"swimsuits" poems
In a bedroom in small-town Pennsylvania,
you’ll find an unmade bed,
a pile of clothes on the floor—
clean but not folded,
open drawers and dusty shelves,
a desk in the corner of the room
with pictures laid across it.
When I caught my first fish at six.
I held it at arm’s length by the fishing line
to avoid the slimy scales,
a frown on my face from being forced
to sit silently in the cold.
When my family went to Marco Island,
my sister and I, sifting sand for the best seashells
in our matching swimsuits and hats.
Mom and dad’s fights forgotten in our fun.
High school graduation
posing with my best friend since first grade,
diplomas in one hand and an extra cap held between us
because not everyone survived all four years.
Move-in day at college,
sitting on my raised bed with a grey comforter
and two decorative pillows the color of cotton candy.
Sweat on my brow from southern humidity
and moving furniture without the help of a father.
The pictures are merely snapshots
that lack the full story.
How I learned what it meant for love to fall apart
when I was eight years old.
My sister warned me before it happened,
told me what a divorce was.
I mistook her for joking until they called us upstairs.
Dad cried when they told us, but mom held her tears
until the day he left. The sounds of her cries
escaping from behind a closed door.
“This doesn’t mean we don’t love each other.”
But that’s exactly what it meant.
How I was taught by my father that love is conditional,
and I repeatedly needed to prove myself
through good grades and unquestioning obedience.
Forced to stay home to spend time with the family,
sitting wordlessly on the couch while he watched TV.
Made guilty for wanting to spend time with friends
because that somehow meant that I was a bad daughter.
It’s funny—I never asked myself if he was a good father.
If you look harder at the bedroom,
you’ll find journals filled with bitter words,
screws from disassembled pencil sharpeners, loose razors, and Aquaphor,
food wrappers stuffed in hidden places,
a closet brimming with junk and pairs of shoes,
evidence of a story untold. Until you.
Sep 20, 2023
Sep 20, 2023 at 9:09 PM UTC
I want summer like I want you, constantly. I’m tired of cold that snatches my breath and hope. I want the trees to regain their decency and cover their bare limbs. Wearing the greenest fullest blouses. I want the grass to grow. Thunder to roll and rain to fall. I want fat drops to bounce of the pavement, to wash my face and hair.
I want the sun to bath my skin in beauty, making it glow with warmth. I want dresses and shorts and skirts. I want brown legs and flip-flops. I want turquoise pools and florescent swimsuits.
I’m sick of cold fingers and toes. I’m tired of heaters and blankets. I want to roll down the windows. I want sweat on my back and only sheets on my bed. I’d love warm nights, drinking sweet tea, and making love beneath the stars. I wish for glowing street lights and lake nights. I want to sit in the windows of cars at sonic.
I want barbeque sunflower seeds and the fourth of July.
I want field parties with only beer and red bull, and only bonfires to see by. I want fireflies and chigger bites. Lemonade out of mason jars.
I miss cotton, and sandals. I miss volleyball, ***** feet, and ponytails. But what I miss most about summer is freedom. Those summer night driving under an endless sky of stars.
Aug 17, 2010
Aug 17, 2010 at 11:54 AM UTC
I wonder if they're happy.
They sure do seem so.
They're always talking about stealing their daddy's Jaguars and having beer blasts and getting in to fights and being bros and getting tan and buying new swimsuits and getting a call from different modeling agencies and crashing cars and smoking cigarillos and drinking fancy wine and going to their beach house and deciding between Harvard and Yale or Porsche and Mustang and did we win the football game and making new friends and oh my God Stacy actually said that and dude, I totally ****** her and my math teacher is such a ***** and my parents are putting me into boarding school and check out my new Jordans and did you watch the sunset last night?
I don't know if they're having fun, but it sure seems like it.
*I wonder if they're having fun. It sure seems like it.
