Monday, October 31, 2011

Day 832: distance

she is sandstorm eyes
whitewash lips
stanzas stuck to the back of her throat
lines tracing off into eternity
a song waiting to be written
a poem in process
every part of me that moves starts somewhere under her skin

i am callouses on my knuckles and palms
a song burnt into every one
heart full of growth
a body pushed to burst
love left in the liner notes
a secret scratched into the margins
a kiss for her tomorrow
a new promise

together we are half a body of goosebumps
a moleskin full of dreams
3 kids and a backyard
short walks during sunrise
afternoon naps
a bent fretboard
music
music everywhere


someday maybe even a completed poem

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Day 831:

feeling your body collapse under me
makes me wonder
how much of you will stay
when you leave

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Day 830:

i always feel her leaving
even in her coming
she is going away again
so i hold her close to my chest
tell her 'i am here,
i am not going anywhere'
look her square in the eye
until she understands

Friday, October 28, 2011

Day 829: when

when you find someone who loves you
holds you like you are the only way to be warm
like the only tomorrow is the singe of green behind your eyes
hold her like she is always leaving
because when she does
you will wish
you had built her a damn in the center of your chest
pray for those moments back
the mornings you awoke stuck to her skin
the kisses that dissected the day
the moments you sent prayers into her body with your lips

when someone loves you in a way that makes you stutter
makes you shake
covers half your body with goosebumps
loves you like answers
and promises
and stability
you will not look back any longer
you wipe out your hard drive
of all the memories you no longer need
keep only the ones that taught you how to be human
how to love back in a way that doesnt dissolve
that will stick to the back of her tongue like peanut butter and nutella
and promise her every morning will be a poem
every kiss a premonition
and that every tomorrow will be found in the distance behind her eyes

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Day 828: suck my kiss

one kiss every night
to go with all you have missed
my arms around you

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

DAY 827: aint gonna be in my biography

She didn’t taste the way I expected
I thought any body would bend to fit mine
I was wrong
We spent 20 minutes too long thrwing poems into eacothers chest while we fumbled with our hands
My phone vibrating in my back pocket
Another voicemail
Another reminder that the woman bellow me wasn’t mine
And wouldn’t be worth it
I didn’t stop

I didn’t like the way her hands crinkled against the back of my neck
Felt like too much desert
Too much sand storm
Too much to be picked and scraped off when the night was over
I washed my hands packed my bag
And called my girlfriend
she was silent in her ignorance
I was
Something different
I was something distant
I was something, for sure

I worte poems for her on the plane ride home
About magnetism
And bodies
Lied myself into lust
Because the distance made it something more interesting
i was a coward
i said i was growing
you believed it
so i just kept moving

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Day 826: discipline

there are few things in this world i hold to be absolutely true
if we take family to be self evident
then its just the oceans, my mountains,
and you
that i was born to see the beauty in crashing and rising again
a pheonix built into ever bend
its the same with the mountains
the ridges i learned to find home in
how they could fold over me in the form of a halo
hold me in its bosom
i see nothing but beauty in bends upon bends upon bends
curves crashing to the surface
its the same way i would learn to love you whole and boneless
free in movement
how i take every part of your body wondering how my curves will hold it
if you let me
i'd draw every fragment curve you have into a symphony

this is not a promise
this is loving you in practice
this is the actualization of imperfection and its inherit beauty
the build before the crash
the parts of you i try to hold steady
but cant
because anytime my hands come close enough to where you are most human
you stutter into secret
shrink into the distance

but i wanna love you like rainfall
contained and endless
hold you like the bends in the ocean
wanna build you a body you'll call a fortress
just with my kiss
forget the stitches
this is not about repair and rebuilding
this is about perspective
and the way i've learned to see so much more than single moments
how you've turned into something ageless and frequent


sometimes
i dream you a place in my body
wondering if you'd be able to love it
if it were yours
like we say i am
can you hold me
curved bended and endless
could you love me mountain
valley
and ocean
the parts of me that you cannot stand of yourself
or are we doomed to be the limited definitions tangled at forevers ankles

beautiful
find me a place at the base of your promise
i will learn to stay there and build potential from your secrets
from the scars where your negative space begins
because i can see so much of you phantomed into shadow
i know you can feel its itch
its sting
from the way you move around yourself
trying not to get caught standing still
and i am so terrified
that i will watch more of you disappear before my eyes

so let me be your new definition
find a home for yourself in my ocean
learn the way it only moves in bends
that every part of life
is a curve, spiral or circle
that nothing human is straight and flattened
you deserve more than what you have interpreted
let me show you where it all ends and begins
we will find you a vision
something arching into the distance
something made of my image
maybe then you will finally understand the difference
between beautiful
and disciplined

