Tag: relationships

Not your love letter

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An app recommended me to write a love letter today.
You came to mind, and then you and you.
I debated for a while on who these words
were meant for and what exactly I wanted to say.

With you (and you)
my words fell short, as if I had nothing new,
nothing original to share.

And with you, you knew of my
care and thus my love, and I could easily say the words
to you as you said them to me.

I thought more about the love letter,
fully acknowledging the somewhat silliness of
obeying an algorithm in a computer.

It dawned on me that there is one person,
a person more unknown to you than me,
that I never wrote a love letter to.

I sat, back bent slightly, mulling over the words.
It felt strange at first, but soon my brain
tucked away the ungraceful thoughts.
Words like care and amazement and spunky
took the place of fearful and distant and spineless.

A cloud of sentences
floated above my head, glittering like a sky of stars.
I felt flushed and honored
to know these truths and feel this love.

A day, in thirds

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I.
I watched a father clean the outside of his child’s dormitory window.
It was a simple gesture, something to do as the child puttered around,
learning the corners of their new living space.

II.
A cashier asked if I was at least 18 years old.
I laughed, finding the inquiry and expectant truth funny,
and even though I had no reason to lie, I kind of wanted to.

III.
I stumbled when an old, problematic thought came to me.
It captured me, for a moment, trying to sink its teeth of
cyclical patterns and history into my fleshy side.

Being alone

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I wonder how others
spend their time alone.

Do they read,
enchanted by stories
of unknown lands and
beautiful people?

Do they watch films,
enticed by moving shapes
and colors?

Can one say they are alone,
then, when immersed so
thoroughly in another world?

I, well, I’ve tried these
acts of aloneness
to only find companionship.

Thousands of lives I’ve visited.
I’ve drunk with dwarves,
waltzed with princes,
escaped with bandits, and
mourned with lovers.

So, what is it that people
do when fully alone —
alone with no necessary tasks
to complete, no songs
to sing harmony with,
no smiles to return?

I guess it’s only fair
for me to share, for
I felt silly in my games
when this question arose.

I spin around in rolling chairs, kneeling
to see better out the window,
pretending I am a pirate at sea.

I walk in nature,
laughing when I stumble on tree roots,
pausing to turn my body towards the sun.

I write
words and words and words
to make sense of the
conversations in my head —
like I have here.

What do you do when alone?
Is it uncomfortable?

Do you find compassion
in the arms of fictional
characters created to
fill the space around
your soft body?

Do you ache, like I,
sometimes?

Not an autobiography pt. 3

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I am flared jeans
and oversized band shirts.

I found out much about myself,
good and bad and neutral
through listening —
listening to those imposed as teachers
and guardians, but more importantly,
the ones just as hurt as I,
musicians I didn’t know I understood
beyond the sensations they pulled
from my body with each plucked note
and word sung.

Music, perpetually filling the air
with some hymn of life and loss,
saved me as I went from sleep
to wake to sleep, cradled
in the echoing noise.

I am broken records
and burnt corners.

I started writing poetry
to make sense
of the world around me.

What I didn’t understand,
I wrote down, hoping the
pages and pages of inscriptions
would aid in my learning.
Little did I know,
writing was my music —
my saving grace.

I am no weaver
but I feel her curse.

I wish to return to the black river,
to slip from that fallen log
and be baptized by the rushing current,
forgiven.

I would take my great love there,
someday,
to the playground of my younger years,
wanting to share the trails
that my feet ache to remember —
wanting to explain the caves
and bats and other things
that come up as they lean into
the multitudes I contain.

I am bunches of rosemary
and a field of columbine.

I don’t forget easily,
holding on too tight with
a rebel’s fist and a golden heart.
It might be my greatest
character flaw or endearing quality.

This is why seventy percent of my memory
exists as song lyrics melded with reality.
A single song can place me in dozens
of flashbacks, some more welcomed
than others.

I am fossils
and forgotten sunglasses.

Too few letters combine
to tell you the story of everything.
I am held together with glue
and clamps, metal wire and pins.

I wish I could write every memory
onto the sides of a paper lantern,
to set fire to the past
but light the way forward.



A walk

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I took a walk today
to clear my mind
and take in the world.

I pondered about
my life as I listened
to a playlist of songs
meant to carry me
in the quiet moments.

I stumbled, thinking
about you as a song
from a past love
(yet not love)
came on.

It made me laugh
and question
my line of thought
about you —
and that’s when I saw her.

She and her fawn,
enjoying the shade
of deciduous trees,
stared at me,
a clunky hiker.

I paused and smiled,
happy to share a moment.
As I slowly moved
to take a picture, I spooked
her and her babe.

The motion,
the desire to make a
moment in time last longer,
cut short the time I had.

I felt near shameful
for changing the energy
of the situation.

As I moved forward,
listening to a different song
and finding myself lost in a meadow,
I forgot what it was
that made me think of you.

I did think, however,
how peaceful it would be
to take shelter in that meadow
amongst the sumacs and blackberries
with the sun beating down
and a feather in my hat.

