#dusted-off
if you dig deep enough
into the sand
i promise you will find yourself
uncovering
cosmos, beneath
half-formed palaces of earth
and ocean, lost for centuries
or perhaps
seconds
(who’s to say, really)
you will find, scattered
among the burning grains of
“i was a crystal
in another life”, a glittering
dust - remainders not of
life denatured, but
stars whose deaths
cannot yet be mourned
ours is a universe
that cannot be defined
(it’s no matter, of course, for
words
only ever tell
part
of the story)
i wonder what i would see
if i waded until my feet
were as much afloat
as the rest of me
and the sea
swallowed me whole - what
multitudes
are contained under the
surface (blue only to our
lackluster outsider’s
perspective), what
planetary infinite
lies with its arms around salt, grimy
only to those of us
who return to airy shores
at the end of the day
(if there are galaxies
behind your eyes, only
time
will tell)
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 9:54 PM UTC
you told your heart, “listen
to logic.”
you hated the storm clouds
that thundered over your head
and loosed rain
on your dusty windows.
you had it all wrong.
the sun is bright
but it burns - inch your way
out of the atmosphere
and you’re scalded
through and through
the moment you get in its way.
night settles because
it’s only in darkness that
stars get their chance
to shine.
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 9:49 PM UTC
(if) when i
turn to stone, take my
heart and bury it
beneath a garden.
let vines embrace my
frozen form
and a forest grow
above my useless body.
find the grave of the cosmos
that convinced the stars
we were right
and salt the earth.
(eye contact is
inevitable).
put me to rest as my own
grave marker
surrounded by soil
crawling with the things
she’ll never give me. let
it seep into my
pores and manifest
as the dirt
under my fingernails.
(who’s to say
i wasn’t made of stone
to begin with?)
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 9:48 PM UTC
i have a warped vision of love.
my heart is too heavy
to carry
inside my chest
and so i break bits off
as i would pieces of a
sugar cookie to share
with those who might
appreciate it.
i get lost inside myself, the marrow
that twist through my bones, the
vessels that
redden my cheeks.
i’m slick with guilt over
the things i can’t control
and today’s tears
feel like falling back in time
because their explanation is ugly
and therefore doesn’t exist.
(i hope it’s true
that linear time
is just
an illusion.)
feeling whole
was never something
i could keep a grip on.
(i can’t help it.)
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 9:46 PM UTC
the things you look for
cannot be found
in my shadowy lips.
my secrets are not hidden in
the crevices of my
skin.
my breath quakes
as it tries to force itself
down my throat
and i do not have the lung capacity
to whisper platitudes
into your neck.
the link between creativity and
pain
is one that i tried
so fervently to sever.
no one had to tell me
that there would be
no fruition.
(if knowledge were strength
i would have carried
you all
on my back.)
my depth perception varies
day to day
and the idea that
everything extends
endlessly
inwards and out
reminds me that we were
never meant to
understand.
(all things are true
if enough people
believe in them.)
i was never the real thing.
but then
neither were you.
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 9:45 PM UTC
i.
i’m stuffing my ears with cotton
because there will never
be enough pores in my body
to absorb her voice.
too many people talking at once
and i can catch every
other word that she
never meant.
ii.
but her eyes remind me
of the way
freshly ground coffee smells
and she knows
i could never give her a solid
iii.
no.
she feels like the
real thing
but the nerves in my fingertips
have become calloused and senseless
so there’s really
no way to tell.
iv.
(she told me
that my voice
gives her butterflies
and i still can’t
really believe her
despite this dragon
breathing fire into my gut.)
v.
i’ll sit on that brick
as long as it takes
waiting for her to blow that smoke
back in my face and say
“taboo”
vi.
because i was never
the one she dreamed about.
i will not
close my eyes.
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 9:39 PM UTC
i’ve only just begun
to reopen
the doors that keep
my heart tucked away, yet
you rushed forward
with a romance
i didn’t expect.
you took the emptiness
i had forged
from fires of the past
and tossed handfuls of
stardust
into constellations
on its surface.
the nerves in my neck
tingle in anticipation
of the promises we made
to each other.
the salt in our hair
and the sand on our
skin make it real.
(i promise.)
so eagerly
peeling back layers, you
just make sense
the deeper
i sink.
(no matter what.)
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 9:38 PM UTC
i.
i’ve been working on
breaking down the walls
that i spent
so long
building up, hoping
that she might
peek through the holes
and want to join me
in my abyss.
ii.
the others came instead.
i waved them over the mess
hesitantly
and tried to smile as they
surveyed what lay behind.
iii.
it was only as the clouds descended
and laid their tears
across the pavement
that i felt the pain
of letting the old stones
litter the ground.
lightning struck my
exposed chest
and the blocks
fired nerve endings
with every crack
of thunder.
iv.
the urge to line the bricks
and spread the
mortar is undeniable
v.
but i’m still waiting
for her
to come by and tell me
that i don’t need them.
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 9:36 PM UTC
i have lost the ability
to distinguish
between
the physical inability
and my own unwillingness
to stopper the words
that pour
from my lips and
my pen, and my
heart.
i have this thought
(though i know that
it has no real merit)
that if i let them
drip
eventually the ripples will reach you
and you’ll understand.
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 9:35 PM UTC
i.
i want to tell you
that i think
ii.
you’re beautiful
(you are)
(i do)
iii.
but i’m afraid that you’ll
see past
what i really mean
and find the simplicity
of the words
more captivating.
iv.
i want to describe to you
the way in which my heart beats
when i hear the syllables
that form your name
but then you might
smile
with pity in your eyes
v.
because you know
that if i’m able to
say it
vi.
it’s probably already
a lost cause.
