"handbook" poems
The handbook of my heart
Is one
For the birds,
As I am
Because I do
When there simply aren’t words.
So Sunday’s swan song
These little loaves
of love—
A bread of pray
For a safe journey home
My sweet turtle dove.
Oct 11, 2022
Oct 11, 2022 at 3:43 PM UTC
My father was always one notch on his bedpost close to hypocrisy
and my mother was a couple notches shy of getting there-
she never dabbled in multiracial relationships like my father did.
You see when I was growing up
I had a crush on the little mixed boy down the street
and I was afraid of telling anybody
but it wasn't because of his skin-
but because ew, feelings. Right?
I never saw just black and white,
skin color was never a forefront
it was all just background noise-
to me it was all just gray.
There's no handbook about who you connect with
and there's no color scheme that's gonna show you who to trust.
I realized that because before I had a boyfriend
No black people where allowed at my house
not because they didn't want me hanging out with black people-
but because they were afraid I would end up with one.
Segregation was my father's second nature
and I would like to blame it on the era he was born-
even though I'm really not so sure.
And now that I have a boyfriend everything is fine...
It's like in their mind the more melanin the more sin
I'm sorry father and mother but there is no color coordination
to this thing we call life-
I never grew up afraid of colors because I loved rainbow-
I never grew up scared of the skin that wasn't like mine
just because of all the stories these white folks like to tell-
But the funny thing is
it was a white male, and a white female that molested me....
And my parents probably would've warned me
about the mixed boy down the street-
so really? who should we be afraid of?
Everyone. Equally.
Jan 22, 2015
Jan 22, 2015 at 7:50 AM UTC
Three days, is what the HR rep said, somewhat sheepishly,
As if she was fully aware that boxing up one’s grief
In a span of a few dozen hours
Is a matter of wishful thinking
And certainly she sympathizes
(Indeed, as she speaks,
She spreads her hands in such a way
As you half expect doves to come forth in full flight)
Empathy being their stock in trade,
But the law and the handbook say three days,
And then you need to have your head
******* back on and looking forward.
Eventually, the mail brings fewer envelopes
Marked with embossed flowers
And subdued and tasteful stamps,
The usual flow of solicitous inquiries,
Pre-stamped and pre-sorted,
Inquiring as to your credit needs,
The condition of your windows and siding,
Resumes apace, and more than once,
In fits of inappropriate black humor and frustration,
You scribble, in bold thick strokes of a marker,
The addressee no longer resides at this location.
You return to nine-to-five,
Though your ghosts keep their own hours,
Stopping by to visit on their own schedule alone,
Prompted by the tiniest of things:
The dog scampering to its feet in a hurry,
As if someone was at the door,
The discovery of a long-unused pitching wedge
Standing expectantly in the back of the closet,
A song from long ago which was beloved
When you lived in the pairing mandated by Noah
Before you entered the shadow world of ones and nones.
Sometimes you give into the giddy madness,
And rise to waltz around the room,
Careening about unsteadily, clumsily
As you have yet to completely master
The difference in weight shift and distribution
That is required of a solo act.
The timing of these visitations
Often disrupts your schedule and sleep patterns,
And you think that perhaps tomorrow you’ll call in.
Nov 28, 2017
Nov 28, 2017 at 10:38 AM UTC
I will write myself to sleep.
I will write long, pathetic
poems instead of texts to my
ex. I will write
the novel of my life
instead of asking you
for attention.
I will write
the new bible
on isolation, chronological
volumes
on loneliness.
I will write ten million
haikus before I write
you again.
I will write love letters
to myself until my fingers
bleed, until I
believe them.
I will write the handbook
on neglect, the idiots guide
to dealing with it.
I will write vague
fortune cookies about
self-acceptance and
self-forgiveness.
By the time I'm finished,
I will have exhausted
my depression.
I will write Shakespearean
prose about this
rejection.
I will write suicide notes
on my shield and armor for
protection and I will
save myself with them.
