I never got enough of you
I always wanted more
When I think of you
A softness comes over me
I've never known before

Maybe it's been long enough
I can admit what I didn't like so much

Sometimes you were too much the
social justice warrior for my tastes
But only 1% of the time
The rest of the time we were aligned

Will I ever know a magic like
The magic it was to know you?

It feels utterly impossible I could meet
Another woman who filled me in so many ways
As you did

For 1, I don't see how she would ever be as beautiful as you
This future she
And the history
We built
It wasn't such a beautiful history was it?
Of hurting the other and taking years in the middle to heal
Then avoiding each other
And keeping the cards close
And never saying exactly what we felt
And the values and ideals,
The laughter,
The chemistry,
The freedom,
The emotional maturity,

Ugh, here I am making myself cry over you again

How did I love you so?
It overwhelms me again

I think part of the overwhelm
Is that I still can barely wrap my head around the fact that you wanted me too,
loved me too.

Sometimes I think you could have been better to me
Could have considered me more
The way I considered you
I think you could have been kinder
Softer
Less selfish
More honest with yourself and in turn with me

but that's often how the poly people I've met tend to be
That's often how I was

Countless lovers I know felt the same about me
I could have been kinder,
softer, more considerate,

And I would be now,
If I had a lover to dole out those kinds of things on,

I wonder if you think of me still?

So I look on your instagram,
You haven't posted in a while,
You didn't post for Christmas, or New Years.

I wonder if you are still with that guy?
Is he still jealous and stifling?
Christ, I hope not.

I wonder if I'll text you. And I decide that I will.

Because I love you so very much.

She's a seamstress in her way,
Stitching together her dreams,
So the seams lay exactly how she says they may.

With sharp scissors and a wet tongue,
She snips the cloth and licks the one,
Who'll slip through the needles eye,
Carrying all that metal in her noose,
coyly cuddling with rose and chartreuse.

I had a dream about two men
And one of them was you
Another was a fantasy
But he left me feeling
Note quite used
Not quite blue
Not quite safe
Two adjacent rooms
One for me
One for a man
You were in the man room at first
We chatted during the day
I showered alone
At night we watched movies
It felt like home
*** was neither in the air
Nor nowhere
With fantasy man I undressed
Playing coy seductress
In the shower he followed me in
And though I’d invited him in
Suddenly I felt something quite akin
To fear
To too much
Too uh-oh
A man is in my shower
And his ***** is touching my leg
And standing tall
With a cheeky smile on my face
Rather than showing
The cringe
And the fear
And the trembling lack of safety
Coursing through my heart
Is all I can manage
I freeze
I give up my autonomy
But it was my fault
Because I never told him
In fact I told him come in
Then after that we laid on the couch
Calves and arms and toes bare
And giggled while we watched a movie
And that part I very much liked
The movies cast us girls to ruin don’t they?
And the boys do too
And the girls do too
And we do too

The first time a man came in the shower with me
I was a teenager
And it was scary
I wouldn’t let him turn on the light
He was touching me
And I was scared
It all felt washed in blue
And I was scared to ask him to get away
Because if he says no
Uh-oh
I was scared to ask him to get away
Because I was desperate to be
A woman
And I thought that is what
Strong women do

Anyway
I liked the part of the dream with
You
Where *** was neither in the air
Nor nowhere
Best

Though a part of me balks
At the thought
This part says
No! I am a liberated woman! I am *** positive! I flaunt my curves and men bow and I am in power and they kneel and they **** and I *** and I **** and they *** and and then after that we can watch a movie
With calves and arms and toes bare
Now that elephant
In the room
Has been had

But with you
Nothing needs to be bare
To watch a movie
And I like that

All the other necks I’ve kissed
Were nostalgic
Because they reminded me of all the bodies of the necks before them
Because all the bodies of the necks had minds inside who needed things from me
But this ones needs no thing
No adjustment
So when I kiss this neck
There’s no click in my brain
That says
Oh this is like the one in junior high or 19 or your first days in LA
There’s no bucket of grainy photos stacked behind this neck
It’s a new neck
Memories are stacking up though
Of just the one neck and the one body attached to the mind inside that needs nothing from me
That has no adjustments
Lacking nostalgia and pain

