"nineteenth" poems
Doll’s boy ’s asleep
under a stile
he sees eight and twenty
ladies in a line
the first lady
says to nine ladies
his lips drink water
but his heart drinks wine
the tenth lady
says to nine ladies
they must chain his foot
for his wrist ’s too fine
the nineteenth
says to nine ladies
you take his mouth
for his eyes are mine.
Doll’s boy ’s asleep
under the stile
for every mile the feet go
the heart goes nine
13.9k
Many were their numbers
Living in city streets and slums
Brothers and sisters torn asunder
Gathered up like bums
Nineteenth century’s answer
Created by Children’s Aid Society
Indentured servants to farmers and ranchers
Shipped in cattle cars like propriety
Struggling in their suffering
Confused used and oft’ abused
Terror in their wayfaring
For being parentless accused
The disruptive ones placed in chains
Scattered to the winds across the land
The far west and the Great Plains
North to Canada and south of the Rio Grande
Billy here, Danny Boy there, and Sally who knows where
The Children of the Orphan Trains
r 13 Nov 13
Nov 13, 2013
Nov 13, 2013 at 8:20 AM UTC
Dear Talia,
I don't want to be a tortured artist.
I don't want to be depressed and I don't want to be anxious.
Competitive sadness and disorders treated like accessories disgust me.
The world glamorizes mental illness, and I don't understand why. There is nothing romantic about being mentally ill just like how there's nothing glamorous about a broken wrist or a torn medial collateral ligament. There's nothing romantic about constantly being afraid that the world will fold in itself and **** you with it. There's nothing romantic about feeling like you could break down and cry at any moment.
This is the first piece I've written while being medicated.
I want it to be Christmas already.
The world dreams itself a halo, but can only attain horns. The halo is an illusion and the horns are an idea.
I'm due to take another Lorazepam. Would I look cool to the kids who idolize dysfunction and misinterpret pain as style, if I were to take one of these, with water and a distant glance, in front of them? Geez, to have their approval would to have everything and nothing at all.
I'm not sure why I've written as much about this as I have.
You.
It is 2:48 am and all I can think about, in this moment, is you.
I can't wait to spend Christmas with you. I can't wait to wear bad Christmas sweaters, and be the couple everyone hates, as we sing Christmas carols and spread holiday cheer.
I wrote this poem a few minutes ago. Sometime around 2:30 am. I'm not sure. I'm exhausted:
I sat on the edge of my bed, and on the edge of my life,
medicated to the point of pointlessness. Soft.
It was the nineteenth, not the twentieth,
and I wished I saw the fireworks with her fifteen days earlier.
My gasps tore the shingles off of the house.
And they hung suspended above the hole in the roof.
And God stared down into my room, as the shingles swirled skyward.
"I see you," I said, "but I don't believe in you."
I left home and ran until I was a dream that had passed itself.
I hope that was okay.
I love you.
Yours,
Joshua Haines
Jul 20, 2014
Jul 20, 2014 at 2:56 AM UTC
This is one of those serious poems
And yet it has nothing new to say
But the poet needs to keep himself busy
And writing seems to be the easiest way
The poet rises up on his soapbox
Because he works better from an elevated height
He screams about organized religion, politics
And stripping away of our basic human rights
Like a magician with a classic misdirection
The poet wraps his moralizing in purple prose
He hits you over the head with one simple point
That he’s forgotten more than you’ll ever know
Around the time of the nineteenth obscure reference
The reader is in awe of his far-reaching knowledge
Then the poet overuses polysyllabic words
Just to prove he went to a good college
And the poet keeps filling up the notebooks
Even though he should have stopped long ago
But the publisher agreed to pay by the word
So unfortunately, there’s four more stanzas to go
Quickly, the release date approaches
There’s one printing, then two, then three
And the poem becomes a hit in coffee shops
Recited by grad students in between bites of biscotti
His face now graces the cover of every magazine
In an explosion of exuberant media admiration
Dozens of talk show appearances are scheduled
For the newly crowned “voice of our generation”
The publisher decorates the dust jacket with blurbs
Complimenting the book’s “dangerously original rhymes”
But it’s nothing more than passing hyperbole
Gathered from a glowing review in The New York Times
Now thousands grasp the paperback edition
And eagerly await the feature film adaptation
Meanwhile, the poet hunches over his typewriter
And commits more sententious literary ************
Jan 8, 2012
Jan 8, 2012 at 3:18 PM UTC
I'd been trying to write a poem
Just one ******* poem
But he said
*Just **** around*
Swallow down a bowl full of squares
Let’s play games with each other’s minds
Spend a night lost in a house of cards
Where the joker cackles despite your begging
A reminder of what I could do without
Shouting at the world from the white pavilion
You suckers!
