Seventy-four.

Let's discuss.
Say that I am unsettled. Say,
that everything I tell you
from this point on
is either a joke, a lie,
or an Absolute Truth.

Let's say
socks are falling out of the sky,
the river is filled with foxes,
and the lines on the map
are no longer lines or dots
or anything recognizable.

Say that we (I) have lost sight
of The Point. I can't even blame
the winter.

The fracturing never fails.
It's getting scared and foolish,
like crying when the tide
goes out, forgetting
that it will come back. At least

there is happiness sometimes.

I try to change the story,
over and over and over and --
well, you know.
By now, I have written prayers
over every inch of skin.
I walk home through the snow
and lose all of the hours
afterward.

Then, there is pink
blushing across the ceiling,
the color missing from my face
asking, When is the last time
you dreamed of a place like this?

We have now seen every season
together, and he still hasn't said
he loves me. As obvious as a slap,
the needle absent from the compass,
the hole in the wall above the bed --
an explanation isn't necessary.

There are worse things,
there are always worse things,
yet I'm restless in the warmth
of my own room.

Sometimes our favorite word
is the opposite of what we want.

Seventy-three.

The best part of my day
should not be the brief seconds
in which
I note the rhythm of my shoes on brick
while walking underneath white lights
on my way
to your house.

003.

Seventy-two.

The only thing I know about love is, that it's always going the wrong way.

002.

001.

(Moving these from alittlenoise.org, apologies.)

Seventy-one.

Seven-twelve. A.M.
There were two many nightmares.
Something about airports,
a taxi cab in the wrong place,
missing your flight.

You stare for a long time.
Not at anything really.
An empty spot on the yellow wall,
or the white closet door,
or the ridges of the frame.
You don't touch each other
good morning.

On the way home,
apples spill out onto the sidewalk.

You are walking into the kitchen
to remove boiling water from the stove
when it hits you and then
your face is in your hands
and you can't find the floor
and thank god
you're in here alone.

Seventy.

Not all of us
sing names.

Sixty-nine.

And I said, "You shouldn't write fiction.
I don't feel anything." It isn't always about lovers,
it isn't always speaking to someone inside the room.
So, how well do you think you know me?
I say this to wallpaper. Dusty blue damask.

He gives you a book of poems
that he has written within the last six months.
You read them late in the afternoon. They might
as well be titled, "You Are Not The One,"
or "I Remember Everyone But You Even Though
You're The Only Set Of Hands Still Here."
Well, fuck. What are you supposed to do
with that?

I work so goddamn hard to build a life away
from you. You don't want this but someday you'll be dead
and I'm going to need something to fill the space.
Besides, I sleep in your bed, give you home,
kiss your forehead when you're sad. You don't love me,
so what more do you want?

Again, to the wallpaper.

It's like listening to a song
with the most beautiful chord progression
that's ever dug its way into your eardrums, but
the only lyrics are, "Wake up!" over and over.

Sometimes I don't know where I am.

Sixty-eight.

Eventually even the name becomes painful to roll around in your mouth. Tiny slivers driving themselves into your tongue. A character in a movie shares it, those horrible syllables, and you cringe, spit up blood on the sidewalk.

At stoplights, he doesn't touch you like he used to. Red, and he would turn to kiss you, or dive his fingers into your hair. Sometimes they're the same ones, a fleeting deja vu. At the intersection of Islington and Bartlett, he doesn't even look at you.

Hair sticks to the side of your face and you begin to mouth the letter L. The light turns green, and it is too late. One-point-five minutes later and he parallel parks smoothly in front of his house, an action requiring hands and judgment, which you have always found to be attractive, as you are often lacking one or the other.

2am, bed, and you both fail to say "goodnight."

Sixty-seven. Translations.

Everyone likes the stories about joy
because that's what we all want.
You can only read so much about being
heartsick before it wears you out.
It's human to want the happy ending.
The coffee in bed, the white dress
grazing against the sand.

I haven't even gotten to kiss you
in the rain yet, or under a bridge,
or with our ankles in the ocean.
Nobody can say that I didn't give
my best effort, not even you,
but certain battles aren't meant to be
solitary, and distance is distance,
no matter what language it's in.