They're always talking about hitch hiking to the next city over and going to shows and drinking PBR and sneaking out at night and yeah dude, that party was sick and my tumblr is so famous right now and check out my new denim jacket and smoking **** and getting in to fights and lifting cigarettes from stores and Austin and Katie slept together and Kyle broke edge and I'm still working at McDonalds and yeah I'm still driving my '93 Ford Ranger and smoking hookah and watching Mean Girls and yeah I love the ocean and check out my new Kicks and did you watch the sunset last night?
I don't know if they're having fun, but it sure seems like it.*
Sep 20, 2012
Sep 20, 2012 at 10:22 PM UTC
The wine plays tricks on young mortals
On occasions bathed in pale sunlight
Reason will be lost lost well before dawn
The youth cannot rest
Till only caveman instincts persist
Do not try and hid, nor sleep
The youth will scream you awake
And the youth will give you drugs
And the youth will drag you across town
And shove you into basements, backseats,
Dive bars, dorm rooms, and late night beaches
With swimsuits strongly discouraged.
And the youth will leave you be
Only when the youth has burned you up
Leaving you to the heap of a soul you have left
The youth came last night
To finish me off.
They came with whiskey and women.
And I succumbed to the temptation
Of another blurred night.
Aug 29, 2013
Aug 29, 2013 at 2:44 AM UTC
Skinny like a Starbucks drink with zero sugar, zero guilt and full of almond-milk joy.
Skinny like a microwaved meal, perfectly portioned and easy to count.
Skinny like two diet cokes and a cigarette for lunch.
Skinny like Adderall, a high dose for higher grades.
Skinny like late nights and random *** with strangers.
Skinny like virginity.
Skinny like binge-purge-repeat.
Skinny like perfection, like mints and sadness and tight little swimsuits.
Skinny like a disorder.
Skinny like control out of control.
Skinny like a diagnosis.
Skinny like suffering.
Skinny like her.
Jan 23, 2019
Jan 23, 2019 at 8:24 PM UTC
Why do they call them bathing suits if you're not supposed to be bathing in them?
Interesting how we coin terms in this silly world
But i guess i shouldn't call it silly due to some of the silly things we have done and i've done.
They should just keep it one term- swimsuits
May 7, 2016
May 7, 2016 at 4:13 PM UTC
Sun feigns heat
in a clear slate of blue above;
I gaze upon pale, brown hills and fields
through the smoke of my breath
wishing it would at least snow.
There was talk of cow-tipping
when I was in fifth grade,
but cows would've broken their necks.
Ground covered in frozen grass
is no comfort for fallen cows at 15 Fahrenheit.
Our small lake
transformed into a debating ground for skaters and hockey players,
each vying for control over the weekend's
primary source of entertainment.
(The dreadful alternative: afternoons shopping with parents.)
When it finally snowed, a wonderland was made,
a knee-high, get-out-of-school-free card.
We charted expeditions in corn fields, wooded creeks
and stone-colored barns that were beguiling in the white
of Chadds Ford pastures like untended English castles.
Woods like a Pollack of burnt sienna and white,
their only sound is weight of snow bearing down on limb.
Beyond those whispers, just a roaring silence
when I'm still as ice fingers
trying to touch the ground from the roof.
The cats of Baldwin's Book Barn nap easily within,
as we dig for a pearl amongst makeshift shelves
full of hard-bound reads for snow-bound youth.
These felines, grown, need not the words,
but the pages themselves for fine beds.
A blue-white glow from outside casts a cold light,
illuminating prints of Helga and Christina's World,
a reminder to all who live down the road.
On such a winter day, I didn't care to remember
that soon there would be Spring kittens in the books,
and a lake full of children's swimsuits.
