Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Day 502: To one night stands

You were the beautiful shadow that taught me love can saturate over night
Leave you thirsty by morning
Nothing quenches me quite like cuddling
But the sunrise finds its way through every windowpane eventually
Here comes the wind
The parts that make sure nothing settles properly

You are the memory of tears for women I do not know
Do not need to
Not this well
And the expectation for tomorrows
And next weeks
And picnics
And movies
Date nights

You taught me sex isn’t synonymous with love
But in this skin
That I wished it could be
Kissed like it should be
Like it was
The way I’d have to hold bits of your taste on the inside of my skin for months
Maybe years
I haven’t gotten that far yet

But its been forever and 2 women since
And your eyes still make me feel wasted
And inside out
And used
And dry
And not enough
And ugly
And all the nightmares I’ve had since February I’ve named after you and the dirty things you hid under the covers
And the beautiful words you wrote into index cards
And coffee shop napkins
And on my palm
There’s still a dent of the stories you traced with you fingertips

These are the stories that shouldn’t be told
You are the shadow that had to fade
But maybe shouldn’t have saturated on my skin
Sometimes
Saying no and going home is what’s right
Even in the dark of night
45 miles away from an empty bed
a crying heart
a stuffed dog that used to smell like a blue eyed beauty
and regrets that pile like papers
those are the times saying no is right
even if it means
tonight
I will cry alone
In an empty bed with white walls
Save for a board of pictures of what love once looked like
A stuffed bear that remind you that sometimes the smell made fade
But there’s still someone there under all the things that are easy to remember and forget
Waiting for you by the computer
Broken in the same
Not so easy to put back together
But far more fulfilling
Than waking up to someone you thought you knew
But is only a stranger

Monday, November 29, 2010

Day 501: to my grandmother

throwing this out there in case anyone else was thinking about her today a little more than usual. Love you all!To Clara,
You were the woman everyone around you was afraid to be
so we tied our dreams to your curls
watched them fall to your sides
called it a failure when you died before the turn of the millennium
and cried to the morning
to the mountains
to the rain
to the magma
and cold
to all the things we could see
all the things that remind us of home
and you
and fire

we were the people too weak to let you go
when you left
it cut holes in our skin
like pores
more like oceans
like ducts
like things that drip
and leak

we crashed your car into a telephone pole at midnight
and called your number
to hear your voice
over and over
even when it was gone
we kept calling
pretended it was a wrong number
hoping the universe would restore you
if we insisted that we needed it to
but it didn’t

we kept your subscriptions anyways
we collect your mail
we laugh at the irony of magazines with our faces smiling with obama and your name addressed at the bottom
we try not to but we are weak so
we cry when no one else is looking
because we think we are supposed to move on
supposed to have let go by now
11 years later
we're still holding on
even though we've lived a longer life with you gone dead then alive
it still feels wrong

we still visit the white stones
the turtle designs
you and your granddaughter
my cousin
who i don’t remember
didn’t know well enough
who was so young
couldn't have been that much older than i am now
how years close distance with the days
how that’s terrifying considering the circumstances
we don’t know what to say
we look at pictures and see ghost of women we miss in the most tangible ways
we weep over the ocean
trade salt with the sea

now
we cry when we realize how similar we are
that genes travel fast through Hawaiian women to men to women
a Hawaiian family spreading cancer like wildfire
we are afraid of the realities of our existence
the possibility that someone somewhere is afraid to be the women and men we already are
our curls may too be tied to someone else’s dreams
soon they may fall to our sides
we may be called failure when we die
before letting go
completely

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Day 500: orbit

There is no space for anything but dreaming
we are the promises that the star forgot to follow through on
that why we've been banished to soil and roots
remember
the dirt isnt dirty
its just brown
you are foolish
just young
there is space here for growth
so the first line was a lie
something to get your attention
cuz the space is big
and black
and empty
we can dream and breathe
and grow
and be something more
and different
and strong
but what about the promises broken
like gods fallen
angles
who wings are too wet to soar
so they weep

and we watch
praying to the moon
wishing on dying constellations
taking pleasure in watching the beautiful things around us break
witnessing
the downfall of the solar system

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Day 499:

you can leave your skin behind
when you forget to return
ill make sure to make something beautiful
from the shards
something unforgettable

