"takeout" poems
I don't need a man who wants a princess
I don't need those expectations
I won't paint my nails or wear high heels
I want someone who will understand
That some days are just for sitting indoors
Playing video games and ordering takeout
Sometimes you just want to hang out
Watch a horror movie or write a poem
I want someone who can understand some days are slow
I also want them to know that some days are fast
Sometimes you just need the rush of riding a skateboard or throwing a frisbee
Sometimes you just need to feel the notes of a guitar till your hands are numb
I don't want someone who thinks I am only silent and reserved
Because I will crush you in your favorite games
I will tire you out with my favorite things
I don't want someone who thinks they are temporary
I will write about you and immortalize you through my art
Keep your expectations away and I'll surprise you every day
Aug 12, 2018
Aug 12, 2018 at 2:34 AM UTC
I ordered,
Chinese food,
last night,
cracked a cookie,
the slip of paper,
told me,
I was,
going to,
die,
and that I,
needed to,
live,
my life,
instead,
I swallowed,
the words,
of advice,
we never take,
but probably,
should.
Oct 19, 2023
Oct 19, 2023 at 10:41 AM UTC
or "let's order takeout,"
or "small ineptitudes in the kitchen"
1.
butter
lop
it liberally
silver clinging
scrape it
pan side
sputters and hissing
smoky?
turn the heat
down
crimsoning
elemental
browning the
butter
2.
sizzling whites
diaphanous
stiffly whitened
bubbles surface
spatula stroking
poly—
tetrafluoroethylene
roll the egg
yolk
shattering
yellow
3.
**** the water
nothing—
evaporated
gasping
blue effluvium
windows
fanblades
blackened ***
the bite of a
char upon
it
tea for
tomorrow
Mar 5, 2014
Mar 5, 2014 at 1:28 PM UTC
Pinky promises
and praying to goddesses
a picture of your friends on the sagging shelf
and I know I love you
so much more than you could ever,
ever love yourself.
We plucked wild bluebells
and got sick in the winter-time breeze
I'll pick you up
when you fall down
I'll patch up the scrapes on your knees.
Sugar coated candy
turned into your mother's brandy
still overindulged
but I will be here
year after year
you'll always have someone to hold.
Takeout boxes,
a key in your locks and
always a place for me in your coral sheets
we roam the city in outfits too tight
we hold hands in the streets.
Only a fool
when I'm in your room, lose our cool
laughing as our middles concave
with your hand in mine
I've always felt so brave.
We were girls together
and that will never change.
Oct 24, 2023
Oct 24, 2023 at 12:29 AM UTC
I don't know you
I don't know how you feel right now
or how you feel about the current state of the nation
I don't know how you like your coffee
or whether you prefer drip over pressed
I don't know the lyrics to your favorite songs
or if you like progressive rock or indie
I don't know your favorite restaurant
or if your prefer Chinese takeout and fast food
I don't know where your next adventure will be
or if you prefer to stay at home
I don't know if you like mayonnaise
or whether you like mustard on your hot dog sandwich
I don't know what you think about in the shower
or what you think about when you're washing the dishes
I don't know what keeps you up at night
or if you're the kind of person who falls asleep right away
I don't know your deepest most vulnerable secrets
or your hopes and dreams and your crazy ideas
what I do know is your heart
and maybe they tell you you have no feelings
that you can't be moved or touched
but I know that not showing them
doesn't mean you don't have them at all
we have the same heart and that's okay
everything will be okay.
Nov 9, 2015
Nov 9, 2015 at 6:31 AM UTC
Metropolis is dust,
the smoke of unfaded coffin nails,
she's a sensual bonfire
littered landscape,
the burning lust running in my veins
between safety and risk,
circumcising the stage
where Dylan went electric.
~
"I didn’t belong to anybody then or now.”
Swing-shifting to mercenary mode,
but sinking my face value
by ordering takeout religion,
sharing a cab with Hepatitis C,
and all those sky-high boxes
and rectangles
—existing in one, spending nights
with her in another.