Nov 6, 2013
Nov 6, 2013 at 8:16 PM UTC
Three children sit behind a dumpster
outside of the Pier Pizza Parlor
unaware that they are children
Seven years later walking past Bridge Square
a girl remembers
**** we're out of cigarettes
and my mom's fucken car is locked. man.
and joints rolled with single ply toilet paper
burning through precious *** in the seaside woods where Indians
used to die
She, curling hands,
flattens a photograph of three kids in swimsuits and baseball caps
crouched under the rainy eaves of a waterslide
lighting a one hitter and gazing at their tiny dying world
now like a centerfold
it's covered in lubricant sweat and spittle
after too much time under the wrong beds
She sits on this small fountain
wistfully blinking and ******* down the cigarettes she wishes she could lock back up
kneading her dead legs and wondering
if it's better to have a past smudged by erasers
or mottled with bruises
May 30, 2010
May 30, 2010 at 10:58 PM UTC
Stop looking at me like you look up to me,
and start looking like you're in love with me.
Forget those spiders,
cut yourself free.
Get into my orbit.
Talk me through my destruction.
I'll distract you from yours.
I'll put on that tie you like,
and you will wear that black dress.
We will pretend we invented fashion.
You will get the eyes.
I will get the eyes.
Get into my orbit.
I'll tell you anything you'd like.
I wouldn't mind if you would cover me with night,
and silently rest your head next to mine.
Stop looking at me like you look up to me,
and start looking at me as if you can set me free.
I only see you in fevers of inappropriate dreams,
you only speak to me when everyone else you know is asleep.
I will make coffee,
you will bring a sewing kit.
We will talk about finding the bottom
of the human soul on drunken nights.
We will say **** the indie kids
and the 70s throwbacks.
We will wear swimsuits
when no one is around.
We will talk with good humor
about what we'd say at the apocalypse's final address.
Get into my orbit.
We'll compare scars and run from all our old towns.
Stop looking at me like you look up to me,
and start rewriting yourself with me.
Aug 23, 2010
Aug 23, 2010 at 11:20 AM UTC
When you're little,
the beach means sandcastles
and seashells and swimsuits,
it means food, it means fun,
it means family.
The water is always blue
and there are sailboats on the horizon
and the only things the wind affects
are the kites in the breeze.
Your mom smiles more
and your dad's jokes are better
and you can run all day
without ever noticing you're tired.
As you get older, you start to notice
that saltwater tastes a lot like tears—
so you hope that all it is on your lips
when you kiss your mother on the cheek
is just the ocean.
And you find a lot of cigarettes
and shards of broken bottles
under your grandfather's porch—
but you tell yourself they had been there
even before your grandmother's funeral—
and at night the waves crashing
carry her whispers back to this beach
because she knows it's the place where
we'll think of her the most.
But a few years beyond that,
the tears in the saltwater
start to taste a lot like your own
and you know your grandmother
is still sending whispers
but you can hardly remember her voice
and the beach still means
remembering her,
but it's also started to mean
forgetting.
Oct 4, 2013
Oct 4, 2013 at 12:22 PM UTC
There was chatter reflecting off the water just like the moon. The Milky Way was swimming with us, wrapped in algae and moss. We had no swimsuits, only spontaneity and laughter. We were far away from trivialities where there was no light pollution, you could see so far outward into everything. We were not looking up, we were looking out at what we are part of. Light, so much light. When our thoughts were finally chilled like iced lemonade, we ran through bushes and flailed in the mud to the car. We drove. Once sitting on our bed, a delicious thought bubbled into reality.
We discussed it, unanimously deciding on this nights adventure...we'd enjoy the first rays of the morning while seating comfortable at Sacajawea Peak.
Eager legs kicked and finally slept…too soon later, a buzz of a telephone awoke us, then another. I bounced out of the covers and to the kitchen to prepare a hurried breakfast of peanut butter and fruit roll ups for us, nutrition was priority. Then the clock blinked 3 AM.
