I time-travel in my dreams.
I am not awakening from sleep,
                    but returning from a sojourn to the past.
My eyes carry freshly-plucked anguish to the present -
                    though it belongs here only after being wrapped tightly by years of time,
                                        well-preserved but impossible to taste directly.

Dear *******,

          This is the hateful letter. This is the one in which I tell you how much of a ****-head you are and how I am so much better off without you, so thanks for leaving me. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. This is where I tell you that you’re an idiot if you ever thought I depended on you for my self-worth, because I don’t need you for validation, and I never have. I was trucking along just fine before you came along, and will continue to do so without you, so you can go **** yourself.
          This is the part where I call you a dumb-*** for saying all those things you said. If you weren’t trying to hurt me, you must be an idiot to think that it was a good idea to say what you did. I’ll tell you that it ****** me off to realize that you obviously didn’t know me as well as I thought you did. It ****** me off that our communication was clearly not functioning like it should have been.
          And I’ll tell you how ******* livid it makes me that you just sat there and thought and thought and ******* thought about this while I was still writing ******* poems for you. I am angry at how oblivious I was, which I also blame on you. I blame you for being so introspective and quiet, for needing to think important issues through in your head, only with yourself, before you can voice them, and I am angry because you thought and thought and ******* thought and made a decision that was logical from the inside of your head and you were confused by my reaction because, surprise! Owen’s-head-logic is not the same as Katie-is-being-broken-up-with-logic. And that’s where your speech faltered, where I stopped saying the lines that you wrote for me in your script, and that’s when all of those stupid words came tumbling out of your stupid head and things continued to not go as planned and it all eventually cumulated in this: zero contact. I know it’s not what you wanted but you’re a dumb-***. If you were smarter about it, we may still have been talking, but you said all of the exact wrong things. So I am angry at you for hurting me with your idiotic words, but I am also angry at you for pushing me away. I may have liked to still be talking to you, but all of the **** that came out of your mouth just ruined whatever chance we could have had, so way to go. You are a ruiner - and so concludes the part where everything is always your fault.
          This is the part where I understand where you’re coming from, I would have broken up with me too if I were you, I know it’s hard for you to put your words together sometimes, I know your (brutal) honesty only comes from a place of love, I know you love me, I know you miss being my friend…and so on.
          That last section makes me sadder than I am willing to be at this point, so I think I’ll stick with anger for the time being and you can **** my nonexistent ****, *******.

Your Ex-Girlfriend.

Mine,

          I am not inspired. This page was blank for so long, my fingers poised over the keys to play scribe to the muse that is missing you, but nothing. There is no poetic language in me tonight. No flowery prose, no clever literary devices, not even any cliché. Today there is only *****, raunchy and blunt: I want to ******* so badly I ache.

Yours.

Mine,

          Clouds gather ominously. The creak of a decrepit windmill cuts through the howling wind. Still, crickets are chirping, until the rain starts. I stand at the screen door, watching the clouds swirl and the windmill turn slowly, listening to the light patter of rain changing into a pounding downpour, feeling the angry wind lashing me with spray, thinking that this could only be better with your chin on my shoulder and your arms around my waist, keeping me warm through the storm.

Yours.

sometimes a kiss is just a kiss.
sometimes it doesn’t represent
love,
or need,
or loyalty.
sometimes it is just one pair of lips
against
another.
no sparks,
no lust,
just touch.

Bootcamp helps me out:
running windows on a mac.
traitor to both sides!

--

I try and try, but
the force won’t bring me my juice.
sigh. robot it is.

--

the borg ship attacks!
shields down to twenty percent!
but first: earl gray, hot.

I believe my muse may be a tease.
It will visit me with an idea,
but not the words to express it.
I am
FRUSTRATED.
My vocabulary
and eloquence
and articulation
have
dim-
in-
ished.
A poem will start itself;
The end product will be
WRONG.
Un-natural,
un-flowing,
un-readable,
un-me.
****
that
b­astard
teasing
muse.
(Although this is a poem -
and in being a poem, has created a paradox.
Nobody think about it!
If you do it will all disappear:
Poem, muse, and me.)

remember when you ****** the marrow out of my bones
                    slurp and down in your belly
and how angry empty it was
and how you tried to fill them back up
                    with words like cottonballs
and how hollow they were and how hollow were my bones
and how our sounds had changed
                    from warm and slick slippery ******* when we parted
                    to dull clackety skeletons
                    accidentally bouncing off each other:
                    dry tock-tock-tocks and echoes
and now my marrow’s all grown back
and rosy is my colour again
and if i jump your bones now
                    maybe it will sound softer and squashier
                    maybe we can be moist again
                    maybe we can be apart but not lacking warmth
and maybe we can be parted but not lacking warmth

