To Poetry (Pompously)

I want to write you a poem.
It shouldn't be so difficult, I've done it before.
Write what you know, write where you've been, write how you feel.

I've been the ingénue, seeking a taste of glamour and gambolling in rain-soaked frocks. Chasing epiphanies and waiting for the world to reveal the secret blueprints that must exist for existing. (A girl can dream.)
Once, I believed in balance, in rhyme-schemes, and trite paths to trivial endings.

My words had to change with me. To give voice to the edges of my thoughts-- the things that fit nowhere, but begged sweetly to be said aloud.
I bombarded you with ephemeral eloquence-- glimmers of finesse.

I almost became inured to the face-crumpling regret of routine tragedy. Almost.
And almost, I accepted my own place in that flawed tangle of rights, and wrongs, and very wrongs, and seemingly inevitables.
Almost.

The deluge... was a stream... was a trickle.
And what is left?

I fear sometimes that I have lost you. That you have waited, and languished in disuse.
That I will never be able to capture a scintilla of your essence on paper again.

But you are here.
In the lilting tangential lines I struggle to subdue into recognizable diction.
In the way I listen. Sifting through countless ragamuffin syllables tripping over teeth like puppies to sleep, tumbling head over heels for the sumptuous aural fragrance of a graceful phrase. Mooning over the vestigial remains of you on my tongue.
In the truth I force myself to tell.
I feel you.

Always your gossamer strands catch at me. A cobweb of now unravelled, unrivalled beauty.
In rapture I remain, a palimpsest-- a pastiche.
A patchwork girl with poetry in my hair.

Yours, Truly.

And Now For Something Completely Different

"To Scale"

My littleness is not one-sided.

It pervades my every dimension, it colours my movement, it informs my mannerisms.

I live a little life.

But the slow pull of melancholia is double the gravity,

And the hole in my stomach echoes more times than a can in a canyon.

My raging pulse is an mad drum reaching a wild crescendo and that damn trickling fear

just sits in wait like an icicle

over my fragile spine.

It makes me wonder... Are my feelings immense?

Or do they only overwhelm me because I am... small.

Am I the only one?

I have compared myself to a moody ocean.

Sinking ships in the bay,

I beckon with the lulls and dips between waves,

Before the storm hits, and the sky admits--

it's just for show.

Pathetic fallacy calls for stormy skies, despair prefers straight pain.

My friends, you take your thunder-- I'll bring the hurricane.

Other times, I have cited a star--
A cosmic release, a bug in a jar.

Up and away from these notions
The motion of the ocean, and the commotion of
emotional turmoil.
There is a fire, making it's home in my bones, burning the marrow till tomorrow,

running on midnight oil.

You're too distant to see how it burns in me,

and the colours bleed;

There's a disconnect in my constellation.

My littleness is not one-sided.
But neither is my greatness.

Le Premier Abord.

Firsts; you can be beautiful, educational, cruel.

My beginning was not for me—my first steps, my first words, my first injury. They were for my parents; to show them my growth, to reassure them of their good parenting and to remind them how very delicate a life is. How delicate my life is.

Next it was my turn for some revelation and along came my first day at school, my first bully, my first crush. And I learned that being different isn't easy, that not everyone is going to like you, that learning could ignite my passion...
and that boys are stupid. And so are girls.
But they are both pretty great.

And as I grow, I collect more and more of you: first time I got drunk, first time I thought I was in love, my first apartment, my first driving lesson, my first car accident, first time I had sex, first time I had sex outdoors, my first vote in a federal election, my first surgery...
The first time I thought I might die... right there on that hospital bed.

I needed to learn my mortality too. Learn how delicate I am... learn how fucking strong I am.

I needed to know that good comes around but so does bad and both make you live harder... if you're smart.

I needed to know that people come and go in your life and the most important person to love is yourself. Even when it feels like someone else is your whole life... which would be a first for me.
I guess I learn fast.

Some people live their lives afraid that they will run out of firsts and be left with only higher denominations of "been there, done that".
I am not afraid. I will not hoard my experiences; lock them inside little boxes of achievement to prove who I am and where I came from.

I will wait, and one of these days, this stage will end. Firsts will once again stop being for me, and start being for us— whenever I find someone to be an “us” with me, of course.
We can explore them together, the triumphs and mistakes and unpredictable staggering blows. We can be human, and act like we’re children, and live like we love being alive— because that’s important.

