Untitled

It's almost funny,

how you think it will never end,

and suddenly it's four years later. 

It's almost funny,

how much it still hurts,

even after all this time. 

Entitled

He fears the changes he's seen in me,
and maybe the ones he hasn't yet.
I fear his anger over my decisions,
the ones he doesn't agree with.

People fear what they don't understand,
and we both fear what the other could do to us.

I finally understand what he meant
all those years ago,

and I'm afraid it might cost

more than I'm willing to pay. 

Satin

It was a week before the holiday.
When I left, I lit a candle.

We drank wine and whiskey.
I could see his heartbeat,
feel her voice,
taste our liquor.
We said that we are
a beautiful existence.

A woman waits on the wall
reaching out for something,
the lines of her fingers stark
against the black fog that surrounds her.

We tasted like wine and whiskey.
Beneath soft blankets
we shared a pillow,
pressed close enough that
three days later his cologne
still lingered on my shirt.

I held my heart in my collarbone,
my body thudding with every beat.
All I heard was silence,
the fire gone out of my fingers
although his still burned.

We put a lot of power in firsts.
This one didn’t have to mean anything,
but that doesn’t mean it meant nothing.
The way his shirt stretched
across his shoulders,
over my skin,
his hands in my hair.

When I leave, the woman on the wall
beckons me to stay.
I go.
Maybe I’ll find what she’s looking for.

When I returned home,
the candle still flickered.

I wanted to tell him I'm not sorry,
but those words could ignite.
So I walked out,
listened to him lock the door behind me.

My flame burned out with the candle—
whether or not I did the smothering,
it was always going to suffocate.
I should have known better
than to let it burn so long.

Maybe the woman on the wall
was never looking for anything.
Maybe she isn’t reaching,
but letting go.

The Scent Of Fallen Leaves

A fractured piece of light
I still see the way the leaves ripple in the slight breeze
In the patterns of light behind my eyelids

I reveled in that weather
The potent wind blowing leaves across pavement
Rain that scuttles instead of falling

Hugs in bathroom stalls
Every day the same boy gets on the bus
just one stop before I get off

November came and went
But I don't see him on the bus anymore
And the leaves are gone now

Just For You

I wanted to write about sexual masochism, but I can't write what I don't know.

What I do know is how it feels when every day is the same.

When you make it to campus and the one person you want to avoid

is the one who won't let you leave him alone. You should respond when spoken to,

but you really don't want to.

When you just remembered that on top of the homework you've written down,

you have groceries to buy, money to make, emails to respond to, the list goes on—

a hydra of tasks that multiply endlessly when you cross one off

but you can't leave your list untouched; sanity is already on the line

and you can only try to salvage it by acting like you're doing something.

It doesn't matter how much you have to do as long as you have to do something.

When you want to skip class but that would require admitting the unspeakable.

The routine goes on and takes you with it and you pretend it's okay

but it's not, damn it, it's not.

When your scrawled future plans choke you and you feel the weight of

decisions you haven't made and this is the hell of a reality you don't want.

You don't want to add to his worries but you tell him anyway,

and when you leave you feel sorry for doing it and you worry.

You don't know if he knows that you love him not in spite of his past

but because of who he is and you want to help but you don't know how.

When you drag yourself to class anyway because if you don't go

you'll worry you missed something important. Your insecurities hit you

right when everything else crumbles and you've got to hold it together, damn it.

There is no other choice.

When you have more to write but this math will never make sense

unless you pay attention, because the last math class you took was in high school

and that was a long time ago and you need a break.

So you just keep writing because you love your life but not today

and you are going to lose it. Damn it, you're losing it.

When you've got to keep your shit together because you have to peak publicly

in seventy-six minutes and it will suck but you have to do it.

You wouldn't have missed anything if you hadn't gone to class,

except you missed what was said and you miss the days last week

when you thought you had it together and you've got to keep it together but

today isn't even halfway over—in six more weeks you'll get three off

but that's an eternity away. You hope it's glorious, but who knows.

