Claire G: Favorites

Jun 2014 Claire G

37.802, -122.261; (RE)LAPSE IN JUDGEMENT

Jun 2014 Claire G

robin

37.802, -122.261; (RE)LAPSE IN JUDGEMENT

IM SORRY IM ALWAYS TALKING ABOUT HOW SICK I AM ITS JUST I KEEP HOPING YOU'LL GIVE ME A PILL TO MAKE IT STOP OR AT LEAST DIAGNOSE ME TELL ME EXACTLY WHATS WRONG INSTEAD OF IT BEING THIS ******* MALAISE ALWAYS IN MY ARMS LIKE A CHILD I NEVER WANTED BUT WAS TOO KIND TO LEAVE

I PROMISE IM NOT VOMITING ON PURPOSE I HAVENT BEEN THAT WAY IN YEARS AND NOW WHEN I STICK MY FINGER DOWN MY THROAT TRYING TO PURGE THE POISON IN MY BELLY ALL I DO IS DRY HEAVE AND WEAR MY THROAT RAW AND I END WITH A POUNDING HEADACHE AND A DROOLING MOUTH

THIS IS NOT HOW I WANTED YOU TO SEE ME DISGUSTING AND USED DRY I WANTED TO BE YOUR SHINING GODDESS YOUR ICON SOMEONE YOU COULD LOOK UP TO SOMEONE YOU COULD STRIVE TO BE BUT PLEASE DONT END UP LIKE ME

SORRY FOR HOLDING YOU TOO TIGHT IM JUST TRYING TO PULL YOU THROUGH MY ******* SKIN I DIDNT MEAN TO LEAVE THOSE MARKS I DIDNT MEAN TO BRUISE YOU WITH THE PATTERN OF MY FINGERPRINTS BUT NOW THAT IT'S THERE I CANT SAY I REGRET IT YOU CAN REMEMBER ME AS THE GIRL WHO ****** YOU UP YOU CAN BLAME ME FOR IT ALL

TELL ME THAT IM WORTH SOMETHING TELL ME THAT DEATH IS A JOKE AND I CAN LIVE WITH YOU FOREVER TELL ME ILL NEVER HAVE TO BE ALONE TELL ME YOULL ALWAYS BE WITH ME SO MINE IS NOT THE ONLY HEARTBEAT IN THE ROOM TELL ME WE CAN SLEEP IN THE SAME ROOM SO WHEN I WAKE IN THE NIGHT SCARED AND SWEATING I CAN HEAR YOU BREATHING AND KNOW IF I DIE THERE WILL BE SOMEONE THERE I WILL NOT DIE ALONE I WILL NOT DIE ALONE I WILLNOT DIE ALONE

IM CODEPENDENT AND SELFISH AND SICK AND I NEED SOMEONE TO TELL ME THAT NEITHER OF US HAS DIED AND THIS TRACHEOTOMY IS CRUDE BUT WE'RE BREATHING STILL AND WE CAN STAY IN THE HOSPITAL UNTIL EVERYTHING FEELS RIGHT AGAIN TELL ME THAT GOD EXISTS AND IF WE CANT LIVE FOREVER AT LEAST WE CAN GO TO HEAVEN

IM SO ******* SICK OF LEAVING EVERYONE BEHIND IM SO SICK OF BEING TRANSIENT IM SO SICK OF BEING A PAPERY GHOST LEAVING WHEN THINGS TURN SOLID TELL ME YOU WONT LET ME LEAVE YOU BEHIND TELL ME YOULL STAY WITH ME EVEN WHEN I CLOSE MY EYES AND DONT SPEAK FOR DAYS IM SO SORRY IM SO SORRY I WANTED TO BE A GODDESS BUT IM JUST A ******* SLUG AND IM SO AFRAID YOULL LET ME LEAVE

but screaming never solved anything

#death #ghost #selfish #sick #goddess

Jun 2014 Claire G

the in-between

Jun 2014 Claire G

Ellie Stelter

the in-between

It is a good thing that your life is long,
And your heart beats deep.
Fires blaze red for you, laughs, a song:
And the wine still runs sweet.

All will be ashes soon enough,
The smiles will fade, and the laughter
Run out. What once was tough
With youth will wrinkle and wither.

The in-between, the years that pass
As your glory and passion flicker,
Before your bones rest beneath the grass,
Make your smile softer, your hide thicker.

Don't discount the days not written down in song,
For it is a good thing your life is still long.

