Olivia: Poems

Olivia Dec 2019

Lying here the world seemed very full
and suddenly
it collapsed. Just bounced, quickly,
in and out. And back again.
Am I alone?
Did I win?
Am I breathing?
Yes, yes, and yes.

#introspection #earth #alone #alive

Alone

Olivia Dec 2019

Alone

I know now how something
Unrelated to food
Can be sickening, after all.

#disease #fear #food #sick

Balance

Olivia Dec 2019

Balance

You have a smell
That I try to put myself inside.
Wear it like I wear your t-shirts
When I've given up on fumbling for my own
in the darkness.
I like that in bed I can see your face
illuminated by a scurvy-ridden moon.
I have to bite my lips
and yours
to keep prenatal words in, sometimes.
I wonder how big a part of my life
you'll have been
once you're no longer a part of it.
Maybe I love you, or maybe
you just smell safe.

#love #questions #balance #smell #intimacy

Budapest

Olivia Dec 2019

Budapest

He plays for himself, and
For the Danube.
Alone, on a field of stairs
He sits with brass on his lips
In the purgatorial wilderness between
The roiling streets and the
Roiling water. He can touch neither, and
He is both. The sound does not carry.

Why is he on the edge? Why on
The seventh step? Why here? Why
Now?

Who used to sit beside him?

For whom did he used to play?

#travel #music #serene #alone #river #observer

Census

Olivia Dec 2019

Census

Cold outside.
Lone dog
wanders over, sniffing
the patch of ground with grass slightly lighter
than the grass around it.
This is the hole we’d fall into as children,
patched and weathered over long since.

#childhood #history #nostalgia #old #nature

Control

Olivia Dec 2019

Control

I miss myself.
She was good, and kind, and
Purposeful.
She was not a train speeding along on a track,
Wind whistling by,
Eyes watering and half closed.
She walked alongside it,
Marveling at the cars
Passing by.

Now, she is reduced to
The lethargy that creeps into her veins
And ties her to the car.

#self #control #lethargy #helpless

Father

Olivia Dec 2019

Father

I've grown aware that my brain
is tuned incorrectly.
The antenna that detects frequencies
(art, truth, and death turn things to marble)
of screams and whispers and noise
sticks out obscenely. Pornographically.
Sometimes I give in to it
and thread myself along its wires,
intertwining with the sharp ambiance.
My heart beats faster
An unholy fusion
And I contract, deliciously,
Undulating with the compressions in the air.
They light up the silent ******* scream
coursing through my veins.

Would he have liked it here?
Or would he have sat
Unobtrusively, as I do now
and longed to feel the surf lap against his toes?

#death #noise #pain #family

Fight

Olivia Dec 2019

Fight

Thief.
Lying side by side,
Artfully not touching,
Breathing far quieter than natural inhale exhale. Precision.
You stole my delirious delicious nighttime fantasies.
They were all of you.

#fight #fear #love #separation

Locked

Olivia Dec 2019

Locked

Too-salty margaritas
(I knew we shouldn’t have gotten extra coarse salt).
The red gummy melting into my blood,
Our blood. Walking over the fountain
That you don’t remember walking in
Because you were blacked out.

Watching you watch me,
Chin cradled in your hand,
Grinning a little. Pretending like I don’t like it (I can’t help it), but biting my lip and smiling a little in that way I know you like.
Kissing you and melting into your chest and arms and legs.

God has invented gloriously cruel prisons for us.

#love #trapped #happy #memory

Morning

Olivia Dec 2019

Morning

Wake up, head pounding,
throat on fire; the air's too bright.
Check where you are,
check what is on you
--clothing or otherwise--
hands croak for water, trembling weakly;
bottles of liquor, open at random;
pick your way through
the jungle of clothing;
single shoes scattered.
A book, earmarked maybe, from another life.

#reality #morning #hangover #liquor #awake #bright

Paranoia

Olivia Dec 2019

Paranoia

A half-dream that something was wrong with my brain and
there was bass growing deafeningly, deafeningly louder.
Too loud, too loud.
Searing, hitting pain.
And I ran to find him because I didn’t know what was happening or how to stop it. And he couldn’t get organized
or to the hospital
and he had to maps it
and I couldn't stop screaming
and he was so scared, crying, wanting to help
but terrified and unable to.

#dream #nightmare #fear #noise #love #helplessness

Recently

Olivia Dec 2019

Recently

**** and *** and
smeared fire truck red lipstick have been
the bass notes
(the leaden circles dissolving in air)
of these past few lifetimes.

#time #*** #love #history

Sleepless

Olivia Dec 2019

Sleepless

What does it mean if
After we’re together, when
I go into the bathroom to ***
(because I don’t want to leave for a second when we’re together)
And I look in the mirror,
And there are indents--
Lines, even, on my face--
Crescent moons framing my mouth
From smiling,
Complementing the dark crescents under my eyes
From staying up so late to be together.
Just to
Be.
Together.
?

#love #night #happy #unsure #late

Venice

Olivia Dec 2019

Venice

Opulent,
Decadent,
Almost vicelike.
The people grovel,
Teeming among the city that sinks
Under the weight of its own
Infestation of the self.
The glass reflects the leering eyes of the masses.

The stench of the water rises,
Cloying.
Languid in obscenity
The shadows rot, unseen.
A graveyard of moorings past.

A woman falls.
We crowd around,
Vultures
Jockeying for view.

Guitar strings vibrate in the square
The sun beats down.

It was beautiful here,
Once.

#venice #decay #humanity #corruption

Warmth

Olivia Dec 2019

Warmth

I never feel more pretty than
When I stand, slightly swaying
With ***** in my veins
Diffusing
Swollen lips
And beaded with sweat
Waiting for the train.

#train #sweat #***** #waiting #time #beauty #pretty #alone

Wrapped Up

Olivia Dec 2019

Wrapped Up

I define my world in terms of you.
That was your room 4 years ago.
This is the hallway where we shook hands and kissed.
This is the fountain we talked next to,
not the fountain I ****** him on.
I kicked him out,
a real person,
so I could think about you in peace.

#love #memory #miss #away

— The End —