glasses make me feel goofy

So glasses make me feel goofy. When I wear my glasses my perspective is off. I float my fingers over the handrail just in case. I do not walk around in high hells or fish nets or painted red lipstick. I go to blogs that write about hot girls in glasses. I realize I am not one of them.

I tend to forget that anyone can see me so I do not brush my hair. I look mean or at least that’s what I think when I see myself in glasses. I look at other people in glasses and think they all look perfectly normal. I don’t really know what perfectly normal means though.

I am just not a glasses kind of girl. I mean really, I rub my eyes like a girl who forgets girls in glasses can and do wear make up. Under my glasses I have smeared mascara on my cheeks. I don’t look in the mirror because I could care less how I look today so I don't know I've got dirty secrectary face and the fact that no one has mentioned it by the end of the day is reassurance that I am invisible in my glasses.

I do not wear my glasses as a fashion statement. It throws me off when people, who don’t need them, do. I get it but it’s just not on me. I bought my glasses at an online retailer for fewer than thirty bones. Cheap glasses that do the job. My eyes are resting. I’ve worn my contacts for too long so now I have to wear a perfectly functional pair of glasses.

I am comfortable in this insecurity.

a letter about love.

I left my church days and hopelessly droll prayers in a box I brought home from work. I left it on the corner of 40th and Adams. Next to the freeway and the park, on the sidewalk out in front of the house where I lived in what felt like a normal life.

My heart followed at my feet and decided to stay so I promised I would be back when the breaking was fixed. I remember thinking, one day I wouldn’t need to buy the bruised fruit anymore just because it was on sale. I would be back if I could just learn to stop and walk around, instead of through, the destruction I stumbled upon my entire life.

I would be right here though, always.

I ran far enough where the skeleton of my memories rarely visit me and when they do it’s only because I let them in order to dismember, dissect and then sew them back together. I don’t let the sutures dehisce; there are no more flowers, or mysteries or fairytales hidden in my flesh.

One day, I happened to I find you on a corner wearing newly shined shoes and an Eddie Haskell smile. You were drunk and wishing I was the kind of girl who needed something from you. I listened as you made opulent promises and even though I didn’t believe you I let you feed me tangerine slices while we sobered up.

You never stop long enough to be examined. You never stand far enough so that I can see you clearly. You take the air and fill it with perfume. You push and you cower. I am full, taken over, overwhelmed but most importantly I am alive.

The two of us, we couldn’t be more different. I pretend not to notice but I watch you impress the world with your colored wings and your small hollow bones that allow you to fly. My kind bird. I love you and because I love you I worry and the worry makes me rail against the softness that has allowed me to so carelessly care for someone so carefree.

Sometimes it seems as though it is only when your violent knuckles are punching against the leather steering wheel or your angry words are littered into my hair that you are distant enough to understand. I see unmistakably then. You are crying and I sit there sighing and silent and smoking cigarettes. You could never be as cruel as I am the obvious stoic.

I hold on as if letting go would mean you are not good enough or gentle enough or passionate enough. As if our separate history could not keep us apart. I hold on for my place to belong. For the small shelter I am able to provide. A place that is ours for now in a life that takes at any minute.

I am not a girl who questions if I have loved too long, too hard, too much or too little. I do not apologize or offer forgiveness. I do not scream and throw fits or placate and appease you.

I love like a cripple who has survived past the fall. I love like a starving man who has had the last of his bread stolen. I love like a vagabond jumping another train without knowing where its headed.

My kind bird,
you love me back.

You love me back as if this is good enough.

1937

Rose, my lost bird
my wayward girl

all the demons that possessed you
couldn’t keep you here

with the laughter of angels
in the calm of a fight
you were gone to me forever the longest summer night
the air, with fire flies and a southern drawl, can charm or can kill
should it speed or should it stall
years ago, yet I still can’t forget
my sister, my friend, my life in regret.

You'll never hear me say "thank you" with a whisper.

Sometimes we all have those days. It is usually an in between day where a muggy gray sky finally turns to rain. My friend who was a stranger sat down with me held my hand. I didn’t have to explain I am not the easiest person to reach or please forget it I’ll be fine. I was nearly defenseless so I let her sit with me. She sat there with her perfectly made up Latin eyes blanketed by thick long hair. She was beautiful in the way that only she in that moment could ever be.