With your skirts hitched up and tongues hanging out
Gagging on a lover’s loneliness
All I see is your undergarments crying for attention
With a liquor solace barely down your throat
Eighteen silver blades
Smile at me with their perfect teeth
One to mark each year that past
A nineteenth will not be necessary
Ready to drag
Like the man trailing his head on a string
Across the surgeon’s winking knife
Tapping their toes on the bathroom counter
Anxious to mingle with my flesh
I’ve already scrubbed in
The survival rate looks dismal
The cotton reel loosens and my halo slips
Down - the noose around my neck
He sat across the room in plaid
Remarked upon the crosshatch of red
That drew the crooked red grin on the white of my thigh
Like loops of raspberry liquorice
Seeping out sticky tears
He misses handling the vegetables
Who ordered cocktails in lurid colours
Well, I’ve a mélange of my own
A collection of prescriptions from the doctor’s office
Stored in a heart shaped box
To swallow down like jelly beans
I’m waiting for that deadly sugar rush
Death’s been dancing on my doorstep
Absent minded as I sit at the dinner table
Head in hand, foot in grave
There’ll be no morning migraine
Perhaps a little mourning in the peripheral vision
Swept up from beneath the climbing frame
Under a soil blanket with a tomb stone mattress
Coughing up the sand in my throat
That I emptied from the egg-timer
Those darling quadrilateral crystals
Blissful in their ignorance
Disturbing my quiet complacency
Drowned in a glass of tomato juice
That I poured from my skull
Death holds my hand in the dark
And I whisper to pass on the message
Bury me with pyjama’s and a pillow
Apr 8, 2012
Apr 8, 2012 at 6:23 AM UTC
I delivered
19
chocolate-chocolate chip cookies
to your house the other day after midnight
because it was you nineteenth birthday and you hate that day
above all other's
so I decided to celebrate
by making you junk food even though you're on a diet
and just came from a late night workout
and you'll ask me why
I care about something so much that's not even that special
and I'll tell you it's simply because
"It's your birthday!"
or
"Why wouldn't I?"
but really
truth is
You're going away and I haven't decided how I'm going to deal with that yet.
You're going away and I haven't been able to write.
You're going away and this may be the last
time
I'll see you on your birthday.
So take the **** cookies and say thank you,
because I baked them while I was crying over missing you
and tried my hardest not to let the tears fall in the batter.
No one should have to taste sadness like that.
Don't be mad at me because you're bitter about your birthday
and you can't stand it when people show that they care about you,
because you don't know how hard this is for me.
I bet you never even thought how hard
it will be for me
and that's why I baked the cookies.
That's why I'm so upset and that's why I'm begging you
to come outside and just kiss me on your birthday
because I've been counting how many kisses I have left
before you're too far away to feel me.
Just give me all you've got while we still have the chance.
This is going to be hard enough when you're gone
so don't make it so hard now.
Just kiss me and eat the cookies.
Oh,
and happy birthday.
Aug 4, 2013
Aug 4, 2013 at 8:48 PM UTC
Oh my word, I remember
every little part of that weekend,
right down to the three-piece outfit
I had purchased at Bloomingdale's
the evening previous.
You know, ya hear stories
left and right about people
winning tickets to this n' that,
but ya never imagine actually
being the nineteenth caller!
When I revealed the occasion
this baby blue ensemble would
be worn in, the cute little saleslady
paused, looked up, and said,
"Why bother seeing him anymore?"