Jun 2014 Claire G

you are not mine

Jun 2014 Claire G

Ellie Stelter

you are not mine

i told you that i dreamed about you
and that's more truth than
i've ever told anyone,
but still i held back.

i said i was a queen
and you were my knight
and together we brought our world
into a new age of light

which i wish could be our truth.
i'd love to rule the world with you.

but where i was a queen,
you were my only conquest,
my bloodied hands, rough
from fire and from fight
mapped out your skin
traced the lines of your collarbones,
danced over your veins

my lips played connect-the-dots
with your freckles
my words healed your scars
together we devoured one another:
and i woke up guilty.

because that's not where we belong.
we should be in the story
i told you: a queen
and her champion,
beating back the armies of night.

Jun 2014 Claire G

convergence

Jun 2014 Claire G

Ellie Stelter

convergence

i wake up every morning
more ready than the last
to fall asleep that night
and be that much closer
to the end.

my heartbeat's growing now,
stretching itself out
to fill the long hours
that lie between me
and leaving.

i have no time, for
all the time i am working,
preparing myself,
but in the empty spaces
in the minutes where
i am catching my breath

there is still an eternity: it lies
between me and my fate,
between the dreams of a child
and the reality of age,
between separation
and alignment.

let's drift in those eternities,
let's build monuments to whatever
in our minds, let's exist
in the moments we are resting
and imagine the future
as it's happening,

we are tomorrow and
we are today. we cannot
give up now. we cannot
give up hope. we are tomorrow,
and tomorrow's crashing down.

Jun 2014 Claire G

10

Jun 2014 Claire G

Ellie Stelter

10

wandering
city streets alone
as a child
gets old
as soon as
your popsicle melts
and you drip
on your favorite shirt
and you lose your steps

bare feet rough
on sun-baked
pavement
glittering
with broken glass
and i don't feel it
and i don't bleed
and i want
to go home.

Jun 2014 Claire G

can't wait

Jun 2014 Claire G

Ellie Stelter

can't wait

i'm on the verge of the future now,
really truly on the edge. i'm riding out
this high while it lasts, hoping
that i won't wake up anxious,
burdened with all the stuff i've got
to take care of. these short days now
will soon be over: that's what matters,
that the end's in sight. can't wait
to be gone, can't wait to be
moving on. all my life i'll spend

leaving now: jumping one city, one life
to the next, trading friends, families,
swapping beds and patterns and
smiles whenever my bones start
to itch. all the time i'm waiting now,
it's just a matter of days, of hours,
of minutes. everything big will soon
be something much smaller: a rock,
a thought, the time left, the distance
between me and you. it's all almost over
and i'm not scared anymore. i can't wait.

Apr 2014 Claire G

nap

Apr 2014 Claire G

Ellie Stelter

nap

in a car
in a parking lot
wrapped in a grey day
I too am wrapped,
curled against seat
under blanket,
as comfortably
as in the cloud that
holds the sky in its palm
outside somewhere
there are voices:
high with laughter
drunk on company
a car thrums past,
musical heartbeat pulsing

I could be plugged
in too; I could be
out there with them
but I am a cloud
in a sunset yellow sky,
a wave
on the rolling sea,
a red star hiding
beneath the skin
of the cosmos
my eyelids blur out
the world and become
the canvas for a new one

here I nap -
and I want to carve it
in stone,
let it tumble mountains,
HERE I AM,
the idiot child of reason
and fate,
drenched
in hazy past
as futures crystallize
before me
my body confined,
my mind transcends

I see all,
know all, be all:
I awake
and find myself
nothing, just
wrapped.

Apr 2014 Claire G

the glow-stars

Apr 2014 Claire G

Ellie Stelter

the glow-stars

I can't sleep
when the stars aren't out
so instead
of lying awake
300 nights of the year I
put glow-stars on my ceiling
thinking it would help

But these are
poor replicas of real stars,
dishonest reproductions
of the wild and infinite
cosmos.
I sleep better now but it
is the sleep of a liar:
I awake often and know
that above me
is spread a false sky.

Mar 2014 Claire G

she would be eighty

Mar 2014 Claire G

spysgrandson

she would be eighty

she would be eighty, or eighty plus one
her name was Eve, really, she had me
when I was a bucking young mountain man
only weeks back from that “crazy Asian war”

now, a prisoner of the prairies,
its harsh daylight dousing my waking dreams of her,
dispersing them downwind, with other melting memories
I yet hear her English tongue, see her bobbed blonde hair
against her silk pillow, and feel the warmth of her huge fireplace
and her slender fingers on my shoulders

twenty four years younger then
than I sit today, what would she say
if I saw her now? would we lie
with each other, or to each other?
what if she has passed, and all that keeps her
here is the faint fire behind me, the embers
speaking in red whispers, of Eve, of yesterday
and of soft dances in nights
of naked forgetting

yes, there was an Eve from the UK, in 1972, when I was 20 and a day, and she was an ancient 38 or 39