it is still beating

Close my eyes held my breath; I am on life support, surviving on invisible tubes
in order to get anywhere far far from me.

Stop.

Stop.

Holding my breath.
Eyes closed
Listen,
Listen,
to my heart beat drumming in accordance to the tintinnabulation of the raindrops hitting an aluminum trashcan outside my childhood home.

Summer is over, and fall, and it is winter and I am still selfish.

But selfish is only one of my truths, and you are one of my truths and I alone am one.

Denying/defining that spring when my spirit wasn’t my own and what that attachment cost me. Cost me my life, my life. I lived on life support, an oxygen tank now there’s a suture where the breathing goes,

Open it up, pull it out and you’ll see it is still beating.

Now when the ghost from a past knocks offering a gift, giving me its time, I look ahead, move on, for every time I held its hand.

Open it up, pull it out and you’ll see it is still beating.

Remember that time I was sprawled out on the floor like an unassembled puzzle?

Open it up, pull it out and you’ll see it is still beating.

I am not crawling, or crying, I am a bore.

Open it up, pull it out and you’ll see it is still beating:

since then,
I have fallen asleep early and watched the evening news, 4 times.

Last night I laughed
And recently, again.

When watching a breakdown from the distance,
its easy to call in kind words,
a kind smile putting it all down so carefully,
wiping it all off gently…
and when its our turn to break
really really break to the point of progressing
it finally makes sense.

Open it up, pull it out and you’ll see it is still beating.

Finally I am able to tune it out. Tune into want feels right for me.

But it’s for the moments, when I denied
that the me that exists today
ever mattered.
Its for those times, those the times I thought I shouldn’t have come here.
At every corner that I bent smiling and every alley I handed my wallet over without a fight.
For every promise I really believed in and every time I cursed the God that my faith asked me to hang on to. For the time I didn’t stop reading for four days because I needed a distraction and the time I got upset at a guilty man, preaching.

Remember that time you fell and I ran back to help you up and I ended up losing?

For the way I washed remnants of an old lover’s footsteps away with my tears and called out with my voice sounding like a death threat.

For the panties barely put in my purse before going home two days later.

And the time I lied.
And the time I left.
And the time I ran
And the time I hid.
For the winter and the way it seems to mourn the death of the past year.
For the winter and the way it looks like the morning of the year to come.
For the horrible angry, badly written poetry- I can’t help but write out.
And the way I rephrase things in hopes of being heard.
For the way I treat her like I am sight-see-her and she is vacation.
For every time I ever thought something would cost me too much.
For every time I thought too hard.
Or stayed too long
For everytime I’ve closed my eyes, held my breath.

Please, open it up, pull it out and you’ll see it is still beating.

bones

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1
“Do we build houses with cards that eventually fall to say that we tried? Why me, or why not me?” It was something I read- handwritten on a bottle of Carlo Rossi one night and I lifted a smile and gaily said cheers to the freedom from entitlement I felt at that moment. I had nothing to gain, or lose or give and so I made believe this was really, really, really what I wanted. Until it really was what I wanted.

but, what I really wanted was…

2
No one calls past midnight and my phone has been busted for over two months…I know that I am not always a very good friend I know I can be better and I know I will be.

When you drove off I thought I would see you later.

3
Later I found the heaviest weights only gets heavier by not apologizing for what I should of and instead apologizing for getting bumped into, or for loving someone too long, or for needing alone time to think about what I should really be fu ckin g sorry about.

4
For a long time I sat on the edge of a thirty-seven floor future and holding good old stories out the window letting them fall as I realized they really were only older now.
Not necessarily afraid but comfortable with nothing left to loose. The only thing I had was mine and mine alone and they were my junkyard-rust-heavy-memories.
I thought of how cruel my mother seemed for raising me with faith and how innocent she was…I thought eventually how in a way she way right and I thought,
“thank God that’s over.”
Only I didn’t capitalize the “G” in the word God because it’s mostly vague from where I stand. Sometime soon, I got up and found shadows to smile in. I smiled and smiled.

I thought about how life is really mush simpler than we make it out to be, and then I found you. Or you me? I don’t really know since we were drinking.

5
You were miles away before and I forgot how to sleep so I watched your rib cage, hold your lungs and watched your lungs boast and then cower. I watched you for hours until I couldn’t take it much longer and I woke you, I woke you and asked if you knew,
“how many bones are in our bodies” and then I said
“well, but really, “I love you.”
(Ignore the questions about the bones; I only wanted to tell you the second part)

6

I have never been so gentle, so careful. Last night I dreamt of many pairs of socks that I never got around to trying on. When I woke up I noticed you had put a straw in my spine and you were drunk. So I showed you where there was a suture. I told you to open it up, pull it out and you’ll see it is still beating.

I didn’t mean to startle you,
only meant to thank you.

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