it has become as easy
as the cracking sidewalk in the stare of my eyes
as i walk to school
with you
and the jumping up the stairways two at a time
laughing when i bump into the wall
because now our hugs
are expected and mean little to me
and mean little to you
(i still imagine my disaster
and that extra tug tighter, but more because
i want to be saved, because i want a hero)
still for now i will no longer take the f train
to the r train to the b or the q
and prolong my journey home for a matter
of minutes
because i am secure in our friendship
and the balance of our intimacy
does not lie in the crack between the closing doors
nor can it be broken by the trains delay
as the wheels jolt me forward
and you far behind

tear me apart with your eyes

and the way you pause before

you say goodbye

as if you could fill those few seconds

with so many words

but you hesitate

tell me those words

it has become so bad

that i have a physical reaction

when i see you

the involuntary influx of shudder air and the adrenaline comes

rushing in making

me question how it is that

my body knows what my mind will not admit

and my lips are afraid of

the warmth pulls out
the i-don't-knows
and ice cream woes
behind the tips of your eyelashes that curl up
with your older sisters mascara
that we used to dabble in when we were kids
and now we dab on ferociously and we are still kids
the car will honk outside
and you'll yank me from the mirror
grab my coat
grab my coat
you'll yell up the stairs as you take them two at a time
and i am amazed how you do not trip
i'll grab it and hustle down right
behind you
you'll call shotgun
and i'll get the backseat which smells slightly
musty and smoky and altogether undesirable
but it will be fine because i'll tell peter
to roll down the windows
and i'll stick out my
head because i don't care if my hair gets mussed up
as long as i feel
alive

it was the first time
i have ever been checked out that
obviously
by a stranger

a silent wordless scope
from the guy in the passenger seat
as i waited for the bus
and looked left
and looked left
though i knew it had just rounded the corner
and pushed down my skirt
and peeked through the strands
of my hair
where his eyes were still looking
unabashed
and though they moved
while i constantly checked,
as the car pulled off
they lingered--
i was worth an entire head turn.

how scintillating

its amazing how
not caring
can make everything
that much better
and easier to fit
inside the confines
of a once-agitated mind
where there now lies
loose outlines

poring over ourselves at the
turn of midnight
our fingers brush our sleep exhilarated words
as they form a fragile strip of sound between us through the
air of our telephones
and the secrets that
pass through the wires over the highways
we do not have to travel
to speak

the night pulls out words we have been afraid to say
out loud and to ourselves (that we have buried)
and pushes them into air shaky and wobbly (but in the cold
existence of the buzz and the soft
shoulder of facial anonymity they will breathe fine)
they will pick themselves up
and dust off the worry
in these late conversations
i never want to end

An Ode to the Apple Tree That I Planted With My Hands And Not My Computer

wednesday

for continuity i will continue
i still spell out the word on the tip of my
tongue
mashing it into syllables in order to derive
the tangled letters' line

adrenaline kicked in today
and my fingers raced across the keys
and though they trembled they stuck.
(the music sailed through the day
picking out the times of silence with crescendoes
and the space of woes with harmonies
the dissonance, the strums)

light-headed the feet on
the pavement quieted my murmurs
and though you lingered it was more
in the lack minded words of my friends
and less in the tedious minutes of my
head which blew all out of proportion
like when you take your fingers into a little circle
and peer through and everything seems larger
before you move away

tuesday

i wish i could say that
today was better than the last
but really it was worse
much worse
and it came to the point
where i was walking down
the street and i realized
all the potential i had wasted
so much potential
all the things i could've said
all the things i could've done
it all plays out easier in your mind
than in your fingers
but i vowed not to let myself walk
the same way tomorrow

the harshness (the looks i gained)
those hours were so crisscrossing (how could you look at me like that and not continue) and
all the not close everyones (i don't understand) picked out my glumness with a glance and asked
me what was (what's wrong with you?) wrong to which i replied
nothing because it is so much easier not
to burden others with our words and keep it all inside
(what goes on inside your head?) though niceties brush my
sides like willow branches and push me forward
they could not untangle my head from my feet and my
heart from my hands

(oldie from march that didn't get posted)

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 our parents to
stay for an extra twenty

my heart stretches at the seams
when we lie under the covers
and trade quiet words of comfort
and secrets only brothers, sisters, share

monday

sometimes i don't know what it is
but it is as if the rain seeps
into my skin leaving blue
blotches and my mood is as dark
as the clouds underfoot that buzz
around in my head because today you
did not pay attention to me and today
i did not see you. really I'm becoming tired
so tired, so tired
i do not even know if it is you that i like or more the
way that you are always laughing or the idea of the
impeccability that has now tore at
its seams with everything crashing down because
i hung around an hour too late and scoured
the hallways as if i had a place to be but really i
was looking for you
in the posters on the wall and the faces of the people
who had stayed because they had reasons
searching as if i had found you i would've said anything
we both know thats a lie
or at least i do
i don't know if you even think that hard
in the gloom of the waiting for the five o clock
train that will whisk me away from the city
and the dunkin donuts that i stopped in because
you may or may not have been there with your friends
and the streets you will walk that i don't even know if
i should care about
or if i do care about
too much uncertainty
makes my head implode

she circles her foot around and around and around
spinning herself into a turbulent tornado because within
she cannot be seen
and within she can breathe
and within everyone else can be out
and she can be in
and she can be in
side
herself and the vortex will
protect her from the scars stuck on
the surface because the wind of her
tired whispers and her bitter cries
have whipped up a storm and will not let anyone in
not the friends who sulk back guiltily and bang
on the door not her mother who
brings up food to her room and begs her to please come
downstairs
not her brother who draws pictures at school for his older
sister who he no longer understands
not for anyone
the wall she has built with her own tears is
impenetrable though it shivers
paper-thin
to the touch

words that meant so much to me
now hold so much less in the palm of my hand
and suddenly i am in control of my own emotions
and in control of my sound

our cheeks are porcelain pained
with smiles we are supposed to carry
i have discarded mine behind the dumpster
out back but you still wear yours
and at first i think it is because you are
scared of consequences
and that this smooth-to-touch has become a
crutch for you to
fill in the tracing cracks with your personality
an innocent mien
but when you blink your long doll lashes
your pupils breathe out the truth and your short
ponytailed hair sways and slipping it swears that you are
too afraid to wipe off this painted face
because you do not want people to
see what lies underneath the
plaster and underneath your
skin