Sixty-six.

I was born with wide eyes and legs that ache
in the middle of the night, legs made to run wildly
through the forest. So yes, I understand
why you see me as an animal, why you're always grasping
for a net, even though your fingers had gone numb
from a long time ago. You write about me
in languages that I can't read, in a tone that's either
a blessing or a prayer. An affirmation or a question.
I'm sorry, I wake up sick more often than not.

Sixty-five. On the subject of illumination.

It is often difficult to see moments reconstructed and replayed
in another person's words. Your voice translated into text,
clean and precise, without any sort of stumbling or mispronunciation,
which means that whatever has been written is already
a half-lie, which probably creates a perfectly sensible balance,
as every line that falls out of your throat is only half-truth.
What the other half is? Well, we're not far enough along in the story
to be able to tell yet. Once upon a time, a boy met a girl
and he named her home. Are you seeing a theme here?
Can you sense the loss? She had a name for him but she never said it
out loud. He used words like delicious and drunk,
and it carried them through the winter all right, but when summer came
her hands stayed empty. It wasn't what anybody wanted,
it was barely worth keeping on the tongue. Sometimes
you see so much brightness in a person, you can't look away.
It's like looking at the sun, it isn't any sort of good for you
and just because you feel it all over your skin, doesn't mean it's yours.

Sixty-four.

So you searched and searched
and then found the thing that you decided
was warm enough and kind enough
and right-fitting enough to be called

home.

Tell me then,
why you would go.

Sixty-three.

There are questions
that I don't want to answer.
I wish for things, all the time.
Mostly for undiscovered continents,
a warm body to come home to.
I don't know what sort of finale
you're expecting. Rockets, fireworks,
one last passionate kiss in the stairway.
It was me that wanted the flash of light
and secret messages or really anything at all
that would indicate, "You are not in this
by yourself." Like I said,
I wish for things. It's not as if
I'm the first person to ever stand
in front of the bathroom mirror in a panic.
"You're welcome to sleep over
and there are eggs in the refrigerator."
It was the same answer every time.

Sixty-two. Hair.

Like most women,
when stepping away from a relationship,
I participate in necessary rituals.
I do not put together boxes of mementos
for the dustiest corner of the basement,
nor do I bitterly burn photographs
or cry for precisely 2.5 days.
Two years ago, it was the darkest color
I could find. One year ago, I began
the growth process, a curtain to hide
behind, to warm my neck.
If I change the shape,
then it means I've never been here.
If I change the color, then I hope
I won't be recognized on the street.
Sometimes, a new shampoo in order
to change the familiar mixture of scents
left on the pillows.
This time, afterward,
the locks were soft in between my fingers.
There has not been this much before.
Covering the top of the garbage can, the
forest that you would throw your hands into.
It wasn't enough, taking it away
from my collarbone, my chest.
I put more color into it, this is
superficial, I'm aware, but
I don't know how else to separate
my substance from you.

Sixty-one.

This is about happiness.
Just because the timing is right
doesn't mean he's there to save you.
You fall out of a building and land
directly on top of a mourning dove
who is diving for his breakfast.
This does not mean that he exists
in this pocket of air in this moment
for you, and besides,
six ounces of feather and hollow bone
don't stand a chance against
your plummeting mass. Do you see
what I'm saying here? It's more
than physics and coincidences,
it's the pretty girl visiting
from out of town with an internal weight
equal to his own (note: balance is always key),
it's the increasing number of nights
spent in separate rooms, it's
the day you held a string up to the map
and each inch meant twenty miles and
when you were done with all the measuring
you could wrap it around your wrist
seven times, and who the hell decided
that the number was lucky anyway?
Now, hang up the phone and admit
that you don't have the answer.
Admit that this is the wrong way
again, that you have one last hand
to show and it has nothing to do with
winning, and fall asleep with the fan on
because you desperately need
the noise.

Sixty.

Go?
I don't understand the word.
There's nowhere to follow.

Fifty-nine. The blur between fingers.

He buries his face into my hair and inhales.
If I live anywhere in his body,
I live in his lungs. There are better organs
I'm sure, but it's warm here too,
and most of the sound stays away.

