This suitcase is mocking me.
It's hanging wide open, laughing hysterically at me with its patent leather clown lips.
It's begging me to fill it with pretty sundresses fit for the streets of Paris,
and it sneers when I suggest my paisley swimsuit for the beaches of Italy.
I can hear it saying,
"I know you're not going anywhere, so can you please just put me back in the attic to collect dust before I get my hopes up?"
Fine, I will.
I'll place my dreams right beside you, I believe they'll collect dust nicely as well.
"Fair enough," it said.
Fair enough.

I lay back and run my fingers over my skin,
tiny travelers roaming over hills and plains,
ridges and crevices.
There are cracks and tears, the scars upon this terrain shall not heal.
They are the reminders and the tale tellers,
reciting stories of battles lost and loves won.
Will these blemishes deter the common traveler,
proving to be too complex for their
short-lived trail making?
Or is there a hidden beauty to these detours,
a mystery that attracts the adventurous and the brave?
Is it any less than other pathways?
Perhaps it has a hint of wildness to it,
a bit more tree roots to stumble upon
and branches to push back...
I turn over and wrap my arms around myself.
This is my land, with many stories and many battles lost.
Tread carefully, dear traveler.

No more.

Today I just want to run.
Run so far and so wide...
I only want to hear the wind rushing past my ears.
But I'm here, hiding out in my car from the beast, trying my hardest to block everything out.
Just breathe deep. Push it all down and focus on the music...
I want to run to the sea and leave everything behind.
I want to plop my *** in the sand and watch the deep blue undulating until I'm old and gray and blown away like dust.
I want to disconnect from everything and run free.
Just for a while, just for a while.

It really gets under my skin the way I don't hear from you in a couple of days and I become this sullen, anxiety ridden mouse that burrows her nose in the pages of books, filling her mind with the troubles of made up characters so she doesn't have to deal with her own feelings and problems and life.

Is it possible to feel like a mouse and an elephant at the same time?
You make me feel so small while I fumble around and destroy anything with the smallest of movements.
I hate missing you.
It's like my heart is fighting a cheese grater.
Yes. A cheese grater.
I try so hard not to even think about you sometimes I'm sure everyone can just see it on my face.
But I try.
I write. I talk to other guys, even though I find them so dull I want to throw personalities at them and pray it hurts.
I have so many more actual life problems that are right here, screaming in my face.
I need to focus on school.
But I'm missing you.
I need to lose these extra 10 pounds.
But I'm wallowing and missing you.
I need to finish that scarf I started knitting ages ago.
Stop.
I don't have time to miss you.
There are books I haven't read yet
and recipes I haven't tried and people I haven't met and places I haven't seen.
But I'm wanting your arms around me.
And I know this doesn't even make sense.
But I'm missing you.

I am sick to death of love poems.
So bored of them my heart dries up
at the mention of sweet eyes and longing lips.
All of these old, dead men were crazy.
They must've made it all up,
finding just the right words to string together,
forming a beautiful chord for the heart and mind
to play battle ship over, engorged vessels
enveloped in the deep peaceful blue.
And the victor, oh the victor…
The victor is the champion of dreams and hopes.
But what will these get you, my sweet delirium?
I don't want the high praise and swoons the words
of these dead, beautiful dreamers achieved.
I just need enough money to share a cup
of coffee with you any day.

There are two sides to this,
this mess.
Two completely different reflections in a funhouse mirror.
There’s the part of me that hears you
Hears your sweet words
And sees your full, gorging desires.
Your dark eyes haunt me as I brush my teeth and feed my cat.
They are a twisted trick, seducing me to hopes and dreams.
Of us.
And I stare back into the mirror. And there’s the part of me that
plays along and continues to talk about romantic scenarios of us.
As if they’re actually going to happen.
This is the enlongated, blurry, barely discernable reflection of something
that doesn’t even exist yet.
And then there’s the squat, fat, ugly reflection.
The truth.
The truth is you’re going to smash these mirrors one day.  
For good.
And I’ll be standing among these shattered ideals,
cursing your name and digging my nails into my palms.
But you won’t know me.
You won’t recognize the real, heart and blood girl standing before you.