Tattoos

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I wish to cover my body with words.

I could start with every word I’ve ever uttered.

The base of my feet would carry foundational terms —
where words like mom and dad still go together.

Around my ankles would be words like quiet and shy —
hush hush, stop crying.

My lower legs, those would bear the words I learned
from my brothers and kids in elementary school.
Crabs would be there, along with suck and freak.

My knees, those would be reserved for only the words
I’d kneel to, like poetry,
understanding, compassion.

My thighs would be the playground of high school days,
my pelvis that of long, confusing summers.

My stomach and back would barely contain the world
of words introduced to me in college.

My chest would carry the heavier words,
ones associated with memories and time
and love and other things.
My heaving and laughing bringing life back
to those moments for split seconds.

My arms, those would be reserved
for every lyric of every song that ever made sense.

My neck would be stenciled with coneflowers,
butterflies, and sunshine —
a placeholder for what comes next.

My skull, my face —
those I would leave blank to not cloud
future thoughts.

Not an autobiography (pt. 2)

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I am retracted wings
and loose emeralds.

I think about flying
when I think of him. I picture
big jet planes and carrier pigeons.
I don’t remember much from
my early years, years when
he still came home to us.
Us, the small group she formed.
Us against him.

I remember hand-painted stars
and that blue sketch, framed.
But I can’t apply dates or times
to the snippets of he and us.

I am stairwell talks
and stunted voices.

I hid, I feared sharing anything,
knowing and not knowing
that the burdens I carried for her
were not for me to hold or share.

I watched car lights through the window
and cried until my face was bright red.
I told a lie to him, a lie that held truth,
but still a lie, because I was sad and scared
and didn’t know the words.

I am shadows
and slanted light.

I feel seen and invisible with him.
I am so much like him,
perhaps more than he recognizes,
and it’s startling.

I always wanted to be like him,
but as I learn and grow,
I’m not sure if that’s true.
I want to be like me,
not rebelling because of her or
pleading because of him.

I am not a paperback writer
or an aquarium diver.

Yet, I yearn for something.
Did he settle? Will I?
Is there stability in love?

I know he tried. I know
there is more to the story than she shared,
and there is more than he gave.
I was young and he was quiet.
He did well, not ladening emotions
on me, as if a mule, and I thank him for it.

I am of collared shirts
and rental cars.

I loved those weekends,
the ones that became more
than a saturday night.

I loved staying at hotels
and eating sunday brunch at grandmum’s.
I miss the days of overnight bags
and hiking trails we knew by heart.

I am these memories
and there are so many more.

The scars on my knees
and words inscribed on my skin
tell you my story.

I’m stumbling as I retrace
these steps, not prepared
as I go to turn the corner,
unsure of what will appear.

So, I count to three, as he taught me,
and know that if anything bad was coming,
it would have gotten me already.

Always

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It almost feels wrong
to turn you into poetry —
to distill each layer
of what makes you, you
into a string of words
with vague meanings
and suggestions.

Yet, you are poetry,
like me and them and them.

We are particles
of light,
of stardust,
of dirt
in the form of human bodies.

We are an accumulation
of thoughts,
of love,
of misunderstandings
as individuals with private minds.

I could write more,
but my ability to place words
like “you” and “I” is faltering.
There is no “us” nor “we”
in the same sentence —
at least not how they linger
in the sparkle of my eyes
and taste in my mouth.

And yet

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I have:

a beautiful pair of lungs;
funny tan lines on the tops of my feet;
three happy plants on my windowsill;
a heart refusing to give up;
a bionic arm, or so I tell myself;
black nail polish on my right big toe;
a desire to be held;
ink that tells stories of who I am;
a mind that doesn’t stop whirring;
love;
bones saturated with music;
poetry books within reaching distance;
apocalyptic dreams;
two strong legs and a soft belly;
tea, always;

and yet …

It feels like something is missing;
I feel lost, as if my reflection isn’t me all the time;
I see two blue-grey round eyes,
but it’s as if I’m looking through some
trick glass;
I’m searching, searching for
happiness
in myself and with others,
but it’s hard to see sometimes;
and the laughing with tears,
perhaps, is my only outlet.

to be loved

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I talked with my papa
the other day.

I stood on a picnic table
trying to understand
the overlook I stopped at.
It showcased
the highway and trees
and a sliver of water
in the distance.

I pondered at him,
thinking about what
it would feel like to be

loved.

Loved in a way that
is not a parents love,
nor a platonic, tectonic
best friend kind of love.

He talked about
reassurance, and how
it’s hard to know someone’s
love without reminders —
words and actions
that point to the heart.

I nodded and yeah-ed,
watching the cars drive by.

It felt naive to think
I would know, that
I would feel it as if it were
a ray of sunshine on bare skin.

He said to love
is more telling.

To love —
to give parts of oneself
to others —
that is beautiful,
that is poetic,
that is more important
than being loved.

I smiled,
watching a family pull
up in front of my car.

I have loved many
in my life

and for that
I am grateful.