~
*"Oh, lay me down to sleep
upon the trickery of time."*
~
Apr 27, 2021
Apr 27, 2021 at 9:36 AM UTC
It was not love at first sight. When you walked into the room the rest of the world did not slow down. There was no movie magic moment where our eyes met and I knew that you were the only girl I was ever going to fall in love with. Instead you were longing at first glance, yearning for a love that I never could have imagined before. I couldn’t picture our wedding or growing old together but I could vividly see the two of us together. Cuddled under blankets reading on a Sunday night. Decorating our apartment for Halloween. I could see Indian takeout in bubble baths with three cats curled up beside the sink. You were not love at first sight but you were better, you were real. You made love believable. I never had faith in finding a fairytale romance but in you I found forever. A reality of two souls bound together by a force neither of them can explain. You may not have been my love at first sight but you’re my love in every glance since. It’s heartbreaking that I can only look at the world through rose coloured glasses while you live in a world so far from make believe.
Jan 24, 2021
Jan 24, 2021 at 8:55 PM UTC
She said I was her second favorite.
Not that she'd met a better man,
but that way she left room for
improvement.
She wanted to believe in fidelity
like someone wants to believe
in Jesus or pure justice.
She asked my complex thoughts--
the wordless ones. I asked for an explanation.
She only stared, and I realized I
couldn't tell if her eyes were
green or blue.
She stabbed her ice with a straw
and told me to stop calling it love--
what we were making. That was
fine. I had a few other terms in mind.
She said nightlife and fanfare were
for homosexuals. So, we spent
most evenings eating Chinese takeout
in a rented room.
She vomited on the Fourth of July,
while fireworks erupted. I sat in
a lawn chair, and tried to remember
how she looked in that black A-line dress.
She needed to know my plans for our future.
I said there were endless open doors in front of us.
She said she only heard the sound of a door
closing behind.
She was a free spirit. And I "put it on trial."
She said she needed me
to change the channel.
She said when we ended -- and we would end --
I'd learn a valuable lesson:
a woman is the only creature
that doesn't have to die to haunt you.
Jun 29, 2013
Jun 29, 2013 at 2:20 AM UTC
I sat on a curb in a parking lot,
surrounded by friends,
eating cheap Thai takeout.
I looked and saw my legs
expand against the rough concrete.
"I have fat thighs" I say.
"so?" he says.
"all girls do"
But he is not right
I have seen girls with slim,
willowy thighs that do not even touch.
There are girls with smooth hard thighs
that do not jiggle or tremble
thighs that have lines and shape.
Backstage one night, in a dress
that made my breathing come short,
I complained about its tightness,
blamed it on myself.
She laughed and said
"god, I would **** to be as skinny as you"
Truthfully,
I do not know what I look like
I know an ever-changing image
trapped in cold glass
and soft pale pieces
that conform to my touch
but I have never seen myself,
not really,
and I never will.
So I won't ever know,
no, not really,
how I appear to others.
"you're too pretty for that"
Am I too pretty for the
sticky lips and swollen eyes?
"how do you stay so thin?"
I'm on a great new diet
it's called 'I hate myself'
"I wish I looked like you!"
but god, do you know how it feels?
how each second is self-conscious
--more; it's self hatred
how sustenance is a numbers game
how your friends laugh
when you order a salad
("oh my god, really? again?")
and how it cuts right to the very center
of what makes you human and whole.
You wish you looked like me?
I wish I knew what I looked like.
Feb 11, 2015
Feb 11, 2015 at 11:27 PM UTC
rip my heart out darling
but first, let's order takeout.
Aug 1, 2012
Aug 1, 2012 at 5:26 AM UTC
I fell
[through hugs and kisses,
arguments,
Italian takeout,
suits and dresses,
texts at 2 am,
summer karaoke nights,
missed curfews,
coffee,
****** movies,
classic '70s songs,
stairs,
health food and vegetables,
fights,
antagonism,
test scores,
spaceships,
and happiness]
in love.