Whines squeaked from tired mouths, but excitement prevailed. We packed into our seats and struggled to keep our eyes open, but the drive was bumpy and our sore butts kept us from forgetting the purpose of our trip. We were there to make our lives radical, and you can’t sleep in moments like these. 4 AM screamed at me, we had to hurry. I plowed my way up that mountain as the sun painted the tips of the mountains red. We crossed streams, tripped on rocks, marveled at climate change and the disappearance of the snow we had skied on just a week before. As the incline increased to nearly vertical, we met up with the mountain goats. Their tiny hooves danced on the faces of cliffs and I stood on the trail not more than a meter away. They smiled at us, said good morning, and we went on our way, huffing it up the face. As the sun’s light began to engulf the sky, we watched as the snow capped ridgeline shined pink and gold. A mountain shades us but as we reach the peak, the sun splashes our face, I felt godly. The sun has risen, and so have we. This is why we are alive; this is why we are happy. The valley below us still dozes, and we sit on top a mountain wide-awake. There is no item I could ask for that could ever give me this happiness. I do not climb mountains so that the world can see me, but so I can see the world…and it is so beautiful.
Sep 9, 2013
Sep 9, 2013 at 3:39 PM UTC
Punxsutawney Phil
You're so furry
And adorable
But your forecasts
Are deplorable
Thirty-nine percent true
That makes you a fraud
But cute eyes have you
Therefore a god
Early spring you say
Yet snow and low temps
Flourish today
So conflicted
By this contrast
Indoors now restricted
Godhog is Devine at last
Tomorrow swimming
No matter the mortal's forecast
You say the sun is brimming
The masses praise
Nearly naked in the snow
Why the wintery haze
No shadow, it is so
Now we stand
Swimsuits adorned
Frozen faces
Countenances Forlorn
Faithful in our belief
In you and yours
In fur and sharp teeth
Buds and flowers restore
Trees and life anew
What could go wrong
A groundhog we pray to
In Phil we trust
What's wrong with us?
Feb 2, 2013
Feb 2, 2013 at 9:22 AM UTC
when the world,
was much younger
and i was a stupid-crazy
girl-ly-chick, enamoured
with her youth.
i drove, a sunshine,
lemon, yellow bottomed, white pith on top combi van. coyly, cloyingly named Mello Martha.
it was...surfboards and swimsuits,
egg and bacon sangers,
early morning breezes,
after a blitz at the breadbox.
before... changing into
the structured, tortured baby, bank teller blues,
in the back,doors left open.
it was... rockin, knockin,
*** on credit,
to a promised future,
alluded to, but postponed,
for the moment.
it was... bruised back and
grazed knees,
harder, deeper oh god!
oh god! please... faster, fucken frenzies,
on a saturday night.
it was....running away to nowhere,
to find myself,
then finding me,
running away from,
the self i didn't want to know.
noway, nowhere, nohow.
it was... a barrel of monkeys, a barrel of laughs,
a keg of beer,
a box of wine,
under the crowded stars.
it was.... a roadtrip,
up the coast,
midnight bonfire,
midnight munchies,
playing hunches,
exploring reefs and reefers and such.
it was...far from family
and church rules,
a friendly rebellion,
of loud, proud youth.
totally and brazenly,
uncouth
it was... wham! and m.j.
cindy and boy george's culture club ,paperlace,
billy idol and the beach boys.
sung with abandon,
at spinal tap level eleven.
it was... peaceful, quiet, sleeping grace.
insanely in love with...
i forgot his name.
it was.... the birth of bodaciously me.
all brass hair and bosoms,
wild and carefree.
it was ....so long ago,
it was... yesterday night,
when i saw... Mello Martha's identical twin,
stopped at a traffic light.
it was... sunshine and lemon, bitter and sweet,
as she sailed off, down the street.
i sat and watched,
wist, full of recollect,
far and away, from my presently minded place...
sitting in, the driver's seat,
of my mom-blue subaru.
Jun 8, 2014
Jun 8, 2014 at 6:16 PM UTC
I bought a new swimsuit today,
pulling the material tight across my body.
Seams stretching,
Arms stretching as we bath in the free sunshine.
Bare feet, bare skin, and we bare our hearts as well.
