just addicted to lovelessness,
i guess,
addicted to the feeling of something that could be
a distant cousin of loss,
but can’t be loss when it wasn’t there to begin with.
a cousin of loss and brother of bereavement,
a lexiconical gap
in the english maw,
a space where the definition slipped out
but the word never grew in.
a gap where a word should be,
a word meaning missing something you never had,
losing something that was never yours,
grieving for something that never looked your way
or graced you with its pain.
insomnia of the soul,
unable or unwilling to droop into the catatonic stupor
of love,
until my eyes ache with open,
and my heart aches with empty
and just beautiful aches and pains,
like stiff joints filled with sterling silver
or arthritic necklace clasps.
my tongue is tin because the argentine
is in my hands,
silver in the space between the carpals,
oozing precious metals
onto the page.
writing in second-best so that it’ll stay.
writing second-rate love letters
and pretending they’re real,
like the words i moan mean something other than
hello
i’m lonely
who are you?
like i’m not the girl who cried love
because the village had already learned
that wolves are lies,
and vice versa.
because faking it has always been my favorite pastime.
i’ll write love poems forever,
keep feeding my addiction for as long as it stays,
let my loveless track marks bloom cantankerous sores
on my ribs.
while i’m young
i’ll write poems of arthritis and weakness
and death,
because oh now i am immortal
invulnerable and omnipotent,
but when my bones are brittle and my flesh is loose
and my spine makes me bow to the earth,
my poems will be of life and strength
and god
because darkness is only beautiful when it isn’t
an imminent looming
future.
when i know i may die tomorrow,
i will write of bluejays
and of a love that never found me,
though it knocked on all the doors and called all the numbers,
waited on my porch while i hid in the closet,
nursing my ache
trying to fill a lexiconical gap
with bukowski
and insomnia.
supersaturated with emptiness
because all the words in the dictionary
can’t make up for the one that’s missing.
it changed the locks when it came,
shutting me out of my skull,
taking residence in my chest
and growing larger with each slow breath.
every huff of oxygen fed my
resident,
every injection of
late nights spent just writing,
every pill popped -
the lies that went down better
if i said them with a gulp of gin.
so my lovelessness cracked my ribs as it grew,
replaced my marrow with sterling silver
and i watched it happen like
a glacier devouring a desert
because i knew i would never survive loving something.
deserts were never made to run bounteous
with water.
just addicted to lovelessness,
i guess.
addicted to silver joints
and words that don’t exist.

I hope you have someone's hand to hold when you need to feel the sky
Even if it is your own
Hands clasped in prayer
Your hands are clasped in something greater

And when loneliness gnaws
Let it sit
In the corner by itself
The fireplace in a warm embrace
Only has room for your glow

Do not take out that old photograph
Nothing happens for a reason but the
reasons we give it will suffice

And do not say the best has come and gone
Our lives do not balance on the razor's edge of self-pity
The old photograph will fade and take faces with it
But the ones we take today still glossy and drenched in sweetness
Hold close by in your heart

Maybe make a little room too
The scrapbook with pressed flowers still not full
The ones you haven't taken are the
prettiest ones yet

misplaced keys end up
in the space between
dusty floorboards
under forgotten childhood beds
squeezed into far away nooks
in attics filled with
hundreds of burnt out lightbulbs
in houses with endless doors
and not one single doorknob

i find myself within them
when i drift off under the universe
i wake with aching legs for
i can't stop hunting, though
i fear i'll never find the
secret passageway i'm sure
lurks beneath a stairway or
perhaps beyond a fireplace

there is a certain key that i
seek and although i can't recall
it's shape, or color, or size,
once it is in the palm of my hand
i will know it because it will fit
within my fist, which just so happens
to be the size of my beating vessel

i'll take that old, rusting key
and ever so delicately
stick it in the depths of my chest
i'll hear the creaking and cracking
and feel the sensation of a
sleeping beast awakened
and i will rise knowing
that i no longer have to wander
this wild world alone