When you want to take a mental health day but you can't, damn it, you can't.

You can only blame your watery eyes on the change in the weather,

and write what you know.

Typewriters and Rotary Phones

At thirteen, death was something to be embraced.
We sat on grassy hillsides under blue skies and a warm sun,
telling stories of spaceships and tigers and all the
hilarious, heroic, glorious ways we would die.

We wrote each other stories about royalty,
locked in an epic struggle to take back a kingdom that had been overthrown.
The short kid who sat behind us always asked if they'd succeeded.
Then the year ended, even though our story didn’t.

We heard stories about what life was like before the present,
before we knew each other. We talked about how lucky we were,
but then laughed and said luck had nothing to do with it,
that this was our destiny. That we were meant to be.

We lived stories of adventure, romance, and bravery
from the safety of somewhere that used to be home
before we had to exist outside of it.
It's harder to be brave alone.

That was seven years ago—I had forgotten until now.
A man spoke to me while he paid for his groceries,
but I wasn't listening to his story until I was reminded of mine.
"I want to bring back typewriters," he said. "Typewriters and rotary phones."

Leaving

When you left,
I didn't cry.
"Two years, no tears,"
someone said,
and so the tears I shed
were not for you.

I wrote to you often,
but I thought of you more.
When you returned,
I was scared.
That while I continued
to care,
you moved on.
Those fears remain
unrealized, but still.

I finally cried for you.

I cried when I was the one
who had to leave. 

False Sympathy

Assholes are easy to deal with,
but the nice customers?
Those are the worst kind.

I said, I can't sell to you if you're buying for someone else.
She told me to give her the damn cigarettes.
I said to myself, I don't like my job,
but it's still worth more than her satisfaction.
She left. I was fine.

The next customer was sorry that happened to me;
so was the next one,
and the next one, and suddenly
I was not fine. I ducked down to wipe my eyes,
because their well-intentioned sympathy
upset me more than the offender herself.

I don't care until they do.
Not until the hesitant remarks on
how sorry they are,
and I come perilously close to caring
what other people think of me,
even if they're strangers.

I said, I can't accept this ID. Do you have another?
He didn't. His prison ID had expired.
I wasn't afraid until the next customer in line
started talking.

The time I called my mom on break,
I cried the entire 15 minutes.
Then it was back to work.
One man said, You've been crying.
I had been, but I didn't want to talk about it
because I didn't want the tears to start again.
I wanted to be left alone.

I wanted to say this:
Their entitlement is not
your
fault.
Just talk to your kid,
text your spouse,
chat with your friend,
and let me move on.

Ignore me, and I'll be fine. 

Summer Haze

Nothing compares to stepping outside in late afternoon and
seeing, hearing, smelling summer.
As a kid it meant freedom, three months to be
worryfree, carefree, schoolfree,
but now it symbolizes time I don't have because I have to make money,
which I also don't have.

I stepped out to get some fresh air --
I would have worn better shoes if I'd known my walk would be so long,
but I didn't know anything except
that I needed to leave my apartment right now
to avoid suffocation.

A couple on a stroll in the park, holding hands.
A couple reading together out loud, in a hammock.
A couple having a picnic under the pavilion. 

So many couples, but I'm all alone,
and I'm still suffocating.
I hope once summer ends I'll snap out of this.
It won't feel strange to say hi to the people I know
and I'll enjoy the time I spend with others.

For now, though, I'm stuck here
in the hazy
summer
air.

Never A Bachelor

Take me out of context
and I make no sense.

A conglomeration
amalgamation,
combination
of thoughts,
actions,
emotions,
experiences,
hopes,
dreams,
and other cliche things. 

I wanted him
because he was forbidden.

But eternally single or eternally not,
the fact remains that I am
never a bachelor.

Severely Homesick

The new break room is a lot fancier than my old one.
It's much bigger and there are even couches --
the reclining chair in the corner is the most comfortable.
But I don't care that there are three fridges and a toaster;
I miss the one with with just one fridge and no toaster.
I'd even prefer the hard chairs and bare tables
to the slightly less hard chairs and table decorations
if I just knew the people I worked with, if they were my friends.