Sometimes in the middle of the night,
I wake up to feel my spine against the wall.
I don't mean to make this all about bodies
but we are the sort of people whose faith is
Tangibility, and there is little room
for dreamy motions or romantic confessions.
Some mornings, I don't even stay for coffee.

How do I explain then, the nova in my stomach,
and the bird in my throat who, as time passes,
beats his wings more furiously. I have to keep
my mouth closed to prevent feathers
from bursting out. And oh, what trouble it would be
if a song escaped. What beautiful trouble
it would do to our small little worlds.

Fifty-eight. Remember,

it was before February
and you would hear other people say things,
lovely things or aching things,
and they'd all make the right sort of sense
as they tied themselves around your throat.
Truths such as, "The heart wants
what the heart wants," and
"You are the reason that I'm losing sleep."
Winter can be quite deadening
and there were reasons to be careful,
reasons not to be careful, and figuring out
where to put the line down was tricky business.
Remember, when the body was there
but you weren't allowed to touch it.
It shook you awake, wanting something again,
as selfish as it was. "I would like
to kiss you." Then you got what you wanted
and weren't sure if you deserved it.
One day you ask him to leave with you,
and he says no. You weren't sure
if you deserved that either.
So instead of leaving town, you put the sides
of your shoes together, but something
still didn't make sense. You tried other movements.
Switched sides of the bed. Hung new curtains.
By July, you were arranging the silverware
in the drawer every other day.
"I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again."

Fifty-seven.

There are emptied out frames
all over the floor, a blue cup of water,
and no scientist has been able to prove
that people get what they need.
Someone, somewhere, maybe in Germany or Sydney
or Mauritania or North Dakota
claims that they want to understand.
Shift the perspective:

Letters from other states say
You deserve to be happy
and
I am so proud.

Five hundred kilometers away
a young man discovers that he is still a human being
when he begins crying uncontrollably
into a bowl of oatmeal. Meanwhile,
you lament about fairness while brushing your teeth
over a pristine porcelain sink, because, after all,
nobody ever offers to come over when you are decidedly
falling apart into your morning cereal.

The themes progress. Evolve like animals.

We find the rooms inside ourselves
and then decide what to do with them.
Here: The doors will not be equipped with locks
and the windows will always remain open at least
one inch. Nobody will be a prisoner but sometimes,
sometimes a person will ask why you didn't try
to keep them. Explain that you always kept the tea warm
and eventually added furniture specifically for them,
hung up their favorite painting next to your
favorite painting, but never gathered up the guts
to ask the Important Questions. Sorry.
Remember that this will not be good enough
and they will likely not forgive you.
Sweep the floor immediately, but neglect
to scrub the windowsills.

Sometimes,
we don't tell the truth.

Fifty-six. On viewing things from the outside, again.

The light is different now
than it was in February.
You say this is obvious
but I shifted seamlessly
through the seasons
with mint in my mouth.

You don't let anything happen.

Make the body become
a map. Make the body
become an alter.

So I'm not your muse.
I don't dip your wings in gold
or coat your throat with honey.
I don't make you want to write
symphonies, or cause birds
to fly out of your ears.
I see the way you look at girls
who have figured out what to do
with their voices in the middle
of crowded rooms. And that's
not me. We spend so much time saying,
This is not about you.

Meanwhile, an old lover
sends me postcards
from a tropical island,
and all of the wrong people
are handing me confessions and trying
to write me into their stories.
When do I get to be
part of yours?

Fifty-five.

I am less interested
in the shore.

Fifty-four.

You don't sleep facing me
and I don't mind anymore.
I've learned the shape of your back well --
where the spine curves,
the edge of your shoulder blade,
the constellations made up of freckles
and stretches of birthmarks.
I said, "It's like trying to put my hands
into something that doesn't exist,"
and I meant it.

Outside, the first thunderstorm of the season
is forming in the clouds above our houses.
You should be here. I've rolled that sentence
around in my mouth so many times
that it's tired of me.

The woman across the hall
thinks that we're in love with each other.
She's seen you come and go,
heard our laughter bounding up the stairs,
noted the frequency of your hands
gracing particular parts of me
(neck, collarbone, hip, ear)
but she doesn't know our story.
There. Lightning illuminating the curtain.