I feel that a vital part of myself
Is shriveling up and dying
As each day goes by and no lover brushes their lips to the back of my hand
Is this the last remnants of my ***/love addiction?
I haven’t experienced that wild reckless craving for another body to slam into mine in ages and ages
And I don’t experience it now
But rather a loneliness that scuffs at the dusty taupe floors of the echoing rooms where intimacy used to dance, supple and pliant
Now my intimacy palace sits empty
It’s been so long since the twinkle in someone else’s eye matched the twinkle in mine and I got to be bold as I chose to fall in for a moment with them
Since I met someone who touched that deep part of me
Or maybe that deep part of me has been sleeping for a very long time
The part that isn’t afraid to love, that remembers what a high privilege it is to connect body and soul with another
Maybe it’s waking up and as it does a maddening hunger for touch yawns wide in my center
Maybe I overused that privilege and abused my ability to connect and condensed millennia of intimacy into a few hours a week
And so it hid away from my carelessness
It sunk into the walls
Slithered under the floor boards
And waited until it was sure I wouldn’t over use, abuse and be careless with it
And now I think it’s starting to get sure of me
Trust now fills the air in these vacant halls and the disembodied bits of my intimacy start to come together
Creating a bit of a pit just there at my diaphragm
A pit that longs for lovers past
That laments my empty bed
But that also praises the new halls I’ve crafted for it


All this because I desperately want to text my ex
Or worse
Write her a letter
With a poem that praises her body and soul
That I wrote after she broke my heart
I want to mail it to her for birthday with a note that says “I wish we lived closer and things were different and you could be my wife”
I’d send it to break her heart a little because mine is still broken
I don’t think hers is  
From when we last spoke I know her heart is still high up on the shelf, hidden behind her guards
And I know nothing of what her intimacy palace looks like
But I wish I wish I wish
I wish I could meet someone like her
And that’s the rub isn’t it?
She’s still my high standard and she smashed my heart up

And now that beast of longing awakens and craves her so badly
The loss of her feels deafening even a year and a half later
How would I survive someone new? Who I loved with that kind of admiration, tenderness and force?
If it were to end? I’d have to place another gravestone there in my chest beside hers. I suppose I should just let her go, dig up the grave and send her into space. But then what will the beast of longing gnaw on if not her memory?
I’m afraid it will gnaw on me
Oh the melodrama

It’s stranger than strange to look at photos of me and you
From when we were together
In each photo I can feel my resistance
My confusion
This is my boyfriend?
I think he’s hot but not in a way I want to ****
I think he’s my pretty special friend
A beautiful muse
A unique and wonderful specimen
Someone I appreciate more than I can say
But the man I let in my bed?
How could it be you?
I kept expecting other people to validate my concerns
To see a photo and say really?
I don’t get it
But they didn’t so I’d think
Alright he must be right and we’re a good match
And I stayed until I met someone with whom I couldn’t deny sincere attraction
And that was the end
Of pretending to want you the way you wanted me

I used to confess
Confess myself all the time
Confessing parts of my personality
Disowning myself
While playing the martyr to my flaws

I don’t do this anymore
Suddenly
After years of work on my inner walls
I hear my no’s and yes’s clearly
I respond to them shortly thereafter
And I no longer  confess
That I’m very sensitive
That I have a past with trauma and pain
That I have unique needs

Part of this is knowing I’m not alone
We’re all sensitive
We all have pain
We all have unique needs

I loved to watch you eat
You were like a gopher and a very silly shark
You would take a cute little bite
And then rub your fingers back and forth
and very politely lick only just the very barely inside of your lips
And sometimes if it was a very good bite
you would straighten your shoulders a little more
almost like a cartoon soldier coming home from war
It was a delight to watch you eat
actually
And then sometimes so satisfied
Your pronounced brow would hitch downward
Tugging downward past your eye
Looking at the mushroom like a pirate
or a very sneaky antagonist leopard
in a cartoon about leopard
rivalries.
A quick "Mmmm" would mutter from your mouth
and I enjoyed you nearly as much as you enjoyed that bite

