It is a hard thing to love deeply and without regret.
How do you tell a man you want more for him
Than the broken door frame and the stained floors he built his life around?
Is it alright to be frustrated when he passively waves away change?
I want to stay and see the sun rise, but where I stand, the ocean rises too.
How does innocence trickle out of a woman like steam flying from a kettle?
I’ve been told so many times that I’ll never be whole again.
Precious is that elusive innocence, but it is not an unburdened thing in itself.
Must I count each new experience as a loss?
Were that so, I might have deteriorated by only May, 1998.
No, there is no perfect thing about innocence because it is what you are told it is; hardly ever is it what you feel.
Am I to believe there is not a moon in the sky once the sun rises?
That once the water has touched my feet, all is lost in the world other than the sad stakes of getting the dryness back?
Innocence would be a lonely life if there were any that lived it, but even a child knows a bright sky in Spring makes Fall no less magnificent.
I am not a broken heart mourning.
There is no systematic movement or mundane dredging of emotion
in my pen strokes.
Magnanimity is in front of me;
it is
lapping at my feet.
Fearsome, but I can look past that.
The ocean breathes out to me. It is not forgiving,
approaching my limbs without hesitation,
with all the fervor of Dionysus-
an invitation to its white capped expulsions.
It must know I will come, that I cannot stay
lyrically weeping my cracked courage,
waxing indignant like a child.
Now it goes from me, drawing back into itself.
-I am feeling warmth but seeing the sea:
a roar of misery to mislead me.
I walk willingly into its chilling embrace.
It is just breath, but it enjoins me to bleed.
I am afraid
The ocean breathes out to me
and its clamors roll to murky jade.
It was rough and maybe if I didn’t touch you with so much pressure,
if I was a little less intent on crawling inside your head… I
liked how easy it was to squish my toes into your brain
and tread on familiar territory.
Maybe if I didn’t touch with so much pressure you would still be sitting
with me on the steps and I would still be
laughing, smiling, feeling out all of these rough things with you.
Damn.
My fingers really loved the texture and you took it from me.
Dear God! It’s almost dawn and I miss you.
I feel your hand on my shoulder. I know these parts of you and
without them, I just lean into the space where you
should be and my body sinks. I think it is no mistake that my brain…
it takes you for something necessary.
My mode of operation, my entire state just dissolves in purposelessness
and I sit and wonder about how I came to be with you, how I
was ever without you at all.
You are my tattered notebook in the desk drawer, pulled out and drawn close to my chest for comfort- just my favorite t-shirt fresh out of the dryer.
This is the same peace that comes from breathing in
the scent of your skin after waking and I
want to know it every day and I am sad, depressed, intimidated at the thought
(every thought) of this time between us.
loose like bunches of grass
in my hands, thin like the spread
of the universe peeking
down at me. sparse
is the best word.
that is the kind
of ash
that i
am made of.
it’s dust more than
it is skin and a breath
can make me disintegrate.
isn’t it funny how you lit the fire
and only i remain?
consider it error, flaw, fault,
or mistake, but i don’t
think you ever thought
i was dazzling in the first place.
paper, my preferred substance,
has never seemed to
tack you down,
and you don’t miss
me now, but you will…
because one day you’ll light
a fire that burns this ash
so dark and soft into your soul
that even your tinder breaths
cannot escape me dusting over you…
because one day, i will grow
brave enough to not be slight
and i will touch you with my
fingers dissipating and
kiss you with the kind of
emotion i’ve been dying
to let you know i feel for you.
i don’t think you care about
what you lost,
but you should have known it then.
your love, unpressed and swift,
is the kind
that uncoils
my soul.
i wait for you every day
in places that i know
you won’t
come to.
i give myself so many
chances
at something that
isn’t mine.
i listen everywhere
that i go
for your voice
telling me to turn around,
but it never does.
your eyes tell unsaid
things and i wish for
you to say them.
there your feet go,
walking away from
me.
i watch your
worn shoes disappear into
the crowd and i go back
to waiting in those places,
thinking that with a little belief,
you will show.
does he know that
i see it all?
i love to watch words
dance in his eyes:
regret waltzes with misery
and guilt does the two step
with confusion
i am the rhythm maker and i
still know how to play out the
beat of my heart drumming beside
the beat of his
does he know i stay
close enough
to see it all-
and yet so far away
i haven’t heard
his words
in so long
but i see them every day
you forget me so quickly;
i was the decent girl
with the arrested expression
and unaware eyes
you should have been with
a smaller girl.
i was not deserving of any
amount of attention from you.
did you look past
my legs?
i have thighs better suited
to be trunks of sequoia
trees.
did you look past
my stomach?
it can’t be made into anything
except for a pillow-like patch.
did you look beyond
my face?
my freckles and untouched skin
warn of recklessness
inside me.
you forget me faster than
the next breath is breathed.
i want to make you think
that i forget you quickly too,
but the ache in my gaze
will betray me.
i am the persuaded woman
see me shake my head yes
to
every
crawling
question? people come
from all over
to see me say
yes.