I will write angry, violent speeches
to rally the voices
in my head.
I will write a pledge of allegiance
to myself and recite it daily,
after coffee.
I will pray to the Gods of
"move on," and "get over it."
I will baptize myself
in holy water
that makes me
stop caring
completely.
Holy water, oh well, whatever
move on. Hallelujah.
I will write the ten commandments
on how to be
abandoned.
Dec 15, 2013
Dec 15, 2013 at 3:10 AM UTC
the barker in charge
is sniffing markers
& the dog's the one
in the shock collar.
good god.
I'll come back
tomorrow.
galapagos, I'm sorry.
rocketship jalopy
wrote a handbook on
banana boat cutthroat
reconnaissance exotica,
abominable
beast of tropic atrophy
broke folk casualty engulfed
in telescopes & TV shows
being monitored thru a monocle
the theatrical apathy & topical misanthropy
can anybody understand me?
May 26, 2015
May 26, 2015 at 8:47 PM UTC
Muscles clench like knots on rope
prior to any wintry water droplets
dripping on my scarecrow frame.
There's a moment of cautious pause,
my mind waivers the rest of me--
uncomfortable with the atypical developments
insisting through western culture's handbook
bathing is meant to be relaxing.
I agree.
So after a thoughtful inhale
we dive in.
oo!
The siberian shock of the frigid liquid landing
on warm, pale-rose flesh
slowly erodes with an exhale...
My mercurial movements
and conscious unravelling of the constricting sinews
offer a peppermint bliss-like salvation!
The chill fades,
water wanders down,
allowing my body to interact with the clear solution,
allowing myself to be and breathe with each cold moment
of wide-eyed cool-headed serenity.
Mar 29, 2015
Mar 29, 2015 at 12:54 PM UTC
Welcome to the club.
The "Should've stayed home" club.
The "I'll never be safe" club.
The "I tried to say 'no!'" club.
The "He refused to stop" club.
The "I froze and went limp" club.
The "I'll never be the same" club.
The "There's no handbook for being ***** club.
It was not your fault.
Welcome.
You're safe now.
I am so sorry you're here.
Nov 30, 2020
Nov 30, 2020 at 12:45 AM UTC
Let's talk about this jazz club
that lives in my cellphone
in 1950 something with Chet Baker
back from the dead.
Let's toast to random notes taking flight
into the city in the middle of nothing nights we've known or been familiar with.
Let's shake hands cordially with the unfamiliar as in "deal", or "peace be with you" as if in church, tipping hats at that stranger passing by at the crosswalk some late evening in spring alongside dandelions sprouting forth from the pavement. Let's read between breaks of beats Kerouac must have hit in 1950 something San Francisco in yelps into the moonlit stages of the balcony of his boxcar boxcar boxcar gone by in a mad blur with whatever graffiti'd message of hope it bore on its sides. Let's hitch into the unknowingly infinite by way of the pen's mighty point. Let's unlearn the way syllable by syllable and demolish languaged signs like hurricane force candor blowing down fact-ory made terms and political decorum as smoke from the pages of their corporate handbook joins the Chet Baker solo note pilgrmage into the holy skyline. Let's move side by side unspoken as those jazz notes he forgot to play. Let's fill in those blanks with uninformed confidence beyond our abilities and grasp the unsayable names of our dreams remmebered. Let's see in seconds passing like bums inebriated with the holy moments gone too soon. Let's talk about nothing but this sacred second at hand on this clock unseen pointing overhead to the face of the moon gone full and hungry for attention. Let this happen only now. Only then will we talk about where it's going.
Apr 14, 2018
Apr 14, 2018 at 12:44 AM UTC
Joy Kogawa’s Obasan,
Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle,
Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby,
The Ninja Handbook…?
Dalai Lama’s Open Heart,
Haddon’s Curious Incident,
Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment,
Brook’s World War Z…?
*The Life of Adolf ******
Crichton’s Terminal Man,
e.e. cumming’s poems,
Jon Stewart’s America…?