The feeling of brown grey trees at dusk
The sky is lavender or cornflower
With peach highlights on the clouds
From the low setting sun
And you’re running in the woods toward home
And you start to lose sight of your feet among the brown grey tree roots, the brown grey earth, the leaves, your brown grey shoes
And for a moment you feel a little spooked
The light fades beneath the blanket of trees
Though when you look up
The sky is so sharp and clear against the branches
But it provides no light
A breeze blows cool
And silence gathers around you in fearful clumps
But then I remember oh I’m running back home with my brother
And he too can barely see his feet
And we’re okay
And we had a great day in the woods

My favorite poets
Are the ones who don’t know it
The pedestrian texts
From people who love
Who’s love has made them artists

I'm a sleek owl
With hooded lids
And talons razor sharp
My neck turns round
I weigh 2 pounds
And my call is like a harp
Who knows how I see the world
Who knows what I recall
Who knows if I live
To **** the kids
Who rule the streets  in early fall
I stay up late
And contemplate
Or maybe I don’t even think
Maybe I live in this tree up high
Counting the seconds until I can blink.

I've got oceans
You've got boats
I think your solar plexus is also open

I see how death roils around you
How it looms and tickles your space
How its tendrils hang around you like
The reapers cloak on a wind

In the night your demons come to dream with me
I don’t know why they come
But they show me the way they have filled you
For so long
How they have lived in your husk
And now that husk is not so habitable
Now that husk doesn’t have the energy to sustain them
They can’t feed from you how they once did
Now that you can’t feed yourself
Now that you must be fed
Through a tube from the hands of your wife
So on their way out
Your demons, your company, the spirits you’ve channeled for many many years
Come to your daughter
To reveal themselves in the night

One so sick and strange
So small with oily hair mother never took the time to wash
A forsaken child beaming at the attention I give her
To lift her from your body and put her in your bed
I listen to her sounds and animations
And she goes into a soft sleep

Another so bold and mean
Large and angry
Cold and resounding and sure
This beast was inside you all these years
Shape shifting you to yell at your babies
In a booming voice
With out kindness or remorse

Who will I meet next?
Who will leave you next?
Will I meet the last when you are on your death bed?
Or will they leave you and then by some miracle your body will start to work?

Who are you without them?
Do you know?

Claws click on my hardwood
Thump
A petite beast lands on my bed
She stalks over ruffled blankets and
Yesterdays sweater
Tentative paws
Test the certainty of my torso
7 purring pounds keep me company
Kneading paws
Dazzling eyes like emeralds
Fur softer than soft
Lounging on my belly for the nth time
She bestows upon me the peace of her closeness

I am learning to be free
I am learning to stop giving into the feeling that I am being watched
I am learning to lose myself in the present
I am learning to stop trying so hard to be anything other than what I am
I am learning to indulge myself in my every whim
Why not?
I’ve gone my whole life not indulging, judging, chastising, trying to fit, trying to be everyone’s cup of tea.
It didn’t work and I didn’t like it.
Now I think I will just be.

Today, my mom and I obsessed over my kitten's beauty:
"she's so precious"
"mirala come se pone asi"
"a work of art"
"her eyes are BEAUTIFUL"
"un modelo"
"preciosa"
resounding in the air around her
as she tore at the rug by the door with sharp claws
motivated by each word of praise wafting around her.
Then I said:
"I think she could have been a show cat, but her personality won't allow it"
and then mom got busy with her breakfast
and I had some space for my thoughts
Sometimes, when I notice something new about my cat
I wonder what this new knowledge
Can tell me about myself.
I think I am just the same as her
I could have been a show girl, a show something, a trophy wife, or by now a print model getting botox to fend off the aging that tugs on my laugh lines
But my personality, won't allow it.
Too sensitive, too knowing for that 'could have been' that's not for me.
Too disregulating to my nervous system to be beautiful and voiceless.
Again, again, again, again
Thousands of times in this mind I contemplate myself
As if I am constantly being beheld by a thousand eyes who will judge my value as a thing of beauty
Will that ever end?
I don't think so and I suppose it's something to accept.
That's being a woman in this life isn't it?
Being a cat, always beheld.
Or who cares if it's being a woman or a cat.
It's a distinct part of my psyche to be beheld.
Just like it's an integral part of my cats life to be beheld and praised as she tears up a vintage rug.