Friday, November 26, 2010

Day 498: Dear brother (More edits)

Dear brother,
You should know,
most mornings
i wake screaming to the pacific
to the bluest of silences that stand between us
they are the constellations filing the space we've left behind
we are too scared to forget
so we leave blood in our tracks
like the oceans we built with our tears
where we learned to drown and fall

today
we are too many miles broken
severed sand castles
left to crumble
by the weight of our changed world
under our wandering footsteps
during our journeys
when we left, searching for homes in all the wrong coastlines and women

did you remember to count all the sunrises you watched falling over endless horizons
without oceans
all the ones you failed to ignore
because they made you feel infinitely far away from home
did remember how you searched for a flash the first 100 nights
until you realized that miracles don’t exist for you in California
that is the weight you will carry for the rest of your life
each green flash missed a pound on your shoulders
while you played islander on a continent
breaking your back for experience
for love
for things that should always bring you home
rather than tear you apart

but they told you that you could
find yourself away from your roots
and you,
like every other good Hawaiian listened to the beautiful men and women in suits
as they proclaimed that an education would lead you somewhere enlighten
far
away from the ocean your grandmother is scattered in
away from the mountains where you learned to breathe
from the roots your hung yourself from in adolescence
and you believed them

never remembering that your blood
is gold serum
titanium
you hold koa spears in your pupils
iron riffles in your first
every muscle in your body was built to self destruct
like your skin
10 shades too light
it a world obsessed with color and definition
building your soul into contradiction
into conflict
only your tongue can shield you from the broken you have and will feel

so mold your memories into bullets
into blades
into things that can break
and sever
the you that was born
a thousand years a go
is built of worrier breaths
of all the things we take for grated
and slip under our eyelids and skin
pretending that being something at heart is ever enough
that being here
will ever be enough
that doing all that you can will ever be enough
when its not
at least not today

so instead
i carry a white flag in my veins for every time i wished i could call
for every time i checked flight costs online
filled out the UH transfer form
but didn't have the strength
because it felt too much like giving up
felt to much like failure
and shame
but this
this feels too much like sacrifice
so i give myself standing ovations for all the songs of martyrdom i sleep by

you should know
it helps to feel you over the ocean
to know that i have a brother
who skin is the same color of forgotten
whose fits
the same textured callused
the same kind of severed roots
organs
and wings
the things we are ashamed of and hide behind our jackets in closets
we all have them
but we are connected by the remains of umbilical scars
we are fighting the same wars
trying to write something beautiful enough to be remembered by
to sing our way into someone’s memory
we try to forget how our parents failed to love us the way we needed them to
we are dying to succeed in the meantime
in a world that starts burying us from first breath
we are sorcerers of the nights
calling out names of god we’ve forgotten long ago
searching for the wings
we left on shores
we shouldn't of launched from
looking for homes we'd never find

Day 497: the things we carry

remember to count all the sunrises you watch falling over endless horizons
without oceans
all the ones you try to ignore
because they make you feel infinitely far away from home
remember how you searched for a flash the first 100 nights
until you realized that miracles dont exist for you in california
that is the weight you will carry
each green flash missed a pound on your back
while you play islander on a continent
breaking your back for experience

find yourself away from your roots
away from the ocean your grandmother is scattered in
away from the mountains where you learned to breathe
from the roots your hung yourself from in adolescence
remember that your blood
is gold serum
titanium
you hold koa spears in your pupils
iron riffles in your first
every muscle in your body was built to self destruct
like your skin
10 shades too light
building your soul into contradiction
into conflict
only your tongue can sheild you from the broken you will feel

so mold your memories into bullets
into blades
into things that can break
and sever
the you that was born
a thousand years a go
is built of worrieor breaths
of all the things we take for grated
and slip under our eyelids and skin
pretending that being something at heart is ever enough
that being here
will ever be enough
that doing all that you can will ever be enough
when its not
at least not today

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Day 496: for now

Thanksgiving makes me think of
soft hands
and curly hair
of fireplaces
and the silly things we believed in by moonlight

but thanksgiving also makes me think of chemo
of breathing machines
liquid lunches
IV's
deteriorating bodies
there things we left behind
the things that don't shine anymore

the things we carry are heavy
but wright makes the weak strong
thinking of you makes me wish i was older
whenever other part of me prays to be
something else all together