Dante’s Divine Comedy,
Leonard’s Rules of Writing,
Poe’s Complete Tales and Poems,
Book of Useless Information…?
Smith’s Junk English?
How to Lose a Battle?
The Ultimate Guide to Spider-man...?
I’m beginning to have my doubts…
Nov 8, 2011
Nov 8, 2011 at 10:20 PM UTC
I was not trained for this—
no welcome packet, no handbook for gravity.
Just a name that clings like static
and a voice that trembles when spoken too clearly.
They asked me if I had room.
I said I had weather.
They asked me if I would disappear.
I said watch me smolder, and stay.
I have loved like a lighthouse
with no shoreline in sight,
signaling to anyone
who mistook reflection for return.
I’ve held their names
like breath under water,
carved pathways through others
just to find my own again.
But I do not sculpt.
I do not steal 'the good stuff'.
I inherit fire
and ask it if it remembers me.
If you see yourself in me,
look again—
I am not a mirror,
I am the window you opened
and forgot to close when the wind picked up.
Still, I arrive,
boots echoing in the hallway
of someone else’s myth,
offering only this:
I will not rewrite you.
I will not finish your sentences.
But I will stand here—
untranslated,
unsaved,
untouched by the need to be anything
other than true.
Jun 13, 2025
Jun 13, 2025 at 5:29 AM UTC
Movie ticket,
cinema stub,
two halves torn apart
by the fickle fingers of the screen attendant:
he looked up at me with a smile-
one learnt from a handbook compiled by the words of some corporate type,
who dislikes his job, you can tell from his vibe.
“The receipt's in the bag”,
I requested it to be in my hand,
customer service fingers are always painted a day-glow green,
hideous talons of the fake queen,
traced from the princesses of the TV-silver-shitty-fake-TV screen:
she looked up at me with a smile-
one learnt from a magazine of ink,
nothing more than lies disguised within the wholesome typography imprint.
Carrying nothing but a wallet,
“would you like a bag sir?”
I am carrying nothing but a wallet, of course I would like a bag,
what do you take me for:
she looked up at me with a smile-
Wait.
Her intriguing trapdoor smile concealed
perfectly straight teeth that,
through the gap in her mouth,
spat out the shop floor script,
as if a Shakespearean soliloquy
equipped for the stage,
not this retail trade.
May 12, 2013
May 12, 2013 at 5:10 PM UTC
A quick word from my sponsor
i got a case of the ambition and the case of too much emotion
Don't worry, this will be over in thirty seconds
Because ***** the rules
I'm just a penny searching for a glamorous jewel to accompany
I make everything complicated
I hope you read that paragraph in my handbook
You threw it out?
You passed this test.
One point for you!
Nov 16, 2015
Nov 16, 2015 at 10:25 PM UTC
Sometimes the case of the letter
makes all the difference.
God or god.
An important personal I or a misplaced letter i.
Summer the girl or summer the season.
The uppercase letter delineates between importance and the ordinary.
Perfectionism is a haunt of mine.
It is a ghost that follows me
And does not stop no matter what I'm doing.
It kills a day in a blink.
It turns anxiety inside/out.
It takes away my care for something good;
Even the smallest of outcomes.
F@#k it.
That is perfectionism in two simple words.
If I cannot do it right then I refuse to do it at all.
How dangerous is that?
Or rather... how stupid is that?
I see my world in black and white.
Absolutes.
You are either right or wrong.
Good or bad.
Smart or stupid.
I have a ridiculously logical brain.
Logic is the glue that holds the shards of me together.
Without this reason,
I probably would have landed in the crazy house a long time ago.
Logic is my reality.
If I can reason it; it exists.
If I cannot; it must not be.
And there is the problem.
There is nothing logical about my past.
Although it seems that abusers have a handbook;
the logic chapter is always found
To be ripped out, shredded, and burned.
They left that part of it up to us to figure out;
To understand their evil.
That is what makes us crazy in the first place.