Just when it’s all falling down
And I’m tumbling with it
When the sunrise looks grey
And the tree branches too spindly
When I’m nearly tugged under the waters of my melancholy
Into the currents of despair
I eat a bit of aged cheese
And it speaks to me in the language of pleasure and nuance
It holds my tongue
A deep, floral, aromatic effervescence
Smooths out the wrinkles of my being
And it’s alright
A light starts on my tastebuds
And expands to my body
And then even the tree branches respond
Now elegant like ballerinas
The sunrise coaxed into a more vibrant peach
Reflecting on the windows of the apartments across the way

Do you ever have those days
When you wish it was night?
So guilt could slip off your shoulders
And down onto the tile
That you’ll sweep up tomorrow sometime
Between sunrise and lunchtime
Or who knows maybe after
You’ve got lounging to do
If only the sun would take a nap too

******* has become a chore as of late
No one caresses my beautiful collar bones
And I ache I ache I ache

My dreams show me visions
Of people that I miss
And somehow in this timeline
I am never kissed

And you did text me
About 10 hours after I wrote that poem
You texted me just as I knew you would
And what do I do with that little hi you sent
Into the ether?

What am I to you? That you text at
4am on a Saturday
Were you still up from the night before?
Were you drunk?
You must have been.
Or were you just waking up?
You’re 24 I think,
So it feels guaranteed that you were drunk
You sent the text then passed out
I wonder if you even remember sending it this morning
I wonder if you’re even awake
Or make you woke up at 4am to go to the gym?
And the in the clear headedness of an early morning you texted me?

No, no I know what it was
You had just had *** with a woman
And it wasn’t what you wanted it to be
And you thought about me
And my *******
And my face and my bed
And the lamp and my apartment
And you thought that THAT was good ***
THAT is what you want
Not whatever reasonable lay you just had
So you texted me

Stupidly.

Unfortunately I feel extremely confident that this is where your text came from
Aren’t you disappointed in yourself?
Are you insane?
Well I do think you have some mental health issues
Some mania

This morning I wondered if I’m like some god you pray to
Asking for guidance
Hoping you’ll find it between my legs
Hoping I’ll give it to you at 4am

Stupid text

I miss being seen
By someone
Intimately

My ******* haven’t made eye contact
With other ******* in a long while

Though only since October 9
And now it’s Jan 1
And that feels like too long

But I won’t go prowling in the streets like I once would have
For someone yummy
To make me feel seen

Because I’ve long exhausted
The part of me
Who’s intrigued
By a novel human
By their novel *******

No
Now I want someone worthy of the next decade of my life

Im feeling many feelings
I’m feeling sort of tense
I’m feeling pressure to better
And feeling pressure to relent
To fall into my bodies rhythm
If I don’t I fear I’ll fail
At living the life I’m supposed to live
And doing what I’m supposed to do
Supposed
What a word
A sibling of should
Both children of pressure
Far off descendant of good
of dreams
And desire and visions
Im scared of my visions I suppose
I’m scared of the knowing I know
That I’m not a go getter
That I’m happy in the home
That I’m a creator and a lover and a dancer
That I’m an artist in every way
That I’m happy in the kitchen
And I’m happy on the stage
I’m happy writing songs
And writing scripts
And painting with paints
Money come my way
I’d be so pleased if you would
Land in my lap
So I could frolic in the woods
And this makes me want to cry
I want to be taken care of
And I want to take care
I don’t want to run a business
I don’t want to manipulate clients
Then the thought
That maybe I’m burnt out
And if I rest I’ll understand the grind
And I’ll want to be in the workforce
No
I don’t and I won’t
I want a slow life of joy and friends
And children and love and good good food
And my cat
And long hours spent writing in the sunshine
I want a private life
And public performances
I want a small circle of wonderful friends
Who know me
I don’t want to be tired
And I’m so tired now
Is it the eclipse or my period
Is it my dads cancer
Is it the pressure
I feel the pressure and I must step to the side
And let her fall on deaf ears
I don’t hear you anymore
Pressure
But I’ll lay here in the grass beside you

