Mai Ka Po Mai Ka 'O'ia'i'o

Day 938: collapsing game

2012-02-14T09:37:00.000-08:00

meet me in the corner
where things fall apart
where the silver bits
of you
crumble to the concrete
and you find yourself
plating gold onto your outsides
hoping someone will find your sparkle
demanding of attention

sometimes no one is watching
and i feel like someone is
and the weak parts are starting to fall
and i try to hold them together
and i find myself reaching for you
and the promises that cracked us in two
and all i want is some silver
some gold
or the strength of a diamond
want someone to see my shell
find it beautiful enough to hold
so that maybe we dont need to play
this collapsing game
anymore

Day 937:

2012-02-13T19:05:00.000-08:00

Absence makes the heart burn its bridges
I found you belly up browned by our ash
Wishing you could move
Just a little closer

Day 936: remembering sweden

2012-02-12T18:51:00.000-08:00

There’s beat hidden in this street
Speaks like stories spread between friends
I’ve seen nothing like Sweden in spring
The bling of 20-karat smiles
Shaped by the sunrise
Where 45 degrees
Means it’s the warmest it’s been in weeks
You’ll find me huddled in the warmth of a corner pharmacy
While blond blue eye beauties
Break bread with the steam of their breath
How their mouths foam at the edges
See me
Call me American
Call the tone of this skin
Secret
The shape of this body
silent
the stone wall in my skin
these fist
find solace in the soles of me
kissing bricks
like it’s a dance
like it’s a promise
to make music

I found you
Harmonizing with the subtle sound of morning
The silence of our sunrise
You’ve turned to music
Left even the right smiling
Here
I am cold
Freezing
Almost
But your body is a fur coast during winter
A promise of protection
You wont have yourself being confused as foreign
Not in the center of your homeland
Not while you walk laying bricks under you
Building this city from your soles
up

Day 935:

2012-02-11T18:43:00.000-08:00

they ask me to write
in letters
in voice mails
send me emails with a request to be more open
again
i find nothing in this exchange
just shame in the lack of what i have to say
projects pile themselves over and over and over again
none come with their own closure
not unless you are prepare for the digging necessary

and today i am not

Day 934: brittle

2012-02-10T14:34:00.000-08:00

i find myself awake
someone tells me to try
show my worth
i stan still
wanting to be a light
for you
ignite your bones
find myself patching parts of my bones into you hoping it'll bring you more than brittle breaking

Day 933: something quiet

2012-02-09T14:33:00.000-08:00

something about my body is silent in it own siren

Day 932: wondering again

2012-02-08T14:32:00.000-08:00

what can you tell me of this promise
the parts of it that cannot be read by the tenor of your eyes
what of it is solid
rocklike
something to hold me steady
something that might be able o hold me in my old age
what can you say of it
can you tell me how it will move
if it will dance across water like my memory of you
or will it lie still
unchanged by time
is it something i can memorize
like the scent of your hair in the morning

these are the things i find myself wondering
when you are nowhere near me
but i know
i will find myself under your spell again soon

Day 931: melody

2012-02-07T14:32:00.000-08:00

she sang me a song
her fingers strumming my chord
love found, melody

Day 930: castle

2012-02-06T14:32:00.000-08:00

how is it i've forgotten how to write a poem
that is stronger than the sum of its syllables
that can build itself into a castle of a metaphor
how is it these things are so easily forgotten
that they fall through me
without notice

Day 929: arthritic rugby

2012-02-05T20:26:00.000-08:00

i had forgotten what it would mean
for my body to defy me
thought i could banish those kinds of memories
but i woke up this morning
knowing
that this body
didnt belong
and it would fight it ways out of my own control
wether i liked it or not

Day 928: haiku fuck you

2012-02-04T20:24:00.001-08:00

she whispers something,
quiet, she begs. i do as
im told, out of love.

Day 927:

2012-02-03T07:55:00.000-08:00

cold, only comes to
the still. iʻll keep moving then
cant let my words freeze

Day 926:

2012-02-02T10:09:00.000-08:00

silence form my side of the phone line
keeping the air clear
i can hear your voice sprinting through the atmosphere
telling me to keep my calm
to hold the small parts together
just a little longer

Day 925: response

2012-02-01T23:39:00.000-08:00

her body
an explosion
contained
in the cracks of my palms
a smile slivering across my cheeks

her back pressed tight against my chest
no room for leftover gravity between us
everything about these bodies
magnets crashing into each other
into stone
into home

these are the moments that come to mind
when my spine seems to sever itself into a tremor
where there is a quake at the base of my faith
when i feel the days multiplying into infinity and i feel myself spiraling
falling into the cracks
when i wonder
what part of her life i am holding her back from with the carisma of my smile
what doors she may never turn
never find open
because she is too lost behind the gate of my gaze

all i want is to be whats best
to hold her into ever morning
and i wish
i could do that all
without making her wait
without making her worry
without making her think that she has to hold every pebble of my insecurity together
turn me into the boulder im meant to be
want to be for her

there will be a morning where i learn how to hold her earthquake heartbeat stutter still
this evening is one of those
when i find myself practicing
crying
trying to get it right
because there is no other way

Day 924:

2012-01-31T23:38:00.000-08:00

my heart on the edge
sleeve sewn for sliding down down
down. everything, falling

Day 923: yeah, sure, whatever

2012-01-30T19:10:00.000-08:00

today
i had to keep every part of my happy
under my skin
didnt want you
to see
it coming
didnt want to ruin
expectations

Day 922:

2012-01-29T23:41:00.001-08:00

i do not sleep
not these days
just wait for morning
then night
then morning again
until you are here
close enough to feel
in some way
maybe tonight with my skin
tomorrow
my lips
the day after
i might hide a part of myself in your kiss
if i can get close enough
maybe ill stay there forever
being quiet
maybe youʻll forget i am there
maybe you will forget i ever was

Day 921: Haiku for love

2012-01-28T19:15:00.000-08:00

love is not the quest
we find ourselves breaking through
no. its forgiveness.

