You took me to the island
And each day we went to a new beach
Kissing on the marble countertop
Skinny dipping in the sea
Showers in the ocean air
Mug in my palm
Eerily quiet, look over the beach pines
Search for calm
Bike out in the morning
Watching passing cars
Nothing but my breath
And seagull calls
Nothing but my breath
And seagull calls
Maybe I’m not the one you’d fall in love with
But I’m standing in front of you now
My ego like a bird
You’ve wounded with your words somehow
Do you resent me for knowing the end?
Do you find me boring, notice your own unwanting?
I know you’re no supreme judge that we all see things through our own shit
But I am so vain and that makes me full of it
It’s a lost battle against time against change
It’s a war never won to keep feelings the same
Is this a truth you are still birthing?
And I too empathetic a midwife, hold all your hurting
This morning
I feel stoic and serious
weighted by the wisdom
by the questions large and small of
how one might live one's life, or more
specifically––how might I live mine?
and all the little questions and
worries are like dust motes in the air
because we will die and this is true
and James Baldwin said it was so and it will be
in the same way that he is so beautiful and so wise
and no longer treads in leather soled shoes on the
sidewalks of this earth (I want to tread in leather soled
shoes on the sidewalks of this earth, to have that earthly
heavenly pleasure).
And the thing is,
life keeps going. Keeps tumbling over itself until the ending,
and even then who knows? I am beginning to realize this;
phase after phase like beads on a string how many lives a life
can contain and how many I want it to (many, many, many)
even as each one breaks me––and in this way shows itself to be glass:
that which lets the light in and that which draws the deep red beneath our skin.
They say you cannot choose who you love, but what if right now I am not
loving, I am just trying it out. It being anything that I have made fully and completely
with my own two hands. And surely I am doing it wrong, but the secret is
there is no wrong or right. This morning I see this self assurance, a grey stone
in my eyes in the mirror, looking back at myself, hair pulled back tight into a bun,
a Renaissance painting, stoic, and not accepting, but seeing, but heavy,
and clear.
can I not let it hurt me?
your insufficiency
I tried to look away
worked so hard to ignore
the breeze through the closed window
the rain on the floor
the fact that this just doesn't
work anymore
Is it worth the disappointment?
the heartbreak?
fighting over what it is and what it isn't
temporary and longer pains
so many things that will never be named
love laying in a pool of shame
what remains?
and it rises again to the surface
a milky truth, like hot breath
on glass
or a plant floating up to the surface
something released
something buoyant no longer
tied down.
the problem is
everytime you poke your head above the surface
my panic sets in
it's incredibly personal, but I'll own its not your fault
it may feel like I am avoiding you, because I am
it may seem as if I am sending you mixed signals, because I do happen to be emitting them
it might read like a contradiction, because I constantly change my mind
I try to stay above the water
and your mere presence, existence, makes me drown
makes me remember why it is
I can no longer swim.
I thought only you fell asleep like that
(This is how things are in the beginning,
Greedy, Everything for the taking,
it all belongs, to you).
Yesterday I feel the slight symptoms
and I think it is coming, and it does
until a He, the wrong He is jolted awake
by the siren. did you fall asleep too? he asks.
almost, you lie
Still each time, I feel that same first thrill
of witness
as someone slips beyond you into slumber
as you feel them fall between your fingers
into dream
(it is a private (precious) thing).