It was just one of those days but I knew she had ached where I had ached.

She didn’t know about the time I ran away when I was nine because it was too much or the day I found my fathers dead body. She didn’t know that when I was 6 I wanted to be a country singer or about the joke I tell too often, “I would sing but I would hate to alienate you as I have a voice of angels” because I can’t sing. She only knew me though passing moments here and there, social interactions but she understood me. She had no reason to befriend me but did it anyway, against the popular vote.

When she sat with me I felt the burden of having to carry myself home lifted. I found a friend who without knowing reminded me to look around open up and give, sometimes the kindness of a friend is all we need to get us through a bad moment.

the world where we hide our loneliness

there are three models that lived upstairs from Mrs. Kuban. She was always yelling about them

around the top of her head in their high heels.
they are good looking but looking
really hungry.

Downstairs, Mrs. Kuban,
an operating-room nurse,
suffered a gash in her head that required stitches and had two broken bones in her foot.

Still for all for Mr. Kuban did he couldn’t find her heart. He lost it years ago.

The day Mrs. Kuban came home from the hospital I watched through the little
hole in my front door
the three girls, the models laughed but later
one went back when she thought no one was looking and brought Ms. Kuban fruit

I was looking.

One day.

When I woke you were sipping on a straw from my spine, drunk and dreaming. In that time I forgot how to sleep so I stayed up and watched your rib cage, hold your lungs, your lungs boast and then cower. I watched you for hours until I couldn’t take it much longer I woke you, I woke you and asked if you knew,
“how many bones are in our bodies”
and then I said
“well, but what I meant was, …I love you.”
(Ignore the questions about the bones; I only wanted to tell you the second part)

That day you assembled me with Rumi and yet, you- not the lover- nor the sage had ever heard of him. That day, I felt a tapping from the inside of my flesh. A Jameson heart covered up with pineapple. You took a straw and drank from my spine. “206 bones” you said were in my body. I pushed my jaw into your collar bone, 412 bones I thought. Now, here, with you I hadn’t expected it.

A deer that had escaped a hunter, caught in the morning that day we first slept in.This is only one small way we are different. You released an irritable sigh. I thought of trains and oceans. I thought I could do something but did nothing besides think. And then I thought about the weekend and how it was mostly beautiful . As you, are- mostly, beautiful. Even when you can’t help but try to unbutton my polished nerves . With your furrowed brow and the dramatics of the season actor. You know, when cornered like this I think we’re competing for sanity and I refuse to loose. When I say these things your only response is to ask if today is the day I am going to take my red shoes and used books home from your house. If today was the day I was leaving you.I always respond with “No” I say, “you’ve assembled me with Rumi and you’ve never even read him”

the lights are pretty.

I was raised on ritual. Each breathe, it seemed a prayer. I still believe in intrinsic human goodness but I think my faith, faith in things uncertain, faith for things bigger than face value in part (a big part) caused my downfall. I always thought, “things have to get better now” until they didn’t and I just needed to step out of that pseudo sanctuary. These days I am so far removed that I smirk thinking about how I barely made it out of that, again. Now, I hold my cards close to my chest not because I live defensively but because most of my honest emotion, my true emotion has been spent and I am only trying to keep what’s left safe. I have changed very much over who I once was- a mental paradigm shift. This time of year I see now how I stand out (or at least feel the goofy paranoia).No, I don’t stand out physically. I am pretty average and as my father would say “count your blessings that you’re average). In a long sleeve shirt I could fit in just about anywhere. Most of the time, I’m impermeable, clear, calm. Logic is uncomplicated and easy for me to follow. I may not be a great leader but I am for certain, a decent follower. But this time a year my speech, my thoughts, my actions are clumsy at best. Underneath the shirt, the skin, the bones I nervously wait for the holidays to fall into the quieter days, the ho-hum months. It like the holidays, the traditions, the rituals have the power to hold me up in a light that I am not comfortable in only to examine me for long enough to tell me Hallmark did not send one addressed to me. Oh woe, oh woe…pity makes me ugly and I hate to ruin perfectly good day so I make it look like I am busy, not just standing around waiting for some great celebration.