And I tell ya, there's plenty
other, less Christian yearly
Graceland attendants who woulda
flipped their lids had they heard
such malarkey!
Still, I just couldn't deny it.
She had a bit of a point.
This was mid-70s Elvis,
mid-50s Elvis' drunk uncle.
He had gone from Rolling Stone
to National Enquirer in nothing
flat, it seemed.
So all I could muster was
an understanding smile, because
she couldn't help but join the
bandwagon, especially when his
gut got larger and the rumors
became more outrageous.
Still, their loss!
I say that to this day,
because what Little Miss Shopgirl
and the legions of non-believers
did not think to consider
was the charm in "has been" Elvis.
A week before this legendary
concert experience, I had been
forced by circumstance to purchase
my very first pair of bifocals!
It was also around the time,
I'm sure, Harry left me.
So, the main event, I'm there,
third row from the main stage,
seeing Elvis for the first time
since our crazed youthful years-
a bedazzled jumpsuit walks on stage,
and I'm on my feet before I know it!
There was a little less swivel in his
hips. He looked a little tired, too,
all those years of singing do that.
How did it feel, then, to see the King
make his way across a cheap fog
machine, mutton chops and
love handles galore?
It felt like two lifelong friends
growing old, losing all those
frivolous people together-
"Are You Lonesome Tonight"
was still asked with the same
dreamy passion in 1973.
I've still got the handkerchief
he threw to me that night,
**** near lost it when I
caught the thing.
It's blue with polka dots,
ya wanna take a gander?
Sep 28, 2010
Sep 28, 2010 at 5:21 AM UTC
The drip drip drip of the Nespresso machine keeps me company.
I watch the brown pool rise and rise, filling my cup.
I take a sip, flinch unconsciously. It is bitter and scalding.
The cool foam coats my top lip.
No one is awake. It is 4am. I shouldn’t be awake.
Still, I am.
I will be nineteen in nineteen days.
This is not how I imagined my nineteenth; though my birthdays never really go the way I expect.
This is not how I imagined this month, this year.
There are worse things than being homebound; there are also better things.
I am trying to reconcile the existence of the two.
I am lucky enough to be (almost) nineteen.
To be safe
To be healthy
To have a home
To have a stable family income
I am unlucky enough to be (almost) nineteen.
To be mentally ill
To be isolated
To feel useless
To have a family spread thin
The two can coexist. I am lucky (and unlucky) enough to see this.
In nineteen days, I will be nineteen. Few people will know unless I tell them. There are bigger things to consider in the world. There are smaller ones too. I lie somewhere amid it all. I am just a girl— a faceless, healthy girl— amid a world of strife. The sun will rise, I will turn nineteen, and it will set; I doubt I will feel any different. The world will keep turning, with or without me. I am lucky (and unlucky) enough to recognize this.
Quarantine has provided me a bit too much time for introspection, I think.
My coffee is finished. The brown drops on the cup’s bottom resemble a smile. I am lucky enough to notice this.
May 5, 2020
May 5, 2020 at 12:16 PM UTC
We are the Republicans!
Kneel and bow!
We are superior!
All kowtow!
We deal in campaign funds
Hand and fist.
We believe in oligarchy
With a twist!
We hate democracy
We spit in our hats.
We hate all poor people
Especially Democrats.
We think equality
Is a crime.
Back to the nineteenth century
Doubletime.
There is no place here
In our fine land
Where we give the votes
To our field hands
And women who should all
Be in the kitchen
Instead of out carrying signs
And publically ********
We are the Republicans!
Kneel and bow!
We are superior!
All kowtow!
We deal in campaign funds
Hand and fist.
We believe in oligarchy
With a twist!
We believe in the Bible which
We mostly never read.
We think all non-Christians
Should be dead.
At least they should not be
Allowed to vote.
That kind of godlessness
Gets our goat.
The only kind of righteous men
Are our own kind.
Not gays, blacks and Mexicans!
What are you, blind?
We ran the show right all along
White power!
The day the other kinds acted up
Was an evil hour.