Day 920: Kamakau

2012-01-27T19:09:00.000-08:00

"Guns and powder are what make bullets fly.
Intelligence and thought are what make ideas fly,
and those are what encourages the hand to act and to write"

it took all my energy today
just to emultae
someones voice
his is of the same tone
skin
brown
and yet something about him
of me
still makes the woman in me feel caged
even though he has so much to say
so much to liberate

Day 919: haiku

2012-01-26T16:57:00.000-08:00

slow and steady wins
but where does the race begin
somehow, im backwards

Day 918:

2012-01-25T13:08:00.000-08:00

i want to write some sound into that silence
that vacuum of space that was left in the crater created by the colonial machine
i am no author
just ewanna transcribe a bit of that love story
that no one seems to see
that we are all somehow
hiding behind

Day 917: legacy

2012-01-24T13:58:00.000-08:00

1.
the oldest memory i can call upon
is the fast burning of nylon and polyester
if i think long enough
sit still enough
i can still see those stars begging to be freed from the fire of their bars
i was three
barely old enough to call upon the gods in my name
and yet
was marching attentively in the name of so many others

2.
my father has soft knuckles
a slight limp
and callouses on the tips of his fingers
he is not versed in the language of carpentry
but can build you a song with the flood of revolution bursting from his bones
he is made of lanague and melody
born of moolelo and promise
he is the honesty of scripture we are all trying to chase

3.
the first time i heard the word soverignty
i shouted it at the top of my lungs
convinced
that all we needed were a few more voices
a little more valume
just a little more time

4. in the last 10 years i have watched
some of our most treasured leaders either die
or lose themselves in their own minds
most of them
i am sure
are fighting for their memories
the way we remember them fighting for this aina

5. im not sure why
i ever thought we'd stop dying

6. my father tells students that he believes in justice
in literature
and truth
i know my father believes in something else too
because we were born of the same twine
the kind that finds it hard not to have faith in the goodness of others
i think a part of him
will sit with a part of me
forever
waiting for someone else
anyone, really
to understand

7. some days,
im not sure if the academic in me
still believes in sovereignty
some mornings i am awaken by my own cynicism
terrified of what i have become
terrified of what my father would think of me
i wonder if he would regret any part of his loving and raising me

8.
if there is ever a day when
the child in me
finally forgets the stench of melting nylon
the burn of fire on skin
and the salt of shame under my skin
what can be said of my father and the gods i carry in the tongue of my name
what can be said of Papa
Pele
Haumea
Hi'iaka
Hina
every woman whose power is locked in a language frozen by colonization
what can be say of this body
of every single memory therein

9. i try not to think too hard these days
about the things i believe
try to let ocen inside of me
stay settled every once and while
try not to worry my own conscious into combustion
but i know there are questions
i cant dare to answer alone
cant dare to decipher without uncovering
a little more of the shame i have tried so hard to forget

10.
every line of this poem
is something i've tried to hide
somehow
the way they fall out of me now
doesnt seem right

Day 916: rut

2012-01-23T11:00:00.000-08:00

why can i no longer
be a story worth telling
or think of one,
at least

Day 915: disappointment

2012-01-22T19:11:00.000-08:00

i know now
that i am the breath
caught in the margins of regression
trying so lightly
to be pulled free
what happened to the heavy things like honesty
the parts that use to fall out so quickly
seem so tightly locked and roped up
i feel so tightly
locked
and roped

there is nothing but this shame
falling over and over
nothing but my lines
crawling back inside of me slowly
saying
no
i am not ready
not yet
to be more than i am

Day 914:

2012-01-21T23:56:00.000-08:00

when your body is broken
teach the rest of your self to be quiet
do no let you soul stutter off into nothing
hold it all in for the right moment

Day 913: she says

2012-01-20T15:43:00.000-08:00

every draft is a practice in patience
i am failing at paying my attention
so i am wiating to be shown
how to slow
a little more
read a little more
and move
a little less

Day 912: Hopoe

2012-01-19T15:26:00.000-08:00

Hiiaka saw her dancing in the distance
Hopoe, moving over the land like water over itself
moving like mist
moving like she was meant to
she took her as her favorite
her lover
covered her body in sacred flowers of different colors
planted her a forrrest of rumbling lehua trees
each blossom a promise to return
to move within her dance again

hiiaka saw her moving over the land from a distance
and new she was in love
that there was something to be held in that body
she turned hopoe into a home she could return to
and promise herself
something about this screams love
and yet

they cannot see
they are too blind

Day 911:

2012-01-18T10:10:00.000-08:00

when the cold falls over me
in the middle of the night
i find you in the shake of my shiver
in the center of my body
moving me from the inside out
i remember the way
in the early morning
your body would skare into mine
call it the cold
making you dance
i remember in the moments
the best way to hold you
the fastest why to shut the window and pull the covers across your body
pull your back into my chest
but i cannot stop the storm in the best alone
cannot make either of us warm
cannot pull you into me
no matter how much these covers
try to pretend you are still near

Day 910: Jan 17, 2893

2012-01-17T21:59:00.000-08:00

today
i boy commented on a youtube video of mine saying
that the words didnt work back then
that they wouldnt work now
that we had to move on
tuck our faces forced forward
duck between the gaps
drive your legs forward into tomorrow
forget about what has happened

what he doenst understand of course
is
that words have worked before
for kings of ours who were smart enough to follow steadfast behind their oratory and belief
and that theres something to be said
about a poem
written in 2008
and how its become more than the words on the page
how its become a moment
a symbol
something simple to be passed between bodies
between mouths
there are teenage voices
learning to scream there one lines to the end
these words are more than the page
they are movement
and they are the most powerful
and tangible thing we have

Day 909: Case of You

2012-01-16T12:07:00.000-08:00

these songs ring over and over in my mind
cases of you pouring out of me
even my skin cant hold you in
i tell myself
it is just the love
falling out
over flowing
making room for the rest
making room for your movement
in the shadow of my blue screen tv
in the middle of the night

the bitter of you
its taged to the under of my tongue
a taste that will not go away
i hold you there
like
the brush of a stranger you know you knew once
how it lingers
how you hold me somehow
touching this soul of mine

the parts of you pouring out of me now
are just the leftover promises
we didnt have time to make last night
i am trying to find the way to hold you here
in your constant coming and going
so much moving
so much leaving me
so much falling out
of me tonight

i am learning
somehow
stil;l
to hold myself
upright in the motion
while i wait for your return

908: tomorrow

2012-01-15T12:31:00.000-08:00

i can feel you leaving already
slow down that beating
that moving
remember the way waiting felt on the other end
why we must move slow tonight
as slow as these bodies will allow