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 9:34 PM UTC
all i want
is to read the braille
that is written on
your skin
when my fingertips
leave trails
of goosebumps
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 9:34 PM UTC
[she is everywhere.]
the twinkle in her eye
has diffused
into the atmosphere
and become an
element
of the air.
the sound of her
keeps me
warm
and her arms
are an orchestra
of their own.
i want to study her.
i want to
memorize
the muscles of her legs
and count her eyelashes
when she blinks.
i want to read
the curve of her
hips, create
new words
suitable
to define her shoulders.
i want to watch her
sigh, and feel
the clench of her jaw.
i want to wrap myself
around her and
introduce her to the sun.
[i want to understand
what it is
to hold her hand.]
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 9:32 PM UTC
i.
there are two
different
faces that i see
when i close my eyes.
both are lovely
and bring mist
along with their
heartache
ii.
but neither will
bring their gaze
to meet mine.
iii.
she saw me, once.
iv.
i retreated
into myself, as i
always
do.
v.
i fixate, i
know.
it might be a
coping mechanism.
but her lips
were beautiful
and her hands
fit
in mine
and i think
vi.
i might have loved her.
vii.
i saw her, once.
she squeezed back
when i took
her hand, and
viii.
i still have
the piece of her heart
she slid
across the wood
into my grasp.
ix.
i see them both
when my subconscious
has the reins. (it
makes me wonder
if, perhaps, i
haven’t quite rid myself
of the self-hatred
i’d shed with the season.)
x.
(i’ve been
teaching myself
not to
blink.)
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 9:30 PM UTC
[simon says jump.]
would it surprise you
to know, i
wonder, that when
my mind wanders from
the space
that surrounds me
it goes on
magnificent journeys
to find you?
the first thing i saw
when i
first saw you
was the way
you crossed your fingers
when you smiled.
[simon says stop.]
(you are safe
with me.
lace our hands
into a ladder
of bones
and don’t let go
until we’ve found
the top
and it’s time
to leap.)
[simon says touch your head.]
would it
surprise you to
know, i wonder, that
you’ve drifted
in and out
of my subconscious
but when i rise
in the afternoon sun
your role has faded
to little more than
existence?
[simon says stand on one foot.]
(i’ve been affected
in the most
basic
and essential ways.
you wrote your name
over my head and
grounded me.)
i wait for you
in the dark. you try
so hard, but i
strain my eyes, beat
my toes on the ground
hoping for a sign
that you felt
the humming
of my nerves.
(your arms were anchors.)
[simon says stop.]
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 9:29 PM UTC
you
aren’t real.
the fist that
closes around my heart
when your face
appears in my mind
is a simple
projection
(albeit, one i am
content to
believe).
the pictures on the screen
have been gathering
dust
and grown blurry
with time.
(lights flicker
but the mirage won’t go.)
it’s been two weeks, and
i miss you.
and i miss you.
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 9:28 PM UTC
it was clear
from the beginning
that we were
not
a match.
(years
mean a lot
to the world
and my stride
was much
longer
than yours.)
yet from those first
simple words
there was so much
more
to be said.
(i’m an old soul
with a
young
heart.)
there was something
in your expression
the day the mail truck
passed by your door.
i saw the clouds
that threatened your eyes
with rain
and suddenly your hand
was a magnet.
no sound escaped my lips.
all i wanted
was to envelop you.
it was instinct, a
force
inside my chest.
(who am i
to deny nature?)
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 9:27 PM UTC
i do not sleep
on a bed of bones.
i want for us
to belong to each other.
not you to me and me
to you, necessarily
but the both of
us, separately, to belong
to an entity that is us
both, together.
i want filtered sunlight
and sunday
afternoons and
lying on the floor
-heads together, feet pointing
in opposite directions-
with music
quiet
in the background.
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 9:18 PM UTC
i know
i know i know
it was never my place
it was never going to be
me.
tangibility
was a made-up word
but i thought
maybe
if it sunk its fingers
deep enough
into my flesh
the line between
“probable”
and
“plausible”
might fade enough to cross
with a bridge built of
“maybe”s.
i’ve a bad habit
of only letting myself
ache
for the things that are
so minutely
out of reach.
(a heart half-cracked
a mind
beaten down
a life twisted by fate.)
just once
i closed my eyes and smiled
because really
aren’t all injuries the same
if they heal?
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 9:22 PM UTC
i.
i ask you only
to remember me
as a statue
in that
despite the earth’s
rapid
furious
careening through space
ii.
i am still.
iii.
i appear made of
stone, sometimes, but you need
only tap me on the shoulder
to know.
(life leaves its
marks and
sometimes bandages
don’t do it justice.
iv.
sometimes walls have doors
that can only be
opened
from the inside.)
v.
your heart weighs on you
for each day
it is filled further
and you daren’t let any
spill over. but what
you must remember, dear
friend, is that
vi.
as the universe of possibilities
extends forever
outward, so does
that space in your chest
reserved for such things as
love, inward.
vii.
i am here. i stand
at the head
of your terracotta army, laying
in wait underground, unmoving
until called. i am
dust
and i am dirt
but i am one of many, and
viii.
i will protect you.
you with your
ink
and your words
which drift over air, carried
on currents of
seamless eloquence.
ix.
i am a
statue, in that
i can always be found.
x.
i am still.
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 9:20 PM UTC