I overdosed on you
How could I forget that I can only
take so much of mostly everybody
before I need a break, I need
space?
& who
would have known
that of course, I would stumble
upon you, the little dot of glue that I could
not manage to scrape off my thumb so
that I could hide from people I
love?
Jesus
Christ, I knew I was
a monster & waves of oceans can
not cleanse me, what I hope I am no longer
I just needed time, didn't I? I picked out
too much of you, & everyone knows
that you can't leave the table
without finishing
it all
I
couldn't leave you
in the start, when I thought that
maybe I could handle it, maybe I could skip
my break & work overtime. But now I see how
you saw me & all the guilt I have been feeling
for months doubles in pain and agony.
I need change, you need stability
& we were a match made
in nuclear
war
fare, I guess. I
really should have done
what you do, read the trends & not
search me out, but my fingertips, so ripe with
curiosity, looked at responses from a certain poet we both
enjoy, & the first one I saw, I clicked & found you & I
read everything, like I should not have. Even if I
needed it, mercy, the things I wish
I could unsee, even though
I deserve to stare at it
for the rest of
my ****
life.

You were the yellow brick road
& you thought it was grand.

All I saw were the people,
all the people walking all over you.

But you said "Look how shiny
I am, and how everybody loves
me, I'm golden like the sun, like gold,
Julia, like your hair."

So I stopped trying to make you
feel their footsteps, and I left.

I walked on the dirt alongside of you,
so that you knew I was always be there.

I walked on the ****** dirt
that nobody gave a thought to.
& it seemed strangely happy that way.

The joy of the day after
was the song of my soul
free from the restraints of
language, from the bars of
repression & rejection, the
way nobody wants it to be.
I don't have storage for all
of this love that I am penting
up inside. I place what I can,
what I have to, in closed-doored
hearts of friends who can't,
or won't, reciprocate. My love
is prisoner, starving for takers,
for a listening ear & a loving
heart.

Starving for takers,
but hungry for you.

Show me pretty eyes,
and I will show you deception

Should I allow myself
to be flushed down,
deep into the abyss of your misery?
I once went for a stroll in the
garden of faces, all smiling at me;
it was there that I picked you,
removed the ingrown thorns,
& in my hands you bloomed.
Is it fair that I expect such a blossom
to last that many years
with all its healthy petals?

There is a certain luring
guilt in weakening
the strong.

s                                                           y
u                                                                 o
r                                 O                                u
r                               \ | /                                r
o                                 |                                 s
u                            /\                           e
n                                                   l
   d                                        f  
with your own warm water,

emerged. never experience

fresh air

& I give & I give
& I give & I give
& I give & I give
& I give & I give
& I give & I give
& I give & I give

I want
to be
touched,
too.

Just
think
about all of
the unopened
Christmas presents
under the tree in Newtown
Connecticut this holiday season
-----

What do we need
except for life
& the things
we cannot
see?

All of these beautiful people
need to stop revolving around
the scale, she says,
a size 2 with
a waistline
that could cut up
titanium, oh so razor
sharp & perfect, as if
her petite frame was
not enough. Tell me
what she could
know about
a scale

Stop drowning
my reality in
sappy little
secondhand
fantasies.

There's so much at every level.
To see a crowd,
what is its purpose?
A figure in that crowd,
study their expressions & reactions.
Learn their name, meet their parents.
Discover their secrets,
all of the beautiful complexity of
a human being.
All the emotions & viewpoints & passing thoughts
the familiar, indescribable motions of
all the joints in their body,
never to be mimicked.
To fall in love,
or to simply love,
with an individual for every aspect
even those you don't care for;
that individual
in the crowd
in the city
in the country
on this planet
in this universe.
A mere statistic.