Monday, October 24, 2011

Day 825: i do not need to be reminded of my passive aggressiveness

i made a pledge
not to let your silence turn me inside out
not to scrape the last bits of me from this cavity
not to remember
how long it was i wanted you whole while you wanted only parts of me
scattered across your bedroom floor
not that most days i felt like you loved me convenient
especially in the end
that i was poster and picture worthy
something to hang above the mantle
as you let foreign bodies sweat on the same pillows i fell in love with you on
while i learned to leave a half of my heart open to anyone but you
someone else with a pretty smile and light eyes
who'd take me whole
or build these pieces back into a fortress
this is how i learned to forget our promise
our potential
our future
slowly
and in silence
its what kept me standing upright and heavy
kept me from floating away

it the same reason i will try to keep the silence
not let you feel the way your tug can pull me back at your convenience
that i have learned to be more steady
found myself heavier anchors
and made new promises
one will a girl whos eyes wants to keep them
who holds me in distance
in love
in everything you were afraid to do
were "too young" to do

sometimes its not about timing
sometimes it about patience
and a miss matched pairing
sometimes its about not being right at all
maybe we were no comfort and all fall
not high and all crash
maybe we were just adrenaline junkies getting our fix
or maybe we were one too many mistakes to fix either way i learning to not mind the silence
to become accustomed to you trying to come and go
learning not to be a swinging door

so yes,
to answer your question
i am here
i am okay
i am all these things i have always been
just a little stronger
and a little less willing to allow myself to fall back into your tsunami

Sunday, October 23, 2011

DAy 824: sunrise

no matter how hard
the night, morning brings me home
to where i love you

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Day 823:

i find myself wearing worry on my skin like a promise
like relationships are tied by the number of tears iʻve manage to force in the miles between our bodies
im running out of ways to say this
out of weight to old us together
when the ends fray
i find my insides stuttering trying to escape
i am terrified of the ways i will hold on
how i have a tendency of doing this for too long
never learned how to stop
how to quit
only ever remmeber being quit on
and trying to work my way back in
you are the first girl in 3 years that i havent thought of as the "other woman" or replacement
or rebound
or doomed
or taking space
or taking time
or healing me
or anything other than perfect
and future
and its scary to think
i could be on a three year cycle of broken hearts and weak glue
im wondering where nights like these fit
in the grand scheme of things
if tis is called doubt
or something else

maybe
maybe its just a realization ofthe miles
maybe its the alcohol
maybe its the stench of fear creeping its way into our haven
a place we called safe before we even created
i wonder how it ends
i try not to think too far past tomorrow
i get to excited
and excited scares me
because iʻve been there before with someone else
and excited doesnt hold the edges together
wont melt us into a mold we can hold
wont do anything but make things worse
if we cant find another way
to keep us steady

Friday, October 21, 2011

Day 822: Card Homes and Birdcages

there is a house of cards
built around my heart
i wonder if it fell
would we hear it crumble
would it stutter to the tip of my skin
make you tremble?

i guess what i really want to know is
when the small parts inside of me move
the gears that continue
do you feel the vibration
the parts of me that are begging to be let free to attach themselves somewhere sacred on your body
the last night i held you
could you feel every part of my breath trying to find a home under your skin
to build a birdcage of promises you wouldn't be able to release
or how the first morning you awoke in my arms how
the moisture that kept us tangled
tried to seep into you palms
in the story you have creased there
wanting to be a part of your day
something youʻd share with every person youʻd encounter