I haven't been afraid for eight days now.
The trick is simple. Pretend
that you have cancer. Pretend
there is a blood clot in your heart
and it's gotten bored with being there
and now it's on the way to your brain.
If the world ends tomorrow,
you might as well have something to show for it.

I think you see me
as Atwood sees oranges. This way,
it makes the most sense.
It's the only explanation I have.
People don't think they're going to grow up
and compare themselves to fruit or poems.
Is it too late to cut the table
in half?

Fifty-three.

Most mornings have you
with blood underneath your nails
and bruises on the sides of your knees.
It's inconvenient, but nothing more.
All is forgotten by the time you've dressed
and are pulling warm sheets from the dryer.

Things are getting hard again.
Chores. Like saying hello,
or sitting still in a car
as you drive two hours southeast.
One of you hates the silence. The other
finds it to be something like healing.
Someday, this disagreement will mess things up.
This disagreement has already started
to mess things up. You look at photographs
and say to your sister,
He doesn't kiss me like that,
and all she can do is pat your hand twice,
like she is tapping for a pulse.

Fifty-two.

I think that I should start building things
for you. A collection of letters,
a cabin in the woods. Just because
you write it down doesn't mean it's true,
but it sure doesn't hurt to try. Sometimes
I wake up with finches in my hair,
sometimes I wake up and they are snakes instead.
It doesn't really matter, tangles are tangles, and
I don't have the right sort of dreams about you.

Fifty-one.

You didn't expect
to meet a room
that had too much space,
floors too smooth,
walls too eggshell.
Yet here it is, hello,
your voice comes back at you
from every corner.

So he doesn't love you.
People walk around
not-loving each other
every day.
There is nothing special about your situation,
which really isn't much of a situation at all,
just you with ugly secrets again
and the click of his fingers
against keys.
You are removed,
wishing for a solid mass to orbit around,
daydreaming of what such a thing
would look like.
You think it would be much like the shape of him,
only with something more
substantial
at the core.
The questions repeat themselves,
melodic and often.
Make up an excuse.
His pills hollow him out, yours
dip you in another layer of concrete.
Write him a postcard,
even if he is on the other side
of the blanket. Have it say,
Wish You Were Here
or
Thinking Of You On Our Vacation.
It doesn't matter if it makes sense
and the exclamation points
are optional.

His hands won't stop moving
and this is meant to prove
a point.
You stop staying over on weeknights
to prove yours.
Switch from coffee to orange juice in the morning.
Draw a cloud the shape of your fist.
Use more license to leave the blood out,
we can say this part is fiction,
put your clothes back on,
kiss goodnight.

Fifty. The day I needed forgiveness and how the grieving process is put into motion.

In a dream,
I was on a train to Boston
and I had forgotten my luggage.
There was a vertical rock wall that felt
safe, and then I was flying
over rooftops and trees,
scared that nothing was holding
my body.

What don't I have enough of?
I don't have enough of my hands
held behind my head,
I don't have enough
dogwood blossoms or cowboy songs,
I don't have
enough restful sleep sessions or
the pleasant sort of confessions.
I don't even own
a passport.

I am sorry
for many of the things that I am,
more sorry for the things
that I am not.
I get panicky
when my phone doesn't ring
by eleven-thirty, and I don't know
how to stare back.
I have too many rough edges,
bones jutting out,
I can't wear the color yellow
and I miss you
all of the time.

Forty-nine. The way you expect me to set you on fire, and how it all comes down to numbers again.

These acts are selfish.
The town is drenched in seawater,
I'm six years past my expiration date,
and you think that you are something
fair. I have had lovers
three time zones away, four inches shorter,
but this is an island that's never forced itself
into my hemisphere before.
You never show me
what you write about us or me
or any relevant plurals.
Approximately five and a half seconds ago,
I lied to you. This table
is an ocean, this table is the state of Texas,
this table is the largest city
that I've ever known. My knees
are not bare for you.

Forty-eight. On recoveries.

