All posts in poetry

because there are moments

(like when it suddenly hails
in spring
on sunday
when you were just about to get up
go out)

that temper you

then remind you

that if you had everything
(and i mean everything)
you’d stay in bed all day
with her

i once watched someone i hold dear suffer and break

i watched her break

listen! i watched her break, and
it hurt like hell

for the both of us

and when she asked me to please
to just please hold her, i did
one of the hardest things i’ve ever done
and told her no

i watched her break, and heard her break, and
she asked me to hold her, for just a little bit

and i told her no

(if i could describe the look she gave me i would)

when she asked me why, why the fuck! i wouldn’t
hold her, i told her, “your suffering’s a growing”
and i left it at that

but, i wanted to tell her that suffering is
a growing pain, that the last thing i wanted was for my
compassion to cause the growth of her smile to wane, that
at nineteen i’d finally grown big enough to hold a pen, that
now i couldn’t see myself doing anything else again, that
people say those with the biggest hearts suffer the most, that
it’s actually the other way around the pole, and that i secretly think
nature has already answered every single question we pose

listen, i wanted to tell her about childbirth

about it being worth it, about how pain teaches us what to do
and what not, about the death of the blissful neanderthal, and about
how people with congenital analgesia can’t tell when they’re in danger

but i didn’t, have the words then
and now that i do, i’m telling you too
please, listen

i once watched someone i hold dear suffer and break

i watched her break, and heard her break, and
it hurt like hell

her smile’s pretty big these days, and
though i don’t know if it’s, if i’m, absolutely right
i have a hard time calling it wrong

and these days, she bites my lips, and i bite hers
and she talks about the pain being worth it

go figure

breaking news! young man throws bricks at windows
figures out what he wants to be when he grows:

brick one fell
on a mad man
and he made toe sound

brick two fell
on a wise man
and he made no sound

brick three fell
on a dead man
and he made no sound

her perspective:

and mine:
i want to die in a lake in geneva, the mountains can cover the shape of my nose. i want to die where nobody can see me but the beauty of my death will carry on so, she doesn’t believe me. when i greet her with kisses when good days deceive me and sometimes with scorn and sometimes she believes me. and sometimes she’s convinced (her friends think she is crazy), get’s scared and calls me but i’m usually hazy. by one in the morning, day is not ended, by two i am scared that sleep is no friend, and by four i will smoke but i cannot feel it, sleep will not come because sleep does not will it and, she doesn’t believe me. morning is mocking her.

she’ll wander the streets avoiding them eats until the ring on her finger slips to the ground. a gift to the gutter, a gift to the city, the veins of which have broken her down. and she doesn’t believe me, morning is mocking her.

all the gods that i believe never fail to amaze her. i believe in the truth of my god of all things, but she finds me wrapped up in all manner of sins; the drugs that deceive me and the girls that believe me.

i can’t control you, i don’t know you well, these are the reasons i think that you’re ill. i can’t control you, i don’t know you well, these are the reasons i think that i’m ill.

and since last that we parted, last that i saw her, down by a river silent and hardened, morning was mocking us, blood hit the sky, i was just happy, my manic and i. i couldn’t see her, the sun was in my eyes, and birds were singing to calm us down. and birds were singing to calm us down. and i’m sorry young girl, i cannot be your friend! i don’t believe in a fairytale end! she doesn’t keep her head up all of the time. she finds she cries when her heart meets her mind.

though i hardly know you, i think i can tell, these are the reasons i think that we’re ill. i hardly know you, i think i can tell, these are the reasons i think that she’s ill. and the gods that i believe never fail to disappoint her. and the gods that i believe never fail to disappoint her.

…though nihilist, my happy girl (my manic) and i have no plans to move on. the birds are singing to calm us down. and birds are singing to calm us down.

and ours:

lover, please, do not fall to your knees
for me

i was happy before i met you

see, my sister teases, tells me
i used to believe this and that
i was real, real, real
short, but i smiled a lot

she knows the pictures i clutch
and says i cried a good little

but damn how locked hearts break a lot

and at nineteen i went crazy and
stopped believing, in everlasting love, and
realized i’d been staring at empty chairs
thinking of the ghosts that once sat there

of the ghosts, of the ghosts, of the ghosts
of the ghosts that broke my heart before i met you

however, i’m better now, but i’m not
at all well, so i still do that sometimes

now lover, listen how i don’t
cry good anymore, how i break bad
and how this shit’s my jam! so please
do not fall to your knees for me

here’s the thing about me
i don’t own any sweaters

i know, it’s weird

and i live in sweater weather
i know, it’s weird

my nose runs, and
my friends ask, “aren’t you cold?”

while rushing to work my phone died
(i’d forgotten to charge it last night)

so i asked the man next to me what time it was
before i realized his condition

before i said, “oh,”
nevermind


he says he knows, “it’s eight”
judging by the orchestra of cars, i can tell
that if i put my hands out they will not travel far

he points to his cheek, says his sun just kissed him
there, “it’s eight”

points to his chest, says his daughter hugged him
“but her hands were cold, i hugged my jacket”

he says she dances every morning, and he gets up early to watch
but the brass section was especially good today
so he found himself here

hear


“eight,” he says
the grasping of handles will be too firm
too quick, too mindless
for a little while longer

says he likes eleven most
“that crowd knows how to dance!”
you can tell by the goosebumps

on the buses’ curves that the eleven crowd knows
how to dance, says they’re calm
and they take they’re time
when reading braille

“we all need a badnight’s rest
a good morning”


i ask him if i’m a good dancer
he laughs

and laughs, and laughs, and gets up
as the bus slows down

says “sorry kid,” as he wipes a tear
and stifles a laugh

your arms still flail here
get a little more practice in


i ask him, how will i know when i’m good

he says you don’t, you just wake up one day
with a wedding ring on, and a couple of kids
and this orchestra that follows you around

the brass section is especially good today

they speak of how my feet will bleed, sharp rocks and junkie needles, blackened hardened soles. they sermonize on, the pain of thorns and nails. (i find this ironic.) exuberantly rant, about the comfort and wide selection of shoes.

i rebut. speak of how i didn’t even listen when they warned me of night-found lego-pains; of how i plucked them out, scrunch-faced and teary-eyed, and built things with them. (‘no batteries required’ still assembles a smile.) speak of how i spent an entire month placing weight on the balls of my feet because i thought it was wolf versus bear, and of how i know better now. and of how i used to run barefoot on scorching road, making a game of seeing how fast i could get from shaded doorstep to shaded doorstep. it’s very hard to stand still under those conditions.

and let me tell you, my grandfather is a strong man, i watched him bear feet uphill bloodied, fingernails loose. and after, as a gimmick, he’d pull them back; it was disgusting! but he just laughed.