Day 907: kiss me

2012-01-14T12:22:00.000-08:00

heart
beating
chest rise
over
chest fall
cover me here
with your skin
find me something warm to hold tight
like you hips
cracked agaisnt the small of my back
all i see is the memory of you
until i am turned

face to face
breath to breath
breaking these bodies
crushing them into dust
something small
to fill the air like vapor

my palm pressed agaisnt your wirst
weight holding you down
a kiss to keep the quiet
my lips to keep you warm
to your lips
your neck
your chest
your toso
moving under me
my body
falling down
being raised again
my heart falling over
being raised again
again
again

she says again
and i fall to her hips
remind myself to take my time
she will not be here long
so i will remind her what this love means to the calendars and clocks
how we can make it all stop
make it all freeze between our bodies
until we have to come up for air again

i think she remembers
i know she wouldn't dare forget

Day 906: I may not let go

2012-01-13T12:19:00.000-08:00

im trying to find you in the melody of unfamiliar songs
i play them
over and over
until the lines are stuck between my fingers like peanut butter
until i can taste a part of you under my tongue
ill take anything that brings you closer to me
that makes this distance less tangible

tonight
i am holding you to the tone of unfamiliar breathing
i can forgotten your rhythm
but im quickly remembering
the way your chest rises
and the way mine will fall under you

you are remembering to
i can taste it on your skin
you are letting the memories wash over you
trying not to think of the leaving you will have to do soon
just staying still
waiting for me to hold you
a way that begs to be remembered
holding me together
in the meantime

Day 905: no movement please (Haiku)

2012-01-12T12:15:00.000-08:00

the season is still
a time for loving you close
i pull you in, whole

Day 904: On being in love

2012-01-11T16:47:00.000-08:00

these minutes make the days jealous
the way they pass like a sunrise without practice
slow and fracture
something about time has lost its poetry
the last time i kissed you
i was trying to find it
somewhere under the rise in your chest
or the craters in your palm
the texture of your breath
and yet
all i find there is another reason to wait
will no explanation
why time
plays its tricks
why this distance
keeps itself flexed
pressed hard against my chest
like a reminder of its strength
its hold

so instead my matra is a countdown
i sing it every day
1 day 2 hours
tomorrow,
we start again

Day 903: Haiku for B

2012-01-10T16:37:00.000-08:00

his words are filling
i scribble them, safe. Still I'm
lost somewhere, fractured.

Day 902: silence

2012-01-09T12:37:00.000-08:00

i cannot decipher your intentions
so instead of engaging
i ignore
your attempt at
"conversation"

Day 901: you

2012-01-08T22:19:00.000-08:00

i have not found yet
the words
to fully describe
the peace of you
sleeping next to me
tonight

Day 900: procrastination

2012-01-07T11:06:00.000-08:00

today feels like a hurdle
like the last step over the hill
like there are only 100 tomorrow left on this countdown
and then what?
how does reaching a number show you anything other than
you ability to remain unmoved
to be stubborn in the face of laziness
i wonder
if these line will only show a lack of inventiveness
as desire not to stray too far outside my own comfort
and yet here they are
900 days
100 more to go
until i'm back at the same place i've been 3 times before
asking myslef if its time to stop
time to reflect
look back instead of beyond
something about me is too afraid to understand the significance of all of this
i'll save the reflection for another day
maybe tomorrow

DAy 899: whisper

2012-01-06T17:14:00.000-08:00

someone please
just teach me not to speak
i want to learn to wake to this morning
silent
lately
i have found myself barren
and i am so tired of letting so much of myself be lost
gone to the wind
on this voice
carried away
you are taking too much of me
put my voice down
stop amplifying everything
come here
and be quite with me
come here and settle
come here and let all of me that is dust and cracked be fractured away
come here and be slow moving
show me your lips can do more than i've seen
show me that you are worth at this troubleshow me that you
are not just a broken reflection of what i already am
severed down the middle
show me you can be silent
quiet
can sing in a wishper
can lay me to sleep
can do all of ythis
without taking so much
from me

Day 898: a love poem

2012-01-05T07:06:00.000-08:00

i have turned this body into transportation
made a bus of these bones
wings of my skin
everything about me is meant to be moved
over and over
and through that movement
is displaced
is forgotten
is forcged into stillness somehow
its okay not to understand
the poem under all of this
is a love one
like they all are
is okay to be confused
in th silences of movement
in the splitting of this moment
the breaking of two hearts like bread
the sharing of two mind like wine

would you share with me, this sacrament
allow ourselves to be moved by our own holiness

Day 897: Preperation

2012-01-04T13:42:00.000-08:00

the secret to not falling
apart
is to forget what loneliness is
to refuse to remind yourself
of the evenings you spend
flinging memories into the ceiling
the mornings you are so overcome with emotion
you find a sandstorm under your eyeslids
begging to be freed
the secret to holding it
all
together
is to forget what love is
throw it all to the wind
so that when it is truly gone
when you are distance
air under your own wings
and silence
that you no longer remember the picture of perfect you found
somehow in the corner of her smile

the secret
under all this mess
is the behind all the ambition
and desire to progress
behind the smile of a lover who lives too far away
is that
no one
and nothing
can pull you far from this rock for long
eventually every magnet returns home in stones
their roots tangled under their toes
nose down
apologizing
for the time
spent away

Day 896: homesick from home

2012-01-03T19:25:00.000-08:00

the flaw in the design of returning
is the way in which you still find yourself
leaving
again
way before you are ever
ready

Day 895: tired

2012-01-02T23:40:00.000-08:00

sometimes i forget that putting all of myself into this page the day before
doesnt mean i can skyp the process tday or tomorrow
how this process has turned to practice
and torture somedays
but i still find myself returning
somehow
everymorning
or evening
to scrible a few words
in hope
a part of me is
remembered
when i am gone
that maybe this is all menat for something
more