We are the Republicans!
Kneel and bow!
We are superior!
All kowtow!
We deal in campaign funds
Hand and fist.
We believe in oligarchy
With a twist!
Mar 23, 2016
Mar 23, 2016 at 6:31 PM UTC
You sit on the beach and pick at fish bone
after maggots and flies have had their way,
poke it with a stick, listen to the tide,
wonder what it sounds like underwater.
Whale songs, shark bites, seal birth, and coral
in a circus of clown fish, puffers, and lions.
I dig a hole to bury the carcass,
the bone, no flesh, you name him Sergio.
As the dolphin tide rolls in sand erodes
exposes the burial bone by bone
until it washes to sea like drift wood.
When we were young we captured frogs out back
in the creek in the woods behind your house,
and once I tripped into a small ravine.
We found door sized slabs of concrete or rock
engraved with names and nineteenth century dates.
Civil War gravestones, some professor said,
and they were moved somewhere to some museum.
Later on the news they interviewed us,
and in the background bulldozers dug holes
that exposed some two hundred year old bones,
skeletons and skulls, excavated from burial,
as we smiled to the channel two reporter.
Oct 4, 2010
Oct 4, 2010 at 9:05 PM UTC
They fought like crackers
for the coveted prize
from the green bud banter
to the Sunday guise
whipped in a frenzy
by the Callaway score
torn asunder
at the elfin door
The hoodwinked watchman
holding council at post
stung by the folly
of the second floor host
a wild card shuffle
from numskulls and fools
high on their trade
and obstinate rules
Trenchant voices
remarkable cures
Billy’s brigade
and gob smacking boors
wreaking havoc
(in a flatulent way!)
staunch and bitter
and riled foul play
Scissor tailed catcher
and one eyed crow
trolls and packers
unfortunate woes
Lloyd’s forgiveness
and scowls at the chart
***** of fury
from a shot gun start
Gadfly’s and gripers
are unorthodox
the nineteenth hole
for **** in a box
tribunals and judges
a cold reverie
another fine year of the M.O.D.
Feb 8, 2017
Feb 8, 2017 at 11:15 PM UTC
I got dumped
by you
the only guy who I ever believed
really loved me -
how ironic.
I got talked into you
by you
despite my reluctance
despite my misgivings
despite all of my contrived logic.
We rode together
in carriages
and walked
snow-lined streets
in nineteenth century
New York City.
Resistance evaporated,
like steamy breath
from horses' nostrils
on a wintry night.
Despite the cold,
beads of sweat
settled on my arms and legs,
so sweet they were,
I licked them off
myself.
My troubled vision
transformed
into knowing
and there was nothing left
to banter about
to and fro
yes and no
up and down.
But just before the titillating ******
could occur
. . .
you dumped me.
I took that carriage ride alone
back to my former self.
I tipped the driver generously
for returning me
to the abrasiveness
of words
and the sense
of duality.
They became my comfort now.
He said he couldn't leave his wife
alone that night
even though
I propositioned him
handsomely.
Clearly he was tempted.
How deluded we mortals be.
Sep 25, 2012
Sep 25, 2012 at 8:52 PM UTC
THOUGH the great song return no more
There's keen delight in what we have:
The rattle of pebbles on the shore
Under the receding wave.
1.6k
Oh September, September
Lovely day today aye?
As I remember...
It's today! Happy birthday!
But, year after year
I've never called anyone dear;
Year after year,
no comes near
Each year is dry,
Not one tear to cry
And; I wonder why...
Will it be this way 'till I die?
Ah September, September
Give me a smile
One that would last for a while
Ah September, Please let me remember,
that nineteenth day,
that I did my way.
Oh it's September: happy birthday!
At least for today...
Sep 19, 2010
Sep 19, 2010 at 3:15 AM UTC
by: MissPine
You were born on a warm day, yet so cold.
The breeze you've always wanted to feel once told.
You wondered why it seems too odd.
Life - its presence brings the deepest word.
You were proud until it was sixteenth.
The dream wished would come true then vanish.
You had kept the pain 'til nineteenth.