Being adored
has not reminded me how to sing.
I could write for days
about the light in my chest
that struggles to meet yours,
flickering like fireflies
or boats wrapped in fog.

An old friend
will be traveling to California soon
and I'm convinced
that it will kill him.
What do you do when home dies?
What polarity becomes lost?

I promised you bicycles
when the streets began blooming.
It's almost time.
My tongue is a net
and my throat is not happy.
This could be a mess.
This could be a victory.

All I know is
my legs are cold and someone
has been rearranging the furniture.
All of this talk
about brightness.
It makes a person
feel misplaced.

Forty-seven.

I dreamed that you slept
with another woman and cried.
I was crying too. Our tears tasted
like watermelon and
you didn't ask me to forgive you.

Forty-six.

I don't want
to be practice.

I want to be the reason
for all that waiting.

Forty-five.

I've had plenty of practice
and mouthfuls of knowing better
but let's say that every square
inch of skin represents a mile
plus every word I don't breathe
into the receiver is a lie
multiplied by every time I said
that I would never do this again --
well then, I don't really know
what that equals
but something is or isn't
on fire here and I don't have
enough blankets.

Forty-four.

I want to grow flowers and herbs
in brightly coloured ceramics.
I want anything that makes these rooms
easier to breathe in.

Forty-three.

There are few things better
than a telephone ringing in the middle of the night
to remind you that you are still alive.
It's only a matter of time
before I don't have any secrets left.
I twist around in my sheets,
calculating the time zones and noting
that I don't remember which one Colorado is in.
Two hours behind and I'm too tired to deny anything.

When he's away, this town
is like every other ocean town.
The waves that lick the shore mean little.
I work, make my appointments, meet strangers,
spell out all of the things
that happen too soon or too late.
Today is an anniversary.
I've never been good at remembering these.
I can tell you that my father died on March 12th,
that my mother had her accident on September 8th,
that he kissed me for the first time on my birthday,
but I will not recognize monthly markings
except for maybe in afterthoughts.
It has little to do with levels of affection,
after all, I've written whole poems
based on the patterns of his shirts
and I'm afraid that the way I miss him sometimes
must be tangible to every stranger that I pass
on the street.

And I can't tell if all of these bold statements
are making me sick or jealous.
Who doesn't want to crawl into stars and be happy?
Sometimes I want to jump off buildings
because I can't fix anything, can't leave the country,
can't set anything on fire.
Nobody should have to be with a person like that.

Forty-two.

The only encouraging thing
your mother ever said to you was
You can run like a deer.
Since then,
you have not stopped running
like a deer.
You wanted light to come out
of your hands.

You say things like,
I should photograph more
of my life,
but never get around to doing it.
As far as regrets:
You will not see the leaves burst
from their branches
outside your bedroom windows.
At least once, in January,
you had fireworks.

And then the bathroom tile turns white.

You were eleven years old
when you saw your first body.
Your grandmother, who died in a cotton shirt
the colour of the sky.

You peel oranges to leave the scent
on your fingers.

Time zones introduce themselves again.
Digging into your gut
and then removing something important,
something without a name.
You forgot that they could do this.
You forgot that you could sense
the space between bodies.

Forty-one.

You disappoint him. He says
this isn't true but you know him now.
You finally sleep well next to his shape
and he often wanders into your day
and night dreams. He isn't demanding
and you are always sorry.
Sorry that you can barely read in front of him,
sing in front of him, play your guitar
as clearly as you do when you're alone.
In some ways, these are metaphors.
In some ways, these are not.
Maybe the perception is wrong.

You've been writing for a long time.
You break your lines better,
say things without saying them,
but it gets jumbled up
before it reaches the receiving point.
Sometimes in your head it gets so loud
that you have to turn off
all the lights. When his hand
slides across your stomach, when he kisses
your forehead, or touches you in public.
Never when it's lips on your neck
or fingers lingering on the inside
of your thigh. That is different.
Something more animal.

--

A weekend away is not enough.
You call your life "mediocre" and state
that you are "wasting approximately fifty percent,"
although the actual number would probably be quite higher
if calculated correctly.