Apr 30, 2015
Apr 30, 2015 at 6:58 PM UTC
Hairline cracks are breaking through
the slough I'm about to shed.
Dry and dysfunctional
as the neuron sac in my skull.
I'll change my hat and change my ammo
honeysuckle artillery polished,
waiting in my drawer.
Sliding an empty coffee mug
back and forth along a counter
like a puck preparing for a slapshot.
Paper matches in colourful books
pressed between the pages
found leaves for child arsonists.
Takeout boxes filled with poems
are sold as artefacts
Don't be silly, poetry comes in plastic bags,
not styrofoam.
To keep ideas hot, wrap them in tinfoil.
But don't forget to leave a hole at the top for steam
or your fresh concepts will get soggy.
Equipped with tennis *****
spandex suits picket office blocks
standing on chairs and voicing nearly racist remarks
making health and safety inspectors nervous.
Out of control students
launch dictionaries out of third story windows,
donning 21st century masks.
I left my patience beside my keys, on the kitchen table.
Waiting in line for obsolete phone booths
as movie stars soundlessly mouth slang into a receiver.
Nearly responsible
nearly nine
nearly time for bed
I resolve again
that I’ll resolve more
but this time write it down.
Folding kamikaze paper planes
to hide behind park benches, fly into trees.
Let the sun fade the pencil crayon.
I can't run from this blasé gangrene that’s taken my toes.
May 12, 2013
May 12, 2013 at 2:02 AM UTC
She sits in the stands
Up in the nosebleed section
Cheering wildly, admiring her boys
In red and white
While he is under her hood
With soot-covered hands
Making sense of and fixing
Her mechanical mess.
Later on, she makes his favorite meal
To show him how much she loves him
But he shows up with takeout
And complains about how long it took
Just to replace the starter
In her red Corolla.
There's a difference between
Admiration
And love.
Sep 22, 2016
Sep 22, 2016 at 9:20 AM UTC
In this life, I have seen the valley of broken dreams filled with the souls of taqueria entrepreneurs. I have seen gleaming grills, Hispanic frills, greasy thrills. I have seen spirit thrive in the eyes of men armed with bank loans and family recipes. I have eaten their food, delicious beyond necessity. I have experienced the magic of taquerias and restaurants.
And I have seen that magic die.
I've observed the life unfold, unfurl with a magic to behold. I have seen that magic served in a half-empty restaurant that Frontera has outsold. I have had the magic gone, replaced by payday lenders and takeout from Taiwan. I have seen empty storefronts and the straggling last days of taqueria entrepreneurs. And I grieve every time at the lost loans and lost hopes left behind. But tonight, there will be no grieving. Instead,
Let us eat magic in their memory, enjoy the grease that will surely send us to infirmaries. Let us celebrate the time they had, the tortas, tamales, and leftovers taken home in a bag. Let us celebrate the doomed Mexican restaurants.
Dec 4, 2015
Dec 4, 2015 at 11:20 PM UTC
*I fell in love with the mornings
and waking up to breakfasts in bed
drinking coffee only you would know how to make
I fell in love with noon
and the lunches we had together
talking about the latest news over takeout
I fell in love with the afternoons
and the times we spent reading on the couch
eating every word interrupted by coffee stains
I fell in love with the nights
and our stupid little adventures
driving aimlessly and getting lost on the highway
I fell in love with the midnights
and talking to you about anything and everything
watching you stare at my mouth listening to every word
I fell in love with the moments
and everything in between the beginning and the end
wishing I could still spend them with you
I fell in love with the sound of your voice
and the feel of your existence
but I am not in love with you.*
Oct 6, 2015
Oct 6, 2015 at 9:04 PM UTC
Late at night when I’m alone in my cinder block room
I think about what could have been.