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Day 495: to my brother

most mornings
i wake screaming to the pacific
to the bluest of silences that stand between us
they are constellations filing the space we've left behind
in light years and decades
memories
like skin graphs
we are too scared to forget
like the oceans we built with our own blood and sorrow
where we learned to drown and fall

today
we are too many miles broken
severed sand castles
left to crumble
by the weight of our changed world
under our wandering footsteps
during our journeys
leaving only just to find home

do remember all the sunrises that didn't fall over oceans
the ones you ignored because of the empty taste it left behind
thats the kind of heavy we carry
when we play islanders on continents
breaking our backs for experience

today i carry a white flag in my veins for every time i wished i could call
for every time i checked flight costs online
filled out the UH transfer form
but didn't have the strength
because it felt too much like giving up
felt to much like failure
and shame
but this
thisfeels too much like sacrifice
so i give myself standing ovations for all the songs of martyrdom i sleep by

you should know
it helps to feel you over the ocean
to know that i have a brother
who skin is the same color of forgotten
whose fits
the same textured callused
the same kind of severed roots
organs
and wings
the things we are ashamed of and hide behind our jackets in closets
we all have them
but we are connected by the remains of umbilical scars
we are fighting the same wars
trying to write something beautiful enough to be remembered by
to sing ourway into someones memory
trying to forget the ways our parents failed to love us the way we needed them to
we are dying to succeed in the meantime
in a world that starts burying us from first breath
we are sorcerers of the nights
searching for the wings
we left on shores
we shouldn't of launched from
looking for homes we'd never find

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Day 494: diamonds

leave your taste there
under my skin where
everything waits
until it is forgotten
until you are gone
teach me to remember

there are secrets we wear in our lips like constellations
they are diamonds that your tongue cannot dull
your teeth cannot crack
perfection that cannot be pieced
i spend my days wondering how many days i've wandered
picking at the rhinestones in my gums
bleeding myself into sanity
kissing you into memory
like its something i can wear under my skin

like its something that cannot be lost
will not be forgotten

Monday, November 22, 2010

Day 493: to be edited later cuz i have work in 10 minutes :P

tomorrow
meet me under the moon
leave your troubles at my ankles
we could run this city
paint it blue
and brown
for all the times we felt like outcast
away from an ocean
you'll find me cold and open
waiting for you

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Day 492: still sick... obviously

everyone wants someone they love to run to their side
in the middle of the night
when your body feels broken
and your screams are silent
coughing up your lungs
as prayers to god
asking for someone to come save you
or at least make you some soup

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Day 491: youth (edited)

You were the girl who played all the wrong games too well
Every sport or guitar string
Plucked too perfect
Only added to your walls
The parts of you no one seemed to even want to penetrate
You,
The queer who was never smeared
Across your elementary school field
You were too fast and strong to be caught under dog piles
instead
You played games with words
Spit vocabulary like fag
Just like the rest
You didn’t realize what the word meant yet
or its irony
you didn’t know how it would infect you
lay eggs under your tongue like spiders in your stomach if you slept with your mouth open
you were cautious of all the wrong things then
not of heights
and skaboards
but women
so cautious of them
so afraid to become one
in body
full in breast
and hips
you hid yourself in the hand-me downs of older brothers
Insisted that you didn’t “fit” into the clothes of your females cousins
Even if they were the proper size
So many games you played those days

you were told as a child
that youth was that sour taste under your tongue
the soil under your nails
and broken hearts
walls that crumble
like berlin
but
that it would be the most beautiful time of your life
that growing
and periods
and boobs
those were things to look forward too
count and measure like treasures
against your friends
no one mentioned the tears
how they would lay fire under your skins
or the blood
and saringes
and blades
those were bad words
like, fag should have been
but wasn’t just yet

instead
your Youth was the tears your left on your pillow on your twentieth birthday
When u felt change tangible
Something u could count in 10s
In decades
The empty saringes
And full sharps contaners
Body bruises and tenderness
you see
your youth was a splinter at the back of yourneck
a stiffness in your hips
a sticky taste on your palms
alcohol under your fingernails
santination doesn’t come cheap
or without leaving a stench behind
you carried it like detergent
youth were the truths you hid like
blood under the sheets
its not the same lie
we lay under different worlds
its growing
its different
and your heart
isnt meant to crumble

you wish
someone could have told you
that hearts have to break and rebuild to grow
but that doenst mean to be careless in giving it away
that it should instead be held like china
like the daughtors who shouldn’t have been forgotten or forged into fires