Day 894: lighthouse

2012-01-01T09:35:00.000-08:00

i am starting to think of this day
as two lighthouses on opposite ends of the ocean
both constantly vanishing
constantly being swallowed
constantly brought back into life

somehow
in the last 21 years
i have forgotten the pure taste of change
the way it washes over you like white wash
often pulls you into its undertow
how you feel thankful for air immediately after
thankful to be living
even with the different
even if its only whats left
after you have been cut
divided and subtracted
even if you are just fragment
how you found yourself still living in the moment of breathing

last year was a process of learning practice
practice of learning patience
me, a patient
learning to practice my own rotation
so dependent on another orbit that freedom seemed to be that forgotten dream on the open end of a wave
the one that never carried you under and away
who would of thought i'd find myself alive on the other side
even after all the times we were showed there is only one effect of crashing water
eventually
you are always pushed to the surface
weather you are ready to be thankful
im not sure i've learned what that kind of grace means just yet

i am not one to pretend
not one to lie and say
i know what this is and will be
whether it is water, air or gravity
whether i am in orbit or a still frame
looking for someones movement to carry me
i am not one to act as if i can predict such things
but i now
this morning
i woke up
knowing the only kinship i felt to water
was the way i remembered it to tossle me
today i woke up breathing
began my year in the house i was raised in
composed a song to the tenor of her voice
in north carolina breaking off the concrete and winter leaves
she told me she loved me
there were no buts or secrets on either end of the line
it felt right in the way i used to wish we were
until i realized we werent
and learned that she was

it made me want to find the ocean
let myself fall into her
and wait for the day
i no longer feel the need to breathe

Day 893: Happy new year

2011-12-31T11:18:00.000-08:00

tomorrow
the calendars will ring of 2012
a constant reminder that graduation hangs close
there is nothing i can do to stop her
no way to hold 2011 in a way that will make her stay
iʻve learned that loving a leaving girl will always have you torn and running

so heres to something new
and someone to share it will
lets wipe the slate clean
cuz the last time i was here
it didnt end to pretty

i couldnt remember why
until last night
that i feel no excitement for the transition of years
until someone asked me what i did last dec 31st
there isnt much more to say, i guess
moving on means forgiveness
someday
we will be completely free
of each other
of the version of ourselves we were then

Day 892:

2011-12-30T00:57:00.000-08:00

today i realized im one of those who never stayed
who left behind
the chants
dances
and the wovewls for shaper edges
things that looks stainless
steel like
left for an education that didnt feel
right
didnt really feel at all i guess would be the thing to say
but what of it should feel
anyway

Day 891:

2011-12-29T23:55:00.000-08:00

"i will be there when things are good
and when they are bad
when our kids are bored
and when they move out
get married and start their own lives
i will hold your hand and kiss away your tears
and tell you i love you every night as we fall asleep
i promise"

there is nothing i can say
that i havent said before
nothing about the shade
of your eyes in the morning
how they make me thing of home
and sad slowly sticking to the base of my back
nothing about your lips
not their texture
not your kiss
nothing about your palms
holw they hold even when they touch
nothing about these words
the ones that say so much
that hold me inside out
in the middle of an empty theater
nothing about forever
nothing about today

tonight you are less than 14 days away
and i am just waiting
for the right words to appear
so ill have something right to say

Day 890:

2011-12-28T00:50:00.000-08:00

this is me trying to remember

this is me giving up.

Day 889: counting counting counting

2011-12-27T01:10:00.000-08:00

12 days 18 hours
30 minutes and some change
.... i've been here before

Day 888: match box logic

2011-12-26T23:45:00.000-08:00

i found myself a match box
that seemed to fit
every secret ive ever kept
tomorrow
i think i'll load them in
light the match
watch them burn
ad begin collecting again

Day 887: christmas

2011-12-25T13:32:00.000-08:00

we lace our morning with your surprise
teach ourselves patience in the waking ours
try to stay quite in our excitement
wonder what the new day has brought us in the form of the present

remember to be thankful, she says
and we try not to forget

Day 886: "but thats GAY"

2011-12-24T13:26:00.000-08:00

the way the word slips out of you like slime
like bile
like you are trying to free yourself of its dirt
the scum of its body
the dirt of my body
the way it fall out of you like foam
like its taking it own form
its own disease
my own disease

i wonder where it is you learned to hate
to fear
not here i am sure
all i know
is i learned the same thing
sometime around your age
used the word the same way
until i found it turning my body to bricks
i wonder when you will see
how my body has turned into nothing more than walls erected in shame
how that will change your language
of if the words
will fall
a little more
shamefully

Day 885: negative space

2011-12-23T10:40:00.000-08:00

the days are falling out of me
one by one
i am a child turning into morning
looking for a line
a string with some direction
they know me to be angry
i find them to be useless
tie my hands like promises

i am counting always
these lines are only a fracture
a fraction
a piece of this project
like tomorrow
is just a part of the lonesome

i do not want to live in the margins of numbers
the negative space where we have learned to wait
from 31 to 18
18 to whole
holding you in the morning
is the only calm i know

Day 884: water

2011-12-22T10:38:00.000-08:00

sit
wash
breathe
scrpe
rinse

repeat

let the ocean take the weak parts away
what it returns
you never know
only feel yourself growing stronger
from her

Day 883: apologies

2011-12-21T01:42:00.000-08:00

There is a reason why
i have given you a hard time
through the way you have dissolved into loving
because i can see my prints
on the scars you lead with into relationships
i notice the way our ends were cut and frayed
how you wanted to stay as i pushed you away
i see myself in every mistake you make
every heart that cracks under the uneven grounds you love on

i feel responsible for every fracture that falls in your wake
for the way i left you unsteady and baseless
find myself wanting to apologize to you in a million different ways
if only i could find the one that would teach you to turn your hands back into olive branches
because now
all i see of you
are weak limbs
and the bodies that have fallen because of them
i do not wish for either of us to carry the weight of broken hearts in shards on our skin

i realized i released you first
and that every mistake i made was me pushing you a mile further from you potential
i guess what i mean to say
is i know there is still blood on my hands
and everytime a new drop falls
i fins myself wanting to apologize
for all the things iʻve done
and all that you keep doing

Day 882: not ready yet

2011-12-20T07:33:00.000-08:00

in the evenings
i wish myself a pair of wings
something about their architecture
seems
strong enough to send a dream flying home on

you are a smile i had forgotten how to forge
a dimple bent into the diphthong of your melody
a song i only learned to sing
because of the gravity of your voice

you are a poem i do not write often enough
because it requires knowing too much of myself
requires digging into the parts i left buried and behind