So the harder I try to understand;
The crazier I get. Literally.
I cannot reason what was done to me
And so sets in denial.
I can't understand it;
I can't make it right.
So f@#k it.
The abundance of f@#k its has really slowed me down.
Nearly to a halt and I'm not just talking about my mental healing.
This is my real life too.
Housekeeping, taking care of myself,
Dieting, exercise, blah blah blah...
you get the picture.
If I can't do it right and perfect;
Then I won't do it at all.
All great thoughts to live by.
This thinking is not something easy to change.
It is a deep part of who I am.
It is also something that makes me feel normal.
Normal exactly long enough until
I realize that normal people don't do math and physics problems for fun.
But I digress because my weirdness belongs in a whole other post.
I have steps to take.
One at a time.
Crying just one time worked for me.
And then I did it again.
Getting up early once
Led to me getting up early again AND working out.
It doesn't have to be all or nothing
Sometimes it's alright to be somewhere and in between.
I don't have to be completely healed or entirely wounded.
I'm still crazy;
Even with the steps towards tears and feeling.
But I have progress now
Because I have downgraded letters;
Even if it is just one.
Now I'm just crazy.
crazy with a little "c"...
Aug 9, 2013
Aug 9, 2013 at 6:44 PM UTC
Figure out the password.
The only way you could do that, is if you were the mystery machine itself.
It stands alone, by itself, clustered with other machines.
The mystery machine is an investigator, figuring out what other machines are up to. Their own password.
Then a human comes.
Trying to figure out the mysteries of, Mystery Machine. Why does he cry, when its not allowed to have emotions, why does it fall in love, with whom does it trip with. Why does it have malfunctions, but auto repairs anytime, he comes to find out the mysteries. He has a handbook. He twisted, and turned the **** gave the ***** a little jiggle, Opened the head and climbed inside. Everyday people would walk by the mystery machine, and try to look inside of it. But all they could see was a child locked up inside, sleeping for comfort, living inside a mystery.
Nov 29, 2014
Nov 29, 2014 at 8:03 AM UTC
She...
Seems to have captured me
Locked me here with her essence
To yearn for her presence
Though im not her preference.
Is this a joke
That you poke?
Do you laugh
While I sulk...
In your honor?
I can't bother!
I hate to sound so trill
But "do you think about me, still"
Are there feelings you'd spill?
If you had the will...
To change what we had
Cuz it wasn't all bad
Would you take the chance?
I need a handbook, a demonstration
Rules for our relations
Because you're losing participation
And I feel like im waiting, impatient.
And...
I know another girl holds you, ***** you.
Takes you into ecstasy
Pleasures your every being.
But...
Is this just a test for me?
To see how long, I can hold on.
It's slipping cuz , im not too strong.
Or do I have it all wrong
And you just want me to move on?
I'm wasting my time,
But I'm stuck on you
With no clue
What I should do
And just so you know,
I'll probably never stop loving you...
Sep 16, 2012
Sep 16, 2012 at 10:46 AM UTC
What's the right way to say I'm emotionally unavailable.
You can't have them because they only swim in my ink.
Like a flurry of scribbled words on the back of my napkin.
All the love and pain right there.
"I need you back".
There is a realization to be had when you come to miss the feeling more than the person. When it was never about the person to begin with.
If it wasn't the person... How do I find it again?
I always fell in love too hard too fast.
I guess I let it flood out and now I've got no reserves.
I can't even force it long enough to imagine you next to me. "I don't love you."
Will I even recognize it when Its at my doorstep again.
You always hear of those people who say they are broken and think, how could you be? It's not until you find the shattered peieces hiding behind the door that you see how it really is.
I wish there was a human handbook to repair a heart. DIY heart repair.
I seem to win hearts.. But all I end up doing is resending the prize.
Don't stop tying right? I wonder how many battle fields I'll wander today...
Sep 13, 2015
Sep 13, 2015 at 11:26 AM UTC
(Handbook for Quarreling Lovers)I THOUGHT of offering you apothegms.