I love my people who feel deeply
And speak with their hand on their heart
I love my people who dabble in the depths
Every morning and night
I love my people who open their fingers
To let moments that no longer serve slip away
I love my people who have worked hard to find childhood
Who feel the joy of a six year old when they
Find a daisy on the side walk

Whenever I get a lover again
I'm excited to give them kisses on the nose
And to feel the oils of their pores
And smell their skin
Their face skin and hand skin
I'm excited to be close and to touch and love and **** and laugh and do things I haven't done yet
I've had physical intimacy with so so so many people
And I wish at the time I had been brave enough to try to love them too
But they were like me
Which is why we met
They were scared and unhealed too
And they just wanted the blurry rush
The untamed ecstasy
The freedom of meeting a stranger
And taking a $17 potion
And ******* like animals

And now
I just can't wait to have partners I can hold close
And kiss their noses
And feel the smush of the nose skin
Against the cartilage from the pressure of my lips

Just recently I had a sort of lover
An almost boyfriend
And sometimes I think I cherished the closeness
I sobbed in his arms once about my dad
And him letting me do that
It felt like a great kindness at the time
And I think it was one
But it was a kindness I deserved

I could text him if I wanted
And have someone again whose nose I could kiss

But he's kind of a **** so I wont
Which is annoying

I want to meet someone who's not a ****?
Is that so hard?
Isn't it too easy to take people for granted?
Recently I found birthday cards from an ex who I loved and who loved me so dearly

It wasn't until maybe three years later that I
really cherished the way he treated me

He was a good guy, like such a good guy
But ultimately I wasn't attracted to him and he was very needy and it all devolved in the end and I hurt him a lot and he wanted me to be small

Today I saw my hot neighbor clearing out his car from the snow
And I fancy him
Or I want to anyway so I went out to clear my car
Thinking we might chat and laugh
Instead I just cleared my car and across the way he cleared his
And then I went inside because my hands were cold

And anyway, I promised myself I would
Date a woman next
Trying to go to community events to put myself out there
Desire

I used to enjoy the brush of longing against the inside of my skin
I don't enjoy it so much now
Restlessness and feeling empty for the presence of no one else around me
But I also just watched a sad movie about a woman who is dying
And currently my dad is
Maybe he's not actively dying
But he's got a foot in the door

But maybe the new treatment will work
Maybe he will be able to enjoy a burger again
Maybe I won't quake when he walks up the stairs

Though now that I don't live at home it's easy to pretend
That he's okay
To put him from my mind
And he would absolutely say that he's okay

I thought when I moved here that I would sit on the floor
And have a BIG BIG CRY about the pain
Of the past year

And I haven't had that big cry yet
That big relief
I want it
But I'm scared of it
Just like I was scared to tell
A hottie who I made love to countless times
That I cared for him
Because the one time I did open up and share about my life
I couldn't have ***
I couldn't even look at him

I think about him often actually
I think about that woman too
I can still see her hips swaying on the way to her car
She knew I was memorizing her waist in my shorts

I loved her with such abandon
And then she too treated me bad

And he did too
I don't know why they came into my path
And I don't want to be a victim about it either

But **** man
I memorized them
The way you memorize someone you'll know forever
Without even trying
They are memorialized in my mind
And no where
Absolutely no where to be found in my life

And they don't even exist how they once did
She is absolutely better and she is chaos
Truly terrifying to me and my nervous system
He's better too

I guess I'm much better than I was
And better that they're not in my life
She still makes me shrink
Him I don't care about really

I guess I should get her out of my energy field
Where her fingers and hips and lips and hair and scalp and knees and *** and ***** and ******* and freckles and neck still live