this house of cards was born to fall
like a castle built on the shore
there is too much water rising in me to keep things settled
even for my best interest
and iʻve have spent too many mornings trying to be the calm women want to marry
want held in the base of wrist
today
today i am a rising wave
a falling current
something trying to pull you away
can you feel the vibration at your ankles
the tremble at the base of your spine
trying to spin you into a forever that doesn't leave
feel me wrapping myself around you
as the deck collapses
13 hearts splattered face up
caught in my linoleum ribcage
a club and spade each
for every reminder
for every morning i woke up missing your texture
watch as the diamonds slip through the cracks
the shine of material things in life i thought i was supposed to want and have
and instead
here i am digging us a home in the sand
waiting for all the pieces and sharp edges to settle
hoping youʻll still be here
beside me
when they do
hoping that the hallow cavity drum in my chest
doesnt scare you away
but reminds you of a birdcage
one i hid in your spine
whilee i tried to give something broken
a new meaning
full of promises
a few that you may want to give to me
in return

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Day 821: okie dokey pokie

this is no poem
not something to remember
just a cry, for help

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

DAy 820: Heart

grandpas got a broken heart
it stutters in the heat
sometimes
you can find him skipping a beat under paddles
someone yelling clear
someone close crying
i wonder what it has to do with my grandmother
and the shards of her he carries in the soles of his shoes
in the smile of his new wife
how he left clara behind
wonder how the walking away felt
how he can quote arguments for the sanctity of marriage
the way my grandmother had to wait years before leaving him
i wonder how it feels
to be a stutter
a reminder of mistakes made
wonder how often he thinks about her smile
or the way her back would bend
wonder if he even remembers

my grandfatherʻs got a broken heart
a small stammer
stiched and sewn back together
i wonder how many times my grandmother would have liked to lay under the same currents
jolt herself back into breathing
how much better she was at hiding
being broken
and left behind

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

819: Failed haiku: we do not fit

i do not forgive
the way you made me fall in
i am still finding

shards

Monday, October 17, 2011

Day 818: revision

remember that silence
the one that fills the room like tear gas in your absence
the one i wrote about with clocks melted into sand
a sundyle bent into our wrists

remember the nights i tried to break time
strangle its father between my fingertips
burn every part of this distance with the gun powder promises in my palms
this is the reason i keep you awake into the morning
because i am afraid of being left alone in this darkness
afraid of the way you hold me hostage

theres a reason why you are the poem i rewrite every evening
after youʻve fallen into silence
its the same reason why i hope roll into consciousness early enough to beat you into the morning
praying to be the only one to shake the sleep from your spine
untangle you from your dreams
wishing that the few characters i send you through the night can make up for my failing limbs
we are in constant revision
and iʻve never been able to look at he same poem for this long without wanting to be rid of it
i have always asked for someone elseʻs perspective
but tonight i want every single one of my loved ones to stay silent
i will not allow them to ruin this
to encourage the doubt i already know how to grow alone
tonight
i am choosing faith
and you
and hoping by morning
you will understand what exactly is it i mean

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Day 817:

i've found a forest forged behind your eyes
its the kind of place
you find tomorrows frozen with the promises of yesterdays
so struck by twilight
makes me wonder if time exist there
or if maybe
i'm enchanted by the idea that we could be held still
in our own gravity
that we wouldnt have to measure our relationship in our cross continental movements
the vibrations my lips send to yours in Morse code over the ocean
or the words i fly to you through the Internet
there are so many ways we've learned to count our distance
measure our love
in promises
and the few secrets we've allowed to float to the surface
i wonder how many are left
keeping our anchors tangled
i am getting better at waiting
by the minute
each 60 seconds that passes is another check i can place on my side of the scale
keeps me balanced

but when the evening comes i am reminded
the tidal wave in my chest is far from fallen
that most mornings begin with a dam fracturing in the pit of my stomach
a minor chord stinging just scratching the surface
when i roll over to see there is nothing but land and oceans between our bodies
i remember the wave that could carry even the heaviest pieces of our story into promise
everything i have is trying to break its way into your body
to the forest behind your eyes
if you're wondering why it seems like im looking through you tonight
its because something about you has turned this storm into silence
and all im trying to do is build myself a home somewhere in the center of that forest

do not let the weight of this gaze scare you
and ill promise that every time i am startled by the depth of our distance
that i will remember the way you found a still summer in my chest
how your smile flattened the tides
made me feel almost solid
like i could be permanent
that you might
be the reason
i havent settled the seas
just yet