I might have said, "Dogs bark and the wind carries it away."
I might have said, "He who would make a door of gold must knock a nail in every day."
So easy, so easy it would have been to inaugurate a high impetuous moment for you to look on before the final farewells were spoken.
You who assumed the farewells in the manner of people buying newspapers and reading the headlines-and all peddlers of gossip who buttonhole each other and wag their heads saying, "Yes, I heard all about it last Wednesday."
I considered several apothegms.
"There is no love but service," of course, would only initiate a quarrel over who has served and how and when.
"Love stands against fire and flood and much bitterness," would only initiate a second misunderstanding, and bickerings with lapses of silence.
What is there in the Bible to cover our case, or Shakespere? What poetry can help? Is there any left but Epictetus?
Since you have already chosen to interpret silence for language and silence for despair and silence for contempt and silence for all things but love,
Since you have already chosen to read ashes where God knows there was something else than ashes,
Since silence and ashes are two identical findings for your eyes and there are no apothegms worth handing out like a hung jury's verdict for a record in our own hearts as well as the community at large,
I can only remember a Russian peasant who told me his grandfather warned him: If you ride too good a horse you will not take the straight road to town.
It will always come back to me in the blur of that hokku: The heart of a woman of thirty is like the red ball of the sun seen through a mist.
Or I will remember the witchery in the eyes of a girl at a barn dance one winter night in Illinois saying: Put off the wedding five times and nobody comes to it.
1.3k
Youth had it comin'.
Shoulda never worn that pretty dress.
Shoulda never walked through that door.
Shoulda never sat
on the most rickety chair
in the joint, fallin'
on my lap th' way she did.
Kinda knew it would happen,
too. Always could tell
a fresher face-ripe for
the pickin', I always used ta
say.
*Well, now, did you step
on one of them pork-yoo-
pahns, lil missy?*
*Nice to meet you, Girl.
His name is Inevitability.
You might've missed him,
looking from the corner
of the wall opposite the back
of your head, whistling Dixie
on your bristled follicles
mid-daydream, via inhale.*
Gathered herself, laughed.
Jackpot. Told me,
after a couple drinks, that she
wasn't
any sorta damsel in de-stressss,
that she knew all. Mind you, all!
The tricks in the fairy tale
handbook. Front to back,
to boot!
Fed her Cinderella fr'm top
to bottom, ate it up like
a backwoods ******
*Speakin' of storytellin',
you wanna know what
my favorite Shake-spee-uh sayin'
is,* hm? *'s the one where
the lady wants ta be a man,
them loony Europeans.*
*Anyway, one of the guys there,
puffs up his chest n' shouts,
"Some are born great. Some
achieve greatness. N' some
have greatness just ******
right up on 'em"*
*Get up outta that chair,
pretty lady, and get ready
for a time you ain't* ever
gon' forget
*It was then that nightfall
spilled over like a broken ink bottle,
salivated over the horizon with
the hunger of a bleeding river's mouth
as all our girdles loosened,
and with the last protracted sigh
of metallic wisdom, hushed our
brigade of inner children's choirs,
massaged the cramp settled
on the back of our left legs,
turned out the lights,
and went to sleep.*
Jan 18, 2011
Jan 18, 2011 at 6:34 PM UTC
Never been sure who to be
Never been sure who to believe
Who am I supposed to trust?
Who am I supposed to keep my distance from?
Why isn’t there a handbook
Indicating who is a demon and who is an angel?
You can see the halos when you’re up there,
But don’t they know that down here we can’t see a thing?