It makes sense, she is a love witch
I guess she put lots of love spells on me

Who knew this is where this poem would take me

Feeling like maybe for now music is too much
For now all those sounds sound like noise
Silence accompanies the flick of my lamp
And the sudden quiet of my mind
Much better than the
Constant ***** beats and nasty flows
That used to charm my ears
Now the sound of crickets in the city
Are a luxury I simply can’t override with a synth pop track
Now the way my sweater brushes against my skin
The way my glasses rattle when I spin
Around the room to a tune I’m playing in my mind is all I want to hear
My neighbors air conditioner
The random honking car
The voices echoing down the hall
All these anonymous sounds call to me

They have no master
No order
No point
They exist simply because they do, they are collateral and in that they are everything.
They are collateral and they make up the experience of one entire sense.
And I only want to hear them speak
To know what my world sounds like

Honestly the way
That Maroon 5 is constantly playing in my head
Is music enough for me
Just to sink into a pocket
Unexpectedly while I order coffee
“Give me that red velvet”
Making my hips twitch and my brow hike
Is enough music for now
Harmonizing perfectly well with the din of the world
With the sounds of my body
With the breath from my mouth

Who Knows? Maybe moans retire
Maybe silence is something else to explore
Maybe deep in the quiet a voice is calling
Maybe here there’s a rhythm I have yet to explore
Of course there is.
Of course it calls.
Of course there’s more.

When I’m feeling
Nostalgic and droopy
And a smile teases but doesn’t quite crest
I think of you
And I tease myself that I’ll
Reach out
Unblock, find a screenshot of your number
Or search my computer for it
And just give you a little “hi”
Just to see
But I also know I wouldn’t do that
I’m too grown
But what I wouldn’t give
To receive one of your foolish
Text novels
So long you have to click the little arrow
About the three nights we spent together
6 years ago

I want a foot massage and tea made for me
I want to acquiesce and please
I want to back and forth
I want to have breakfast at the cafe by my house in the morning with my lover from the night before
I want good *** and better moods
I want someone who I don't know yet

I want *** and touch
I want more I want you to bite my teeth
I'm hungry and I'm tired and I want someone nearby
Who knows how I like it
Who know how to grab my thighs
I want a fantasy
I want a dream
I want someone who can tease me and make me feel super green
Super lean
Don't be mean
Make me feel seen
I'll be a dream
It can all be easy

I want to laugh and dance around
I want magic and sleepy breath sounds
I want what I like and nothing more and nothing less
I want someone I don't know yet

Im always amazed
What a nap with my cat
And cooking something delicious
Will do for my apathy

Recently I’ve ceased using someone
As my personal diary
Texting less
Not texting every little thought I have
Not seeking validation of my existence through someone else seeing my every inner move
And I have to say I feel far more
Real

I miss being spoken to

Roughly

By my lover

In bed

*wink

Today I turn 31
I spent the night
With a tight neck and a headache
A recent boundary setting with a close friend
Causing a frenzy in my nervous system
I made a delicious breakfast
Fending off the pain
I meditated with a wonderful friend
And said hi to her delicious baby at the end of the call
The pain eased
I had lunch with my mother
It was nice until
She said something that was too much
Drove a bit crazy and talked about her trauma
The pain returned
After she left I lay in bed
Tormented by the pain now spreading from my right toes to my gums
I did a meditation ceremony to reown my healing energy for me
And did some yoga
The pain subsided almost completely
I caulked my tub and audio messaged with a friend
I had an ******
The pain now a whisper
I’m dressing to go watch Freaky Friday 2 with a close friend of mine
And share a dinner and many laughs I’m sure
I’ll wear my pants that were once too long but have shrunk in the wash to just my height
The pain easing even more as a I contemplate my perfect pants
I think 31 might be the best age I’ve ever been
It feels right the way that 27 felt right
I look at the art I’ve made
I listen to my latest song
I am bursting with pride to be me

I feel sad today
My three friends are all too busy to see me
My spattering of newer acquaintances will not satisfy
I want to laugh with someone I am not learning
My other friends who I could lean on
Live far far far away
I have a new cat who requires oodles of attention
And who attacks my resident cat
So I keep them separate
I miss my cat deeply
Though she’s just in the other room
I get 20 minutes to an hour with her every 3 hours
Until the new cat cries and I go to her