Yours, Truly

PS. After writing this, the word first has lost all meaning.... the down-sides of repetition.

Curls

Smother me, I can take it.

There are worse ways to die than tangled up in you.

Not a restraint, merely a disguise, a tantalizing display of plumage.

Not a fire, though you make me ignite.

Not a drop of cold ocean, but a dark sea of curling delirium.

There is gasping for breath and a fair amount of sensory deprivation, but I'd never complain. To breathe even for a moment this sweet clean scent; to see just a glimpse through this tangled canopy-- it's enough. I'd much rather be here, in the forest, watching the wildlife do its thing.

Out there are complications, salutations, social mitigations... I want to smile for hello, and to throw polite out with every single elastic I've acquired.

Why quell this sweet madness? You deserve to be celebrated.

Tell Rapunzel never to let you down again.

Tell her to let you free.

Yours, Truly.

Studies on Sleep

Tonight you elude me.

Forever your mysteries intrigue me.

I daydream (it's never enough):

You and I finally meet (the wait is excruciating) with no need for formalities.

You disarm me. Slowly.

We bathe, entwined in silence.

Only (my breath) filling the space between us.

- - -

The pilgrimage to your door is unpredictable and I, dressed for hunting, am sorely unprepared.

Like some mythical creature you stalk me, waiting to reveal yourself-- as always, at your leisure.

My fire burns low and red. The embers look like the insides of my eyelids, when the day rings harsh and you have left me.

I was never going to find you because you are never to be found.

And that, is the hardest part.

- - -

Touch me, I need it. I need you.
My body aches for your embrace.

It dwindles, slowly slumping into sporadic puddles of inappropriate emotion.

Wanting you more than any other basic need.

I can't think in straight lines, thoughts are singswoopjingleclomp-ing.

higgledy-piggledy-ziggity-zag.

The face, whiskers askew, jeers at my plight.

Taunting, ticking, talking, tocking.

When will you arrive?

Touch me, I neeeeeeed it.

- - -

Postcard From My Mother:

Hello my Pumpkin.

I am trying the snail mail because you never answer my calls.

How is your sleep? You know it's so important!

Enjoy as much as you can.

-Mom

Email To My Mother:
Hey Mommy,
Sleep is fine, it went on holiday for a bit, strangely at the same time I did. But has since returned and we are doing fine. I don't know what you're on about, I called you this past weekend. Remember we told you about our trip to Cartoon India and the flying carpet? And how I keep turning into a cat? And that doughnut sex tape?

Sometimes I think you don't care about my dreams.

Yours, Truly.

PS. Sleep says Hi to Daddy.

Hospitals

You scare me.

It could be the smells... The rubbing alcohol and floor cleaner with overtures of too many unhappy faces... and the occasional whiff of vomit. When I get a needle, or a new medication in my IV, I can smell it, no matter how many times your minions tell me I'm imagining it. In the emergency waiting room I smell fear. Tears and sweat and utter despair. 40 people in front of me having their worst day, and the smell follows me.

And the worst of all is the sickly sweet and insidious smell of the rubber when you come to try 50 times to take my blood. It smells like vanilla that has been run over by a burning truck tire... and my blood smells like salt and batteries.

Maybe it's the memories I have of being trapped within your countless walls-- memories that still haunt my sleep. I wake up already sobbing and short of breath saying "don't make me go, don't you dare make me get better".

But it was never the getting better that was the problem.

It was the endless waiting, the excruciating pain and the days (to weeks) without food that come with getting better that make me afraid to go back. Make me afraid to be sick. But worse than that, afraid (once I'm sick) to start getting better...

It could be the tiny boxes that you try to put us in.... Your consumers seem to have come to be Zoo animals for a day. In a cage with no walls, open to the air. Open to the eyes-- staring, questioning, curious. The one time you want to suffer in silence, in secret; you look your worst on purpose but the gawkers won't take a hint. You become a stuffed owl for the masses of other sick people and hospital employees.

Maybe it's just the opposite.

Not that there are too many stories, eyes, smells--- but that within the midst of hundreds of people, you are the loneliest place I can think of....

Yours, Truly

Health

I need to stop.

I've written you a letter before this, though I never sent it, never showed anyone. And I was proud of that letter-- the writing, the sentiment... But I guess it's not true anymore, so you will never see those words.

I am stumbling my way down a slight incline.