Demons and angels all look the same to me
And if the only way to see the difference is up there,
I’ll have to take my chances
I’ll probably pick the wrong choice,
Just like flipping heads or tails,
And only then I get to see the difference
The problem is that
By that point,
I’ll be seeing it from down there
Because knowing me
I’ll pick heads over tails
Leading me to walk over to the sweeter looking one
Who smiles and waves in such a reassuring way
Who coaxes me into evil intentions
Yet I don’t mind
Because, oh lord, what a beautiful voice
So rich and full and inviting…
And lying
Lying Lying Lying
Every single word is a lie
I say, “Let’s go down that path
With all the trees and butterflies”
Then you say, “No, that road scares me,
Let’s take the darker one”
So I go along
Since I have learned that you’re always right
The path gets darker with every step I take
And soon it’s not a road but an inky black cloud
I can’t see
“Where are you!?”
Fear grows inside me
Then I see you:
Blood red eyes, leather wings, daggers for teeth
You laughed then, an evil, bone-chilling cackle I’ll never forget
As you approached, folding your sickening wings around me,
I knew where I was going
Finally now I can tell the difference:
The halos from the claws
Except this isn’t exactly where I wanted to be
I’m not up there
Although, through the process,
I have learned that you don’t always get what you want
Now, all I get to do is watch as more victims get roped in
Lured by the fake smiles and seducing faces
And I can’t do a single thing about it
Dec 3, 2013
Dec 3, 2013 at 8:59 PM UTC
~for Rimbaud
The same rules
you lived out
still apply:
Drink too much.
Take drugs.
Sleep with
too many women.
Drink too much.
Be irresponsible.
Squander
your money.
Drink too much.
Hurt those
who love you.
Drive them away.
Drink too much.
Overdose on silence.
Drown in solitude.
Drink too much.
Ignore consequences
Go quite mad.
Drink too much.
And then,
of course,
die young.
- mce
Jan 6, 2016
Jan 6, 2016 at 6:59 AM UTC
There are some places that can't be touched and there are some places that can't be kissed and there are some places that need to be kissed and some of those places haven't been discovered. I'm a handbook. *** is like drivers ed. Am I crying, or shaking from pleasure? ***** Sometimes hands are there that aren't really. Sometimes fare fine linen fingers feel like brown bony paws that don't listen to "let go".
**** me. Even when my eyes get glossy and you're wondering if I'm still there. I'm there. Grab me. *** isn't always this way.
Sometimes I'm in charge, but it isn't freaky. Don't call me a freak, call me lovely. I can **** **** **** but don't whisper that it's ***** it isn't ***** Sweating and running make-up. Heavy breathing. Wheres my body, wheres my mind? Don't call it nasty. It's not "nasty". Grabbing, groping, grinding; it isn't lewd. Don't call me a ****
Touch me and remind me that I'm pleasing. Touch me and remind me that there's only me. Touch me and enjoy it. Enjoy me.
I want the lights on. I want the lights off. I want you you you.
*** isn't always this way; sometimes I'm in charge.
Apr 20, 2018
Apr 20, 2018 at 10:43 AM UTC
__________________________________________
Each day is a test, we must give always our best
At times we are so dishearten, but we've never seen the rest
We painted different colors everyday
Red, blue, yellow but at most white and gray
Each day is a trial, we often collide with betrayal
Parents who don't care to call, friends who are not loyal
We always pray, for us to get bump to a better day
Lovely and pretty not like this a life that is full pity
Each day is a class, a lesson to trust
A teacher at his greatest, a handbook that is finest
It'll get better someday if only we'll learn from the best
Else we will not able to see the rest...
Written: October 15, 2014 @ 6:15
Mysterious Aries
Jul 31, 2015
Jul 31, 2015 at 9:54 PM UTC
There are certain people never meant to be written
with matching socks, or with expensive funerals.
Assume you can love me, even though I’m one of both.
No, take me by the shoulder. Tell me I’m ridiculous
in our own haunted, bony kind of language.
Here we go: most nights I want to miss your mouth
and kiss the hollows in your biceps. Listen.
I want you to see me cry so hard,
I flush out my nose with all the saltwater.
Everyone’s sick off of all these poems,
but a song made up of four chords can still be
some lonely kid’s messiah. I swear, I want to stop,
but you’re so ******* warm. Shh.