I make blueprints of my thoughts and plan for a future similar to my past and search frantically for simplicity.

Maybe one day I will laugh and remember what it is in Turkey that makes you sleepy and bring it up after a holiday dinner.

The passing of Prop 8. Look its a Golden Calf!

Years ago I had a friend who had left their beautiful desert town, parting at the same time with a deeply knit Mormon community. I had no idea the extent of aspiration many members of the Mormon Church were willing to commit to. That was until I was visiting my aforesaid friend one day and they happened to have a random knock at the door. The people, two men, on the other side of the door were apparently friendly people who chatted for a bit and seem to know my friend, even as my friend had no idea who these two men were. They had also known my friend had left the Mormon Church and had come to convince them to come back. We were shocked to say the least. They had been found! Or more importantly why as an adult, who made a decision to go, were they being searched for? It was to me, scary and manipulative.

As an outsider, who hadn't known much about Mormons I was fascinated, so I started reading about the Mormons. I read about Brigham Young (who coincidently shares my birthday) and how he was the leader of the American Latter Day Saint movement. How he was a polygamist and is credited for revoking the priesthood and temple ordinances from black members of the church. He also believed the Adam and God theory. Mind you this is now often scoffed at by modern Mormons.

Oh how hindsight is 20/20.

I began thinking about my own forgotten religion that was still so deeply ingrained in me. How as I child I attended mass at my Catholic school every day, said novenas with my mother on Sundays and at 13 yrs old marched 10 miles in a “Right to Life” campaign, holding a sign up with an aborted fetus. At the time I hadn’t fully understood what taking a woman’s rights away meant. I do however clearly remember as my loving clergy cheered, chanted, hugged and encouraged me that some of the things they were saying sounded both very naïve and malicious.
Through the years I grew away from my church and went though a time I believed in nothing, or thought I did. Until one day I realized I still collected rosary beads, continued to say little prayers and missed the beautiful ritual of the Catholic Church. I am no longer a faithful Catholic but I do still find comfort in the thought. My father was a member of the Knights of Columbus, they stood at his funeral, as this man with such gentle faith, who was not only tolerant but accepting, was laid to rest. It is the last memory I have of the Knights of Columbus in my life until I read of their contribution. I was both torn and saddened to see the contribution made by the Knights of Columbus supporting Prop 8 but unfortunately I wasn't surprised.

The big donations that came in for Prop. 8 are frustrating to say the least. I can't help but wonder and remember the money basket passed around during mass years ago in my past. Are outcomes such as this where the money went?

I want to refute the religious argument on this issue with everything in me but the church is both powerful and loving at minimum to its members and I am no great advocate I usually have an apathetic small voice. I also know first hand how being a proper disciple is implemented in our brains through years and years and how even gentleness and hope cannot sway opinion and anger and insults for the most part only maximize the stronghold. I have not practiced religon in many, many years but I try to remain understanding of it.

I cannot understand however, how someone can logically believe Prop 8 is right. How some people who supported it think it will affect them if it did not pass? How it was preached with fear and lies and that there is still the mentality of such an ignorance so much so that blind, uninformed decisions that truly effect the rights of others are being made into law.

Here is just a random scenario. A straight couple at eighteen, who have known each other for 3 months can drive to Vegas, get hitched for 2 weeks by paying $50 bucks for a marriage license.

A gay couple 37 and 34 who have known each other for 7 years been in love for 5, built a stable home, attend their Unitarian church every Sunday and are active members in their community must pay approximately $2K in lawyers fee to obtain Power of Attorney.

Both the following couples had a civil ceremony but clearly the later couple paid the cost of being discriminated against. Let’s not forget it was only in 1977 the legislature amended Civil Code section 4100 providing a gender-specific description of marriage.

Oh the argument of marriage being a man and a woman. This is based on a religious belief and there are many religions that make up the state of California. How can you ask that your religious beliefs be respected while disrespecting others? This is why there is a separation between church and state.

