weekend light in heavy rain
something hiding in the rainclouds: light /
pockets inside out and i'm staring at ten fingers,
extended towards the ceiling
(they're yours)
and somehow we ended up with our legs intertwined
(you've been on my mind)
and i'm thinking about the way you planted kisses on my nose
(how did i end up here?)
when we stood at the window and watched the rain
i didn't know
the world's expanding; i think
i'm afraid of the snap back to order
but i like when you touch our fingertips together
and i like your hand on the small of my back
and i can't see at all but it's right, i think
there's so much more i need to say
but
words get in the way, right?
so i'll put them some place you'll never see them:
here
or the back of my mind, coloring book pages with scribbling words
and fairy hearts and stick-on stars
all to remember the way you look at me sometimes
time being
im not sure what to write
i know what people like
but this week has felt as though
i might not survive
i left home
made people mad
but i feel hopeful
is that really bad
or should i feel terrible
like a dad whose gone to get ciggarettes?
i dont though
my love and well wishes go out to them
but all that theyve done to me
should i really pretend
that im not the slighest bit angry
that they didnt ask where i was last night
or should i accept that all we do is fight
and i could never be enough
so why should i try
when my opinion is the only one
that even matters in the meantime
no matter if you meant to hurt someone
it matters that their hurt
and ego is the evil
that continues to lerk
through you and her and him and her
once again it doesnt matter
if you meant for me to hurt
because i did
for too long
i dont owe you a thing
just leave me alone
please
just for the time being.
Intrusive Thoughts
In the cluttered corners of my mind,
Where shadows dance, and thoughts unwind,
A symphony of whispers, dark and deep,
Intrusive thoughts, their secrets keep.
Unwelcome guests, they linger near,
The tempest of anxiety, sparking fear.
Like ghosts, they haunt, with mangled glee,
Intruding on my only sanctuary.
A canvas painted with the hues of doubt,
Intrusive thoughts, they twist and shout.
A storm within, a relentless tide,
They whisper, taunt, and try to hide.
I wrestle with these shadows cast,
In the theater of my mind, they're vast.
Unwelcome guests, they dance and play,
Distorting truths in the light of day.
But I'll rise above this tempest's roar,
Find the strength to close the door.
For in the heart of the darkest night,
I'll reclaim my thoughts, bring back the light.
Intrusive whispers, I'll defy,
With resilience and a steadfast eye.
A poem penned to set me free,
From the chains of intrusive thoughts, let me be.
My Pliable Innocence
Hold that though!
But how?
Thoughts are so fleeting.
They wander as I wonder,
Disconnectedly,
Without rhyme or reason that I can see.
They travel randomly as they please,
Coming and going
Without consulting me,
As if I don’t exist.
It’s freaky!
I’m being used by someone I can’t see.
Maybe the devil’s playing games with me,
Having fun at my expense,
Taking advantage of my pliable innocence.
Why are thoughts so hard to control?
They’re right here, in my head,
In my most prized real estate,
Doing as they please, as if I’m dead!
Witch Doctors
It didn't become a Russian roulette until later, when the witch doctors (psychiatrists) started prescribing me too much medication. In that future, where I am too anxious to leave my house lest I run into a neighbor and am forced to make small talk, I am on too much of a medication that I have been on for fifteen years. That number, folks - that's half my life.
I remember my first witch doctor. Here's the thing - these doctors don't know anything, really, about how the brain actually works, because everyone's brain pan is different. I remember reading once how the brain is like the deep ocean, in that scientists know little about it. There is so much left to be explored. But as if by decree, as if he were a judge on my particular, sixteen-year-old brain pan, he decided to clock out of work that day with the knowledge that he had prescribed me with an incredibly addictive drug. His witch ritual was complete.
How was a sixteen-year-old supposed to know that it would be incredibly addictive? Sixteen is, by legal definition, underage, youth, minor, not yet an adult who can make adult choices. I looked up to him. I looked up to him because I was taught that you look up to adults; they knew more than I did, so who was I to fault them?
