Embarrassing

I don’t want to see you again because I already know what you will say to me.
You will tell me that I scare you
That I am unstable
That I am too angry all the time 

That I am unhealthy and need to get well
You will also tell me other things
That I do want to hear though,
But those are the things that will make me cry more
Only proving your point that I am not well
And you will make me look like a fool as I cry when you tell me
how you love me
you miss me
And how beautiful I am
But as you tell me what I want to hear

I will hear another voice
A voice that tells me that your words spread as smoothly and as thin as butter

On warm white bread

so easily
that they must be lies
Because,

even truth

could never be spread so thin.

They cannot be words meant for me.
I will tell myself when I hear the ease in your voice which proves practice.
Why do I care how often you speak like this, I will wonder.
How many women have you spoken to like this?

Does it matter?

In turn I will tell myself that I’m undeserving of these words
Because they are recycled and were never mine to begin with

Despite how deeply I want them inside of me

to have them attach to the walls of my being

building into my double helix

Becoming part of me, absorbing into my body. 

And while I know you’ve spoken to others like this
I will savor it like candy and let it drip through my ears, down through my spine, pooling into my belly
And I will imagine one day again how I hope to have my fill of you

But still I will reject these thoughts because they cannot be true
Because your soul is so easily visible when we are together and so evaporating when we are not

I am left grasping at what was before me
Remembering moments of when our bodies fit together
Your hands finding my hands in the middle of the night
making them feel smaller than they ever have before. 

A large handed woman.

Making me feel like I am a woman who’s grown into something more.
I will hear your words as I am on top of you.
I love you, you will say
And I will tell you that I am in love with you too
And I will start to cry then too.
As you are the only man in well over 10 years who has said those words to me and meant them.
I think back to you
Holding my hand like we are lovers in school.
Holding my hand like we would
sitting in church pews attending a funeral.
I think of you
Waking me from slumber
your kisses on my forehead
searching for my body underneath bed covers

And while you can not see it
I will hold back tears then too
Because while you are holding me and I am next to you
I believe in all of this and I believe in us
But when you are away I do not believe in anything but our own lust
So I throw most of it away because
I know that I am neurotic and I know what magic you contain
So I am stuck now looking forward to ending something before it brings more pain
Or ending something before it ends anyway.

Despite how deeply my heart aches, I am tired of being so sorry and so sorry for being so much of me.
I am forever sorry that I’ve let you see the worst of me.
I am forever sorry that I can never figure out how to give you the best of me.

My heart wants to give to you endlessly. My mind wants to keep you trapped in joyful bliss of thoughts and knowledgeable flips.

My reality is that of stuttering and spit and tears that come despite what maps we make.

I just wish that there was some way to ever make this work.

Time Zones

Maybe we are like time zones

Never meant to intersect
Living in parallel.
A little ahead, a little behind.Maybe as we grow
The time between us will show.I'll own the darkness
And you’ll own the light

We cant be together.

It’s alright.we’ll just share our insight.

From time to time,

the rising drift

Of our economic wins 

will see the sunsets and rises of life’s big ventures.

The valley’s of self doubt.

The forest fires of regret.

A loveless drought.  

Together in large scale.

Showing all in 12 hours of detail.

My happiness before her

Plain as day, day-drinking.

Overconsumption.

The room starts spinning. 

Walking-out without paying. 

 

Midday meltdowns. 

I’m hungry. 

I need to shower.

She stays behind to find some other men to fuck.

The ones from the night before were not enough.

She’s running out of sources. 

Her nearly weightless body transformed her.

A stomach altered to a disjointed form. 

 

Slumped over, mumbling to the DC curbs.

 

“Do we want to go home with them?” 

She asks me

These men look to me now. 

Pleading. 

Like I’ll have an answer that completes them.

Like children asking for a sleepover that won’t end right.

 

No. Our car is here.

 

Her fingers stabbing away inside me.

Kisses like landmines smash my face. 

After the fucking in the shower

After my back was against the mattress.

Why haven’t you come yet?

Anger in her voice.

Distress in my own.

 

80 pounds later and she still wears a girdle to keep her flesh in.

 

Only now, the girdle dances, moves, and melds with her body. 

Decorated in lace and filigree, the men take notice.

 

Before it was a girdle centered on an all-out war. 

Containing all the pain that’d come along

And made her body home.  

The same feelings I felt at 14.

Where your core is strapped in but always ready for more. 

