Pascal and Portia

sticks lifted his hands off his shoulders
and he was controlled like a marionette
as he walked downstaring across the
street with a bag
slung over one shoulder and a grimace
on his face as if all his thoughts
were weighing in his jansport and they
were awfully too heavy for him to carry
though he stayed to lift weights after school
with his so called buddies and his older brothers
who ran the gym

she danced across the street and her skirt
was tickling the ground with the bright
petals brushing on the grey cement leaving not
more than a moment of a linger and her eyes
were a whirl as she spun out of a joggers way
sashaying her hair in the messy braid she had spent
her whole english period on because she was
boycotting the way her teacher stood
in front of the room and murdered poetry

murmur into my hair and i will wrap
a rope of i cannots around your ear in my
hungry fear and unsettling warmth at
all perfection

do you know how in a moment
you can suddenly realize
how much you're growing up
in the impulse you have
to stay out a little longer and the
invincibility of a subway night
two train serenade with your lips moving
and your mind still stuck in the dreams
you will have days after of the woman
that smiled and clapped at your youth
in her remember-those-days eyes as she poked
her husband impatiently and her face was with you
even if her body wasn't
or when you honestly realize that the past you
of even two weeks ago would not understand
and the one from last year who spent some lunches
in the bookcases with her ears plugged in and her eyes glued
could definitely not comprehend
the place where you are at now
and the things you have done and the things
you have not
and all the pieces of the sidewalk you now know
and the transfer to the BQR12345 trains that you have
memorized so that you don't have to look at a map
or is it that clear in the simple way that you look in a mirror
and what your eyes zone in on and the
lazy manner in which you no longer pick your clothes
is it possible you've become so much older
you doubt it as you pour your life down on paper
in details that others forget, and as you stop in the drive
way and dance in the rain to the arctic monkeys
but the glare of the blinking eleven' o clock
and the red-stained red-eye stares of your surrounders
beg to differ

scratching my minds on the folded paper
i turned my cheeks from red to normal
the mien of confidence masking my
teeters and my fears

i was surprised when it worked

a cloak can more often be a curse than
a blessing, but in this case it was my
saviour and it grew into my
skin

the wit of wittiness
leaves nothing to be desired on your tongue
only a sense of pride and a rising
of ego that opens yourself up to vulnerability
and makes every word a competition

motivated (one word)

motivated
to fail
to win
to score
to fall
being motivated to fall
working to fail
to float and teeter down
through space
the idea of striving to be slow
is almost something
unimaginable in
todays society
the idea that you could work for random
and air
why is glory always a highpoint of standstill
and not a state
of
motion

a piece of advice (an agenda book scribble)

be careful
words slip loosely off tongues
when your mind is spinning
and unrolls them
don't drop you guard
with your butterflied
stomach
or let the whirring
block your ears

she tiptoes on my breath in the
frosty mornings when my jagged exhale
becomes a white adventure against
the early morning chill
the contrast is inevitable in the shuddering
curve of my back and my
vibrating fingertips
my teeth are clickety-clacking
and my toes wiggling constantly
as if i am stuck in some sort of silly dance
the movement keeps me warm
and as i burn my thoughts
the steam comes out of my mouth
a chimney or a smoke stack
steam engine

do you realize the effect you can have on me?
because i don't think you do
i don't need intoxication with a stare from you
and my cheeks go red with the knowledge that
a pat on the back
could keep me going for weeks.
at least i've become slightly less desperate
if only for the fear that i'd disappear-
because all i am made of is some old
scraps of comfort and the souls of your
shoes

grabbing my bag
i'm already fifteen minutes late
she won't mind
all my friends should know by now
that when they tell me a time
they should add at least an hour
ill run slow and ill walk fast
but somehow i never catch up
to the version of me
that is supposed to be five minutes ahead in that window
five minutes makes such a difference
though we always used to beg with our parents to
stay for at least an extra twenty

Sophie

tickle me
she dared and the light hit
her lips just like in our dreams
where her hair was up
and her guard was down and she
laughed as wide as our arms could
reach when we hooked them together
and held out our palms
we promised we would
nodding fervently because all we ever
wanted to do was please because gold
stars are better than exes and they twinkle
like her fingers and her studded toes that
she got done before her party on friday
that we only got to hear about afterwards
but it was okay because in sharing it was as if
we were there even if we were actually too busy
tallying up the ways to be on her good side
and the tricks to make her laugh
to go

you keep popping up in my words
and in the way i turn my head downwards
halfway through the period because i absolutely
cannot bear to read about oxidation states any longer
and i must begin to doodle in my minds singeing
the edges of all that i've learnt with all that i know
thats where i find you
on the roof of my mouth after chewing and the skin on the
side of my hand in the way that i rub my wrists together
when i am nervous
i am at a loss for all the names to my body parts today
and i even had to check for where my birthmarks were
as if i was distanced from the whole in which we live

active (one word)

actively i hate you
passively i don’t
i just dawdle in my glares because
what’s the point of wasting
my ounces of energy on you
they are hard earned
and hard spent
dislike is a calorie counter
it eats away at you and
chews and chomps your
sides
your legs grow thin
and your eyes
tired

compete (oneword)

competing for the prize
my thighs are skinnier than yours
your eyes are bigger
my stomach flatter
your hair blonder

why is it a competition

i don’t want to compete
i don’t want to be friends either
but i don’t want to compete

in competing there is more pain
than there is worth

she writes on her hands in the car
so that when she arrives at school
she will not have to speak
but just hold out her arms
and it will all
be
there

