Liz Delgado: Favorites

Jan 2014 Liz Delgado

bb

I have been trying to think of ways to say 'I love you' on paper
without writing outside the lines.
There is much more to the way the blinds paint sunlight on your body
than beat up notebooks and chewed up pencils.
I make a lot of mistakes,
the kind that rubber only smears but doesn't erase.
I didn't mean to crumple your delicate skin like paper.
I know that paper comes from trees,
yet all the poems that make me think of you do nothing
to help me breathe, and your touch only proves
that my breath is easier to take away than you'd like to believe.
Forgive me for being comprised almost entirely of errors and mistakes and strikethroughs with red pens,
While you are so clean and refined.
I think of you in cursive.
Take my trembling wrists in your strong fingers
and guide me with a steady and patient hand.
Teach me to love you in bold print and I will underline it three times,
and again,
and again,
and again.
In my head, you are a million brainstorms thrown into waste buckets,
and if for some strange reason Helvetica is the only way to make you almost understand my thoughts,
then I am typing furiously and waiting for you to see them all.
All I ever wanted was to fill the doubles spaces between your fingers with my own,
even though sometimes you wish you could
backspace the words you didn't mean to say to me
while I pretend I don't remember them.
I have been trying to think of ways to say 'I love you' on paper
without writing outside the lines.
Then I ripped up the paper, scribbled it on a napkin,
and wiped the blood off my face with it instead.

Dec 2013 Liz Delgado

lamplight

Dec 2013 Liz Delgado

Kasey

lamplight

This isn't Paris, there are no lights here
But the stars that sit vulnerably above the dark streets at night.
Reflecting on the drops of rain that fall with no order filling the potholes and cooling the air.
Even the desert gets cold in December, and the cold makes everyone feel lonely.
So here's to the bowl of glitter on my desk.
The letters written that will never be sent.
The twin sized bed unkempt and cold by the window
And the lights that stopped working weeks ago.
To scarves that warm necks and hats that warm heads
While there's nothing to keep my heart from nervously pounding every time the dog barks at night.
Here's to coffee tasting and wrestling over the last brownie,
Friends that become lovers and lovers that stay friends.
The lamplight is dim but it's there all the same
And as long as my shivering hands can type I'll be writing these letters I'll never send.

Dec 2013 Liz Delgado

If I Had A Lover

Dec 2013 Liz Delgado

wounded words

If I Had A Lover

I would tell you I can't go to bed because
hell is loving you in my sleep and
waking up alone
and that i'd rather never sleep again
than to live through that

I would tell you that every time I open my mouth
I want you to shut it
with yours

I would tell you that you have
the kind of glance that could crack
a ribcage
and make it feel
like heaven

And I know it sounds cliché but
your breath is the water that floods
into the roots of my stomach and grows
the daisies being kissed
back into you

If I had a lover I would call these
nauseating churns
"butterflies"

If I had a lover I would think of this
infection in my head
as "you're the one I can't live without"

If I had a lover I would tell you
being lovesick
doesn't actually make me sick

And if I had a lover
I would need to learn not to **** myself
in the process

Dec 2013 Liz Delgado

Don't Trust Boys With Sleepy Eyes

Dec 2013 Liz Delgado

bb

Don't Trust Boys With Sleepy Eyes

Blow smoke rings the size of my neck and make me feel just as insignificant. My collarbones don't dissipate into the air when you touch them but I wish that I could sublimate when your fingers are barely touching my skin and gliding up. I shouldn't trust you as far as I can throw you, but I just want to throw myself against you and collide your mouth against mine as though our lips were two raindrops on the window crashing towards each other with no stopping, both thinking "oh my god oh my god oh my god" before we morph into one.
I am so used to feeling like garbage, so for once, pretend like the beads of sweat on my neck are diamonds and tell me I'm your precious stone and don't let this sapphire night escape us without drawing ruby drops of blood from my tongue.
There are some things my mother never told me, like "always make sure that the boy you meet is actually alive, and not just an empty puppet being pulled by the heart strings" and "never trust a boy with sleepy eyes", but it's always good to know these things ahead of time because one day he will have your heart in his hands and won't have anything for you and one day you will realize that he's always tired because he spends all of his time thinking about someone that isn't you. And knowing what I know now compared to what I knew then makes me wish I never ached to squirm under your hands and makes me regret every moment I spent longing to fill very space between your fingers because now I can't stop writing about it.
Do you know about the garden of dead boys? It can be found in the place where the roses die. There is a "keep out" sign designed to not seem so until it's too late. Until then, it appears to say "I love you" and you will wander in. But if you find yourself asking him "where have you been all my life", that's the time to run while you can because maybe he never actually existed.
-b.b.