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Day 816: 34 days, 14 hours, 48 minutes

give me a moment for the distance
to settle on the back of my tongue
before you leave
a second to watch the walls surrounding my body crumble in your departure
a minute to adjust to the bitter bite of it all
how it doesnt settle
its toxic burn
contaminates every part of me
a day to get used to this displacement
the pull of wanting you closer but not being able to reach out to you

just a few of these
get me to tomorrow
to next week
to some obscure date in the future
that only exists on calendars
today
i feel like all i am is counting backwards
all this is
is cat and mouse
you chase me
ill chase you back
but where's home base when all we have are miles between us
something about it doesnt settle
even this poem
has no direction
and something about me feels like cracking
down the center
a fracture to bring in the morning
wishing you would take a step closer to hold me together
with your hands like ivy
come here and heal the parts of me that never learned to live in pieces
never learned to smile through the mess like you do
i cannot seem to pretend

when you came to me
you forgot to mention the miles written into your loves lines
the deception you forgot to mention
that you'd be able to love me like this
not worried that it may tear me apart
it makes me feel like moving
like running
like turning around and screaming
taking on this distance
make it tangible
cuz now
all it is
is google maps on repeat
travelosity on my favorites
constantly
checking
checking
checking
wondering when the fairs will be low
and the time right
to give you a moment of me whole
before i return to this side of the country
where its always warm
everything is beautiful
and i am in pieces
counting
counting
counting

Friday, October 14, 2011

Day 815:

"There is nothing more desperate than a wordsmith struggling to forge something meaningful and failing"

i've taken your poems
and found a place for each on my body
trying to make myself worthy of your words
my lips ready for the contour of your body
this is where i fail at doing you justice
everytime
where i forget how to hold you from a distance
this is where i am tremble and fall and hope you see enough of the intention to make my stammering worth it

the first night i held you
i could feel every wall around me crumble
one for every fracture
you found parts of my heart that hadnt moved for anyone in months maybe years
and turn my story inside out with your sigh
all i wanted was to make a home for myself somewhere behind your breath
where i swear your strength would lie
i could feel every amp of it pushing at my body
trying to carry me forward

sometimes when i open my eyes
i find myself looking past you
into someting that isnt there yet
but something i want
it taste like a stability i was never able to conjure
and makes me wonder
if i'll ever get used to the weight of this bed
when you are not kepping one half of it down

this is a poem for the morning
the ones i found you smiling, surprisingly
the ones that showed me how to love you properly
the ones i think of when i am trying to fall asleep
knowing
that tomorrow there will be no perfectly bent back before me
no lips to lead me forward
just an empty half of the bed
and the cold side of the pillow
one i forgot to turn
because i was thinking too much about you hands resting on the back of my neck
your lips on mine
to be anywhere tangible
to be in any kind of universe that would put you
too far away for me to know
you are breathing
for me

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Day 814: distance

she says it helps knowing that im here
sitting on the other end of the computer
i could be a million miles away but still with her
today
its 2572 miles
and i understand
because the more pixeled smiles i can capture
save for a rainy day
the less i know shes giving away to someone else
its a selfish thing to know about yourself
that the way you want her is lonesome and complete
that every other body in-between you is just an obstacle
you are trying to defeat

its true
i want you all and only
do not misunderstand me
i am no good at sharing
but loving your from a distance means becoming comfortable with not knowing
being free of the particulars
and trying not to see you hand in hand with someone else
trying not to be that mind that wanders
or the heart that follows out of fear
im trying to learn to stay here
be more present
but all im thinking about at night when your out is the single day it took to break a two year relationship down the middle
how a single moment of distance turned into my next 100 years and me unable to forgive or move on
or trust anyone with light eyes and a crooked smile
my heart is not a wooden box you can leave on the mantle
its a class cage without a handle
its something you need both palms to cradle
and this distance makes it hard to believe
that every moment i am not with you
on the other end of the computer is a moment you sit there holding me steady
even if you give me every reason to believe
i still find myself getting caught in the mirrors in your eyes
when i look at you
some nights
all i can see is my past taunting me
telling me you are too good to be true
too beautiful to be mine
so i keep my glass cage as far as i can from your thundering hands when you are gone
and try to be ready
when the distance closes
and i find myself reaching into you from across the room