Faith loosened up, but your soul just hush.
It was twenty second - a decision stepped in.
You opened a new chapter of your book.
Smooth sailing, yes it was a perfect hook!
A year and a half after, fear then broke in.
What were you doing? Did it reached the core?
Took a year to rest, last quarter of twenty-four.
Time to bring back the person who once was lost.
Yet again failed 'cause your bravery is a frost.
What were you doing? Was it a valour?
The valour you ever needed the most.
The valour, which you probably once boast.
Truth be told, 'twas the valour must add the color.
The life you started was an ordinary one.
Dancing and singing made it full of fun.
You've reached your limit, now what?
How did you end up being like that?
Climbing up to twenty-eight, a few months more.
How will you hold your smile while on this tour?
Would you continue on this journey called life?
Or would you rather end it by using a knife?
Your courage at this moment is on a test.
The confidence, your heart desires, is bent.
I know you don't fear death to that extent.
You could have been better and be the best.
Smile, let the whole world know how you feel.
Happiness, it's either a lie or a truth, so be it.
As long as you know sadness is concealed.
At least you've got one person, who can't forget.
That person, whom you could rely on.
That person, who knows your hows and whys.
It is I, that someone who must not be gone.
You knew all along - who will never say goodbyes.
I will always remember you.
You are the only one I know.
I will always remember you.
You are the only May I know.
I love you!
These words I could only say.
Thru this letter, which I wrote for you,
I hope these words would stay.
Nov 20, 2018
Nov 20, 2018 at 10:37 PM UTC
in my family, nineteen means
a desert.
stretch and sand and thirst.
we claw at our skin,
convinced the heat is something we can ****
if we just scratch hard enough.
in my family, nineteen means
needle meets wrist.
our bodies a wasps nest
of shaking hands
and too wide eyes.
we lavish in stings and ******
and forearms of thorns.
we lap up the blood.
in my family, nineteen means
hospital stays.
bruised limbs.
heavy legs and even heavier eye lids.
in my family, nineteen means
chapped lips
and bleeding gums.
sinks stained with blood.
teeth swirling down the drain.
throats rubbed raw
with all the screams we’ve
kept under lock and key.
every agony that has
wrung itself dry and
broken our spines.
in my family, nineteen means
revolution.
somehow on both sides
of the bayonet.
never shooting until
i see the whites of my own eyes.
in my family, nineteen means
shrapnel
and sunflowers.
daggers
and daises.
life
and death.
in my family, nineteen means
a black widow
spinning its last web.
Feb 20, 2016
Feb 20, 2016 at 8:22 PM UTC
The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.
The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?
1.3k
Roman Virgil, thou that singest
Ilion's lofty temples robed in fire,
Ilion falling, Rome arising,
wars, and filial faith, and Dido's pyre;
Landscape-lover, lord of language
more than he that sang the "Works and Days,"
All the chosen coin of fancy
flashing out from many a golden phrase;
Thou that singest wheat and woodland,
tilth and vineyard, hive and horse and herd;
All the charm of all the Muses
often flowering in a lonely word;
Poet of the happy Tityrus
piping underneath his beechen bowers;
Poet of the poet-satyr
whom the laughing shepherd bound with flowers;
Chanter of the Pollio, glorying
in the blissful years again to be,
Summers of the snakeless meadow,
unlaborious earth and oarless sea;
Thou that seest Universal
Nature moved by Universal Mind;
Thou majestic in thy sadness
at the doubtful doom of human kind;
Light among the vanish'd ages;
star that gildest yet this phantom shore;
Golden branch amid the shadows,
kings and realms that pass to rise no more;
Now thy Forum roars no longer,
fallen every purple Caesar's dome--
Tho' thine ocean-roll of rhythm
sound forever of Imperial Rome--
Now the Rome of slaves hath perish'd,
and the Rome of freemen holds her place,
I, from out the Northern Island
sunder'd once from all the human race,
I salute thee, Mantovano,
I that loved thee since my day began,
Wielder of the stateliest measure
ever moulded by the lips of man.
1.2k
I have discovered that my blocked nose
is not the reason I can’t smell roses.
