slam poem

You were probably too
fastmoving for windows
positioned in a corner
locking you out
locking you in.

Trees never looked
so green as that
day when your infantile
hands reached up &
over the bars of your crib
(you always had a taste for freedom).
You wanted to be
fastmoving like the light
like the sun
like the stars.

Understanding never came
so easy to you as that
day when the sun fell
out of the sky.
The world fell apart—
every plant turned black but
tears never graced your
grey-blue-storm eyes,
worry never crossed your infantile mind.

A crisis
they insisted.

A tragedy
they screamed.

as the world fell dark
& fluorescents lit
alleyways
churches
mountain tops &
you always told us that we
were never
close enough
to the sky
the moon
the stars.
Your observation skills had always surpassed those of the fire hydrants.

You would yell at me
yell at us
for being comical in times of heartbreak and that sun falling from that sky
you yelled
that was heartbreak on a massive scale.
You warned us about the oceans,
you warned us about the forests.
We would have to pour oil into the oceans, spread napalm on the forests (light them on fire)
just so we might have light for
a week
a day
an hour.
Because honey, we are human.

It’s not that we need to destroy, it’s that we need to create destruction. This is destruction by fire, this is trees falling away, oxygen becoming as rare as petrol.
This is a world-wide water shortage and no-more blue jeans.
I try to explain this to you & your infantile mind your
infantile hands still reaching for some light still
reaching for some understanding and honey, if you find it
lend me some.

inspired by Samuel Beckett

white walls, white floor white sheets. cold hands, cold steel, cold light. his body sewn together like yarn, like quilt, like sewn. his hand in hers like a pen, like a clump of hair, like hands.
separation he thought (she feared).
separation they insisted (he needed).
too far gone, they told her (she knew).
tap tap tap on the cold white floor. A nurse’s clogs and she’s coming in with the wire and he’s screaming about the wire because no it’s not just wire and that wasn’t just duct tape and honey, nothing is okay. you’ve been thinking too much and he was too far gone he is too far gone. she was upset about the plates, mostly, even though they were porcelain and he was skin and bone. she was upset about the goldfish, mostly, even though she hated that fish and she loved him. she was upset about the couch, mostly, even though the couch was cheap and their insurance did not cover xanax.

for some reason, at CCYWC, I could not stop writing about psychotic break-downs

and i remember you, far far away. no where near the lights or the sounds, too far into your own head. you could not remember your name, my name, our address. the cab driver had to rely on words stuttered through uncontrolled lips and you always forgot to pay. morning would come and i would find plates on the kitchen floor, the goldfish drowned in anti-freese, forks and knives used to rip apart couch cushions. you insisted that they were after you, trying to find you to
pin you down and force a funnel down your throat and
fill your body with sand, just so you could not run away.
and then your eyes. your eyelids peeled off with razor blades, then duct tape applied to throbbing irises. you could not be seeing anything. your hands smashed with hammers and your feet bound with wire.
they were always after you and you could see them in the corner of your eye, running, running, running towards you, but when you snapped your neck around to see, they would be gone.
you said the pills they gave you were cyanide, not xanax and you said the place they took you was a prison not a hospital and you promised me, promised me, promised me that you would get out and everything would be fine—but not as long as they were out there with their razor blades and funnels and wire. all you had to do was stop them and then honey, it would be okay. but they were after you, after you, after you and they were in your head, their ink on your hands, their sand between your toes and you were too far gone.

story in the form of a love letter

This is because I love you and have not written you one of those love letters in months and months. I’m sorry. I know that’s not the most conventional way to start a love letter but I’m not sure what else to say. I’m sorry I loved him more than you, I’m sorry I couldn’t bring myself to leave you. I realize now—I’m probably too late. I can picture you in an apartment in New York or London (you always hated Vermont and wanted to get out of here as soon as we graduated), without children (you always hated children), and a husband—he’ll cook and clean for you like you know I never would have and maybe just maybe you’ll think of me sometimes as you put your head to the pillow but mostly I will be gone and our springs and summers—spent on beaches an in forests will be nothing but memories.

“Memories are kind of like smoke” you always told me, as you took drag after drag on that filter-less cigarette. Smoke curling towards the night sky, mixing with the stars. We saw each other in the nighttime and only in the nighttime because my mother and father insisted that you were some sort of bad influence—with your late-night visits to alleyways and your mid-afternoon trips to tattoo parlors (your mother and father didn’t mind—they didn’t mind anything). I’m sorry. I know it seems like I am in a constant state of apology with you and that is probably because I am. But I love you. I loved you when I was with you and even more when you were gone. I know people say you miss things more after they’re gone and it’s true (it’s so, so true). I miss you so much I’m in physical pain and even when I’m in bed with him—in the morning with light streaming through that corner window and birds chirping, I miss you. The way your long brown hair fell across my chest, the way your spider-fingers, adorned with too many rings, slipped into my own. I miss that. I don’t have much to say other than I really fucking miss you and I really fucking love you and I am really fucking sorry.

in the end it wasn’t bombs

To him she was beautiful in her imperfections.
Beautiful in that her hair didn’t fall straight and smooth across her back. It lay in frizzy waves that curled around her arms, around her spine, behind her ears. Beautiful in that her eyes were not pure blue nor green but a muddy-brown that sometimes reminded him of coffee. Beautiful in that she was not pencil thin, would never be pencil thin, her curves were like mountains and they were beautiful like mountains.