I’m sure it doesn’t help my current state
That I am not just lonely
I am embarrassed to be lonely
Why doesn’t anyone other than my mom prioritize seeing me?
Why am I not someone’s whole world?
And this is an over dramatic question
Just this week I had dinner with a friend on Tuesday which he insisted upon because he would be away the weekend
And usually we spend some part of the weekend together
I don’t have a lover or two
Just me
And my friends with their busy lives and partners and roommates and careers
And I have my music and my cats
My paintings
My seemingly endless renovations

My horoscope which says it’s time to dig deeper into this feeling
Find where I allow another to soothe this sadness
The loneliness is normal I think
But the embarrassment of it  
The fear of needing
The flinch away from wanting
The idea that because I am lonely I must also be unlikeable, unloveable
This feeling that in the absence of another’s adoration, my adorableness ceases to exist
It’s not true
And that’s what my horoscope says I should be healing and releasing
I’ve been dutiful
Finding and weeding out where I participate in codependency in my friendships
I’ve seen and stopped the behavior
And now I’m here
Noticing how I can’t just be lonely
I am also alone and embarrassed to be so
Which is stupid
I’m not married
I don’t have a roommate or live with family
I’m not dating anyone
Of course I’m alone often
Which is okay and is not a reflection of my worthiness to another
It’s just what the situation is

I used to have friendships with people I didn’t actually like very much
Who very much liked me or so it seemed because they were always asking to see me
And that made me feel that I was at a surplus
But then I realized it I didn’t actually want to see them I just didn’t want to be alone
So I stoped seeing those people
And now I sometimes feel I am at a deficit

Boundaries and time management
Being seen
Vulnerability
Easy laughter
Connection
Brushing our teeth together
Knowing the smell of her hair and skin
Inside jokes
Having another person (other than me) to get flowers for
The joy of being in love
All loom in the distance
Large and ephemeral
Like a huge cloud far and high in the sky

My horoscope says dating will open up in November
5 months to figure it all out
So that on November 1st
I can walk out my door
Into the autumn sunshine and meet the love of my life

How disappointed will I be if November comes and goes and I don’t meet anybody?
If the plans for dates continue to fall through?
If the texts go unanswered?

Maybe by then
With all the growth I’m planning for the next 5 months!
I will be okay with it
Flush with acceptance and ease in the avenues of my existence

I hope it won’t be something like
“When you least expect it, it happens!”

How beat down and forlorn will I have to be
To one day stop picturing my wife in my mind?
To stop hoping to meet her?

Is the big block also my fear of my mothers rejection?
The look of horror and disgust on her impossible-to-hide-emotions face
I’m going to cry
I can already feel the pain
Of her rejection of my joy because it’s not for a man
Yes, big block.

And I’m not even capable of doing the other option

People say it’s brave that I up and left LA
That I up and left advertising
That I’m putting out my own music

But to me it doesn’t feel brave,
It feels inevitable and scary and exciting
But mostly inevitable

Because once I know what is, what must be done, I do it and I see it through to existence

My best life is with a wife
My best life is one where I don’t need my mothers approval
I’m here on this earth to live my best life
So these two bests will come to fruition

I hope one after the other in no particular order and of no consequence to the other

Could it be so cruel (it being my life path)
That in order to find joy with a partner I must first rid myself fully of the codependency, the agreements to heal, the child/parent role I play to to my mom? How big would I have to be? That her approval doesn’t swing like a pendulum in the back of my brain? How evolved, advanced, ready for my dreams to come true! How full of my own goodness. How completely set free of the burden of “you were once inside of me, so now you must let me be inside your life to dictate what is good and what it bad and what is safe and what is dangerous”? How wonderfully ready for my next steps? How prepared for a big life?

So maybe it’s not so cruel, maybe it’s a gift to realize this. I’ll decide that it is.
But how?