The smell has been cut out of the genus
for the sanity of sensors on cargo airplanes.
What then, about my children and their’s,
when they discover old books for themselves
and ask questions about the smell of flowers?
About poetry, and the Nineteenth century?
How would I tell the tale of family Plantagenet,
with flags as dead as Lancaster and York?
This tragedy seems so terribly unfair when roses
are so much prettier than instruments on planes,
every petal a miniature piece of God’s own skin.
I need to walk down to the roadside florist if I can
get out of this sweaty blanket into this chilly weather
and find one of these ****** roses so I can dismember
its petals one by one. I must disembowel this litany if I can
she loves me, she loves me not, she wants me extinct
bred out of this world for convenience,
just like the forgotten smell of those roses.
The tragedy to be told is that women are not supposed
to be the main course in your life, the glorious bouquet of roses
that you set the table around. They are more like condiments
to an existence already charmed, but if the ketchup has gone rotten
it tends to put a damper on how everything tastes and everything smells,
I can’t smell the flowers and there are too many forks.
Jan 15, 2014
Jan 15, 2014 at 11:45 AM UTC
~
The Great Switch Off
*louder in its silence,
than a flicked light switch
in the midst of a midnight-darkened house
more crackling than the slowest
of lasting gunshot resounding re-soundings,
of the ice pond white coverlet shredding itself apart,
by its own voluble volition
I hear the switch
switching off,
the giving-in, taking over,
the surrender negotiations
swift concluded with just those you know,
two words
let the anguish languish,
the discipline,
become someone else's disciple,
just let me be
well familiar this on-off moment,
well recalled from all prior nine lives,
exactly the where and the when was,
I gave up on trying,
but never needed the why
cause the why was inadmissible,
tampered evidence, dampened down,
tainted lies and justifies
tomorrow I'll restart, re-equip,
cause the catching up with lost sleep
a minimum week,
to require, to reacquaint,
with the on-demand, life props
for properly slacking off*
***the oldest loudest sound
you have and will ever make,
the crack of self-deception,
when your mind lies to yourself,
this latest, greatest switch off is only
temporary***
~
Feburary Nineteenth, Two Thousand and Sixteen
5:49 am
nyc
Feb 19, 2016
Feb 19, 2016 at 4:56 PM UTC
The Impatience of the Nineteenth Century
The impatience of the nineteenth century
Left us the genocide of the twentieth
With all the progressive apparatus of death:
Infanticide, death camps, firing squads, gas
And now unto the twenty-first – smart bombs
Are flung by geosynchronous satellites
Deep, deep into the imperfect souls of men
Thus breaking bodies for the perfect state
In victory the dying last voice will croak
“At least we freed ourselves from those awful kings”
Apr 27, 2017
Apr 27, 2017 at 6:42 PM UTC
Sweet princess of swanlike imperfection,
how darkness embarked upon you,
slowly unbuttoned your dress until you lay bare,
barely there
frozen in denial.
I am overwhelmed with the grief of having had you,
the same grief that has always been screaming
you can run but you can't hide
the same grief I have been trying to bury all my life.
I weep now, my tears
add to the puddle that once was you
and though I tried I simply could not
distract you long enough
from melting.
You
who once gave me the shirt off your back
You
who reminded me I do have a purpose in this chilling life
You
who gave me the infectious gift of endless laughter
You
who softened my heart despite my insisting it be forever hardened
You
who continues to light the candle of inspiration
You
who showered me with ceaseless honesty even when your fears of
hurting me were high and the temptation to lie was loud
You
who I will always remember as being the girl
I gave my heart to that one nineteenth september for
hearts cannot be stolen
The girl
Who showed me why love can never be lost,
Even when we lose ourselves in the afflictions of the other
We are not our afflictions.
Though I am no longer with you
for reasons as obvious as the blue of my eyes you always deemed to be true,
pieces of my heart forever remain
invisibly tattooed on your skin
the places you let me touch even when
your will to live was growing
thin.