You dip your toes into this glass still pond
so steadily, and yet I know your heart is racing.
I see the flicker of panic in your eyes, and the
tugging desire you have to jump in.
I see it there in the strain of your well formed muscles
and the quick rise and fall of your chest.
It's so quiet here, isn't it?
In this wet mirror where you see such a peaceful vision
of the way things are, and you don't want to
stir and ripple, to see what will be.
I know your kind, and I know the way you fear
and the way you consume.
You will eat up this stillness until chaos blooms
from these reeds and crickets and warm scents.
You want the summer I hold,
it lives in the way I kiss and hold and smile.
Come here and sit by me.
Hold my hand and listen to the sun sing on your skin
and feel the warm breezes on your face.
Everything will be alright.
Just stay.

My mind is high up somewhere today.
In these clouds maybe, too far for me to reach.
It leaves me dizzy, desirous...
I feel so sleepy.  
I crave sleep,
for a deep, still pool of rest,
in the arms of love.
To feel protected and safe.
I want to be guarded like a vast treasure.
Where is my knight, the one where I see my reflection in
his armor, where I see burning eyes and burning hands that
love throughout the night...
Where's someone to always be there?

And I know.
Believe me, I know.

I should look inside myself for these things,
create my own light for this
dark place inside of me.
But I don't want to become The Hermit,
and carry this flickering lantern in the dubious storm of myself,
where there's snow and sleet and
bone shattering winds, forever to wander alone.

I want to find my puzzle piece, my chemical solution.
There must be a cure to this plague of loneliness.
Someone to be the balm that eases the pain
and whispers...
"No more, no more.
You are safe here, with me."


(c) May 21, 2013

I'm from colored lights,
and christmas parties,  
and brownies.
I'm from laughter
and play.

I'm from paint,
paint brushes,
and old movies.
Black and white
snapshots dance their way
across all my mirrors.

I'm from rag-dolls, glittery, glitchy,
printed words.
I'm from just too many songs.

I'm from a thousand
blue glass bottles
and rubber gloved hands.
I'm from movement.
Move with me.

So far down the rabbit hole...
No way back
No drinks to make me smaller
No cakes to make me larger
No white rabbit to lead the way
No knight in armor to defend the day
Just darkness and an "Off with her head!"
The cards have been shuffled,
now play the hand you've been dealt.

The heart is a machine.
It has valves and pumps, little tubes and wires.
It pushes life roughly through my veins, scraping by along my insides,
too full of something barely contained.
And I feel it yelling at me constantly, a day to day screech in my chest.
"You must carry on! You must feed me oxygen and suffer while I beat the life into you!"
What cruel joke is this?
This machine betrays me so.
It betrayed me to you.
It sold me out, all my secrets and desires barefaced in your hands.
And all for a smile. And then a laugh. And then a kiss.
That kiss was the end of me.
I dared it to go, I told it
"Once you go down that road, don't you dare come back."
It never did.
I've been without my machine for quite sometime now.
It ran headlong into your arms and I have no thought of how to coax it back.
Every day I struggle with these invisible strings,
tugging as I walk to my classes,
tugging as I stumble up stairs
and say hello to people I know.
I'm fighting you. I'm tired of fighting you.
I just want my turn.
Let me fall in your arms.
Let me have you.

The Past looks right at me,
with those big, glass eyes that
sparkle even when it's dark out.
They are all-knowing eyes, and they
see through time and space.
The Past touches my high-***** cheek and whispers so
sweetly, calling me to innocent, bright springs
and free, young summers where I was evermore myself to revel in.
The Past is telling me stories about a time when I dreamed so many dreams
and I feared nothing and no one.
I wasn't afraid of love and I wasn't afraid of exploring and only being.
The Past is a tease, making me warm and wet for days it knows
I can never have back.
And the Present grabs a hold of me with burly arms thickly corded with
muscle and persistance.
There's no running back in a slow motion reel, and running forward
into the arms of that mysterious stranger Future is scarier
than what hides in the dark of the moon.
I'll settle for an even pace and a prayer.