Make a list of cities again.
Pittsburgh
Portland
Providence
Philadelphia
Boston.
Add Seattle and New York for the unrealistic hell
of it. Keep a suitcase packed
under your bed at all times.
Don't own any pets, keep any men
or buy any expensive furniture,
for these things are hard to leave behind.

--

You used to write about more interesting things.
Mostly larger messes, ones that weren't
about you exactly, but someone
poured them over you anyway.
Headlights in trees, lakes without bottoms,
the body your mother found
in the backyard, and then
the one they never let you see.
These are better stories.
Less selfish, in a way.

Anyway, the point is, somewhere
along the way you stopped believing
that you deserved anything.
There is little left
to elaborate on.

Forty.

I.
It has been raining for two days
and I am not supposed to be here.
I turn off the telephone, forget
to come back. Count days, weeks --
I must not lash out.
Sometimes I wish I'd never left Pittsburgh.
Sometimes I wish that you didn't let me land
in your life.


II.
People keep asking me foolish questions. Remember when it was an accident? A verb that should be apologized for? I'm bad at things like sleeping, and remembering my age. But I know it was a Thursday, and I will always remember that it was a Thursday, after the Monday that I got scared and indignant, after 10pm, with a large gap between the sides of the room.


III.
The plans I made were very simple. In summer, I would grow herbs and flowers on the radiator. The kitchen would get white branches to hang curtains from, and Day of the Dead images would hang from the walls. Muertos. Estamos todos muertos. Then there would be picnics in the park and laughter spilling out of our open windows. Oh, how rare is it that the dream mirrors the day.

I am leaving soon.


IV.
You wake up with bruises on your legs
as if you were running someplace in the night.
You are always running someplace.
You think that he is beautiful
and you are sorry.
Sorry for being a monster,
sorry for not using better adjectives,
sorry for keeping so many disgusting secrets.
It isn't that the truth is dangerous,
but there's something about the weight of it
and how you've managed to mold your shoulders
to carry it correctly.


V.
The sunlight drapes itself over the table and you are trying to form a sentence, any sentence, as long as it comes out of your mouth and makes two-thirds to one-whole sense, you can prove that you are still a human being. Spill a glass of water. Smash your fist into a window. The mess you leave behind means that this was home once.

Thirty-nine. (Version 2.)

I am putting dots on maps again.
I wish we were made out of the same material.
Cotton or stars, saltwater or redwood.
It would just be nice to know
that we came from the same place.

There is a crow in the street.
There are many cars coming.

In the bathroom, the mirror says
Look at you. Look at you.
Despite all the sleep,
I look like I've been punched in both eyes.

Thirty-eight.

Passion means that I don't know how to do anything half-way.
Of course I miss things. But things don't have to mean people.
Sitting on the edge of the tub drawing while he takes a bath.
Tracing constellations on thighs, shoulders -
every area of exposed skin open territory for exploration.
Laughing, constantly, across bridges and sheets
and snowbanks and kitchens at two in the morning.
At night, we never left any space, and I was happy sometimes.
Only sometimes, because I didn't get to say what I wanted.

This, all of this, doesn't mean that I'm in the wrong place.

There was always a light in my mouth
that I couldn't do anything about.

Sometimes it's as simple as walking into a new house
and choosing the room that lets the most sun in.
You are that room.

Thirty-seven.

You've been with him long enough
to know how he prefers
his morning coffee, bicycles,
afternoon weather, and women.

You go into the bathroom
and cut off your hair
because something here
needs to be removed.

Thirty-six.

I.
Then the birds I was painting stopped being birds. They turn into an argument of yellow blurs, the one that has become you exploding in blue light saying over and over, I understand, and the one that's me, flying lower and shouting But there are no words for this!

There are no words.


II.
I didn't want to come back here.


III.
Forget the next part. The rest of it has nothing to do with fucking but sometimes I want to say it because one day it was winter and someone tried to mess up my life. Which I would call unfair if fairness had anything to do with it, but it doesn't, because humans will be humans, which means humans will often be vile and callous and drag mud all over floors that don't belong to them. And then, life will move on. Life always moves on.


IV.
I do not always feel
the need to be a competitive woman.
But let's just say
that you were not the first
to know that his sheets
were the colour
of sangria.


