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Soft draft of moon
& rescinding cloudburst
over green-oiled yard:
April night.
In the dark of the visual glare
You slowly squeezed my hand
As the images flickered on celluloid
My resistance ebbs like sand
Read this to yourself. Read it silently.
Don't move your lips. Don't make a sound.
Listen to yourself. Listen without hearing anything.
What a wonderfully weird thing, huh?

NOW MAKE THIS PART LOUD!
SCREAM IT IN YOUR MIND!
DROWN EVERYTHING OUT.
Now, hear a whisper. A tiny whisper.

Now, read this next line with your best crochety- old-man voice:
"Hello there, sonny. Does your town have a post office?"
Awesome! Who was that? Whose voice was that?
It sure wasn't yours!

How do you do that?
How?!
Must be magic.
 Dec 2016 Cristina Dean
daniela
10.  it’s like when you get to the airport
just in time to watch your flight take off without you.
it’s like when you get up dance but the music’s already over.
i think sometimes we’re all scanning the crowd
for someone who is never going show.

4. baby, you make nervous
like i’m not talking butterflies, i’m talking a mass exodus of monarchs
shuttering from the trees in mexico
like the sky’s rippling around their wings.
i’m not talking fireworks, i’m talking atomic bombs.
i’m talking terrible internal bruising
and the first time i saw you was like the first time
i saw the sun rise.

6. please, please, please love me
even when everything about me feels like ****.

8. love will never ever feel like it did when i was 16, 17, 18.
love will never feel like it did the first time again.
and first love only seems perfect
because it had nothing to measure up to.
so i stopped trying to catch it, stopped waiting for miracles or for magic.
because i’m not sure it’s out there.
i’m not sure there’s The One in capital letters
but maybe more like a lot of ones. plural.
maybe everyone you’ve ever loved was The One right then.
see, love is not a choice but the way we do it is.
and sometimes forever is just deciding to stick out
for as long as you can make it.
because, sometimes, things start fading
and we either choose to throw them out or color them back in.

2. my heart is unfocused;
love is not obedience and obedience is not deference
and i love you is not i always will.

7. i wish i could send sixteen year old me
a letter about love like “baby,
you want to rip yourself apart to find space inside of you to fit them in,
this is not love. i know it feels like it sometimes, but this is not love.”
i wish sixteen year old me knew how the **** to listen.  

3. see, i am 90% bravado and bad timing.
a lack of serotonin and a closed mouth.
more fistfight than handshake, more gritted teeth than grin.
and i love myself like you’ve got to love yourself
when you don’t always really like yourself.
i am in the room full of my mistakes
and they are telling me ghost stories about you.
see, i didn’t love you, it was… just the music.
my heart got confused, caught up in the baseline.

9. and i’m always reaching for something that burns
the palms of my hands, leaves me blistered.
i am always trying to hold onto borrowed time.

1. and i know this isn’t the love letter you asked for,
but it’s the one i’ve got.
"love is poetry for the senses" the title is in french b/c i'm pretentious.
messin' around with new styles and such, trying to make scraps into poetry.
 Aug 2016 Cristina Dean
Genevieve
Fate can go **** itself.
Here is my mountaintop
These are my curses to the stars
Tear at my clothes,
Scorch my flesh
Plead with the moon
Then nothing
Not even a ripple in the black
Destiny has spurned me here.


If this is what's in store for me,
I ******* give up
Since when has love not been enough?
Just a writing exercise with frustration.
I think about you over and over
until my heart grows numb
and my hands get old
maybe we will feel something
the same one day or another
as it turns dark out
I lose your small frame
as the sky blackens around us
I should have more things to say
but I don't
I just don't
and I never do
 May 2016 Cristina Dean
Pen Lux
thinking lately
"baby, bate me"
indigestion
if you grate me
no longer in the past
forget the late me
maybe you could
date me?

drama here in the mountains
breakdowns and bus stops
kids who feel entitled
parents cash in their jeans
screaming, obscenes
strange scenes
heart on my sleeve
people here say I'm too deep
as the truth creeps like snow melting
waterfalls breaking through
and I scream just as obscene
because the truth is much more difficult
and I didn't come here for an easy ride
or to build my pride
I quicken my stride
with thoughts of home
as I face the faces who scream,
"this is our mountain and we can do what we want with it!"
I disagree over quick paces
the coarseness of burnt toast
the smell of fresh brewed coffee
and I quicken my pace
quicken so I don't have to feel the weight of their egos
so that I can try and break away from my own
I feel so alone with myself
when did I forget I was here
that I'm all I need?

I miss the ones I love as I bleed
struggling to breed my own love
to move on and to move up
forgive the past and destroy the ruts

another day counting cigarette butts
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