He was beautiful to her for all the wrong reasons.
Reasons like the fact that he was a chain smoker and smoke would drift from his lips like upside-down waterfall (that smooth). Reasons like the fact that he was incapable of middle-ground feelings, everything was intense and when it was intense it was intensely perfect or intensely imperfect. Reasons like the fact that when things were intensely imperfect he wrote the most beautiful poetry she had ever read and she was very attracted to artists.

(They knew that if they ended up together everything would go horribly wrong. Buildings would fall and they sky would rain a thousand tiny apocalypses. You see, in the end none none of this ended because of bombs [It was love].)

I… I don’t really know.

It’s been too long and I’m probably too far gone but sometimes I just feel like the sun is shining to bright, the sun is boiling my skin, the sun is baking my hair, the sun is giving me cancer, the sun is, the sun is, the sun…

You’re always too angry with my way of thinking this way of thinking the way of thinking when you’re angry at everything you’re angry at everything and hating everything is easier than loving but everything becomes interchangeable for energy in the end, right?

You smell too much like expensive perfume, only diluted. Expensive perfume after the bottle had been submerged in a sink by its neglectful owner. Ditch the expensive perfume, I’d rather have you smelling like petrol. At least that way, everytime I lit a cigarette I’d be afraid you’d burst into flames.

I’m sorry about what I did to the goldfish but I knew you hated it I knew you hated it and I hoped you loved me maybe enough maybe enough that the fish wouldn’t matter, the dishes wouldn’t matter and I’m even more sorry that I forgot your name. When you’re in a car and everything in the world is coming after you, the first thing that comes to your mind is not your lover’s name. Or are you my lover? I can never remember.

Hating everything is easier than loving everything because if you love everything you have to deal with love and your life turns into a soap-opera. People are making love and making children and no one is ever with the person everyone thinks they should be with and we’ll just upset society, we’ll upset the balance. Hating is easy because when you hate everything you stay alone and you’re free to be your own little scum of the earth, you don’t have to worry about anyone else’s.

A

Once when you were small and I was smaller, my mother took us to the beach. I remember this clearly because you were involved and so many of my early memories revolve around you. This must have been on one of the good days because you were calm, I remember. There was no screaming, no punching, I did not go to sleep that night with any bruises.
I remember playing with other children and having to tell them you were special. If I didn’t tell them you were special they would run away when you got angry or when you had an off hour, if you were on an off day. If I told them you were special they might stick around, they would feel bad for you, feel bad for us. If they didn’t stick around they would make an excuse to leave (mother needs me, I am tired, I have to go).
People usually assumed you were my brother. People still assume you are my brother. I do not call you my best friend, I call you my cousin. I love you more like a brother or like a cousin than like a friend. My mother and your mother are always telling me how I’m the only one who can talk to you. I’m the only one you can maintain any level of normalcy around. Sometimes this scares me and when my mother told me—you will never be able to be totally alone. The doctor has declared you “permanently developmentally delayed”. You will need some amount of care for the rest of your life. You don’t have any siblings, you do not have the support of your aunts or your uncles, this responsibility will fall to me. I told her without hesitation that I would. Because I love you no matter what.

I still write things.

A lot of the time you confuse me. My confusion is deep-rooted and I should probably seek professional help but—no. Words whispered between apologies always mean more than the ones whispered between sheets and sometimes I want to ask you— have you ever gotten inside a duvet cover? Have you ever climbed into the pocket in the middle of winter when the cotton is ice cold and your hands are colder? It feels safe, you would tell me as we slid between the sheets. This is safe, you would tell me, as we slip deeper and deeper. I want to be safe always, you would tell me, as we finally settle at the end of the pocket.
At this point my eyes would start to water, not because I am crying but because they are dry but you will think the latter anyway. Wipe them away with the sleeve of your sweater (because it’s winter and you’re wearing a sweater) and then we would kiss and it would be perfect.
I would not have to break to you the fact that sitting inside of a duvet cover is no safer than standing in the middle of a freeway.

and I know it’s been a long long time…

She had always guessed that maybe there was one chance left for a breath of sanity. Her room was dark and her hair was dark. Her skin was pale and she hadn’t been outside for months and months. When the morning of the sixth of May came she decided that today was the day and she opened her windows. The trees were finally green, the grass finally green, the flowers finally in bloom. She had missed them, she thought. More than the people she had missed the grass and flowers. Sometimes she missed the large white owl that sat on her window ledge in December, but mostly she missed the grass and the flowers. Because she had not been outside for months and months her skin was bare and her hair was greasy. The water had been shut off when she made the executive decision to stop paying her bills and she had run out of shampoo in November. A mountain of soda bottles lived in the living room. High and mighty, they were the only thing that had sustained her in her self-imposed solitary confinement. She spoke words to the trees and flinched. Her voice was strange, alien. She had not spoken in months and months and her voice had scared her.

hey

Remember how I used to keep this blog up obsessively and really cared about how many views I got per day?