worlds within words

Temporary

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 22:10:54 -0400

I look at you in the slanted morning sunlight and my eyes trace the curve of your back.

My fingers do not.

I have memorized the half-moons of your fingernails

and the sound your lips make when they part

but I know that you are temporary.

You are temporary like a planetary alignment is temporary,

like the subway ride with a celebrity is temporary,

like singing the best song of your life is temporary.

You are temporary like a moth dancing in the flame is temporary,

like the last full breath of air before you sink is temporary.

You are temporary like all beautiful things that must die are temporary.

You are temporary like the moment of perfect balance on a fence post is temporary,

like the burning of a falling star is temporary,

like the taste of coffee on your tongue is temporary.

You and I are doomed to die,

and what lies between us will die sooner than that.

The best things in life do not last forever.

Viscera

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 22:01:24 -0400

I’ve heard people use the term “vomiting your feelings”
like fear and anger and pain are things that reside in the stomach, to be thrown up or shat out.

I feel that worry in my heart and in my lungs, anxiety like a grip around my chest, constricting, squeezing,
until I want to reach inside
and grab hold of my ribs
and snap them open
(like a fetal pig on a high school biology table)
and watch everything fall
out.

On the days when I hate my breasts, I hate, too, that they are paler than the rest of...

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 01:02:52 -0500

On the days when I hate my breasts, I hate, too, that they are paler than the rest of me—

white like the fish’s underbelly,

like soft and vulnerable things.

Like-like

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 20:38:06 -0500

I like her.

(Like, that peculiar term, said helpless and smiling, with the same particular emphasis given by gently teasing middle schoolers— I like-likeher.)

How can I resist?

I like her because she is fascinated by penguins and coos over baby anythings; because she gave me a glove when it was freezing; because her laugh is not lovely but contagious.

I like her because we lay on the floor of my room staring at the ceiling like stargazers, and I offered to cut through 17 ceilings so she could see the smog, and she laughed—

I like her because she crawled into my blanket fort after me, folding easily, and told me a story I’d never heard—

I like her because when I told her the tragic story of my best, broken mug, she reacted with the appropriate horror and sympathy—

I like her because whenever we walk together the wind presses at my back, whispering go on, go on.

I like her because she is so delightfully, deliriously human.

I like her because she asked me; I like her because she kissed me; I like her because she likes me.

(She like-likes me.)

I am not strong

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 20:01:42 -0500

I am not a predator.

I have no need for fangs

or poison claws.

I do not hunt.

I know one thing well- how to run, and when, and where.

I am not ashamed.

Wolves and deer

both die, eventually.

The deer, at least

does not know the taste of blood

until its dying breath.

I am not strong.

This is not an insult.

This is a fact.

I do not fight.

We place such value on standing ground

and holding on-

do not forget that just as important

is knowing when to leave.

I am not ashamed.

Roots deep in the soil

mean safety and strength,

but wind breaks branches

and carries leaves.

There is nothing shameful about survival.

The wind is howling outside. The wind is screaming and crying and whipping through the...

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 14:53:34 -0500

The wind is howling outside.

The wind is screaming and crying and whipping through the trees

battering on the windows

and screeching through the streets.

The wind is moaning like a madwoman

and I’m here, with you, tucked under the sheets.

(That’s how you know I love you.)

The words from your mouth crack hiss pop like snarls in firewood but you are all flash and...

Sat, 22 Dec 2012 22:50:02 -0500

The words from your mouth
crack
hiss
pop
like snarls in firewood but
you are all flash and no
substance.

Things I should be doing

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 01:05:03 -0500

I should be writing poetry.
I should be writing about the wandering that I did at 1am through campus in the rain-thick half-cold dark, searching for a place to sing.
I should be channeling my stress and worries into verse, rambling about my fear of failure and of failing, literally; of setting myself up to fall.
I should be writing about the afternoon I spent on a rooftop staring at a cloudless sky, watching a jet plane’s trail like a wake in the water and feeling that at any moment I could drown.
I should be waxing poetic about the date I had with a pretty girl, where we shared a pair of gloves, bare hands clasped together, pretending not to feel the cold.
I should be writing about the way my new haircut makes me feel, handsome and boyish and charming.
I should be writing about
school or
thoughts or
love or
loss
but
I am just
spewing
words
on
a
page.

changeling

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 13:50:10 -0500

There is something to be said for the changeling child

born of two worlds, bound to neither;

there is a freedom in the power

to walk the line between.