Day 881: To Bronte, the girl who dances in and out of me like water

2011-12-19T14:51:00.000-08:00

who are the people
who hold you all the time
who know of your dreams
not because you keep the phone lines clean for their breath to flow through easy
but because they travel through them with you

tonight
im thinking about the love of my life
and wondering
who holds that part of your heart today
is it a boy from midtown
whos heart has sewn pieces of his poetry into your spine
whos fragments of story i found crashed into you as a constant reminder of the distance of you he's traveled already

is it a boy you love conveniently
one whose body
finds itself near to you often enough to call him dear
call him love
maybe even home
but what about those of us who love you like streetlights
who trust you to hold the shadows off on your side
even in distance
even in silence
even when we havent called in days
now weeks
soon months

what about those of us who have written you lines upon lines upon lines
who have carved your name into the sand
traced our promises
just to have them washed away
those of us who let go of your heart
only to hold onto a different part of you
knowing we'd be able to manage this angle longer if we learned to sacrifice

who is it who is holding you tonight
whose hands are reading the dances my melodies bent into your palms
whose fingers are carving their middle into the beginnings we traced in sidewalk chalk on your torso
whoe lips are finding home agaisnt the heaven of skin on your forehead
will you let him rest there
will you let him hold you

will he understand the weight of you?
the beauty and miracle of it all
how your body bent between his arms like a dance
is the heaviest and most beautiful kind of privilege
the most permanent kind of prayer
will he treat the blessing of you accordingly?
will you allow him that honor?

i hope so.

Day 880: Not a Lullaby

2011-12-18T14:43:00.000-08:00

This is not a lullaby
not a paper crane bent into the folds of your eyes
not a promise for the weight of our distance to fall away like white wash
this is not a morning rain
or a midnight thunder storm
not a quiet whisper
noe a reminder
this is a girl
struggling for the umpteenth time to find the words worthy of these lines
worthy of your lines
worthy of your smile
and the hollow cavity created by your embrace

this is not the minor fall
or the major lift
not the travis pick
or an alternating bass line
this is steady
the beat of the bass drum
constant
like a heartbreak
it is not a poem
waiting to be read
not a song worthy of your voice
just a rhythm
something that continues
in the absence of all other percussion
it is only something
a part of me
that will always be walking in your direction
while every other part of life
swing in its own pendulum

this is not a lullaby
so dont you go sleeping on me now
this is our morning grace
not a promise or a reminder
just a place we can take
for our own
this is where we are today
and today
thats just okay

Day 879:

2011-12-17T23:38:00.000-08:00

i line my dreams with the dust and debris of your promise
the ones that says
youll be here tomorrow
and every day that follows
i wait for morning
only at the chance to be fooled
to think for a moment
to be so sure of your presence
that the wind brushing through my window is really your breath breaking across my skin
the afternoon brings too much truth
its rain washes your body away from these sheets

tomorrow i will hold onto the thought of you a little tighter
promise me youll do the same
i think thats the only chance we'll have
for a moment of peace
together in this distance

Day 878: haiku

2011-12-16T22:39:00.000-08:00

damn, i hate haiku
they just never seem complete
i need more from you

Day 877: home

2011-12-15T23:45:00.000-08:00

i can hear you chest rising from the bottom bunk
the way the breathe breaks against the ceiling
syncopated
it sounds like you are dreaming of something exciting
i hope you hold those kind of memories where no one can touch them
where no one would dare try
to tlel you
you're living it all wrong
to tell you we failed
we dont know nothing about getting it right
but this sure
feels
close

Day 876: returning

2011-12-14T11:18:00.000-08:00

i've written too mnay poems called distance
too many called travel
too many for the wind beneath this two engine jet
too many leaving
too many returning
too much of me getting lost in transport
translation

these are the parts of poems i dont like rewriting
because they remind me how little i've traveled in all this distance
how much further i still have to go
and how much uncertainty lies within the margins of what we call future

new york city is just 6 thousands miles and could be 9 months away
and im not sure im ready for another spurt of commitment needed for that kind of promise
who knows

not me
not anymore

Day 875: Carmen

2011-12-13T19:38:00.000-08:00

there's a cord caught in the throat of
my guitar
dont sing like it used too
strings shut with rust
i am afraid
to let her melody free
means to let myself open
sever the shackles
the promise i cannot make
to music
the time i never gave
to her
a kiss never left on the fret board
her body
has top many curves to follow
patiently
i waited
thinking love is something that happens when we are stagnant
but life
is what happens
when we are caught staring too closely into the kaleidoscope dangling from our knees
but love
like music
doesn’t bring itself alive
doesn’t sing itself into the clefs of our chest on its own
as much as we’d like to think
that waiting is an active pursuit of our tomorrow
theres no substitute
for holding her body
freeing the flakes of sleep from her lashes
and playing her
into the early hours of morning

Day 874: silent wonder

2011-12-12T23:14:00.000-08:00

there is a moment before you wake
when you are rolling over into consciousness
rolling over into my arms
my lips
to be pressed against your temple
to be held against my chest
for my body to lift you into this morning
this perfect
this part of our forever
a future made a words that used to get stuck at the back of my throat
im wondering what is it about you that taught me to scrape away all the stickiness
to demolish what was built
and begin from the ground
to check my own roots
i am wondering
how it is i found your body moving under me
and mine
rising above
like an ocean we have never rolled through together
i wonder

tonight
as you are falling asleep
i am slinging fragments into my ceiling
hoping you might hear these line scratching away at the drywall
theres a story here for you
its something ive found under my skin
i wonder if you are listening
or if all you feel is the silence of our bodies breathing under seperate sheets

Day 873: gone again

2011-12-11T14:39:00.000-08:00

she left her toothbrush here
a perennial reminder of someone missing
mist left behind in the shape of the soles of her shoes
there is a indent left on the side of the bed where she slept
when i roll over
i can still feel the shape of her that she left
so many parts of her gone
and so many parts still here
taunting my body
making me believe
that if i turn around
it will be her hands upon my face
the back of my neck
the collar of my shirt
pulling me in
reminding me why i let the distance go crazy
why i refuse to let go even where separated by infinity
with something like a kiss
but far more miraculous

Day 872:

2011-12-10T23:50:00.000-08:00

somehow
you have found a way to fill this room with promise
just like you have covered every hreatbreak of mine with melody
there is nothing more i can say

Day 871: bucket list

2011-12-09T07:12:00.000-08:00

THings i dream of doing with you...
(if you do not think this is a poem- then you dont understand love. not at all)

1. Have a Daughter
2. Visit Alaska and see the northern lights
3. See a baby humpback whale
4. White Christmas
5. Kitchen with island/bar
6. Watch the sunrise
7. Have a deck/poach with a view
8. Jacuzzi bathtub for two
9. Adopt and train a puppy
10. Get married in front of all of our family and friends
11. Watch a soccer match in brazil
12. Watch a rugby match in New Zealand (Canterbury or all blacks)
13. Watch a UNC duke game at UNC
14. Own a home
15. convince the rest of the Randolph’s to move to Hawaii
16. see sarra bareilles in concert
17. take you to a radio head concert
18. go to brazil to watch rugby in Olympics

...

