been two years, one month, 22 days, and 16 hours since I last saw you, and I have a gun up to my head. And even though it is my own finger on the trigger, I am just as vulnerable as if the appendage belonged to someone else. See, the thing is, you did not realize how much you meant to the world- and to me- when you found yourself in much the same position as I am now. And that is why I had to bury you, my love, under that old tree that you thought was beautiful but I thought was a mess. Though, when they moved to cut it down, I stood right there beside you in front of those **** chainsaws and I never moved in inch except to hold your hand. I will never forget the way you looked at me then. The next time I saw that look was when we were both standing there at the altar, you covered in blue and green sundress (because wedding dresses were too stuffy), and I in cargo shorts and a Hawaiian shirt you had picked out for me two days before. I remember waking up that night to you studying me. I asked you what you were doing, to which you replied, “I want to write about you”. I remember thinking that it was not humanly possible to love you any more than I did right then. A thought that would later be proved wrong repeatedly as the years passed.
And then, in the fall of 1997, you were diagnosed with a cocktail of manic depressive disorder and multiple sclerosis. I was terrified, to be perfectly honest. But I tried my damndest to keep you as happy and comfortable as I could make you. I began going to church. I wished on every star. We even sold our city house in favor of a simple country lifestyle to get away from the city air and stress of it all. And yet still your condition worsened. I didn’t get much work done anymore, but I was much happier taking care of you than I was working for that ******* company.
And then you left me that note. That ******* NOTE telling me that you were sorry and that you had had spoiled my life. Telling me that I was better off without you. Telling me that you were lifting the burden off my shoulders and that it was the best thing you could do for me.
       They found your body three days later on the edge of the river. You had put stones in your pockets, my love. But what I could never make you understand is that you were not my burden. You were my rope tethering me to the ground when I was in danger of floating off. You were the ship that carried me to new and exotic places when I lost my inspiration. You were the tools with which I painted a beautiful life, and a beautiful future up to this point. So love, when you took that final walk into the water thinking that you were doing me a favor, you were wrong. And that is why I am sitting here, on this ******* bed that once belonged to us, threatening myself for about the millionth ******* time since your passing. But this time, I think I might be ser---
Not really a poem, but I wanted to know what you guys thought~
The pressures of the day dissipate
     Worries of tomorrow retreat.
Tensions take flight in the stratosphere
     Vaporized by the heat in the air.
Psychological armor melts away
     Veils and covers are kept at Bay.
The frigid world begins to thaw
     Threatening crisis withdraw.

All from the warmth of your arms.



© Tina Thompson
 Aug 2013 Caitlin Driscoll
Sand
3 AM and the famed
“World’s Best Coffee”
Isn’t doing the trick.

Dawn at diners
Is where the lonely
Gather for company
‘Cause we’re tired of
Laying alone on a bed
Too big for one
Too small for our thoughts
Too much of a reminder.

[Your imprint still fresh,
An outline to the right side of my pillowcase,
And some nights,
When I’m consumed by thoughts of you,
I’ll crawl into the depression,
And let the space engulf me,
Until I remember that,
Just ‘cause you laid on the right side,
Didn’t mean you were always right,
And a strange metaphorical hope
Bubbles out of me,
When I remember that
Hearts tilt to the left,
But, when you left,
It was quite heartless.]

We prefer indistinct strangers
Who we secretly hope
Have stranger problems
That maybe they’ll share
To make ours seem more bearable
But, more often than not,
We sit in a shared silence
Fatigued, insomniac, alone together,
The (lonely) only chatter with the night shift waitress.
The sound of my snoring is just as loud
as the roars of every great beast
roaring ecstatically in a chorus of roars

my brother told me
he woke up at 3:00 A.M
and took a trip to our conjoined bathroom
known in the industry
as a jack and jill

but I am Jacob
and he is Jordan

he said that I was snoring
long, loud and violent
thrashing from side to side
like a boat on deadliest catch
like trees during that tornado
wherever that thing was
like someone struggling to live
and breathe
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