You drink in the air, and I drink in you.
Too much, too fast.
Intoxication, infatuation-
found side by side in my thesaurus that sits on my shelf.
My shelf that holds all my swimsuits,
all with the tags still attached.
May 20, 2013
May 20, 2013 at 11:21 PM UTC
In swimsuits which means
essentially naked
the girls gather at the bridge
gasping giggling
budding bodies bouncing
as they climb over the steel rail
stand at the outside edge
hold hands
scream
and jump
the scary plunge
to cool water, Donner Creek where
toe-touching the sandy bottom
they burst upward through bubbles
to sunlight, to air
whipping hair
with laughter, relief,
stronger now,
sweet courage
with a touch of spice.
Frog-kicking to shore
they smile
at the baggy-legged boys
who dared them
standing hands in pockets
smaller now
feigning indifference
unworthy of their loveliness.
Jun 30, 2017
Jun 30, 2017 at 7:39 PM UTC
**** me in a summer dress
all pastels and spaghetti straps
kicked off ballet slippers and a green cardigan
sweat with me in a bus stop
we wait to ride downtown
our cheeks sun-burn blushed and shoulders freckled
swim with me in the river
polka dotted swimsuits and a sweaty beer
inner-tubes and soggy hair. a big wet dog.
sit in the grass and itch your legs
wearing jean shorts and cotton t shirts
black sunglasses and white earphones, hot cigarettes
invest in a fan for your room
while we sweat through the blue dotted sheets
peel off sticky underwear and wipe your damp forehead
washing grass stains from my dress
pastels stained and straps loose
ballet slippers and a green cardigan
**** me in a summer dress
Feb 24, 2015
Feb 24, 2015 at 1:41 AM UTC
Shorts are the worst
Because they
Show Me And
My scars
Are not for show
And tell today
Swimsuits
Are the worst
Because they show
Everything Out there
Thin streams of
Pain
Mar 14, 2013
Mar 14, 2013 at 8:19 PM UTC
Remember the evening you took the windsurfer poster off the wall?
The one with the two strangers in green swimsuits
riding the waves
or maybe just trying to stay on their slippery boards.
I guess, in retrospect, that **** poster had no place on the wall –
an empty room really doesn’t deserve decorations.
You slammed the front door when you left
and it was strange because those you left inside seemed stronger
so, as proof, we smashed all the clocks and held their hands
because tears had never flowed so fast
for someone we would see again on the weekend.
Dec 17, 2012
Dec 17, 2012 at 12:07 AM UTC
Is it selfish of me to mourn my skin? Having seen the patients around me with no surface left to theirs, how can I still mourn a flesh Ive always taken for granted? Now I kiss the places the fire kissed me in hopes of aiding in the healing. But how hard the healing has been. Those first three hours in the emergency room when I swore that I could still feel the fire, as white coat blurs of faces peeled my layers. I cried out for each screaming cell. My eyes swelled shut to spare my weak mind. Skin, I would no longer want to look at. Skin, I spent hours tanning and pampering. Skin, I planned on wearing with confidence. Shorts and swimsuits, summertime smiles. I wouldn't know for some time what I lost when I was burned. I'm still learning to love what I have gained. Strength, slowly strung itself about me, day by day I dreaded the coming day less and less. I managed as we all do. I managed to scrub my own skin raw just like the doctors. I managed half smiles and choked laughter. I managed positive thoughts and dreams of recovery on the horizon. It looked so far yet so beautiful, so enticing. It is nearer now, close enough to feel the glow. Yet, it comes not without struggles of its own. See, I must remember to love myself. When the last of my strength seeps out with my tears. I must remember to be grateful. For my body's determination to heal has only sprouted from the days warped with dread and pain, I have grown. I may not like what I see but I needed to love my insides more anyways. This charred skin is a lesson I should wear without shame. It is only a tribute to my strength. It is only a picture of my resilience.