Lately, I think maybe that’s what art is all about.
I’m the lopsided inkwell, loving so hard
I can ******* stain you. I’ve got plenty of skills.
Surviving in the desert. Resisting atrophy. That’s right,
brag to your friends about my impressive
rate of infatuation. Make me a bumper sticker:
*Your tightass honor student is never going
to love someone as disgustingly hard as I can,
************ and yes, I’m going to glorify it.
I’m the original unrequited. I’m flavourless.
Dante got in a fight with Warhol and then I was born,
violently mass-producing poems about the hell
made up of your fingers. Take that, I can rhyme the life
out of the soup cans I found in your face.*
I’m gonna need a pretty big truck to fit all of this.
Yeah, you’re gonna need a gap in your chest
like an eighteen-wheel semi, just to hold me.
Dec 14, 2013
Dec 14, 2013 at 11:18 AM UTC
Will they say I lived all my life
On suburban roads
Not of the city or of the country
But a place in between
Will they say I never took any risks,
Never had to hack my arm off in extremis
Never eating anybody's cousin in desperate straits?
Like millions I struggled from one pay day to another,
Trying to stop the haemorrhage of money through the bars and pubs of the town...
Trying to keep up, to keep the income over the outgoings.
I don't care what the Joneses do.
I long for the wild places without fences or walls,
Where the birds wheel and the wind blows lustily,
Where the sound of the sea is never far away
Where the shores rustle their greeting to the waves
And the driftwood tumbles up and down the beach.
I long to run without worrying I am going to break a knee or hip,
Long for those days when I didn't know what I had, who I was, what I was going to be.
"Youth is wasted on the young," said my grandmother, and I protested, but I didn't understand
Until now
How little I appreciated my youth while I had it.
Will they say I had talent but I
Frittered it away on unfinished projects
Neither brilliant nor awful, but somewhere
in between?
Will they say I never took any risks,
Never embroidered all my lovers or
Revealed my innermost self?
Like millions, I was always writing my book, a novel or
a handbook or an autobiography.
The truth is, I started too many times, and finished
Never.
I long for a place of my own, a library
A place to keep everything that means anything
A place to watch my family on the wall, laughing and smiling
While I write or sew or research or simply read
A place for being and a place for remembering and everything in its place.
I long to write without worrying about the consequences,
Long to say what I think
A place to scour the corners of my memory, to see the pattern of my life.
Will they say, they hadn't realized I was still alive?
Will they say, I never kept in contact, which is true
I have tested my ability to live without them all
And I can.
What will they say about the person I have become?
What can I say? I tolerated difference and saw none.
I loved the people I loved
Did the things that I did
And I am not sure what sort of future I made for myself, or what past.
May 15, 2012
May 15, 2012 at 7:10 AM UTC
I used to play a game where I'd try to see how much blood I could fill into one of my dads whiskey glasses, I never managed to fill it as much as I wanted to
I like playing games, it gives meaning to my life somehow.
Sometimes I like to play with death
Death plays back quite well
More than others in my life do
Possibly I'm infatuated with the thought of dying
I've always wanted to fall off a cliff
So maybe I could see if it felt the same as falling in love with him
And maybe now, how it felt to hit the rocks at the bottom to compare to the pain when he left
I've always wanted to shatter a mirror with my fists so I could feel how broken my mom felt before she died maybe the difference of impact would be like falling from a 5 story hotel and splatting on the ground
I kinda hoped after I took all those pills that day that I didn't come back from it
Death played a fair game .
My father never really seemed to play much,
just handing me off to the next player at the soonest opportunity he got. Like the objective of the game was to avoid my problems
My sister got out of the game a long time ago, she's just no longer a piece anymore
I scratched her out from the handbook so she wouldn't get hurt by the outcomes of playing
My mom always told me if I played the game right and I'd get what I wanted
I don't know anymore
I think I'm tired of playing
Dec 10, 2016
Dec 10, 2016 at 2:07 AM UTC