Maria

Jul 2015

Danielle Shorr

I go out to dinner with a near stranger
we sit on the same side of the booth and
I think about how you're the only one who
knows how much I hate that

I drink a drink with ***** and lime and
***** and it almost makes me feel like
I know who I am when I'm with someone else

I don't think of you often but last night I did
I remembered how your arms are the
only place where I am not self-conscious

I lie next to him on my balcony and
there are a lot of stars above us but
I'm the only one who notices

he is thinking about what I look like naked and
I'm counting how many hours of sleep
I will get if he leaves before 2

there is not an absence of feeling,
just a different kind than I'm used to
he touches my hand and I smile in
a way that doesn't feel forced

I spend a day with a near stranger and realize
there is so much he does not know about me,
so much he doesn't care to

like how I got my nose pierced at 14 or
the amount of time I spend in the mirror each morning
picking myself into something I can carry only semi-confidently

he only learns I can't ride a bike when he asks if I want to
he has no idea that my blonde is shielding a deep brown or
when I got the freckle above my lip or
the inch long scar underneath my chin

he doesn't care and that's okay
when he leaves we say I miss you but
in a different way than I'm used to

it is not a pain swelling to be morphined
nor is it a pulling from the gut but instead
it is the ever temporary desire to fill the excess lonely

we say I miss you and still mean it but
it is not the missing that a body feels for
a phantom limb

I am with him now and probably will be again but
moving on doesn't mean I don't miss you
it only means I'm trying not to

just because I'm all right doesn't mean
I don't wonder how you are
I can still be happy with the existence of a quiet ache

but yes I do
miss you,
I will until the day I can sleep without having to count sheep
I will miss you even if there are no stars in the sky to remind me

I don't think of you but last night I did
the moon was too bright and
I was the only one
who noticed

Maria Jul 2015

Dying

My friend is dying,
I can hear it in her voice-
and the way her smiles don't wrinkle near her eyes anymore;
She knows it, too.
My friend is dying,
falling off the course.

If I had the words, I'd write her a song;
If I had the voice, I'd sing it all day long
to her,
but I don't.
No one ever taught me what to do in event of a teetering life,
on the brink of illness but not quite.

Maria Jul 2015

Anchor

I've been busy lately,
untangling my heart strings and tying them into fancy knots
to hold my passions,
and anchor me down.

Jul 2015

niamh

Honest Liars

We hide our
True selves
In the big, wide world.
But feel free
In these dark corners
To empty our hearts.
Tell those
most important
That life's all good
And confess
To these strangers
Our true thoughts.
Don't get me wrong,
I see no harm
In what we do.
But which of
Our poetical faces
Tells lies
And which
Speaks true.

Jul 2015