Of some of the proponents of prop 8, I admire and respect their tenacity. I hope that this comes from an honest place in what feels right in their hearts. What worries me is that, in my opinion, it is a form of eidololatria and big money mixed with big Church mixed with false prophets equals the Great Golden Calf. For some of others for the people unwilling to at least try to understand, for the fanatics, the bullies, the threats, I can only hope that you or your future generations can recognize that gay marriage will not ruin your family, hurt your personal beliefs or infect the country.

I am disheartened thinking about this loss of rights. I am angry as I do not understand how as Californians we were given the opportunity to vote against the denial of civil rights and over half of California voted to do just that deny civil rights. I wonder if we were to turn back time. If we were in a different era with a different mindset where we could stand in voting for Women's rights, for integration in schools?

I am regretful that I didn't do more that many of us did not do more. Yes we can push this is 2010 but it was so close and the costs and the effort spent really only needed that much more. I am mostly ashamed I didn't have more conversations with people I thought would vote yes. I am not argumentative, it wouldn't have been difficult for me to just share and listen instead I didn't want to offend anothers beliefs so I remained quiet. The Sunday a week before the elections I volunteered the No on 8 phone bank but I went to a show instead thinking for certain it wouldn't pass. Thinking, Californians are smarter than to eliminate rights.

I am impressed by the diligence of the same faces I would see at the BART everyday encouraging and reminding me to vote NO. I am moved by friends and family and strangers who allowed themselves an open mind even if they didn't fully understand homosexual lifestyles. I am grateful that half of California stood up against injustice and voted against Prop 8 and that we are headed in a more equal direction.

It came down to a matter of money. If religions want to send money to California to save families, respectfully I’d like to ask to use their big big money to truly save families in this state. The hungry families, the homeless, the poor, the displaced families, the refugees and leave the laws a government issue not a religious one.

In retrospect I know there is more I could have done. I cannot change that now but seeing how this has effected me I know that I have to do my part in this fight. In 30 years I do not think this will be an issue in California but that doesn’t mean it will happen simply because we have waited for it. If we sit and wait there is the possibility we will never see these civil rights implemented, at least during our lifetime. It will take the effort of everyone who thinks this is wrong.

Cannery

1

All of the sudden, one is missed on the
factory line. It wasn’t my fault, not my fault
the building roof fell in my eyes, I couldn’t see
and I couldn’t have known. There is a girl here that all
the duds at the shipyards swell over, go home get
their old lady’s pregnant over and most days you
don’t mind her none but today I missed one on the
factory line and all her hootin and hollarin asking
you why no one is paying attention to her is getting on my last nerve.

2

There wasn’t much cept maybe a little room to breath in homeless shelter,
I left my husband I left my babies down south. I had a black eye and two broken ribs.
I had a friend she got me the job here. She said he sided with the Nazi’s.
I said, I should have known

The first time I felt his dick I yawned. He was always a bore.
I would yawn or laugh and he would punch me cold in the face
I came to this little town with a black eye and two broken ribs
The thought of it, still makes me laugh.

3

My strength is failing. My resistance small
I old enough now at 42 to want my free ride and it just keeps coming
I am not going to put on any shows. The girls on this line are half my age.
Sometimes I still smile while digging through ashes of I was.
I could’ve been a singer or at least taught lessons but I
guess most people succumb to lessons in humility

4

They’re jealous. Most boys in this town are retards. I just
tease them to see how much I can get away with. Give them just enough.
So no one here really likes me except maybe two. I don’t care.
I’ve had to live being beautiful my whole life. You might think its easy but try
telling an eight year old she prettier than her momma when her father
already told her so.

5

This is a good life. My husband works in the shipyard. I got this job.
Three little ones and another on the way. This is a good life, one day we’ll make it our of this town

My friend, I remember once when we walked to the water. We laughed with the sincerity of children. The sun seemed on our favor and I said to you, this is a good day.
You said to me, “yes, it is.”

Happy Birthday.

1
For your birthday I thought to give you a
Beautiful woman who spoke in broken English
Who spoke while the water lines beneath us
Exploded over a dusty street in India
erasing the chalk outlines of who we ever were
before we ever denied ever being strangers, only

I couldn’t afford, India or the woman or the water beneath our feet
Nor would I want give you anything broken.