I think back to watching our favourite shows in a warm basement
And talking about what happened during third period last Thursday
Now I’m drinking in a dimly lit common room
Talking about what happened at that party last Friday
I like it here
But I wish I could take a break from the hazy nights filled with the wandering eyes of mysterious strangers and kisses that taste like *****
And get back to what could have been
So that maybe our eyes could have met for just a little bit longer.
On early mornings when clouds darken the view out of my window
I think about what could have been.
I think back to reading Shakespeare in the library
And wondering why the future seemed so far away
Now I’m reading Othello on an ivy and limestone campus
And that unreachable future is right now
I like it here
But I wish I could take a break from studying until the sun rises and philosophy majors slipping me their numbers
And get back to what could have been
So that maybe we could have stayed alone in the high school hallway for just a little bit longer.
On Sunday afternoons when the hallways are eerily silent
I think about what could have been.
I think back to ordering takeout at midnight
And laughing at each other’s jokes even if they weren’t that funny
Now I’m eating noodles out of a mug because I ran out of bowls (again)
And laughing at how you would be teasing me about this right now
I like it here
But I wish I could take a break from Styrofoam meals and coffee dates with boys from tutorials
And get back to what could have been
So that maybe we could stay at the diner down the road for just a little bit longer.
On Tuesdays in lecture halls where remarks on Romans echo through the auditorium
I think about what could have been
I think back to what should have been
And long for what possibly would have been
I packed my bags and headed down a long stretch of highway
You captured the city skyline with a camera
I like it here
You like it there
But I hope that one day we’ll get a break from it all
And with a degree in one hand and certainty in the other
We’ll take what could have been
And make it into what’s ours
For maybe more than a little bit longer.
Feb 1, 2014
Feb 1, 2014 at 7:33 PM UTC
My brain is your atomic nuclear warfare paintings
All the while you face-lift X-box babies
Needle-thread we're dead babe don't you make a man crave
For things he can't quite understand but doesn't want to hit the hand.
Severance is fiction in the hands of friction,
****** deviance and erratic disobedience,
Covers the covers like a silk-screen layout
Jack it up and crack it up to be ****** up takeout.
Oh yeah? Well over we're starving ripping pieces off the mountains
Dentistry mythology, who needs a medical degree?
The label on the box said the tape was all in my head
But I don't hear a ******* sound except the fire all around
Grass is misleading and graffiti complaining
The AK is God here and through towns we're raiding
You think you got it so bad this is all the life we ever had
And don't you ever stop by cause our values are just alibis.
Okay, enough! This is all a double feature burger for here or to go
This is all a Catholic preacher in a Red Cross rodeo
Life is an airplane flying overhead carrying passengers with nothing in their heads
And turning all the lights out and pulling all the blinds down so they can't see the truth.
Disguise misguide and everything in between
Have you seen the ***** film with Jenna Haze and Jimmy Dean?
Garden salad, Diet Coke, check now and choke
Give us our bombs so we can run and go and rig the new VOTES.
Let me run it by the city council one more time
We're seeing flying cars and houses of cards and stumbling and tumbling
And rumbling and rumoring the hilarious splinter consumering
Maneuvering, assuming bottles fly with seagull eyes
The trees burn here like candy canes and run in the grass like membranes
Toxic fumes and entrails for reasoning and cold shame
Shudder at the thought of a shutter in a hot fuzz tee shirt worn by the slick insane
Generating heaterpuppy psychologic fragile now, undertow, the fifth row in the theater at the Apollo.
Feb 17, 2011
Feb 17, 2011 at 6:58 PM UTC
She gives us fevers and wraps us in time. She is the newlywed- our metamorphosis. Death clings to her open grave. Her movements are the executions of precarious and docile prejudice, ganged upon, and drenched in oblique misunderstanding and very indirect confusion.
We are all grocery shopping now. Your weapons of delivery are broadcast in takeout, Chinese or Szechuan Broccoli Scenario #96:
Where your mother finds I have taken the Mercedes for morning lemonade stand gallivanting, early Beach Boys mixtape scenarios fulfilled.