Hardened beauty queen of exquisite genius,
do not believe what your mind tells you
the mirror will only show you
an undeserved distorted truth
that is not you, it never will be
and it never was.
I weep here now at the puddle where you lie,
I hope one day your heart will soften with
the same lightheartedness your name implies.
Dec 13, 2012
Dec 13, 2012 at 12:13 AM UTC
in life, people have their own paths, trajectories... going through space.
those who aren't on the same path as you will collide into you briefly but continue on into a slightly different direction. we forever affect each other when our paths intersect.
you and i collided during the fresh part of my nineteenth year.
it was intended for fulfilling the desire of companionship yet became platonic.
you were a bad boy; rough exterior but in my perspective were a dear.
such a switch on my usual attraction aspect, not enjoying your habits that were persistently chronic.
those eyes
oh those eyes
i truly saw your inner buddha- i opened your box.
we clicked. never have i felt such comfort in a short amount of time,
however; you didn't change, in the end still sneaky as a fox....
my knowledge that you lie and cheat made me come to the conclusion that you would never be mine.
i fell in love. my first love. my asteroid. kyle.
hard to believe in a desert of all the places!
you held me ever so tight, gave me wicked butterflies & a goober smile.
still, left was uncertainty and doubt- many traces.
my mind was puzzled and never felt right.
i switched motives daily, always changing my mind. where is my mind?
attempting to hold onto our relationship i put everything fourth with all my being, my might....
found out the truth after a first intimate night; you led me blind.
really? you ****** her. i asked you over and over still lies.
really? you told him. a private matter you shared with a friend.
really? you could never prove a change- same black skies.
really? you betrayed my trust. we'll never be the same in the end.
you were my first love
at least i think
my asteroid that is now moving on after collision... my life you are out of
no more late night cuddles, simplistic kisses or terrible winks.
happiness fills my soul now that i can move on
for my heart broke in half and i have to mend it on my own
i do not regret our time spent, never thought it was wrong.
a man who truly respects and loves me will find me someday, for now i find myself alone.
thank you kyle for letting me get to know you without a mask.
this journey was an adventure and i'll never look back.
Oct 3, 2015
Oct 3, 2015 at 3:15 AM UTC
I awoke to the realization that today was my nineteenth birthday
I laid there for a moment recalling how I felt when I awoke on my eighteenth birthday
Nothing felt out of place,
nothing in the air had been charged,
and nothing in the air begged me to inhale it more graciously, as if my ascent to real adulthood required more oxygen
As one does upon their birthday, I reflected upon the previous year
I ruminated on the places I'd seen-
lakes of the midwest, dark hallways with strangers I was supposed to know, funeral homes I wished didn't exist
The places I'd waited-
the concrete carpet with friends for our favorite band, the stoplight of a town 400 miles from home, and calmly on a bench to call off a relationship with a guy I had just met
The people with whom I'd shared my voice-
fellow feminists, 5 year olds with autism who just wanted a piggy back and a hand to steady them on the hiking path,
my dad, finally
The places I hid my voice-
my brother's fraternity, a breakup text dripping with humor
I dwelled for a brief second on the men and women I had exchanged my touch with,
and with whom I had woken up without
As I flipped on my stomach
I could feel my swollen brain, gorged with knowledge, begging me to do something with it
I looked at the polaroids I had hung above my bed
and comfortably remembered the unrequited love
I had come to halting terms with, but now rested with like cozy pillow under my stomach
I looked at the faces of friends whom I would now consider long distant friends. I wasn't sure if things would settle with them in the same way they had for 3 sensational months of summer
I shuddered at the toxins I had so willingly placed in my body,
pills, alcohol, drugs, unnecessary self-criticisms
I considered my weight-
a number that had risen and fallen due to over-eatting on the weekends and the daily under-eatting to compensate for the liquid sugar from the night before
I saw pictures of my hair, a foot longer than it is now and considered all I had put it through
I thought about my brothers
I wondered what they were thinking about when they woke up one year older
I do not feel older, I do not feel wiser.
I feel fine.
I am nineteen and I feel fine.
Apr 14, 2015
Apr 14, 2015 at 7:49 PM UTC