2
For your birthday I considered getting you a cookie jar for your house
but gifts like a cookie jars consistently get returned
When the store asks for a reason, it is always: I don’t need one
What people mean is: because it is meaningless
But then I reassessed the situation and decided I would get one anyway
Only not a cookie jar but a coffee maker
Because you need one but I sent this along for meaning
from my cookie jar heart.

3
For your birthday I think I’ll give you a truck
stop blow job and traffic jammed bed sheets and that under each of my fingertips I’ll carry static electricity
when the screaming sirens pass maybe I’ll give you
rest and maybe then I’ll lay cherry blossomed kisses on your dreams
these things make me feel like
I’ve taken non-drowsy cold medicine, btw

4
For your birthday I will not answer my phone should it ring. I will be a long distance runner with stockpiled reasoning. I will ask politely, that the pigeons stay away and carry a bb gun instead of a phone, in my purse.

5
For your birthday I want you to know that I’m glad you’re here, that your hair is too short to ever work as an umbrella that I’ve been growing mine out that I was walking this way and it was eventual and I am glad we crossed paths and that I’m confused that is the middle of October, that it feels like July.

Oh also on your birthday I wanted to remind you, that I really like the gray slightly above your ear. I find it irresistible.

Memory

Remember when my nerves
killed the roses and I ate only prayers
until you called.

“The sun”, you said “would always
come out again” but at the end
of the day I knew it would give up its fight
and surrender to the earth. I knew but
I never told you.

Remember when I bought your lust with love
And we sat naked outside of your window
Gravel sticking to my thigh, my thigh sticking
to you.

I lost everything off of that roof
dropped into the field, eaten by coyotes.

Remember when your life support hands
would sit on my knees and I really
had no idea,
I would miss you one day

Or that missing you would feel like
I couldn’t breathe

I couldn’t

Remember how I was crying again while painting
And tears stung the skin around my eyes like mosquitoes
you told me to look at you but “I can’t, I said,
“I have been drinking since noon”
You sat there quietly for the next four hours, waiting for me to talk

And when I did, I smiled and I asked you where you’d been.

Remember

Well one day I was sitting in a bath reading when I
decided I had loved you too long, then I forgave myself
for doing so.

I lifted my wine glass in the air and whispered “salud”

And on another day I realized I had not cried
in a very very long time, cept when I saw that old lady’s
thin hands on the muni, because they
like her were so very beautiful
so I rented some of those heart-wrenching movies
to ignite a response and ended up laughing
at myself for my inability to cry.

I used to hope to run into you so you could see how well I
was doing. I wanted to show you I wasn’t afraid that I wouldn’t crumble
at the sight of you but instead of you I ran into unapologetic groping
by a strange man wearing a wife beater in the middle of winter
I reacted like I had a razor hidden in my hair and he left running
I realized I wasn’t’ afraid I would crumble in front of you or anyone else
Now I know seeing you would only remind me of far I fell
and Id’ rather not be reminded
my memory is good enough

Randoms 09/18/08

Its okay, I suppose for some,
To fall off the tracks
And come right back
Stamping my skin with frustrated bruises
Smoking too many cigarettes
Hurting your throat as I kiss you
It doesn’t work for me, so casually
I am dry and dead and reading Camus and falling asleep by eight
Dreaming of the flowers you planted in my breast
When you told me I hurt you because I did not love you in the two weeks.
You are sweet and naïve and silly and by far a greater con-man than I can ever be
I am quiet, with my cards to my chest
Just bring me back to the day you unfolded my limbs and I didn’t worry about hurting you
Or hurting me
Our clothing is amours so let’s disrobe.
Get me drunk so at least I have my excuses
for staying here
Again and again...

Assembled with Rumi

One day you assembled me with Rumi and yet, you- not the lover- nor the sage
had ever heard of him. That day, I felt

tapping from the inside of my ribcage. I was a shot of jagermeister and a Malibu-pine. Sweet and ridicules. You took a straw and drank

from my spine. “206 bones” you said were in my body. I pushed my mandible to yours, 412 bones I thought. Now, here, with you

I hadn’t expected this. One day you wrapped up persistence. Soft hands. A deer that had escaped a hunter. I like surprises and mornings

with you. Since that day we first slept in. woke. Since that day I’ve seen you wear less than a t-shirt. You had washed your sheets and were dreaming you boarded a train that took you on a direct route to Memphis. To take photo’s of pregnant Mexican women.