Nov 26, 2015
Nov 26, 2015 at 9:15 AM UTC
and the weather is perfect outside where skin would be just enough.
i want to romp the world with you, naked as the day we were born,
feeling like with you it really is the first day of my life.
we will roll in the grass, and of course you are allergic to everything in nature
don’t worry, darling.
i will soothe your burning, blistering skin with butterfly kisses.
we will skinny dip, even though neither of us are particularly skinny
(we have your favorite chinese mexican takeout place to thank for that)
and i will slap your **** in the semi-darkness, giggling.
watching the sun go down, I will forget what anything feels like on my skin
other than your breath and hands
May 13, 2014
May 13, 2014 at 5:46 PM UTC
"I don't feel strong enough."
"Well, at least you have a flat stomach."
Let's damage each other
Let's replace another meal with a bottle of water or unsweetened tea
Let's pray to be beautiful
Let's sit in five minute planks and run five miles and hope we throw up
Let's pretend that I've eaten three meals today, or yesterday, or the day before
Let's define myself by calories and carbohydrates and questionable decisions
Let me rot from my bone marrow to my skin which are just inches apart
Let me fade away until I am reborn
But I'm lucky and so the story doesn't end there
I left the scale under the cabinet
I went for a run because I love to feel my feet on the ground
I came home and ordered takeout
I'm not going to let my body rot
I've chosen life
I've chosen to be whole and real again
My girlfriend can touch me because I am more than skin and bones
I am more than a statistic
And I will always pray to be beautiful
But I will never starve to death.
Apr 26, 2017
Apr 26, 2017 at 7:25 PM UTC
I tell everyone that
you broke my heart.
But if I press my fingers hard
against my chest,
a little to the left of the bone in the center
that’s curved to fit the shape of the right side of your temple,
I can feel the steady
thump, thump, thump
of it,
still alive,
still in one piece,
still beating. I think
my heart is stronger than my body
most days,
when I can’t force myself out of bed
because my pillow still smells
like your shampoo and
my heart still beats:
thump, thump, thump.
When my knees give out
because I find your
“Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning”
textbook right where I told you it would be,
my heart still beats:
thump, thump, thump.
When I stand in front of the fridge,
motionless,
staring at the notes you’ve written
in the margins of the takeout menus,
my heart still beats:
thump, thump, thump.
When I lay down on the floor and
stare at the Casio keyboard under the couch
where you left it,
my heart still beats:
thump, thump, thump.
When my fingers,
still melded to the shape
of your hand,
can’t grasp the doorknob
or my next drink
or the telephone to call you,
my heart still beats:
thump, thump, thump.
I tell everyone that
you broke my heart
but I think
the only thing you left whole
was my heart.
The rest of me is thrown around the room
in broken bits and pieces,
memories littered like body parts
across the hall
and the floor of a room I once called ‘ours,’
but my heart still beats:
thump, thump, thump.
My heart still beats
like eerie jungle drums in the dark,
like a clock and I have a hangover,
like a leaky faucet and a copper basin:
thump, tick, drip.
My heart still beats.
(You didn’t break all of me yet.)
Jul 8, 2012
Jul 8, 2012 at 11:37 PM UTC
I scoop up the last armful of clothes from my drawer,
Look at my uncle sitting at my computer
my eyes screaming,"I'm done, that's it"
he nods his head, listening to my aunt on the other end of the phone
and playing with the settings of the security camera dad bought to spy on us.
I carry them into the hallway,
kick grandmas already half open door
drop them on the bed
and sort them out;
a pair of pants,
I lift the shirts from the Mexican midnight takeout box
insert the pants,
put the shirts back down
add another pile of shirts
and fit the socks and underwear along the side.
this is the third box
and it's done.
three boxes, a clothes basket, a backpack and a computer
and I feel like a hoarder, like I have far more than I need.
as I turn around I feel him wrap his arms around my neck
and ease his tear filled eyes onto my shoulder.