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Day 813: moving forward

i am worried i cannot carry myself into the future
with these words
they seem to fall too close to past
maybe my biggest peak has passed
and i'll always be the 18 year old you did poetry for obama
but never lived a life worthy of any other story
i realize this is not a problem
this is a 21 year old complaining about privileged
and worrying about potential and currents
rather than focusing on whats current

i just want to feel like i have something else in me
other than history
that i may actually have the ability to change the world
or at least witness it shatter
this is a broken promises turned to a question
knowing no poem with hold an answer
this is the back end of every performance
the moment i know it is ending
the smile on their faces with fade while they forget me
forget this
and i will again be left
at the foot of another strange bed
in a city i havent learned to find comfort in
watching abc
as the night turns to morning
waiting for my shuttle
to take me somewhere new

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Day 812: i wonder where the good poems went and when theyll come back

i wonder if the steel under your feet is rattling
the same way i feel these California plates quake in the moments i am most alone
whats the vibration feel like over middle America
does the altitude sting the same as this absence
like im being held hostage at 40 thousands feet
about to drop
or is the pressurized cabin
the artificial company
enough to make the difference in this distance
i want to cover myself in your promises
find which ones fit without having to stretch and bend
want to learn the way you trace your tongue across language
and your process from scribbling down the words that mean most to us both
i am having troubler writing about you
because i do not know how to do this justice
and im reminded that there is no shame in loving you off this page
that i do not need to write a perfect metaphor
or the perfect line to know
that when i wake up tomorrow and you arent here
it will be the worst kinda of way
to start my day

Monday, October 10, 2011

Day 811: haiku

beautiful, you are
like magic. you disappear
and im the one lost

Sunday, October 9, 2011

DAy 810:

for every poem still stuck under my skin
every word i havent had the courage to say yet
i will give you a kiss
to fill the space weʻve created with our promises
a black hole for our potential
here is a secret
i loved you without this body
when you were here
that was just an explosion
a combustion i had hidden under my skin for months

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Day 809: where my mind goes when it wanders

our son would be born of oceans and heat waves
things that can be felt in their movement
he will carry our every fracture in his shoulder blades
ever secret in his clavicle
a collar bone built of promises and tomorrows
potential born into every breath
the parts of our getaways that seem too fleeting,
we will find them in the craters of his skin

he will have a smile for every time we made love
and we will recognize them
know each by name and date
by the way our body bent and curled into each other
there will be a star named in his honor for every morning he wakes crying for his mother
a moon for every morning we dont know which one he is reaching for
for the beauty in our own unknown
the darkness we will carry ourselves into willingly

he will have a softness about him
that can only be explained by having two women who couldnt love any harder if they tried
will fall asleep best to the sound of pens scratching against paper at midnight
the way you etch cursive promises into eternity
or the clank of a keyboard at dawn
the softness found in the release during sunrise
he will know the different between a love poem and psalm
just by the rhythm
will know our love better than i will ever be able to write
will know how it is released in lines
stanzas
promises
secrets
hammers sometimes

he will know your strength from the curves caught in your eyes
from the lines carved into your navel
the pain left behind in the potential
and mine
by the tear in every smile
the crack in my palms
and the callouses on my knuckles

he will have my fathers voice
and your fathers hands
your brothers laughter
and my brothers wonder

he will learn to love from the way we gaze into each others eyes
knowing that there is nothing more pure
nothing that cannot be found here
in his home
the one we made
when we cut the distance in half
and threw our fears to the wind

the first night we bring him home
he will sleep between our bodies
it will be the first time in years that anything
separates us
and it will be
the most beautiful kind of distance

Friday, October 7, 2011

Day 808: patience

i learned to call you distance
hold you space
find myself hiding in the margins
our movements created
the wake of our displacement
its a current i couldn't keep myself from falling for
today you are now
you are here
you are close
and tangible
you are embodied
and i am muscle memory
finding myself searching for a new way to hold something beautiful
a way that doesnt leave fractures
you werent born in pieces
i was just born with hammers for hands
and a heart without patiences
and yet i am waiting
here
for you to rise
under me
and for me to be ready to hold you there