People do not flow as water;
There are too many stones of human behaviour.
They are instead a choppy rhythm;
A fledgling orchestra,
Constantly squawking to a halt with
Niceties and

Awkward

Distances.

the room is saturated with the sounds and smells of post-coitus:
          heavy breathing, a gasp for air, still audible past the music turned up to
          mask those initial, irrepressible moans.
                    humidity, hanging moisture created by two bodies in vigorous
                    motion.
                              sweat, still slick, still dripping down thighs, *******, still
                              pooling in those wonderful crevasses the body creates, now
                              extinguishes, with the bend of a limb or turn of a neck.
                                        the sharp and penetrating undertone of saliva.
                                                  that unmistakable stink of *** that is not one
                                                  thing, but two things, and many things, mixed,
                                                  merged into one heady, oppressive, still
                                                  intoxicating cloud.
          movement, and a window is opened.
                    the moisture and floating heat are whisked out into the cool night.
                              sweat droplets maneuver between suddenly formed goose
                              bumps, then are gone, evaporated.
                                        breathing is lower; heat, inescapable earlier, is now
                                        eagerly sought through blanket and body, two forms
                                        disappeared together in warmth, in slow sleep.

she wears this shirt
because it’s comfortable
oversized and soft
and just as easily

any other shirt

and all it smells like
is new laundry

and her *own

deodorant

Yours,

          I know where you live (how many times have I walked in the door, as if I lived there myself? Opened the cupboard, filled a glass with water, asked about your roommate’s days? Kicked my shoes off nonchalantly, checked my email on your computer, spread out on your bed and read a novel while you played video games? Sat on your couch to watch television with the rest of your house, my legs draped over yours? Slept in your bed, pressed up against your body? Was woken up to satisfy a primal urge, knowing what you like? Kept the volume of my moans down, not out of embarrassment, your roommates have heard me so many times it hardly matters, but out of respect for the early hour? Made myself some toast, drank some juice from your fridge, left you sweetly sleeping to catch the bus?).
          I know where you work (and when, when there is no point for me to look for you, glimpse you in your uniform, a quick kiss before class, join you on your break while you eat turkey and cranberry sauce).
          I somehow find myself in these places. I look up from being lost in thought, and panic as I realize that I could run into you at any moment. Seeing you hurts me so I rush away from these danger zones - but always glancing back.
          Why do I torture myself so, with the hurt comes from seeing you, thinking of you? Because one day, I know I will see you without distress. One day I may smile in recollection at the love we once had. I am tortured every day with the sight of you by the hope that finally, this day is the last you will cause me pain.

Mine.

it’s inky water
flowing behind me
trying to nip at my heels.

it’s dulled now,
by the intoxicating liquid
burning down my throat.

it’s molasses
heated

i step in its sticky puddle,
and it’s carried up my leg.
disgusted, i reach down to wipe it off.

it only clings to my fingers
and oozes up my arm
and leaves my hand covered
in the thick
brown
sauce.

i am frightened now

i freeze.

dread fills my features
i know it will not stop
and on and on it goes

i am immaculately sticky
shining and
shaking.

it’s panic epitomized.

it surges up my neck.
i hold my head high
although i know it won’t help;
it’s just instinct.

i scream.

it flows down my throat.
into my stomach, into my lungs
into my core, into my being.
my eyes are flashing
it’s all over

i drown

in more ways than one

and the inky substance
exudes from my body
and seeps into the ground
and is gone
leaving the residue
of me.

(OH GOD to be effervescent)


leave them all behind
they’re up and down and in and out and i
sit
here.

in a time lapse photo

          you can still see me

my face is blurred
as if i am looking at myself through my own tears
          but of course
that’s exactly what i am doing.

things continue to break within me.
the weight of this slowly snaps the supporting structures of my body.

---

a creak
and a small quantity of burning liquid
sloshes over the edge of its fleshy chamber
dripping down the sides of my lungs,
my heart,
leaving streaky yellow marks down the insides of my ribcage.

a crack
and i freeze
suddenly scared to move lest my now unstable stomach container should fall
and my guts topple over themselves
landing spaghetti-like
draped over my womb.

a dull snap - muscles in my face break like aged elastics
they do not spring back quickly
but creep and crinkle slowly away
leaving my lips trembling to support themselves and leaching with them the red from my cheeks.

a slight ******* sound as my retinas detach
but only momentarily: i fling my eyes open in shock and alarm
knocking them back into place.
this sudden movement
however
stretches out my eyelids
and leaves them slack and sluggish.

i am so tired of this constant pressure slowly condemning my body
and now it shows in my eyes.