Dust.
Keep it in my back pocket, keep it low 'n ready.
Grab a handful, a grubby fistful, when you need it.
A desperate need.
Need it like a gasping breath after swimming in the dark deep
of your own thoughts.
Need it like a lover's glance, or calm words after a storm.
When the need takes you in,
you'll tremble and shudder
like leaves or sunlight.
When the need swallows you, you'll know.
A deep down know, a bone stilling know.
Your soul will rise and fall, lifted and crushed
like shells and hopes.
And then you'll rebuild, picking up
little pieces and big pieces and heart-shaped pieces.
Discarding.
Cataloguing.
And you'll know.
You'll know that you took a handful and made a world.
You'll know that you did your very shining best, that you
fell off of every cliff and tripped down every flight of stairs.
That you broke and shattered perfection
into what it was meant to be.
For today, you destroyed beautifully.
You gave need a want and want a need.
What is needed...
What is wanted...
Hope? Courage? A bit of faith?
Or maybe love?
These are things that sink or swim.
Will I sink or swim...
Today?
Tomorrow?
In  this world where you don't know
what you need or what you want?
There's only one thing you can know
and cling to in this life of waves and currents and storms.
You know there's a glimmer. A bit of dust.
And you know that you're not ready to stop swimming yet.

Copyright Morgan Graham October 8, 2012.

Sitting here.
Face wet, body tired.
Immobilized, frozen in the horror of memories,
of stale wants and preserved fantasies.
The horror of desiring, yet never to receive.
Never to kiss that warm neck.
Never to unbutton that soft, worn shirt.
Never to gain a kiss from that beautiful smile.


Sitting here.
Choking on so many desires.
Lodged into the back of the throat they threaten to ****, you can't make a sound.
But they make no promises.
All they bring are silent tears, and the echo of everything you will never have.
It fills your head, the loudest thing you will ever hear.
It is fact.
The fact is that nothing survives.
Everything is subject to ruin.
But not desire.
Not love.

They end when you do.

These days, I could care ever less if the sky fell,
or if I got hit by a meteorite,
or by a speeding car
with you behind the wheel.

I don't understand. I can't grasp the concept of
why you left, why you no longer think I even exist.
Now, it's as if I'm less than the smoke you breathe in,
less than the wind that passes through your hair.  

I would've taken all of your roughness
to the teeth, I would have swallowed
your every ***** fantasy and bad thought,
down to the hard, prickly rind and rough shell,
and still I would have wanted more.

I would have taken it all:
every verbal slap
every rough kiss
every emotional breakdown
every "I don't feel good enough"
every ******* way you ever ****** me off...
and every "I love you, babygirl."

******* you, I love you.

Ironic, isn't it?

The story is:

  I woke up too soon

  grew too fast

  loved too hard

  felt too much.

They say, "If you don't believe in something, you'll fall for anything."

Well I believed,

and then I fell.

What now?

There are these amazing,
mind quieting moments
I sometimes experience.
They can only last perhaps
a couple of hours, or my mind
shivers and shakes and it can't stand
the blooming openness of that moment.
In these moments I am me
in the vastness of everything that
could be or would be
and the universe is flowing through
just me
and I don't feel anything in these moments,
just a bit of lightness,
a complete, unbreakable openness.
I don't feel deep black fear, or the stark
whiteness of loneliness.
Yet bits and pieces of the monster inside me
are taken out and put into something
concrete and visible.
I wish with all my giant, full-blooded heart
that I could feel like this forever and always.
Then there would be no beast,
no fear, no black hole of desire
or betrayal.
I wouldn't feel like a jar of
sealed tight me
that not even the strong man of the show
could twist open.
I'd finally have freedom.

I think I figured this out.

And I think I could be happy without you
Maybe your mouth
isn't so sweet,
or your eyes so warm
Maybe I don't crave you like
the chocolate I crave since you've gone
And maybe I could go a day without thinking
about how your hand would feel in mine
And maybe the way you believe and think
could just once fail to make my insides
**** and fly into a fine-tuned frenzy

I think I could be okay.

And leave you.
You're not my cover story,
my hard binding protecting
the soft, pink, veiny insides.
You've had a good place for a heart's age
But it's long past time.

Time for you to get out of the ******* way.

Stationary and visible, chewing on my time.

It tastes like licorice and smells of burning autumn leaf piles.

I've been told there's a limit, with which the flavor will dissipate

and turn stale like an excessively chewed piece of gum.