Those with feet firmly rooted

look on with misguided pity;

poor dear, poor lost thing,

no home and no place.

But they will never know the wonder

of standing on a high wire,

the edge between worlds,

and seeing both things at once.

(You were my caesura- the pause, the frozen time, the empty silence the sword between the ribs.)

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 13:28:26 -0500

(You were my caesura-
the pause, the frozen time, the empty silence
the sword between the ribs.)

I would like to apologize in advance for cross-posts that result because of the tumblr app. I try to...

Sun, 25 Nov 2012 10:47:13 -0500

I would like to apologize in advance for cross-posts that result because of the tumblr app. I try to keep the fandom quarantined.

I am so tired of being tired and having tried and being tied into knots over you.

Sat, 24 Nov 2012 23:34:02 -0500

I am so
tired
of being
tired
and having
tried
and being
tied
into knots over
you.

You told me once inhaling on a spring morning that you thought magic smelled like lavender. I think...

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 16:15:42 -0500

You told me once
inhaling on a spring morning
that you thought magic smelled like lavender.

I think that you are wrong.
Magic must smell like
dark wet grave dirt
and sweetly rotting apples
and the dead-branches sacrifice of fall.

Janice and Thomas

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 18:20:25 -0500

She wears five thousand faces and none of them hers,

steals five thousand voices and none of them in tune.

She walks like a model and a vagrant and a face in the crowd.

“I’ve never done this before,” she says,

polygraph-perfect.

He wears his heart on his sleeve

and his thoughts on his face.

He stands straight, shoulders open, neck bared.

“You’re beautiful,” he says,

too earnest by far.

She says she was born in Moscow, Madagascar, Ireland, San Diego;

she grew up here and she’s just visiting and she’s never been here before.

She meets your eyes just long enough,

cool as you please.

He stumbles and stutters over his words,

and his smile is as clear as a child’s.

He tells you the things

no one else will say.

“I love you,” she says,

and hears her heart stutter.

“I know that you do,”

he lies.

I opened my mouth and I swallowed them down, all the sweet things you called me; let them sit in my...

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 19:57:23 -0500

I opened my mouth and I swallowed them down,

all the sweet things you called me;

let them sit in my stomach for days,

weeks maybe,

digesting.

But I am stronger now, and longer,

and I shed your names like skins.

ink

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 22:29:15 -0400

When I was young,

I used to write all over my body-

things I liked,

like long fancy words and

brilliant turns of phrase

and poetry that sang,

penned on my arms and legs.

When the letters faded I’d smile,

knowing they’d been absorbed into my bloodstream.

I’d imagine I could feel

my heart pumping prose

and Shakespeare’s sonnets wrapped around my bones

and John Donne in the soles of my feet

and meter rushing in my ears.

“I will be a writer,” I’d say,

“I must be a writer,

writing is what I am.”

And now I am a writer,

will be a writer,

have been a writer,

but I still wonder-

was it the scribbling made me so,

or the ink poisoning?

and the sins of our past set not like the sun, but like stains- deep and indelible and...

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 22:17:32 -0400

and the sins of our past set

not like the sun, but like stains-

deep and indelible

and incriminating.

I cannot write my name in stone. I cannot scratch and scrape my way into brick eternity. I cannot...

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 07:49:48 -0400

I cannot write my name in stone.

I cannot scratch and scrape my way into brick eternity.

I cannot carve away at trees.

I will not be bound.

What’s in a name?
Power.

I sigh my name on errant breezes,

scratch it in the dust,

trace it onto breath-fogged windowpanes.

I like to watch it disappear.

I leave less than footprints.

As for your name—

I cannot bear to let it leave my lips.

Who knows what it would do?

the farm-fox study

Mon, 17 Sep 2012 18:05:00 -0400

The interesting thing about tameness

the thing we’ve known for ages and nobody ever says

is this:

it’s genetic.

Bred in, born in

poked at by scientists

and selected for centuries,

mapped out in floppy ears and curled tails and spotted coats.

Pre-determined domestication.

No amount of murmured endearments

and gentle touches

will soothe the offspring

of scared and snarling hunters

or dull their sharpened teeth.

Some things are just born wild.

I have freckles now you’ll never know. There’s a constellation brewing on my breastbone,...

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 16:55:08 -0400

I have freckles now you’ll never know.
There’s a constellation brewing on my breastbone, dots on my wrist, my toes, the shell of my ear. There are figures and patterns that your fingers will never trace.
Another year of sun and my body will be a mystery to you again,
a strange sky filled with unfamiliar stars.