V.
This is really nothing more than a poorly put together poem or prose or pouring pointing out that no matter how many times you say it, we're still on the opposite sides of the fence. Grass versus dirt, white versus eggshell. To put it in more simple terms, I spend more nights alone than not.


VI.
How many times
can you say,
No?

Thirty-five.

I'm knee-deep in adorations
and my hair has been turning white
for a year now. I haven't yet learned
how to sleep well next to him.
I wake up often, too hot and then too cold,
from dreams that make no sense or
perfect sense or backwards sense
or beautiful sense. Sometimes
he calls me darling and I let it echo
a bit before I say something back
that disrupts the syllables swimming
through the air. I worry,
like mixing honey and sea salt;
a wooden floor that kisses your soles
and warns that it could drop away
at any given moment.

Thirty-four.

March 8th, 2009. 11-something pm.

What if I was lost at sea?

---

March 9th, 2009. 3:26 pm.

You were both snow and stars.

Thirty-three.

I do not believe in rivers that swell
with affection or tides that are governed
by faith. Sometimes a line is just a line,
with no intersecting point
or mathematical equation
driving it ahead. But maybe
I want your fingerprints all over me.

Thirty-two.

Sometimes I need other people to be my eyes.

Thirty-one.

There is nothing complicated about this.
The list tucked under my pillow.
How I used to enjoy a television show or two,
a favourite restaurant, singing out loud
to a great playlist. And how
I used to be able to remind myself
to partake in such simplicities
as sleeping, or eating breakfast.
I didn't mean to take these things
for granted.

When I say Destruct! it really means
nobody is allowed to touch me.
I understand that it is today,
but how did I get here?

But don't try to tell me
that I don't know love.
I know it well enough to understand
and respect that no human being
has found a way to articulate it.
I know that it comes without conditions
or reigns and that sometimes it means
laughter, or feeling full,
or, calculating the height of a bridge
because you don't want to mess up
anybody's life.

This has nothing to do with romance.
The only thing romantic I can say today is:
At this point in my small existence,
I cannot remember
what anyone else tastes like.

Do I think that I'm an interesting person?
Or even a good person?
No.
But I'm glad you stick around.

Thirty. In which you make a decision & your hand is covered with small cuts.

The day is quiet.
Something in my gut whispers happy
even though
my hands are shaking
and I don't own any furniture
and I don't know
where I'm going to be tomorrow.

Twenty-nine.

I know exactly how much
you're worth grieving for.

Twenty-eight. Gingham.

He knows the moment
just before you step out of your body entirely.
He takes your hand and you are grounded again.
He manages this when there is less
than a second left, and you trace
the tendons leading up to his fingers
once, to indicate that you are still there.


A song. The salt in the air, the salt on skin.

These synchronicities have little to do with you.
You, too, are merely practice.


The first time you sleep together
you dream of plums, fish,
and a birthday party in which
everyone other than him was invited.
And you wonder why he hasn't made an appearance
in your dreamscapes since the first night you met.


Whatever. There is no time for this.
Feed the cats, make sure the birds aren't dead,
make a list. Go to the grocery store
and don't buy any oranges.

Standing by the ocean used to make you feel
like you belonged to something.


I am ready for the wolves now.

Twenty-seven.

And then I woke up covered in blood.

Twenty-six.

There are still these days.
You write things in your head while showering
and lose approximately one-third of your lines
before you wrap a towel around your body.
The cat presses her face into your neck
and you wish it was somebody else. These things
are simple enough, but the truth is
you don't know how to align anyone, but
when you're with him the circles come together.

Twenty-five.

I wish you could see what I do.
I wish I could see what you do.

Twenty-four.

An inexplicable desire to be a part of beautiful scenes.

Twenty-three.

Last night I dreamed that you spoke to me about finches,
and I was surrounded by pretty blonde girls
who all wanted me to explain you. I woke up
to find you screaming at yourself for not knowing,
but what am I supposed to do? Forgiveness?
Forgiveness isn't a switch on the wall or a drink
to be poured down a throat. In my dream,
there was a tornado and I tried to leap into the ocean.
I am not coming back.

Twenty-two.