Maybe there was a toaster and I just never noticed before
because I never needed to use it.
I used to go home home for my meal breaks.
Now I sit alone and read.

My energy is spent fighting months of muscle memory
that I didn't think would need fixing,
erasing all that is familiar and friendly in less than a night,
replacing it with more people, more insecurity,
more silence.

The weariness in my feet and the pain in my dry cracked hands
are reminiscent of retail, echoing with hollow hopes of a
more promising future and less painful past, as

past becomes present becomes endless becomes

there is no such thing as future,
just a perpetual now here at our disposal, and right now
my present is significantly less than I want it to be.

A nose-ringed woman and long-haired man told me
my name is lovely, and I thought of
how it rhymes with a country in the southern hemisphere,
one that's warm and sunny and nothing like me.

My sentiments taste bitter and hot, choking me.
Not unlike my afternoon meal, they burn my tongue --
but I swallow anyway, and I can no longer taste the good.

Routine breeds malcontent, and I am suddenly more
restless, peaceless, and hopeless than ever before
because I can't name what I'm feeling or the reason for it
and I don't know how to fix it. I don't even know what I want.

I just know that I'm afraid. I'm afraid I'll never be happy.

I try to purge myself of my negative emotions
but even when I'm filled with love I still feel a twinge of pain
because I can't express the full extent of what I feel,
and because eventually one of us will lose the other.

That's why apathy seemed like the easier route.

Apathy breeds contentment with the routine,
and it helps to shrug off discouragement and doubt,
or at least to not care. People don't affect you, and
it doesn't allow for worry about the direction of your life.

I asked Siri what the purpose of life was -- I thought he might know --
but he said he's never thought about it, which makes one of us.
Maybe it's not to break the routine, but to learn to enjoy it
(as if I know anything about that).

Damn apathy for leaving me helpless.

For letting me hurt on the hardest days
until I finally look down and remember that I matter.

Shelf Life

This afternoon I went to the library,
and lost myself in problems not my own.
Then I returned to reality and walked
back to the bus stop.

For just a moment
this small town felt like a city. I think
it was the smell that did it for me.

And then I passed the pizza place,
the one where I finally acknowledged
the lack of a future between us. It was only
weeks ago, but it feels like eternities
have passed since then.

My sandals continued to thud on cement
as I averted my gaze and walked by,
but I didn't hear a thing.

It's something of a relief now,
that I can no longer
watch the parking lot
since I know that car won't be there.

I wish I didn't feel bitter at the word
beautiful. I'll have to put that
dusty worry on a shelf
for now.

Rainy Days

All the earthworms are dying,

Stretched out on the ground

Waiting for jaded feet to kill them.

Maybe one day I'll understand

The painful truth of reality

And have my life crushed from me.

But others won't notice me there

Struggling to accept that I 

Will live to see another rainy day.

Pieces

When I was a kid I tried to fool Satan.
I thought that when I was in the light
God protected me
and the devil ceased to exist.

Now I try to fool my parents,
but they insist they know the truth.
They want to think they do.

1238 days ago, I went to a party
and I wrapped a present for the hostess
because she was too busy to do it herself.

I never saw her alive again.

Ever since then,
my life has become a broken puzzle,
pieced together with relative pasts
and uncertain futures.

I’m so tired of doing hard things 

by myself.

I'm not fooling anyone.
Not even myself.

(Un)Consciousness

Sometimes I stand up too quickly,
causing
a rush of blood to the head.

For a small moment I am
barely conscious and I think
I come the closest I've ever been
to enlightened.

Other times have been different.

I stare straight ahead,
attempting to focus,
but still my vision blurs.

I think that the strength of my will
will be enough,
but it isn't. I can no longer

form


coherent 



thought,






and I wake up on the ground.

Wearing Distraction

Walking home in silence
you learn all sorts of things.