Dec 2013 Liz Delgado

I Wrote This And You Won't Read It

Dec 2013 Liz Delgado

bb

I Wrote This And You Won't Read It

Darling, I am not here to write about your eyes and the stars in them. I tried to count too many times and I got too lost in the dreams imbedded in your corneas. I'm not here to talk about how the sun only rises because you give it a reason to, because it still sets every evening so it doesn't have to hear your steady breathing while you sleep. I'm here to tell you about how you have words that cut me like a saw cuts bone and how my ribs are held together with cheap twine and my spine is duct taped together. Here to say that you make my heart race at a pace that my body cannot keep up with. I didn't come to tell you that the tides are kissing the shore every time you laugh, because that's not what your laugh is like. No, if the rusting of iron made a sound, it would be your laugh. There are no flowers woven in your hair - instead, there are hornets and their nests lay settled in your throat and your intention is to sting me every time you open your mouth to say something that isn't my name. This isn't about poetry I've read about the moon and the sun and the cosmic loneliness of every star despite the presence trillions of them in the same sky. This is about how some stars find your presence so alluring that they begin to tumble from the sky and this is what we wish upon. This is about bruised lips mumbling words carved into coffee tables and ****** fingers tracing the rim of your favorite coffee cup. This isn't about love. This is about you.

Dec 2013 Liz Delgado

Clay

Dec 2013 Liz Delgado

Megan

Clay

I mold like clay
in your rough calloused hands
and you shape me
with drunk eyes and fingertips
that **** my sensitive skin
like knives

The snow plants kisses
to the cloudy glass windows
that confine us together
and I tremble with the fear
of being carved
into something I never planned
or wanted to be

My stomach shrinks
and my spine curves
from the harsh conditions
of your malicious mind
that pushes me further
and further
into depths of myself
I never knew
existed

I am hazy over the idea
that once I was strong
and maybe even the kind of beautiful
that blooms flowers
and jumpstarts heartbeats
and makes the world
close its rueful eyes
even just for a little while

You are an artist
with a clear goal and path
and I hope to god
you let me dry out
for I am not
shiny and mesmerizing
like the ceramics that
populate your dusty shelves

I’ve been molded and shaped
and framed and built
by those coarse and icy hands
so that I am no longer what I used to be
but rather a blurry and ugly version
that makes my head
whirl like the blizzard outside of my
window

Nov 2013 Liz Delgado

black friday

Nov 2013 Liz Delgado

Lyra Brown

black friday

today i learned that your favourite
colour is red.
(i also happened to be wearing it.)
today i learned that everything i’ve ever wanted to happen
will eventually happen,
but not in the ways i imagined they would.
today i learned that i can love you from a distance,
that i can say it with my eyes and maybe you will
hear me.
(or maybe you won’t but
either way i’m going to keep looking at you.)
today i learned that you care about me because
you told me to put on my scarf so that i wouldn't get cold.
today i learned that love is a language all on its own,
full
of laughter and long embraces and jokes and
spur of the moment decisions and unrequited heartache
and other things
i cannot find words for.
today i learned that instead of being a fool for
not being able to control my heart i might in fact
just be human.
today i learned that every solid foundation was once
a battleground.
today i learned that i could one day maybe trust again but
i am still not ready yet.
today i learned that black friday
is now a thing in Canada.
today i don’t feel so afraid.
today my mother let me read her journal from 1988
(when she was the age that i am right now)
and i learned that i am more like her than i ever
thought i was,
i learned that that might be more of a blessing
than a curse.
today i learned how to use my mind as a camera, that it might
be okay to let so many precious moments remain
undeveloped.
today i learned that i cannot force you to be enamoured with me.
today i learned that i might just have to settle on the fact that my inability to express myself with words has no bearing on how nervous i get when i am around you.
today i learned that there is so much love everywhere.
today i learned that everyone is stunning.
today i learned that there is no such thing as having too big
of a heart.