I am not a foolish woman. I know when to walk away.

Twenty-one.

There are many things that you would like
to tell him. This, is not unusual. You do this.
You are only attracted to impossible people.
At least, you tell yourself, it is always
for the right reasons. It has nothing to do with
physical beauty or flowers brought to your steps.
This time you are concerned. Pushing against it
as if it were a rock, a door, or a lie.
He wasn't something to be afraid of at first.

So you make up excuses.
Something about friendship, and how you
"don't date people with blue eyes,"
even though you're in love with the ocean.
And how you need the water and he needs the sand.
Occasionally, you take a photograph
with your mind and note that you don't physically match.
Someone like him would not be with
someone like you, skin covered in pictures,
nervous mannerisms, etcetera, etcetera.
Maybe this is all imaginary, but you'll take
whatever boundaries you can get.

You wonder when this will become hard.
When you'll do something stupid like kiss him
or run. You're looking everywhere for a distraction.
More work, more nights away from home.
It doesn't hurt badly yet.
There are bigger things. But what if, what if,
what if. You take pride in being able to remove
yourself when there's an empty space,
in burying yourself in haystacks.
Everybody is waiting for something,
and you worry who will find you first.

Twenty.

Considering distorted perceptions:

What you don't see yet, are the things I am not
insecure about. The colour of my eyes, especially
in sunlight. The strength of my voice when I read out loud.
What my hands can do with a pencil, and a surface
to put lines on. The way I retain knowledge and facts
about anything that I'm interested in, including
species of birds, philosophical theories, metaphysics,
nice sounding words, algebra, and you.
How I rarely use recipes when I cook.
My ability to make anything sound pretty, written out.
The way I can wear nearly any article of clothing well.
The way my body looks naked, or in underwear,
particularly when stretched across a bed with flushed cheeks.
How I play guitar and sing when I'm alone.
How I really and genuinely appreciate each joyful moment.
My grace on a bicycle, my airport navigational skills,
how I am not afraid to tell someone when I like them,
or ask a stranger out, or kiss a man first.
How I stay calm in emergencies, mean "unconditional"
when I say it, and am fiercely loyal to those who deserve it.

I am not a weak person. I may not speak as well as you,
or articulate myself correctly, or be a ball of sunshine
rolling across town and illuminating every body.
But I'd like to think that sometimes, maybe,
I'm the kind of person that's worth knowing.

Nineteen.

I didn't mean for any of this to happen.

Eighteen.

Someday I'll tell you about
when I saw you for the first time.
In a bar laughing,
I was waiting for somebody else.
I knew your face, the shape of your voice,
but I hadn't recognized you yet.
And when I did, the room began to glow
and I thought it was a mistake.

Seventeen.

(I never start at the beginning. I leap into the middle of stories, and now this is something I can not read to you so it will not be finished properly. I don't know where I would have started, but it would have stung you at the second stanza when I began:)

Can you imagine how uncomfortable it must be then,
to be labeled as "The Other Woman"
without having so much as lifted my skirt?
Without even having allowed a single stitch
to thread through the months of quiet space
between my street and his?
No, I am not the girl you're looking for.

You have your own battles, but you will not understand
how the scent of oranges, or the fold of a bird
wrecks me.

Meanwhile, September had me in a Pennsylvania hotel room
sharing a bed with someone who kissed the back of my neck
and whispered "I love you" into my spine.
I came home two days later and hated myself.
Then there was winter and everyone was unattainable
and afraid of something. And it's so tiring, isn't it?
Being afraid of everything and everything being afraid of you.
And I'm sitting here worrying about line breaks
and how I'm supposed to be honest in a room full of strangers.

I don't know how to tell you,
that this isn't what I expected.
That this isn't how I wanted to meet you
for the first time.

Sixteen.

I'm tired of everyone
being afraid of me.
There are far worse things
than ending up in bed
with somebody that means something
to you.

Interlude.

I have not touched this blog since November. This means I haven't wanted to write about him, that I've wanted other things, that too much started happening and thankfully, nothing is the same. I've written, mostly small paragraphs and short lines, and maybe it's time that I start giving them a home here. This is a new chapter. Hello, again.