I chew and chew, unable to swallow,

hoping for a freeze frame or a rewind button.

All things change, all things face the promise of ruin and renewal.

I tense and crouch, bracing myself for time like a fierce animal, ready for this pivotal fight.

I feel the long wave rising and breathing, aching to stretch and collide with my shore.

I look up, a threatening shadow cast upon my face, too much like a quiet night.

This is my time. I don’t want it yet, but it’s unstoppable, so I might as well swallow my screams

and rush in with my own current.


© Morgan Graham  July 8, 2011

Stuck in a lost place,
it is impossible to be happy with nothing or everything.
I don't know.
But I do know.
And all I want is you.
To be falling.
With you.

Stillness set in.
There are no more waves,
only bird bath ripples.
I drink to me and my light.
To me and my night.
I opened my veins and set you free
and you turned into a lake.
There’s a boat where a couple sleeps.
They dream as one and
hope in two and
give color a pulse.
It breathes with a small mouth:
Open. Close. Open.
It wants a drink from my cup.
But for now, my cup is empty.


Something stretched and rubbed its eyes,
awake in a new light.
There are waves in the bird bath.
I drink to me and my night.
To me and my right.
I opened my veins and set everything free
and it turned into an ocean.
There’s a boat where
a couple sees and speaks.
They see as one and
search in two and
give color a pulse.
It breathes in, small mouth stretched wide:
Close. Open. Close.
It had a drink from my cup and it knows all.
For now, my cup will never be empty.

Can I be a little star on your ceiling?

You know, one of those plastic stars

that glow at night.

They watch over you while you sleep.

And if you’re like me, then you’ve already come up with some childish

notion that

they will protect you.

I will do that for you if they won’t.

I’ll be there to smooth your hair, to

kiss up fallen eyelashes.

But first I will watch them closely,

making wishes.

I will drink up your skin. It’s my wine,

strong and dark; it sets me on fire.

I will shade you from darkness

and bury you in light.

I will hold your secrets, your bright

hopes and dark wishes.  

And I’m here, hoping.

I have hope for you.

let's just take two

elephant-sized steps back.

my head's heavy and the

high always vaporizes at the

wrong turn and i risk a ******

of myself if i shove it all.

my hands always did shake

as your head cascaded like a waterfall

towards mine, and the weight of three

thousand more elephants would descend,

gray fuzz and rough skin,

all in a rush.

This is too much for one struggling

with her own language, it's like there

isn't one on her tongue at all.

The King’s trove, the Queen’s affection.

Or rather, her affectations.

Pretention is the worst kind of beast,

snarling in the corner and snatching out with snipe claws.

It wipes my nose with its shirttail, then pronounces my snot

something of wonder it has created.

It causes such an itch in my throat, ensuing a

gag that threatens to choke the flare within me.

Trust it, and you will be following those signs that declare

Ogres! and

Certain Death!

not far ahead.

You will reach under its nautical waves and

Duped! Done for!

Now say ‘hello’ to your watery hollow.

You won’t find God here, or even

an ounce of hope to take flight.

All that will be left is a bitter taste on your tongue and the sound of

“Why, oh why…”

I feel like a brick God puts under his foot
to reach higher elevations.
He is reaching for books that will teach
him how to make things unlike this brick.
Things that will alight and make bright
sun in the dark.
It’s hard to be heard,
being a brick under God’ s foot.
Such heavy things do not fit into sound.
But you help. You always help.
You pen your strings to my words
and they make delivered sound that creates space.
You lift my heaviness with God-given hands,
and God-given lips,
and God-given eyes.
I have been told of God-given life,
and God-given greatness.
So what is God trying to teach this brick?

There’s a factory on the outskirts
of town.
On the outskirts of the universe.
They fabricate bones there, and
crack open stars like eggs.
Stars and eggs share many qualities.
They have an outer shell, and it’s
penetrable, and delicate.
This delicate wall is holding the
juices of life.
One crack, two cracks, three, and
a flood gate crumbles and
life comes rushing in. Life juice,
star juice. They pour star juice in our eyes
and sow skin.
They put a mountain in one sown figure and
call it man,
They put an ocean in another and call it woman.
I was manufactured, factored,
a factor, it’s
Fact: in reality, in actual actuality.