----

a desperately bound memory of
- greasy hair and welling eyes -
breaks free of its haphazard moorings and wreaks havoc throughout:

falling first past my face
spilling all holds of liquid there
which pour out of my body
gushing free
dripping and messy

it sticks next in my lungs
blocking my sighs
it bounces upon my diaphragm
gaping gasping for air
that i cannot use

it congeals in my bowels
sticking them in their place
preventing their minute movements
those tiny undulations that are the visceral workings

it finally crumbles and filters through my bones and blood
this fine memory powder filling my feet and calves.
it is heavy and densely packed
and i must move ploddingly now.

though dry and breathing and vibrating again
the memory’s toll is seen and heard and felt on my
salty cheeks
wheezing throat
tense body
and slow pace.

Mine,

          Thanks for forcing me to claim you as such. There was an unspoken, possibly unknown, ultimatum, to either claim you as my own or lose all that I was experiencing of you. The risk was getting too much, but the alternative was nothing at all. The risk meant belonging to someone too, myself, me being yours. Reciprocation has never been my strongest point, but I think I’m learning.

Yours.

Mine,

          Today, I simply, if not originally, wish you were here.

Yours.

Yours,

          You have caused the salutation and signature of this letter to reverse. You belong only to yourself and I suppose it should be the same for me, but you will always hold something of mine. I am not less because of it; I have and always will have the full complement of myself. But you carry something that is me as well.
          I am angry about this. Why should you have some of me to take away, like a doggie bag of our year and a half? You should be stripped of me, I want to reabsorb that piece, I want to be greedy and have all excesses of myself back.
          There was something else too, something that was not just me but something that we created together, something that we shared and was more than you plus me. It has died now; you cut it in two and each half has perished of loneliness. That is what I feel like I have lost. A part of it died inside of me and compressed itself into a hard little ball that sits in my heart. Sometimes I forget it is there and then I feel its calcification against the soft parts of my body and I collapse and re-realize what it means.

Mine.

Mine,

          Today I miss you like a forgotten toothbrush. An uncomfortable feeling in the back of my mind that something’s not right. All day, it’s nagging me, not completely reaching my conscious thought, just there. Every time I forget about it, there’s a twinge in my memory, like something important is missing but I can’t quite form its idea fully. Today I miss you like I know that when I see you it will all click into place, oh, that’s what’s been missing this whole time! Click, as we fit together like puzzle pieces.

Yours.

i don’t know what it is
you know that thing that makes my stomach -
and my throat -
and my brow -
and my breath -
and my eyes -
and my anger -

…

well whatever the hell it is
you are ******* LOUSY with it

your hot little hands shoot fire in through my genitals and out through my teeth.
i SCREAM.
i strain my spine in an electric arch.
my muscles - seared from the inside out, they stick together and to my skin.
i am contorted in flames, white-heat melting my eyeballs.

                                                      ­                          gasp it’s gone

i consist of a heart and lungs in frantic motion.
all the rest has died.

Mine,

          You are blah, blah, blah, something-or-other. Murmur murmur mumble hum, sigh.

Yours.

your touch is clichéd electricity and I am struck.

Mine,

          I do not enjoy missing you. I had forgotten that it hurts a little bit to miss someone; I suppose I cannot love to be with you so much without it hurting to be without you. You and me together are more than the sum of our parts. When we’re separate, we are both missing that difference, that creation.

Yours.

Mine,

          If you ever worry that you are smothering me, that’s alright, I worry the same thing. I worry that one day you will become too much for me and I will need to detach. I rarely worry that I am smothering you; I suppose the irony in that ending is too sad for me to believe it would happen.
          But also know that my worry of suffocation becomes less and less and less and less and less as our time passes. I love your hands on my body and your breath on my skin. I enjoy your presence in my room when we are not touching. I like to think that sometimes you are thinking of me at the same time that I am thinking of you when we are separated by countless little towns and a few long hours.
          I also shake my head at my over-poetic dramatics. Would you truly overwhelm me, wrap me past the point of warmth and comfort, remove my oxygen, leave me kicking and gasping? How could either of us let it get to that point? If I am uncomfortable, I stretch, I rearrange my body, I lie back down next to you. If you sense I am unhappy, you shuffle yourself around, you ask if I’m more comfortable now.
          We need this honesty. There is nothing worse than two people, each lonely without the other, sitting alone because each thinks it’s what the other wants.

Yours.

Mine,

          Today someone I haven’t seen in years asked me about my love life. A big stupid grin appeared on my face and I couldn’t shake it all day.

Yours.

can you pick up more chicks if they don’t think you’re in a relationship
                                                    ­         probably
                                                        ­                  so can i

so many tears:

angry
sad
frustrated
lost
and dripping down my face i tasted them
they were all bitter

of course the only thing i miss of you is your body.
                                         by the end
it was the only thing of you i really truly ever had.

Mine,

          Love is overrated. If I can feel this way about you without actually being in love, then I don’t need love. I only need you.

Yours.