I thought of Texas and San Diego and Calexico. But not Memphis. These are only small ways we are different. I thought of deserts and guns. I thought I could do something but did nothing besides think. But she, she and her baby they made it

to Monday morning work days. Are the most difficult. And this weekend was mostly beautiful . As you, are- mostly, beautiful.

One day you tried to unbutton my nerves. You furrowed your brow with the dramatics of the season actor. Looked at me like I was crazy. When cornered like this I think we’re competing for sanity and I refuse to loose. I think I might have cried for a moment but still I don’t think I let you-unbutton my nerves “let’s play darts” I said. You refused, you said that I always won and it wasn’t fun. So I

I tied myself to the fire escape so I wouldn’t fall off. I smoked a cigarette and accidentally started a fire. You cut the rope. We ran pass a herd of horses. It was the most striking thing I had ever seen. You said it was the most striking thing you have ever seen. This is a small way we are alike.

That day you asked if that was the day I was to take my red shoes and red dress and my mascara and used books home from your house. If that was the day I was leaving you.

No, I stayed. That day I told you, I said, “you assembled me with Rumi, have you read him?” you hadn’t but you had.

. . . . . . . . . . . .



Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.

~ Jelaluddin Rumi

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

+

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.

+

certain parts, you cannot have

You know, I’ve said goodbye to you 3 times already. Secretly I did, when you weren’t looking. We’ve all got secrets, now you’ve one of mine

I never told you, goodbye, because I just wanted to be sure, be sure that you’d be okay
(if I stuck around)

The first time I said goodbye was when we first met. I thought it was too honest, too sober, but you tasted like Rum and so we both got drunk instead.

Then, when you went away for a week, I thought here is my chance to save you the trouble, so I made fists and prepared to go away for a week upon your return. Only, there was a day between us and you came over. You opened my fist and handed pineapple pancakes and tummy turning laughter. The next day I went away for a week, and missed you.Recently before I could stop you, I was reminded of a cause and effect, a before and an after, I was reminded of where I’ve been and where I refuse to go. I would wait until tomorrow to say it.

We drank coffee and talked. We were quiet.

I sat you down on a chair in the kitchen and I traced the red of your scalp hidden inside all of your thick hair. I looked over you, but never at you.
Your body was foreign and I handled you like a test of my will (I failed)

Fumbling my fingertips, my eyes glued to the linoleum while pulling lint off my tights I said, “There are certain parts of me you cannot have.”

Looking right at me you said,
“I understand, there is no making up for emotion that is stolen”

So
I
never told you, goodbye, because I just wanted to be sure, be sure that you’d be okay
(if I stuck around)

Thoughts while listening to a friend think of love.

I had just woken up from a life gone when you showed me your antique dark blue dress decorated with delicate ornate beading. When you were little you always wanted something nice.

“Isn’t it nice?” You asked and continued talking to me about the assholes and the lovers you had cut up and put in your freezer. You’re a horrible at playing unaffected especially when I can see the scrapes and scars on your knees and knuckles. I wanted to warn you of the possibilities that sometimes love doesn’t come in a letter written out and addressed to you. I wanted to hold you, keep you steady, when the ground came beneath your feet. It would be something small to cause it to all come down.

I didn’t want you to go through your personal apocalypse.

Instead I told you how
I sometimes buy plants. I don’t know how to care for them and don’t make an effort to learn. Usually the soil dries out and the leaves brown. Sometimes I’ll be drinking iced green tea, watching Little Britain and pore some tea into the pot. It’s always too late.