An armor under jersey fabric, dressed up nice now, for the girl from New Jersey. 

 

A dove before a falcon. 

She’s hunting. 

She moves through me. 

I dissociate. 

This feast for pleasure cannot wait. 

Impression

Where there was fear
There is now freedom
Breath flows freely
No more presence of risk
No more seeking insight

The RV smelt so strongly we imagined
Body parts rotting inside
We imagined the dark depths of a gambling
Addicted life
Outside the hooters game slots.
Standing by the ventilators
Second guessing strife.

You were with me then
Before I knew you
Holding my hair back and whispering in my ear
Spreading limbs in an endless tub
I thought about you then.
Back before I was with him.
You were with me as we shopped the
plastic filled aisles

If I were less of a challenge he would have married me by now.

One day
I might impress you.
With the darkest skill of taking on more than one should

She holds her breath now.
Thinking of all the truth and beauty that day had a passed on by
Thinking of the desperate decline
Of attention
Of curiosity
Of genuine repressed anger
Of insatiable feelings

My scalp warms
As if the summer were burning bright above me.
My feet melt to the asphalt
and I’ve become part of the earth.
What if I never move from here.
What if I can’t figure a way out

Will there be more for me to find of myself
across state lines
Beyond counties that bring food
wine and reason for life

Quarter Life

Marmalade skies, you, and a backdrop of cornrow mazes.
This delta river might as well swell to overtake us.
Pills, drills and thrills is the life you built for us.
Repetition, long winded and sure throated.
My insides feel bloated.

When we were so much younger we sought out pumpkin patches and clung to traditions
 too scared to let adulthood take us.
Scared to see what depth a hollow holiday might carry for us.
We spent the rest of our college years
Struggling to find meaning
Then once meaning was evaded we walked into life with only an inclining of feeling jaded.

Filming bars at early morning twilight.
Talking to bartenders
Making friends with one eyed patrons.

There’s a shift between naive reality and reality itself.
Like when we realized the truck drivers would end their day like anyone else,
with a glass of whiskey and a smoke.
Except their day ended at 4 in the morning
After driving all night
And we all wondered why they are so susceptible to stroke.

It’s a lonely road some would say.
Others would tell stories of how they’d pass the time
One finger flicking ash away.
We stood on the corner then, nothing but flat land around us.
We stomped in the sewer drain and the flooding nearly drown us.

Parked cars and piled leaves.
Do you remember when he grabbed for me?
As if this weight didn’t carry bad memory.
We came here to expand our reality.

Dog Shit

She wants passion.

But I seek clarity.

For I have found happiness where she has forgotten it.

She tells me that I am calm through times of stress

I tell her I just chose to scream inside instead.

And through our discussion, we walk past piles of dog shit.

Humorously high, leaning, towers of broiling sidewalk, steaming dog shit.

Like tiny sundials on the asphalt, dog shit. 

and we stop and marvel and say "Wow! What incredible piles of shit!" 

And then we laugh.

And as time passes, and the shadows move, I notice the pile of shit has begun to fade.

Turning a dustier, more tired brown as it bakes in the sun

So I warn the pedestrians not to step in it because

who would want to wreck such a perfectly good pile of shit 

on a day like today.

Because this day became a day 

Where even dog shit was admired and morphed like clay.

Funny Man

He sent me a taco. 

So I sent him an eggplant. 

We held hands and decided that this was romance. 

He took me to an apple bees where he watched the TV. 

We sat in a booth playing partners for what felt like an eternity. 

Was I nervous? No. Was he? 

I could tell when he chuckled distinctively. 

He told me my ring was in the fryer. 

Then asked me if I’d ever sang with a choir. 

When he kissed me it was like we’d made love already.

I imagined it would be wild like the Serengeti.  

He brought me back to his home

When I realized we weren’t alone. 

The lights outside were dimming against the waning sky.

Which was when I decided I really liked this guy.

But despite his charm and wit, I found out I should’ve quit. 

Shortly after we ordered the pie. 

For the person inside was a big surprise. 

Because it turns out it was his mother. 

That wasn’t the worst of it.

Because that is what sets me apart.

My standards are low for some super special bro. 

So I hoisted this aside, looked her right in the eye. 

Then proceeded to go and get nailed. 

The road to his house was treacherous. 

He had set me up for what now felt like an obvious mess. 

A few days later he got upset when I started to cry

because I realized that he was just another lame guy. 

The magic had disappeared after I had 

filled myself with fear that I would be alone for yes, another year.