Day 870: Haiku: the breath i take as you walk away

2011-12-08T07:09:00.000-08:00

when you raise your chest
i find myself gasping for
air, please do not go

Day 869:

2011-12-07T07:04:00.000-08:00

i write you in the dark
a silence
something to fall over my body
carry me into the morning
hopefully
when the insomnia breaks
what will be left under its shell to find me

i am solid waste
learning what it means to decompose
how the stench of it leaves its blight
decay
watch as the pieces fall away
only in darkness

i write you in the dark
because
often
i feel like too much is looking upon me for inspiration
or something tangible
and i have nothing but these pens
they scratch the surface of my skin
the center of the page
when the cut it deep enough to feel without eyes
with the lights off

i stop

DAy 868: child

2011-12-06T19:09:00.000-08:00

the base of my belly
is barren
and will be
as long as i am loving you
if only i could find a way
to turn these promises into potential
into something that could breathe
and embrace you

Day 867:

2011-12-05T10:15:00.000-08:00

sounds sleep
something to promise tomorrow with
i wake
wanting to forld you into my body
but your stillness keeps me humble
i breathe only when you let me
inhaling more than i can swallow

Day 866: Iwalani of Minneapolis

2011-12-04T20:10:00.000-08:00

i met a girl with oceans caught behind her eyes
waiting for someone who blood brown enough to tell here this unknowing is alright
to reach out a hand
a shoulder
a few poems
ones with mountains caught in their lines
and yet
all i could give you were these two arms
and a few promises about bridges our bodies can build
how our bones are meant to mend
i wanted to tell her
that history doesnt die unless we let it
that there are bodies full of water and ridges
ready to fall open at your request
all you need, beautiful is to find a part of your heart that isnt willing to open itself up
and listen

Dauy 865:

2011-12-03T10:23:00.000-08:00

where the sidewalk ends
where the body waits for love
every heart, balanced

Day 864:

2011-12-02T10:22:00.000-08:00

love written into the margins
scribbled into the snow
i am watching it from a distance
where its often harder to feel
but i know you will be waiting
wherever i will be headed

Day 863: to the women who love the poet in me (revisionX2)

2011-12-01T17:07:00.000-08:00

(There'll be girls across the nation
That will eat this up babe
I know that it's your soul but could you bottle it up)

you will revel in the way I say your name
how the weight bounces off the concrete
you will wait for me to open your doors
to sing you to sleep
to fling songs into your body as your pulse under me
you will call it sexy
I, will not know any other way to keep myself from falling into you completely
I will keep singing

(I am aiming to be somebody this somebody trusts
With her delicate soul
I don't claim to know much)

you let your hand fall just a little farther from you body
begging me to hold you
and i will
i will kiss your cheek
your wrist
your lips
when i kiss your forehead
a part of me will jump through my body and take home in yours
you will not feel my entry
but i will feel my own absence
something about it will leave me feeling empty
so I will keep singing

(Only thing I ever could need, only one good thing
Worth trying to be)

you will watch me on tv
on youtube
on your phone
computer
at a friends house
when I gain the confidence to walk across the room to introduce myself
and extend my hand
you will say you know me
I will be surprised and not understand what you mean
But excited at the possibility that maybe
You were that spirit I felt the night before
On stage
you will see me perfected
the parts of me i practice in front of mirrors
only what is left after iʻve been cut and edited
you will see me then
stripped of all my human
and you will want to be apart of the masterpiece
of the story
want me to be your introduction to women who dress and sing like me
want me to hold you
because my hands are softer than your boyfriends
and i know how to make your body move right
you will want me then
and i will let you
Take a piece of every poem
Call it your own
When you say
That every time I read a love poem that you wish it were about you
I will write you your own
You will be terrified and will not listen
Not hear the words
Just see my body moving on stage
Call it anything other than honest
You will be wrong
I will be hollow

when i fall in love
you will think you are lucky
that you have caught the uncatchable
That I have written my last love poem for the beautiful things I see
you will think you are special
that you can be the one to tie my hands behind my back
make me yours
you will only be partially wrong
you will think you love me because your heart drowns when you think of the tsunamis behind my voice
but you will not be ready to see me after the curtains close
when the imperfect parts find their way home
when i am not so memorized and refined
you will wonder why you came to me in the first place
you never wanted human
you wanted magic
the flashing lights
the stage presence
the tears iʻve shed on stage

you will call my vulnerability sexy
but only when you are drinking it from the other end of my microphone
you will not want to stay and listen through the night
not know why i need to be told
what your love means
you will not understand when i need you to count the ways
over and over
until its etched into the center of my chest
how I will ask you again before you are finished
you will not know how I wait for you to reach our your hand a little further from your body
how i will need to held every once and a while
need someone imperfect to call me beautiful
to see me
in all the worst lights
when the words don’t come out right
and nothing rhymes
and my hands are too heavy
and you are not rising under me

I will need you to try
To look into
my ugly
my insecure
my love
my human
and maybe
and maybe
And maybe
still want
to stay the night

Day 862:

2011-11-30T07:32:00.000-08:00

i am not angry you are gone
rarely miss you from here
sometimes i think about your hands and how they fit mine, sometimes
how nothing about us was stable
somehow that was fine
thought i'd find something about me that could be strong
in time
when i didnt
something clicked
ever since
i cant help but feeling like a joke
ashamed of who i was
that i am the awkWARD CHUCKLE AT THE END OF A PUNCHline
i do not call
because i have nothing to say
but im starting to realize why looking back hurts
and i know
i will tell my children about you
my daughter
the first time her heart is broken
i will find the only picture i managed to save
tell her about how love starts
and sometimes stops
and somehow
its okay