I dream about you sometimes, and usually I wake up forgetting that I'm not allowed to be happy. Not with you. And when it hits me, it hits low. It takes the wind right out of me. Sometimes I cry, and sometimes I am too sad for tears.

Are you waiting to catch me... or watching me fall?

One thing that bugs me... I don't even know if I ever had a chance, or if my fate was decided from the beginning. Was it something I did? Is my life now just some twisted punishment? What is it, I don't deserve you?

I've been here before, and I just keep coming back.

It's been hard to change the way I think, my reflexive reactions. I forget sometimes that you are gone. Some days I act like you're still here until something snaps and I'm in pain. "Oh yeah," I think, "it's like that now."

Do you know how easy life would be if I could stay away?

I am trying. Trying to live differently. I don't want to live like you don't exist, and I can't physically live like you are a part of my life. So I am left with living like I don't need you. I don't need you. But I'm still learning that. I'm new to this.

I might actually be more happy without hope... Do other people understand that?

I hope everyone feels lucky today, lucky to have you.

Because they will never understand me, not until you are gone from them too.

It's sad, but it is the truth.

Let's leave the light-switch, and keep them in the dark.

Not Yours... Truly.

To Irrational Jealousy

You fiend. You creep seep slip into my heart. Or is it mind?

I don't understand where you come from.

If heart, then I admit to caring more than I want to, if mind, then I am petty and ridiculous.

I know, there is no justification. I know there is no reason. But I feel... too much.

I feel inadequate... insufferable, sentimental, freakish--foolish.

And hypocritical, no one likes to feel that.

I may deny you, but you will be there.

There to beat war-drums in my skull. To hot glue my hands into fists.

You will delight in your short-lived existence.

So have your fun, poking the back of my throat into lumpy oatmeal, far too sticky to swallow.

I will bide my time.

Working on my visualization, strengthening my rationality.

I can think you out of sight.

Out of mind.

Out of heart.

You're nothing but my insecurity, my vanity, my possessive nature....

But always and somehow I am Yours. Truly.

PS. I still wish you wouldn't ruin my fun like this... come back on the 12th of never?

To Tears

Soft and salted caress, I know you're there; lurking just beneath the marble surface. The dark won't tell anyone you've come, it's safe now.

Tentatively at first, you're afraid someone might hear; might know that you haven't left town for good. No one wants you around, not even the one you've come to visit-- but once you arrive, you are invited in.

Embrace the swell of cheek and let yourself flow, you have no need to hide in the night, you can pour out your soul until you are empty-- begging to give more, but having only a dull ache left to give. Mingle with the whispered queries floating from trembling lips; shake with the fierce passion of loss and fear.

The world is a flat palm, holding its treasures. Sometimes the grief could sweep your rivers right off the face of the earth... into nothing. An eternity of falling, struggling for breath and getting lost in the rush of space.

You are at first a burden, and then a solace. Sometimes you could last forever.

But you end, like everything else. You do your part to soothe, to rage in tempestuous waves, to mend... and soon there is no place for you. The river has run dry and the heaving of earthly bodies slows to a mere tremble, a pulse.

Curving to envelop your absence,
Breath echoes your keening plea.
I thirst for you in hiccups;
And forever you indulge me.

-Truly

To Any Semblance of a Romantic Relationship

I am lonely without you. There, I said it.

And yes, when you're gone there is that sense of empowerment screaming, "I don't NEED you!" But I always feel pretty empowered. I don't need this much. Seriously I could empower the entire appliance section at Sears. Overkill.

It's excruciating, the shape of you on lips all around me, your heat in the most casual of touches and your low sounds drifting through my pipes from the floors above. I want you, I crave you, I wake up in the middle of the night sad because you're not there. Fucking tease.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a wreck. I'm not falling apart, but I miss the warmth and the secrets and the...accoutrements of having you around. I miss hanging out with your friends; I could use a visit with Mr. Hank Y. Panky, he was always such a stimulating conversationalist...

Maybe what I'm trying to say is: friends will never be enough. They call it just friends for a reason. Basically, I can't hang out with you in a casual sense any longer. Be mine, or GTFO and let me focus.

Focus. It's a funny word when you think about it. It used to mean "fireplace" or even "fire" (Latin was good for something after all!). But what elicits fire from me... is you.

Think about it. Whatever you decide, I'll be living my life, laughing out loud and loving every minute. But I'd love it even more if you were there too.

Yours, Truly.