You're used to the headphones providing a distraction
from the noise of outside. With the headphones in,
you can't hear the drill they use
to put a hole in the wall, and
you don't recognize that it makes the same sound
as the one the dentist uses on your teeth.

You don't notice the green turning to gold
in the sunlight
because the reflections of your screens
are much more worthwhile.

Maybe this is why the excitement of
new adventures
wears off so quickly. It's masked
by the distractions of everything else.

The way makeup covers your beautiful imperfections
and perfume overwhelms your senses.
I would rather be overwhelmed by other things.

Sunsets, blue skies, cloudy days,
but all ignored in favor of distraction.

I wouldn't trade them for the world, though,
because who wants the world anyway?
Too much poverty
and politics
and unemployment
for me to deal with.

I'll stick with what I have right now,
and try to remember why
I shouldn't wear distraction.

An Interaction

Hello,
what's your name?
It's so nice to meet you,
even though I know this one conversation
will tell you nothing important about me.

I stepped way outside my comfort zone
to come to this function,
even though I have plenty of other things
that I could be doing.
Like avoiding social anxiety.

What do I have to lose by being here?
My sister says that if people don't
want to be around me,
then they aren't worth my time anyway.
Do you think you're worth my time?
Because I want to believe she's right.

But now I'm just rambling.

Can you tell that I'm out of the loop?
I generally don't talk to people;
instead I stand by the wall or my roommates
and don't bring myself to talk.
I'm trying to change that, but
it's hard work, you know.
Or do you? You seem to know what you're doing,
but maybe that's just my perception.
Do you know the meaning
of traded sweatpants,
juggled oranges,
mild conversations
and fake fights?
I imagine they mean friendship,
but I'm not really sure.

Let's never meet again,
and I'll be okay with that.
Sorry.

Memory

Both a natural occurrence
and a human construction,

we see it as fluid
when in reality it is constant;

events that have always been in the future
suddenly become part of the past
without allowing us to adjust
to a new and somewhat unexpected reality

in which time continues to exist
outside the confines of our own minds.

The Tragedy of Going to Bed Early on Friday Night

She's too uncertain to ask others to go out with her
and when the brave ones are gone for the weekend,
her fears magnify themselves.
                                          Society scares her,
and she scares herself. Alone on a Friday night,
her thoughts are all she has to usher in a weekend
which promises nothing but dirty dishes
and an empty doorway.
                                   She has nowhere else to be,
but she's used to it now.
                                   Hearts break every day.

A Lottery

He will never be what he says
he wants to be, and although
he doesn't admit it, there is
a reason he's always unhappy.
There are many things he'll never be.

And he drives, endlessly waiting
for a winning lottery ticket
or to be the tenth caller on the radio.
That is the life he has chosen.

Oregon took what he never had,
but even then he did nothing about it.
Now Washington is the closest
he will ever be to her again,
but her heart will be even farther away.

She stopped paying attention
when he stopped listening.
The only difference between them
is that she no longer cares.

Fears

I have never been
as afraid of death
as I am today.

Never again to hug him, or
let him see in my eyes
how much I love him.

The ring that I wear
on the third finger
of my left hand
would cease
to have any
meaning.

I hope there is still
hope left for me.

Six Word Memoirs

Six words will never be enough.

I used to believe in mermaids
and dream of being an actress.

I can't handle math and science;
they don't make sense like words.
So I'll never be an engineer.

Sometimes snow melts on my face,
and I almost think I'm crying,
but it's only in my head.

Nothing is too much for me,
or so I thought until now.

I can't help but feel alone.

Residue

I finally washed off the residue of today.

Cleansing my pores,
I tried to remember tomorrow,
prepare myself for a new semester,
create a plan for some distant future.
I tried, but it didn't remove my
residual emotions.

Happiness. That after months of separation,
a reunion came.
Fear that I wouldn't make it home, and
that she wouldn't remember my face.
Love. For the people who have never ceased
to love me too.
Pain, because every hello is eventually a goodbye. And
Sadness. Because that goodbye eventually came.

And because when I wake up tomorrow,
today will be the past
and I will have to leave it there.