(completely random alphabet poem)

i've never realized how much music is a soundtrack to life

cold air and cold notes complement each other coalescing into conformity in the cacophonous sound of the cool
details of the dirt but with drums you are deaf to the quiet surroundings and dumb to the death
even the emptiness errs as escape is ensuing and empathy is effervescent
fever full in frightful fates; for fear fitting sound can be found filing freely
going gaping through the gap-teeth of the goers gripping gargantuan bags glistening grandly
how horrible to heave heavily through the houses higher is better than
imminent introduction to the isolation of the impaired inside is the interest outside the incident
just jogging jaded full of japes and jinxes of jacked-up jimmy
(kinder kids cannot confound to kill)
locks lured life is lilting landed lone in leaping but it
matters not my mission is merely managing
not necessarily never notoriously nothing
over opening or ordering the other and operating in
pairs pushing and pulling panting the passing of
quiet
rushes risking the reality that roars
so searing so
tenuous tinkering tilting tender
under your uniformity uniqueness is unanimous
verifying the validity of the vivace
why wonder
your yes

ticking off the minutes
accounted for
are the steps you take down the hallway
heel toe heel toe heel toe
pink and blue socks
a blur
as you waver in the middle
a straight line is impossible
you do not want to travel the shortest distance.
its empty
but you're full and
racing
with your eyes down
and the
one-two-one-two-one-two
of repetition in your head
as you speed along
and this little pleasure
is all
you need

that was really mean
he says
and really
its almost as if he himself has detached himself
from the action
which is not really
fair
considering it all
he was really mean
she was really mean
yes she was meaner
but hadn't he realized that?
he's not very good at realizing
that i know
if he had been
none of this would have ever happened
not that i regret it
its easier to not be blinded by the light
when you've seen the fire

i don't want them to come back
i've liked this lull in reality
and the sharp clicked heels of her toes
on the sidewalk will
only remind me of the pain
and her raccoon eyed
high hair will make my nails seethe
everythings just so much simpler
when they're gone

and besides
its easier to stay in this space
of not forgiving
but not forgoing
when she is not
here

(agenda mumbles)

These are not my fingernails.

they are too large, too round
mine were never this coarse
my hand is not this foreign

this is not my hand.

my fingers are not twigs
not this short
my hand is too sallow
my arm is too thin

this is not my arm.

the spots are too pale
too spattered and prickled
the lines are too dark

these are not my veins.

the blood is not pumping
my heart is too weak

this is not my heart.

the lines are too dark
the grey is too deep
the distance too far
between beats

there is a drop of red on you finger tip and it is dripping down
to the floor under my feet
and leaving stains on the
carpet ants that trudge along
wearily but you don't notice with your blonde
long strands in front of your eyes that act as dividers make me a me and them a
them and you don't see the bars that confine you when you blow upwards
silly, its funny how easy it is to pretend and
how easy it is to see that you are pretending
i can pretend not to see
you pretend not to see
but its blatant in the way you adjust your socks
and the way your finger drips with your eyes so different
you've managed to keep it from yourself for this long
but now the squares are closing in and your
arms are too toenail paint lacquered to stand
clear of the closing
doors

iii.

count to three and tell her about the time you went to disney world. she was too young
to remember

                                     the sun drops through the circles of her cupped hands
                                     as the rays lick her red knuckles
                                     rubbing the silent air between us

  the letters won't squeeze themselves out of my toothpaste container though i roll up the end
and brush
vigorously
i cannot get rid of the blue behind my ears and the pink between my toes

ii.

i think she's figured it out by now

i.
the phone rolls from the table

o.
i think
she
knows

his eyes were green

unbelievably so

and when they blinked down at her

it was like an explosion and he knew

all that was happening in her little head

though she couldn't quite figure it out herself

even as she got top marks in all her classes

and marked herself up consistently in red pen

like a paper 

her teachers enumerating her insecurities with their

ballpoints and him erasing them with his 

eyes

you're so stupid
so stupid
sometimes i cannot even
stand
how stupid you
are

why do you do these things?
make excuses for yourself
but thats all they are and they will
only work if you believe them

i'm not mad anymore
really i'm not
i'm oddly removed

but when i hear of you on the edge of the platform
i'm protective
you're a little messed up i know
though half of it is real
and the other half put on
the desire to teeter is something in you that scares
me
though it is something i can sometimes see
in myself

(agenda book mumbling)

too much empty space inside my head
to be filled. don't jam pack in your words
in emptiness there's solace

the light from the refrigerator
makes my bones white
paper exoskeletons
drawn on with the little pencils that
have been sharpened so many times that
the tip is the end
if you reached out and touched me i would
fall backwards
and shatter
leaving pieces on the floor
and under the dining room table
so that we'd have to walk around with shoes on
for days

you are brushing your teeth in the bathroom
to keep the stench off your lips because
you tried to be smart but the shininess of
it all caught your eye too many times and
you couldn't hold out to be the limbs
from the pages because
they didn't exist in the second of
the invincible now when you forgot the
soft moments and just wanted to
feel

i am pulled thin and taut
pluck me like a guitar string
i would like to hear the sound i'd make

stare into my eyes
and tell me you have not
thought of the many different ways
our meetings could go
when the park benches are too cold
and our fingers turned blue
and i walked as
if
i paced fast enough i could
leave my scared self just a second
behind
pacing and pacing
a second behind