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Day 807:

sometimes
i hoard sea shells on my last weeks home
take them across the ocean
and hold them up to my ears
hoping
the sound of crashing waves might make me feel at peace
at home
this distance is something iʻm always struggling with
more when i am lonely
these weeks iʻve been too lonely
to feel anything but longing
and theres nothing here to hold me
not a single wave
or tide to pull me
just
books books book
and people people people
trying to get through them
no one is listening
because there are no waves here to distract us

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Day 806: wine and cheese

so im sitting in my room
alone
wondering
if te fact that i haven't had the slightest desire to take a drink at a party in weeks
means im depressed
and im thinking what kind of backwards ass bullshit is that
but all i know
is every circle i find myself near makes me feel obtuse and alone
and no one here moves to the rhythm quite like me
im out of the beat
and they are out of their minds
slinging liqueur into the night like pixie dust
and not a single girl here is made of home
not a single one with a voice like dial tones
everyone is alone alone alone
and drinking themselves into company
into seeing multiple
into love
and im in the coner witnessing it all
all the fake
beautiful
bullshit
love

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Day 805: a song

i think i was here before. not anymore. but i was definitely here once.


You don’t call my name
Don’t call my phone
Don’t leave a message at the tone
You don’t love me the way I love you
Don’t hold me babe
What should I do

You don’t have a plan to get me back
But im waiting here keeping track
We shooting stares like give and take
We’ve got everything we need to break

Its 5 minutes til curtain call
One drink left and ill give you all
My broken love promises
Just to pretend that we exsit

Its 5 tries this time its 6
No charms just persistence
It’s the reason im still in bed
It’s the reason im still in bed

Monday, October 3, 2011

Day 804: A moment of Silence

i tried to write silence into a poem once
for two girls who melted along their mother in the morning
the ambers charred the back of my throat
made it hard to breath
even harder to speak
i let numbers do the talking and set myself in the margins

today i tried do to the same
and then i realized
there are too many child skeletons
buried beneath my feet
too many bodies
dangling elsewhere
in the margins of a story i never finished
because it seems too much like real life
because it felt to real to know that we had been saying goodbye to children for too long
that i have become too accustomed to the fleeting nature of life
and this silence
does nothing for my breath
doesnt let me heal
im still burning in the back of my throat
there are still mothers and fathers left to feel the phantom tug of a child's hand
i wonder if the phantoms grow stronger and taller with the years
its something i ope to never know

its been 6 years
i still remember the look in your eyes when you told the doctor you could taste the chemo on the back of your tongue
i imagined it tasted like alcohol
burning
when i was put under in 2008 and in 2010
the anesthetic felt like it was setting my body on fire
i tought of you
and the silence you left in your wake
the way every song we sing was just an orchestra behind your fathers wail
something i will never have the courage to call beautiful
i still hear him
in the instrumental of certain songs
cant listen to "the days of my youth" for too long
cant look my father in the eyes when he plays
because i know someday
it will be
either me or him
leaving and the other watching the fade
cant hold my mothers hand for too long
it feels to much like goodbye and letting go

you are still so much here
sometimes i forget what you feel like
remember that i didnt know you that well
but that seeing you leave
took more from me in one moment than i think ill ever give again

ileiana
you are more than silence
more than a smile
more than a promise
a timestamp
a sundyle
you are the brightest part of every sunrise
the beauty we get to witness
you are the strong parts of me that refuse to break
that refuse to stay quiet
you are love
you are love
you are everything i mean when i say love

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Day 803: bronte

i had an idea for a poem
but it slipped away
i think it had something to do
with a smile i found stuck under my skin
something you slipped under me in passing
in leaving
so i will wait here for the idea to return
hoping
youʻll come back with it

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Day 802:

this is a poem for everytime you seem to slip away
everytime
i pull you closer in
for the moments we spent grappling with our feelings
throw eachother through loopholes
trynna make it mean something
this is a poem for the silence
the moment before the click
the silence of the line
the silence of the space
we took to clear our selves