"I love you, Bubba"
he says, in a voice deeper than it should be
"I can deal with him,
but living without either of my brothers scares me"
I start crying, I can't hold back the tears
all the pain and suffering of eighteen long years
finally **** near over
and I almost start grabbing clothes and stuffing them back into the drawers.
I almost say
"I can wait six years for a life"
but I look into his eyes
and see that he's telling me not to stay
that his heart will be torn up
but he can make it through
he always has.
twelve years old and the strongest person I know.
we stand there embraced for a quarter hour
crying until we have no more tears
until we have let out all the anger and fear of the last nine years.
we stumble into the dark hallway
eyes red, swollen, and damp.
Nobody asks any questions
and we continue on with our day,
my entire life piled up on the far side of grandma's bed
Apr 25, 2013
Apr 25, 2013 at 3:12 AM UTC
Walking through a tunnel,
a cage,
barbed wire linking.
Scream, scream,
ache through the air,
matching voice to wind as it tosses white pine needles
through your hair, around your face,
leaves scratching dry pavement,
mixing with chinese takeout cartons
and Dunkin Donuts straws.
Everything seems heavy
boots, head, belly,
gravity strengthens and
your legs strain.
They watch you zooming by comfortable and spiteful and angry
oblivious,
curious.
Each breath forces itself shakily from your lungs and your heart beats quick and your arms strain against the bag on your shoulders and all you want to do is
RUN run run feel things disappear behind your back feel your hair lift off your neck feel feet hit pavement and muscles flex, feel your body pushing through air and emptiness, pushing forward with a goal to get somewhere. RUN but your boots are too heavy and your eyes weigh you down as they stare at your feet as you walk, as you walk,
as you walk.
Nov 20, 2012
Nov 20, 2012 at 6:57 AM UTC
he askin' why I ran out in the rain
can't tell him he made me feel this way again
that boy's goin' to vegas at the years end
I know he likes his thai massage with a happy end
I know if I say my soul all this will end
-- Boy you've got me turning
in circles
crazy like bipolar
red hot then an icy shoulder
lost my composure
walk home rainy night
total exposure
I see the train coming
what if my shoes moved
I think my favorite-red-dress
would look best on the tracks
I see your past relationships
I'm gettin the scraps
you built an empire outa bricks
I got sticks
wolves come huffin' and puffin'
I let em' in for 120
you got the dough
my wallet empty
treasure the penny
livin off tips
just the tip
for an extra fifty
takeout thrifty
took a showa
I feel filthy
-- he askin' why I ran out in the rain
can't tell him he made me feel this way again
that boy's goin' to vegas at the years end
I know he likes his thai massage with a happy end
I know if I say my soul all this will end
-- Boy you've got me turning
in circles
crazy like bipolar
red hot then an icy shoulder
lost my composure
walk home rainy night
total exposure
guess I'm looking for a little closure
too much left to interpretation
tryin to be patien
but it's got me down in the pits
these hairy pits itch
but if you need me
call me
what's the sitch
I'll be there on the fly
'cause you my only guy
in my head I'll be asking why--what who when where
but my vocal chords would never dare
afraid one word will end it all
I just want you to give me your all.
he askin' why I ran out in the rain
can't tell him he made me feel this way again
that boy's goin' to vegas at the years end
I know he likes his thai massage with a happy end
He can get whatever whenever
nervous of all the girls passin by
he got his arm around me can't see why
scared I can't match up to the pharo
feelin' like a popper in his maro
windows covered in steam
marry me
make me a queen-
-- Boy you've got me turning
in circles
crazy like bipolar
red hot then an icy shoulder
lost my composure
walk home rainy night
total exposure
I see the train coming
what if my shoes moved
I think my favorite-red-dress
would look best on the tracks
I see the train coming
what if my shoes moved
I think my favorite-red-dress
would look best on the tracks
I see the train coming
see the train coming
see the train comin
what if my shoes moved
what if my shoes moved
my shoes moved
my favorited red dress
it looks best on the tracks
Apr 29, 2016
Apr 29, 2016 at 11:44 PM UTC