Day 861: NYC

2011-11-29T02:12:00.000-08:00

i am the not the type of person to find a home among the kind of valleys i've found here
peaks only seen in the image of steel
reflections at every corner
i am not acuoustomed to seeing myself so much
i favore like the of scenery tht will touch you back
doesnt scream for your attention
doesnt have to
where the people leave you be
but your family cant stand to leave you hungry
NYC is for the brave
and i am the weakest of them
the fractured soul sent to learn herself how to manage over the damage
they say an ocean can cure just about anything
but what of a city
full of promises and dreams
where do broken hearts mend themseves
i wonder
if i had one
where would i wander
if she leaves me
in the middle of this transition
how much fiurther away from home ad myself will i have to be before i shatter
i need her to be waiting at the other
otherwise
theres nothing i can hold on to here
to tell me itll be okay
when the sidewalk is screeming
go home
and my reflection says
you cant cut it

Day 860: a haiku called incomplete

2011-11-28T08:08:00.000-08:00

when i am without
words to fill our distance, I
search for music

Day 859: the morning after

2011-11-27T16:54:00.000-08:00

You write a poem
You think you are changed
That a part of you is pricked and pulled out like string
Rope
Twine
Something spun to make your insides feel less barren
Replaced
With something shiny
Make you the consistency of cellophane
The shine of a pendulum
The gravity of a girl
Who keeps coming back
Like she’s tethered to your waist
And the heavier you swing her away
The faster the return

You woke up today
And realized
The lines that fell out of you last night
Were not songs
But coal pieces that never managed to pressurize right
You wonder what you will right tomorrow
And if you will ever sit
Alone
With this white page
And write a story
Worth at least your own time
In memorization

Day 858: When given the time. and forced into energy. the product is either inspirational. or long.

2011-11-26T21:21:00.000-08:00

we drink and dance
talk about our work
and let the pieces trickle down
never settle
never peaceful
how the minutes we spend in front of paper hoping to born poems do not turn to hours
not anymore
how you are growing old
and less innocent
and less visual
and less
open
less ready
so much less
that the falling of a season does not bring you to tears
and not near or close to the words

i am looking for something to move me
have been for months
and all i’ve come up with is a woman who makes me want to write masterpieces
but nothing
can seen to slow me down enough to give anything other than her smile
the energy it deserved to live

she is my second love taking captive my first
and i am struggling to write anything other than the tint of her irises
struggling to surprise myself with some worth of genius
i have found in these bones from time to time

i feel a need to give more
but an unwillingness to find the power under my skin
want to build a fortress
but the only materials i have close enough to touch are meant to fall
created as ruble
and the journey
to something more permanent
the foundation of something that cannot crack
cannot shatter
will not bear to be from clean palms
cannot grow from this crackle of a wrist
I am giving nothing in me enough space to expand
And so everything is repeat and imitation

Find me a genuine blade of grass
One that never dreamed of being more
Or less
And ill trade you a glass piece of my skin
The most stubborn and weak
But too persistent to shatter
Ill give you a song with no beginning
Not a single entry
But a home built somewhere within the clef of its base
A hallow crevice
Like the vein of a flower
The stem of a woman
Too afraid to sever herself horizontal
That someone may see something too real to be beautiful too honest to be symmetrical
Find me a saturated piece of tomorrow that falls into flaw
And ill find courage in the crack of me that have never found the surface
The bones of mine that seem too brittle for purpose

I wonder where the intersections will take us
In the wake of all of this
Searching
And writing
And dying
And winning
And writing
And crying
And writing
Until we’ve written through it

I wonder how the ends find the surface
How the immersed and waterlogged sentiments
Are transformed into something worth attention
Wonder how I will read this
Tomorrow
Or the next day
And whether or not ill be able to say tonight
That I tried to create
Unlike the month before where I knew I wrote to say that I haven’t quite given up
I wonder how the giving up looks when you document it
When you let it follow you around in the body of words you insist on producing
Either before you are ready to release
Or give it the energy needed

Everything about these lines is a lie
I wonder tonight
How much of my poetry has been me fighting to emerge from smoke to reveal something
To magnify
And how much has been me shrinking
coalescing
condensing myself into the mass

how much of me is trying to be remembered and inspired
while the rest is begging to hide behind the veil and be forgotten

I wonder
How far we will get through these questions before we realize
That all the energy and hours will plant you no inspiration
Will materialize no answers
Where certainty does not belong

Day 857: just the surface

2011-11-25T16:40:00.000-08:00

finding a part of me
that is not
swollen
cut
barren
or broken
is
the process of bantering the free parts of this skin
to anyone willing to take a pice home
build them a letter bound book to leave there poetry in

Day 856: Things I Have Left on the Side of the Highway

2011-11-24T09:13:00.000-08:00

1.
you were my first anti in
a promise i was ready to keep
a spine not fully hardened
the first wet pillowcase
salted and
saturated
a over heated engine
a lonely recovery
a lie i told my self over and over
she loves me she loves me she loves
when i shattered you were not a distant memory
you were a call i made
every morning
every evening
wondering when you would return
i took the pieces left
and fancied myself a friendship that couldn't stand
pillars born of the foundation of love i was waiting to return but never will

2.
you were my first taste of selfishness
i relished in it
moments we stole upon the backs of my broken friendships
the lies we told each other that our heats were beating hard enough to drown out the noise
that the words i couldn't hep but write in your name said we were meant for it
destined for this
that every mistake we made was just a speed bump we needed to overcome
how wrong i was to hold onto pieces of you that would never belong
under my skin
would only stay there as a reminder of who you were
who i was
when i was yours
and who i would never be as long as i stayed that way

3.
you were
we werent
i wanted
what i thought we could be
you were teaching me
what being wrong
felt like in the form of sweat and a night without a tomorrow

4.
i will never write you
into this poem
only love you
into this day
it is all i can do
it is all that i need

Day 855: but i am still happy to be yours

2011-11-23T20:29:00.000-08:00

i shouldn't miss what is right in front of me
but i can see the miles
already trying to force themselves between us
the feeling of being pull away is returning
and my only instinct is to feel lonely

Day 854: chapel Hill

2011-11-22T20:15:00.000-08:00

there is as story built into the foundation of this building
a song in the spine of its walls
i can hear its whispers in the evening
they are also etched into the backs of your eyes
i am waiting for you to emerge with me
for us to build a temple
worthy of the scripture we wrote into our childhood
a place we may someday call home

