Category: Poetry

you knew who i was eating dinner with
and probably took it the wrong way
but i swear when i eat dinner with you
or dinner without you
its different
and i couldn’t even voice a general disdain for you
when i needed to force one

he wanted to know what i wanted
and where i’d live
i said i could find myself feasibly living with you
which he took to mean a constant state of drama
but you’re a constant state of contentment
, and justified

i could not live with you for that would be living
and living is over there on a shelf

maybe i didn’t get emily’s words right
but i know i nailed the emotion
why do i expect her to save me?
when she couldn’t save herself?

i sit anxiously at a table, or in a car
awaiting a date to begin
but it wasn’t a date, because we never were daters
were we?
and suddenly i see it on the table like your hand there
longing to be held
funny, i couldn’t take my eyes off of your face long enough to notice it
i read it and i get it, i get all of it
and i appreciate your imagery
did i ever explain to you that the reason i like poetry is because i fell in love with you?
(the only way to express you is poetry)
i wish i could write you back a letter but i stumble after the salutation
and i don’t know what to write
your birth-given name signed at the bottom of a letter stopped me
dead in my hunting-tracks
because i realized what it said,
and who you were
and that i knew you.

and that’s when i was scared again.

i could kill every goddamn child in my stomach
it would only leave a void in my uterus
a small hole filled with death and rotting fetus parts
instead of life and growing children
but there would be no void in my heart
like there was when i killed you.

i apologized in the beginning
don’t you remember how you cried after i kissed you for the first time?
then, don’t you understand how i feel?

i apologized in the beginning

i am the hunter
you are the deer

i’m so fucking sorry.

i lay supine near you and i lie
when i glance, nervous looks at the sky,
the water ripples near my feet
and those cigarettes i’ll swear i didn’t smoke
let the smoke fly, let the ashes fall
and i’m coughing but not because of the pollution
or maybe it is pollution:
myunknownsondaughter, maybe you are pollution

i wish the earth would envelop me
;this baby in my belly
just suck us both into the tube of earth
put us back on the reincarnatory cycle
until this situation is reversed
i’ll soon be dying in your stomach
little man-woman-child,
you’ll be lying on the ground

maybe earthworms will seep out of the ground
tie me down here,
mother-child drawn and quartered
cigarette in hand
all the world to see, all the world to see

don’t earthworms only come out for rain?
rain that makes the earth, the ground, fertile
and what rained here
that will soon dry up
i’m sorry, baby-remained-angel, but
if you were here you’d understand
i just didn’t see it coming.

slam-wham-bam, you’re gone
but i am, too.

walking the streets of bangkok,
and tokyo, finding a soft bed&warm food
on the steps of rome,
dance around america.

she just stopped there
her sorrow changed to shame
for she had lit these streets:
for she had dreamt these dreams:
hear my heart? its breaking,
right here. right now.

she fled the scene with a whisper
saying, disgustedly,
next time, i’ll bring my friends.
they’ve gotta see this.

our eyes cross in a crowded room. your lips open to bring closure to a conversation and i notice you quickly exiting others just to get to me. dreams about you scare me awake. later, i’ll tell you: i knew it was a dream because you made time for me. later, i’ll tell you: you’re too quick and i can’t keep up so this won’t work out. but then i remember the last time i dreamt of you. far away on a bench just out of reach and crying with your mom who doesn’t know who you won’t tell who held you while you watched me with tears in your eyes and i couldn’t reach you and i couldn’t stop your tears i guess i never really could stop anyone’s tears. later, i’ll tell you: even if i could catch you i couldn’t stop you. maybe someday you’ll understand my love and let me go. until then i’m a bird who thinks its free before it hits the ceiling on the aviary. maybe i’ll get lucky and hit my head hard enough. later, i’ll tell you: you know this is all your fault.

dear heavenly father,
why do i begin
every prayer with that prhase
and end with amen?

if you were a friend
i’d greet you with a hey, whats up
end with a sly wave
and plans for tomorrow
or next week or never
and you get neither

if you were authority
excuse me sir & thank you
you get neither

you are a fantasy
i created
to help me deal with the world

you may love everyone
but you belong to me alone

my heart is
aching,
dripping poetry
in the morning
but its not really morning here
and its never really morning
anywhere, anymore

i’m not the little girl
i think i am
as i glamorize nebraska
quickly correcting myself
glamoUrize nebraska
like its some colourful country
when it may just be
a much needed change

sometimes i just drive
with no direction
or intentions
maybe omaha’s a good place to start

maybe i love you (and i must
because there is
no) maybe i don’t.

what is there left to fear
when all you have is yourself
and you hate who you’ve become?

my foot leaves the curb
in anxious anticipating
of the asphault below
but before reaching gratification
i float above the ground
and everything is collected
each glass about to hit the ground
each eyelid about to close
each good mood about to hit bad news stops
until my foot falls down
and the earth starts again.