Friday, November 19, 2010

Day 490: love is a dirty word (even more compressed)

a poem
for words like love
for girls who will call me forever
but wont call me now
and the nasty things we say in our sleep to each other about picket fences, dogs and adoption
bad words like
fuck
cunt
and dyke
ones that mean things like hate but still don’t hurt
like you do

like love.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Day 489: bad haiku

a true poet writes
even when the wells are dry
alone. cold. and sick

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Day 488: Haiku again

you bit me soft like
we were the kind to play games
all we did was break

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Day 487: for loving you again

your skin taste like home
you are everything i've missed
why'd i ever leave?

Monday, November 15, 2010

Day 486: youth

you were told as a child
that youth was that sour taste under your tongue
the soil under your nails
and broken hearts
walls that crumble
like berlin

your youth was a splinter at the back of yourneck
a sticky taste on your palms
blood under the sheets
its not the same lie
we lay under different worlds
the skys are always falling
this isnt youth
its growing
its different
and your heart
isnt meant to crumble
hodl it like china
long and great
let your skin obsorb
leave the dirt there overnight

learn to breathe by morning

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Day 485: “we all know that nostalgia is dangerous”

“we all know that nostalgia is dangerous”
that remembering the way yesterday taste can make you nothing but thirsty
make you crave for rewinds
but time
time doesn’t black flip
your hunger will only leave you empty
searching for yesterdays when there are barely even today’s on the horizon
nostalgia
is only after-taste
only broken dreams
and we
are too near sided to seek for things beyond ourselves so we live in dreams we’ve already breathed

everyone needs a little saving from tomorrows
and questions
and fears
like questions we’ve never heard
but tomorrows are just yerdays inverted
memories are just the best and worst parts of our past refusing to be forgotten
everything in the middle is grey
that what we are always afraid to become
blurry and forgotten
“we all know that nostalgia is dangerous”
but it’s the only thing keeping us above ground

Saturday, November 13, 2010

484: saturday's a rugby day

turn these muscles to iron
these bones to steel
under the weight of the expectations you would give yourself enough credit to create
build or break
im giving myself the opportunity to break
the chance to fail
the gift of experience
and pain
some things
are worth waiting for
others
others come right in time
when you least expect it

Friday, November 12, 2010

Day 483: til i collapse

i spent the morning
consoling my bones with concrete
turning my blood to iron
fake me strong silver
beautiful
but mutated
but some mornings i just wish i were a diamond
cuz i'm putting every inch of these syringes in one bucket
one future filled with broken brittle bones
walkers and treatments
call me crazy
collapsing
under the weight of arthritis
and the incoming tackle
theres no substitute for the pain
no way to escape the impossible
we are all broken already anyways
who to say crushing bones wouldn't make things any better

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Day 482: Bad words (compressed)

love is a dirty word
dont throw it here
it is nothing but letters
you
are nothing but skin
so this
is a poem
for words like love
and eternity
for girls who will call me forever
but wont call me now
and the nasty things we say in our sleep to each other about picket fences, dogs and adoption
for the bad words like
fuck
cunt
and dyke
the ones that mean things like hate but still dont hurt
like you do

like love.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Day 481: bad words

this is a poem for all the shity metaphors you write about being broken
for ever simile and the smiles you didnt have to write in order to exist
for the space between love and loved
and the way the past tense feels
sometimes
shattered
this is a poem for the girl who calls me forever
but wont call me now
will cry with me into the night
but still leaves by daylight

love is a dirty word
dont throw it here
dont leave it at my ankles
in your tracks
in your path of growing
dont run me over with it
pin me to the wall waiting with your breath
love or leave
but dont do both
it does me nothing but scars
it leaves me nothing but tears
and you
and memories
and shitty metaphors
and similes
that taste like tears
look like smiles
it doesnt give me you
love is nothing but letters
you
are nothing but skin
i am everything that has been forgotten
and pushed aside
you are remaking every mistake i ever wrote
i am watching from outside
the body
which has already been torn to pieces