Jul 2, 2015
Jul 2, 2015 at 7:56 PM UTC
Summer is my favorite season ever
Staying outside under the starry night sky
Swimming and hoping the day never ends
Laying in our swimsuits waiting to dry
I really want summer to be here now.
I would stay up and do crazy things because I'm a teen
Listening to music and letting days pass by
Wearing short shorts and smelling like chlorine
Natural hair with no makeup on
Waking up to the earthy smell of freshly cut grass
Watching the clouds float by with not a care
In the car with the sound up and bass loud
Wearing glasses to protect me from the glare
Even though it's usually way to hot for me
Sometimes that's what you need to feel free
-c.a.
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 9:39 PM UTC
**** me in a summer dress
all pastels and spaghetti straps
a shirt like a swallowed up picnic
sweat with me in a smoky car
panting through the skunk
our cheeks sun-burn blushed and shoulders freckled
swim with me in the river
polka dotted swimsuits and a sweaty beer
inner-tubes and soggy hair
sit in the grass and itch your legs
tiny black shorts and cotton t shirts
a big blanket, hot cigarettes, feeding ducks
invest in a fan for my room
while we sweat through blue sheets
peel off sticky underwear and wipe your damp forehead
wiping dirt from my knees
pastels stained and straps loose, slipping down
pink sunglasses and a picnic shirt
**** me in a summer dress
Aug 3, 2015
Aug 3, 2015 at 4:17 AM UTC
All day it rained,
watching through the window, pained.
Children restless, stuck inside.
Nothing doing in this tide.
To the shops, join the queue.
All the drivers in a stew.
Parking chaos, anger raised,
deftly weaving through the crazed.
Money flowing like the rain.
Credit cards delay the pain.
Mac sales up, swimsuits down,
hunting bargains like a clown.
Aug 15, 2015
Aug 15, 2015 at 11:21 AM UTC
There was chatter reflecting off the water just like the moon. The Milky Way was swimming with us, wrapped in algae and moss. We had no swimsuits, only spontaneity and laughter. We were far away from trivialities where there was no light pollution, you could see so far outward into everything. We were not looking up, we were looking out at what we are part of. Light, so much light. When our thoughts were finally chilled like iced lemonade, we ran through bushes and flailed in the mud to the car. We drove. Once sitting on our bed, a delicious thought bubbled into reality.
We discussed it, unanimously deciding on this nights adventure...we'd enjoy the first rays of the morning while seated comfortably at the top of Sacajawea Peak.
Eager legs kicked and finally slept…too soon later, a buzz of a telephone awoke us, then another. I bounced out of the covers and to the kitchen to prepare a hurried breakfast of peanut butter and fruit roll ups. Nutrition was priority. The clock blinked 3 AM.
Whines squeaked from tired mouths, but excitement prevailed. We packed into our seats and struggled to keep our eyes open, but the drive was bumpy and our sore butts kept us from forgetting the purpose of our trip. We were there to make our lives radical, and you can’t sleep in moments like these. 4 AM screamed at me, we had to hurry. I plowed my way up the five miles of that mountain as the sun painted the tops of the mountains red. We crossed streams, tripped on rocks, marveled at climate change and the disappearance of the snow we had skied on just a week before. As the incline increased to nearly vertical, we met up with the mountain goats. Their tiny hooves danced on the faces of cliffs and I stood on the trail not more than a meter away. They smiled at us, said good morning, and we went on our way, huffing it up the face. As the sun’s light began to engulf the sky, we watched as the snowcapped ridgeline shined pink and gold. A mountain shaded us but as we reached the peak, the sun splashed our face, I felt godly. The sun had risen, and so had we. This is why we are alive; this is why we are happy. The valley below us still dozed, and we sat atop a mountain wide-awake. There is no item I could ask for that could ever give me this happiness. I do not climb mountains so that the world can see me, but so I can see the world and it is so beautiful.
Mar 30, 2014
Mar 30, 2014 at 7:46 PM UTC