Day 853: only you can

2011-11-21T20:13:00.000-08:00

being here leaves a
bitter tastes upon my tongue
one you wash away

Day 852:

2011-11-20T07:32:00.000-08:00

to be free of you means
that somehow
i have found love on the other side of all of this
security where you made me believe there never could be
i wonder when you will turn over and find yourself a sunrise
something to take you into tomorrow
something to make you forget
about the wishes of children
when you realize that love
really is the meaning of it all
and worthy of sacrifices beyond comprehension

Day 851: silence

2011-11-19T07:25:00.000-08:00

i keep wanting to say your name out loud
so i keep forcing it down
down
down
it feels a lot like regurgitation
and the acid
does its damage on my mouth
your name
doesn't deserve the weight of its syllables
at this point its mostly a word
without a soul
doesnt mean much to me now
but keep trying to come up
for air

Day 850: patience

2011-11-18T14:35:00.002-08:00

the morning after i first met you
first saw you
i stopped under a Chicago city awning
leaned over a carrel of pebbles
reached in blind
and pulled out a stone in the shape of a heart
at the time
i thought that i would take it home to my girlfriend at the time
but i didnt

there arent many things i hold on to for more than a few months
this is one
a year later
i found the stone in the bottom of a Diesel watch case
i wrote a poem called to do list
where i promised to give the rock to a girl who i loved
one that would find security in these arms
something about it all stings like a reminder
that patience is a virtue worth becoming

Day 849: frustration

2011-11-17T10:26:00.000-08:00

there are no lines caught in the back of my throat
no promise for something magical
i am a ocean that has lost its salt
a tree without its roots
something about me is cracked
broken at the base
and i am trying to hard to rebuild these ashes into something worthy of being remembered
but right now
im not even worthy of this moment
i am waiting for the poet to come back
continuing without her feels so wrong

Day 848: Harry potter

2011-11-16T10:15:00.000-08:00

10 years ago, today
we left our reality at the ticket office and for most of us
for the first time
let our hearts believe that magic existed
that we could rise from the monotony of these ashes
phoenix ourselves a promise for tomorrow
destiny born into the frame of a train barreling off into the morning
Hogwarts
gave us something to believe in
in the forms of our selves
so we starting singing incantations to our morning
waking up to the miracle of our bodies
leaning to live up to its promise
and believing
that flight was real
possible
and born in us all

Day 847:

2011-11-15T22:14:00.000-08:00

bend over backwards
build me into your body
hold me there like promise
secret me a tie
hang me from your window
breathing into your morning
ill hold on like its perfect
like im bending and not broken
distance is a lie
we told ourselves at birth
we hold ourselves up higher
straight and narrow backs
bending into morning
i am still hanging out your door
there is nothing here but waiting
waiting is the only way
when distance is a lie
and time never learned to fly
and rhyming brings the night
we fall over our corners
we are built into these bodies
we look for a new home
and realize the promises keep us tied
maybe ill hang here forever
maybe ill fall tomorrow
either way you are across the horizon
and my eyes will not be moved

Day 846: not ready

2011-11-14T17:01:00.000-08:00

i owe you a poem
but i am not ready to write it just yet
so ill just sit here
picking at the dead skin that's too stubborn to fall
waiting for someone to tell me its time

Day 845: applications

2011-11-13T23:46:00.000-08:00

i will write these essays
as if i am proud of myself
where i have been
where i am going
and i know i should be
and i know i am
mostly
but there are still mornings i wake up
worrying that i still have it in me to fail
to pull back and run away
and then i remember you smile
and your touch
and the way you waited for me to realize
that i needed you to stay
how i expected all the worst
and got only the best
from you
i think abou that
and wonder
why im writing essays to schools on every corner of this continent
when all i really want is to be with you

Day 844: a different way of missing you

2011-11-12T22:40:00.000-08:00

there are days i write poems for love
and then there are days
i find myself looking for anything but
looking for space enough to pretend that i could live a day
without needing
ANYONE
you are the reminder that i am weak
and in need
that i cannot fill a moment without longing to be at your side
that there is no spine in this backbone of mine
standing alone is no option
when i am not whole
just half of what we are when you are here
i find myself looking for something else
something safer
those are the days i cannot write about love
because it requires too much of me
require i admit
i am far less than i should be

Day 843: road trip

2011-11-11T11:11:00.000-08:00

i want to build you a road
spinning into the horizon
a song etched into the shoulder
a poem beveled onto the spine
a line running
running
running
these hands of mine
are made of mortar
were born to spin this concrete into a castle
but this distance
has got me wanting to putt everything i have as thin as i can
to reach you
by morning
to touch a part of you
as soon as can

Day 842: Glass parade

2011-11-10T21:42:00.000-08:00

it has been said
that my body was born to fit this shape
a crystal chandelier hanging over your overpass
iʻve always been see-through a fragile
sometimes beautiful
most times
out of place
a highway full on speeding steel is no place for something so breakable
i stay here anyway

lately
iʻve been for a a glass parade
shards dancing into place
trying to find meaning in my weakness
ever since the last time i was shattered i am the off beat some people call syncopated
others call missing
out of place
you are the only hands iʻve ever felt that have the strength to make sense of my rhythm
to put me back in place
to make a symphony out of all this broken
but youʻre certainty
sends me in circles
because all i have ever wanted is to a beat the cement of that over pass
the steel holding the engine block
something fast, strong and reliable to carry you through this darkness
but instead
i am the sharp edges you caress in your palms
when you tell me
ʻits okay
tomorrow will be better
i will hold you soonʻ
all i want to do is scream
apologize
for my inconsistencies
my inability to be for you
what you are so clearly
for me

DAy 841: weather

2011-11-09T21:26:00.000-08:00

she loved me for my climate
the temper of my skin tone
the magma in my blood
flowing
how everything about me could make her sweat
keep her unsteady
i wonder how she would love me
frozen
hard
cold in every crevice
nothing about me ready to hold her

teach me to be the perfect kind of forever
a simple kind of balance
something that makes sense

Day 840: gone

2011-11-08T19:30:00.000-08:00

this morning
i wrote a song for your side of the bed
she refuses to sing
until you return

Day 839: its just the sting talking, dont mind me. dont think this means anything.

2011-11-07T12:52:00.000-08:00

you learn with time,
it never hurts any less to be lied to.
to find out its not the string its who the end is tied to.