so this is a poem for the ugly
for words like love
and forever
and the nasty things we say in our sleep to each other about picket fences, dogs and adoption
for the bad words like
fuck
cunt
and dyke
the ones that mean things like hate but still dont hurt like love
sometimes
breaks
this is a poem for you
and the two years i've known you
loved you
and still do

fuck.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Day 480: verge

its easy to mistake the storm in our chest
with the one brewing in the sky
they both make us cold
wet
cry
scared
thats all i feel now
fear
its everwhere
in every conversation we havent had yet
that might not happen
when we cut ourselves this way
theres no telling that we can be glued back together
fixed
but what about the forever you promised
that i trusted
im starting to wonder if it really exist
and if it does why it isnt more important than now.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Day 479:

waiting to shatter
broken heart on repeat
repeat
records
shattered
broken
like hearts
like you and me
repeating
ourselves

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Day 478:

i am not the kind of woman who waits
or stays
neither are you
we only pretended to be
but we arent those kind
and now im porous and you are hard
like granite
now we put all the wrong words in all the wrong orders
our lips suck into themselves
our hearts are inthe wrong places
it doesnt even matter anymore
the sun is going to set
it will be dark
and we wont know what we've become
or how it all came to be

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Day 477: the bitter

im trying to write poems to tear away the darkness
to take away the cold
the bitter
the parts that were left behind that time
the things we carried in our pockets
pretended not to be weighed down
pretended not to cry
and scream
but there are still echoes here
and scars of where our voices made the deepest cuts
where we left the hearts we severed
and we walked away with ourselves to learn to breathe differently or die

there are ghosts youve left behind
and lies of mine we havent moved from
they are the echoes and weights we carry
trying to convince ourselves that the other bodies we put between us make any difference in heartbreak
there is no space here
for other skins
you are playing with fire
and im the only one burning
the tears dont fall right in this place
sorrow is a vacuum of space i never learned to fill
your kisses are vouchers i cannot afford to check
we are that kind of dangerous
kite runners with broken wrists
and heavy wind
ugly in the sky
looks like we are constantly falling
it feels like im constantly sinking
into you
and out of myself
independence means nothing without someone to hold you in the moments that the walls are crumbling
when eyes rain like california in fall
unexpected
cold
and almost beautiful

im trying to write tonight to tear away the darkness
to bring back the moon
and the mountain
and the ocean
the water that doesnt come from my own skin
im trying to write tonight to take away the cold
the bitter
the pieces we left behind
pretended not to want to turn back
when thats all we ever did
and thats all we'll ever do

Friday, November 5, 2010

Day 476: time

late nights
ill never remember with people
ill never forget
we've got that kind of music
kinda of rhythm
breaking time into dusk
on the fretboard of your guitar
the strain in our voices
the smoke we've tried to break through in our breaths
trying to leave something behind
hoping
someone gets picture
so we dont have to forget it all

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Day 475: daddy

;ast night i was dreaming to your smile
your stories
the tenor of your breath
and song
i miss you like i miss the mountains
and the moon
and how they are the same
like you and i
one conjuring the other
only seen in the other brilliance

not every father has a daughter
but every daughter has a father
one who was there
but its not true
i know daughters without you
without a moon
to call home
to call when it gets cold and scary
and the world spins in every way you dont need it too

this morning i am dreaming to your skin
the tenor of your heart
the rhythm of your chest
all the tangible parts of you
i miss the most.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Day 474:

some mornings i write you into my dreams
carve out your name into my skin
try to remember
the things i promised you i'd forget my morning
to make our parting easy
we scratched the inside of eachothers tongues
left our mark in bitter tastes
regrets like butter
turn our skin soft
slimy
wanting to hold on
but cannot
not to anything solid
not to anything like you

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Day 473:

the things you promised never to hear
as the same things i promised to never say
we have that kinda heart breaking silence
cliche
and col
like water
when you only want to be dry
we have no choice in these tears
cut me open like you are interested
to be left to dry
ill wait
for you
to return

Monday, November 1, 2010

Day 472:

she left her door wide open
and never saw him again.