How do I rid myself of my desire for her approval? I didn’t used to have it, when I lived far away. Or sure I guess it lingered but was buried deep. And now being so near her, experiencing the shining joy of her beaming approving smile sometimes, I want it and that bit of me that would deny my truth to avoid the pain of her visceral rejection has grown.

Oh yes, a new codependency ready to be uprooted shows its face
Quietly peeking from behind the curtains
November here I come

Lay down with me in the hollow
Meet me at my low
Or in the bad angry
Or gusting cold forsaken grey
Lay with me in silence
Witness my tears
Slump with me
Let your chest rest
Against the scratchy lumpy pillow that feels just right for a nap between cries
Soon I’ll rise
And bow and bend and dance like a poppy in the spring
I’ll shine like dew on the wild grass in the morning meadow
But for now
I am lying down in the never ending
Grey of twilight

My dads two years with chemo
Rolls into a third with horrible raw radiation in the horizon
Or a beastly surgery with low odds of success
Beyond that
My moms financial situation precarious
The big house I grew up in
Has been teetering on the edge of
The cliff of my fathers life
For two years
And I fear it is tipping dangerously close to the abyss
It’s a long time to be in the tipping zone

“Anyone would be”
A friend says when I tell them I’m weary
“But I am! It’s me! Me who is weary!”
I want to scream that it’s not anyone
It’s me
And I want my pain to matter more
To the masses
But my pain is not unique
But it is high ranking pain
A google search will tell you that cancer, your own or a sick family members is one of the top most stressful events of someone’s life
That validates me
And I use it to help my mom see
Why her hand shakes
Why she’s gained weight
Why it’s hard to feel great
But she’s in denial

She’s in the tipping zone too
But she’s been for far longer than two years
I believe that illness often
Heightens and makes physical
Our perception of things
That man has been joyless, loveless, touchless, denying himself of all pleasure
For as long as I can remember
Cold as it is to say
Of course he has cancer

The tipping zone
I was out of it
For a bit
I was in avoidance
Rarely seeing him to avoid
The skin and bones hugs from that once powerful dad
Avoiding the feeding tube he must
Adjust
When he sits
The pain on his face when he burps
And it burns
From the goo in the tube
But now it’s on me
Somehow
To convince him to do the surgery and not the radiation
Is what my sister says
She’s angry at mom as always
And I’ll try and get the story from mom
And then from dad
And try to piece together
Some realistic picture of the options
The outcomes
The side effects
I ultimately will be removed from
At my place a few miles away

What’s the best choice?
I don’t know
To go back to his childhood?
To go back ten years and tell mom I found his bourbon?
Is it our fault?
That we didn’t say anything as he burned away his esophagus with drink after drink on an empty stomach
Of course not, I would tell a friend
Of course it’s not your fault, I could tell my siblings
We all knew
But we all had to hide it
Those were the rules

The tipping zone rules

Men will give you what you want without asking
In a lot of ways
In a lot of other ways you have to ask and ask
But a touch on the lower back in bed?
You don’t have to ask
And I suppose if I had a girlfriend
I wouldn’t have to ask either
But it’s when it’s going from friends to more
That I’m talking about
With men that part is easy
It’s going from friends to more
With a woman that requires such vulnerability
An ask
The potential she’ll say no
And I’ll feel
Like a woman who has desire and expresses it unapologetically
Which is really the woman I’m trying to become
I’d love to be so brave

I miss a life that's mine
Friends I choose
Who I meet at **** pool parties
And comedy shows
I miss friends who I can lay on and touch in a not totally platonic but not totally ****** way
I miss cuddles with friends of friends on a couch
While someone drunk and large makes jokes
I miss my tree in my park that isn't mine at all

But soon I'll have my own place
My own place!
That I'll own
Hopefully some lovers soon
I'll get to paint my own walls
Make my own music
Live my own way again

Quiet, magical mornings with my cat
Rambunctious evenings with people I haven't met yet
And with others I maybe have already met

It's so close
I left behind a whole life ***
And now I get to make my own new life
I miss being groped lol
Like seriously, someone run their hand across my clavicle and roughly down to my breast while we stand at the back of the crowd as some live music show