But the thing is - because my brain pan would have been different than any other patient he'd ever had - he didn't know what he was doing. He was throwing out guesses. And yes, perhaps, they were "educated" guesses, but his certainty that it would "all work out" required an arrogance that only these witch doctors have.
I don't hold a lot of respect for this profession, clearly. I learned later, as a legal adult, that they are rather easy to manipulate. Just make sh*t up, and they'll prescribe what you want. And maybe then I am a part of this rather elaborate, problematic system of medicine. But remember - it is witch medicine.
These are my current thoughts, as I sit here, unable to hold a conversation with my neighbor. My brain pan is fried. I have taken so much anxiety medication in my short lifetime that I am more anxious than ever. The system failed me. They failed me.
Here's the short answer: don't answer to witches.
absent father
a daughter, confused and abandoned
i remember the first time that i asked my mom
why i didn’t have a dad like the other little girls around
me did, it was the first time she didn’t have an answer
for the hundreds of questions a five year old is
curious to know, it was the first time i saw anger burn
in her eyes. she once warned me about my first heartbreak
that it would come in my teenage years and that it
would hurt more than anything i have ever experienced.
i listened quietly, i had no strength to tell her that i had already
experienced my first heartbreak and that no matter how
much advice she could muster up, i would never understand
why the one man who was supposed to love and protect me
left without a care. it was then that i had the thought that
would haunt me for years to come, if my dad didn’t love me
enough to stay, who ever would? and then another, was there
something wrong with me? and another, what could i have done
to make him stay? i would later find out that i would ask these
same questions about the boys i would bring to bed.
a mother, angry and giving
she tried her best to give me double the love, to make up
for the other half that would not be given to me by him
and though i could never admit it to her, it was never enough
she knows this though, even if she doesn’t hear it from me
she has felt it on her own, abandoned like me. she hates him for making
me like her and she’s angry at herself because she feels that she is to blame
my mother has given, and loved, and kissed, and cared.
she is everything in the world to me
a brother, protective and loving
the one who will walk me down the aisle when my wedding comes
he will shed the tears that should have been my fathers when
he gives me away, he’ll make a speech about how it was
him who has protected me all of these years and now will give that
responsibility to someone else. i’ll cry along when he tells our friends
and family how much he loves and adores me, and we’ll laugh
when he mentions our favorite childhood memories
the one who gave me more protection, love, and attendance
than my father ever could
a father, careless and unpresent
everything is a kind of dying
making out on the basement couch is worthy of subterfuge and celebration
and it's death. the ghost of innocence watches me from the corner of the room
lamenting.
graduation, the end of high school. it's death of all your circumstantial friendships and the way the sidewalk feels under your feet in your neighborhood
it's getting drunk and confessing things we shouldn't have
done in the first place. it's an epitaph for something that's already dead
nostalgia is a sister to grief. the past is dead
that boy from summer camp bleached his hair blonde and shaved it off
the cells were already dead, right?
these people at the party you argue with while you kill your liver with alcohol
they'll never call you back
they slip out of the room prematurely. the night takes them unannounced like death
even the paper i write on, the tree someone killed to make it. i ruin it with ink, it's tainted even in death.
the grease on my fingertips erodes the keyboard. but the apple juice i choked out and spit
still makes the keys stick.
i guess there's something immortal about that.
Break My Heart
Twirl along the edge with me once more,
Avoiding the abyss of sentimental words.
Take my hand and walk me to the darkness
And lean in for once more kiss, one more hug,
One more gentle graze on my cheek and look
Into my eyes with that smile I fell for years ago
And whisper those diabetic sweet nothings
Before dipping me off the precipice again.
When the World Danced with Me
Give me your hand.
Bring me to the edge of that round goodness and dangle me over that edge.
Make me question if you will let
go.
Let the mystery of all things quiet if only for one song
where you gave me a chance to shine,
at the center of that great world that no one knows.
When the song ends, and shadows begin to creep and this round, good world seems to flatten, let me remember this moment when the world and I danced for what seemed like
forever.