manual

i was one who was taught
to be quiet whenever
i laughed too loud, got too angry or hurt too much
and when the guilt i felt for breathing came crawling out of my skin
i knew nothing in the world was better quiet, and a lil nyquil
i was taught fear

girls like me were ugly enough to be hit
and pretty enough to be forgotton
with our boring brown eyes
and sincere “i love you”

and when life said bend bend bend or break
i sat there twisted as a pretzel
on the verge of tears, still smiling

so if i can hand you an explanation
a manual of sorts
before you get lost in the romance of courting
before you do what you can to get what you want
before you disappear

don’t waste your time with decorations
not for me at least

i am not going to bite your head off
or curse your mother for creating you
i’ll most likely curse that god i’ve got hanging on the wall

good or bad and let me deal with how much
truth you have

because by nature i have quiet footsteps
because by experience i have logic
because i might just like you
but not as much as i like me

you see my knees are scratched and sore from
praying and
blow jobs

both done with everything in me

and if you desire, feel free to lock the door behind me
because there is good reason to believe i’m not coming back

i am still sensitive to the weight of promises and gossip

to a little alcohol and sex

i’m sewing the wholes in my pockets
but now i’m reading instead of screwing,
sighing instead of crying,
and planning instead of forgetting

and if you ask me i’d say that it sounds like a life without much room left for
an alarm clock, a waiting room or a polygraph test
now, sweet sweet sweetness,
i like you, isn’t it obvious by the way
i say with a smile, “that’s something charming” about you when you aren’t around
and say “hello, baby” when you call (only the second word is silent)

and when you say “hi beautiful” i cover up the fact that i heard you by making up a nonsense joke about red butterflies going across the moon
cover up how much i like the way it sounded,
its like hearing you say it is an exclamation point to how you make me feel.

because i like my autonomy and those sub-sort-of-lover clothes
i used to wear no longer fit me i won’t tell you how
the next time we meet i’ve schedule time with my mirror
to stand alone in front of to take inventory of my ribs, two legs, my bellybutton
my heart

i will say out loud to the army which is my body
“prude!” i will say “whore!”

i will laugh really loud at my absurdity
and see how my body parts react
and find something in between, to wear.

before i see you i will say i need nothing and know that it is true
i will curse any fear in you
and believe you’ve none
i will pretend i am going down on a rollercoaster and my stomach
is giggling and i will pack a puzzle of color beneath my eyelids in case i get bored
since i glued all my broken parts back together there is very little i fear anymore
so i am ready for you to love me, forget me, move me, remove me

i am ready to remember your twitching fingers on my skin as you fall asleep
i am ready for the fairytale of the song that is being played on my hip bone.
i am also ready for you use me against every good intention you had
or for you to like someone just that much more than me
i am ready to hear that you say that you hope i understand how special i am
(i do, i do, i do)
i really do, so don’t you fret.
because there is honesty and integrity
and curiosity and bravery
there is pain and survival and
gains and losses
and smiles and tears and that’s not all there is
there are warm baths and glasses of wine
and a good books and enough time
there are dancing in chaos or in the comfort of socks
there is you and there is me
there is me…
i was one who was taught to be afraid
but regardless,
along the way I've learned not to fear.

Lemonade

I considered agreeing with you on a certain memory uncompromised by the two of us for certain; it would have inspired something out of us - the numb.
So obviously unbalanced and excessive
I squeezed two whole lemons, added 8 tablespoons of sugar and put it in a gallon of water.
I called it lemonade
You called it sour
Or my sun-lit-salt-smelling-sex
You said was "a way to wake up"
Or the joke you explained
That I said, "I got it-but it's just not funny"
I wish I could have inspired a poet in you
But you only said, "can you put your shoes away?"

My shoes in the living room
Planted, for you to trip over
So that I can climb you
Bite into your skin
Find some poetry.

the german

he
drinks cutty sark
watches the discovery channel
eats the left over lasagna i made with
kraft american cheese (that no one else will touch)
he takes me fishing every week still
even though i am too old to talk to him sweetly
and too young to talk you him with respect
its been years since he quit smoking but
he smells of smoke and whiskey and hearty smiles
he tells me what a good cook i am
and that my hair looks nice today
he hands me condoms
and begs me not to have sex yet
he loves my mother the way i won't see again
until my brother meets his wife

i am eighteen
seeing my father for the last time

he is sitting on the couch
drinking cutty sark and
eating the left over lasagna i made with
kraft american cheese (that no one else will touch)
he says, "you're a good cook"
and i forget to say,
i love you.