Float

I am bleached hair under red under green
Coming out with the chlorine
Here for the right reasons
Happy for the wrong ones
I have wet shoes and soaked socks
Filled with salt, sand, and smooth rocks
Caught by the incoming tide
You were wrong that we’d escape
Wrinkled toes
A shoulder scratch
Withdrawal
Proof of the ragged depth
I want to drown you in lavender bathwater

ocean mammal eyes

I knew the first time I talked to you,
a phone line connecting five states,
that you could be someone about whom I’d write poetry.
It wasn’t the abstract descriptions
or the fact that I was unsure of your age,
but the passion in your rambling
and the unexpected laughs I half took credit for causing.
I’m enticed by anything that makes professionalism less professional.
I only adore workplaces that fit in witty banter
and I’ll look back on a job fondly if there was a pretty face involved;
my history asserts this.
Upon introductions, your stress was evident,
my lack of experience glaring,
my communication skills less than impressive –
still – you ask and listen and we talk standing up for over an hour AFTER I say I’m leaving.
I don’t leave.
How could I?
You’re the reason I’m here.
I want to say this to you.
There’s so much I want to say.
(Are you like this with everyone?)
And now look at us, sweating together for hours a day,
fitting in plenty of sarcastic humor,
a couple exchanged secrets,
and at least one long conversation about the state of the world –
all before lunch.
Our goal is to conquer Rainier.
I kind of just want to conquer you –
or myself – I can’t decide.
But if you gave me a sign,
if you continue to talk more about dreams that include me
than your wife at home,
I will give up on my own search for independence
because
in finding you,
I’ve found all I need.
I’m sorry I’ve been filled with tears that need shoulders
and rants that need ears
and gazes that need reciprocation –
you offer it all.
I can’t go on unexposed.
You make this unfamiliar place
home.

an ode to the gun

angular in general,
where the grip meets hammer
and muzzle becomes trigger
a circular barrel
pointed bullets
and flat, fast death

heavy in an unexpecting hand
too familiar in a cold one
curious, in mine,
shooting bullets over empty water
and empty clicks in a full room
tentative
exhilarated
I won’t pretend power has no grasp

but I don’t need it
no one does,
even the people who say they do

so take it
take all of them
throw them in the fire
melt them down to something we can use to create
a sewing machine
culinary utensils
art

take away the deaths of twenty children
take away the falls of six teachers
take away adam lanza
away from the guns
away from a week ago
away from murder

I don’t understand who wouldn’t trade our second amendment to have those lives back.

october 10

some part of me refuses
to get more than just enough
sleep
i could drown in it
if i stayed under too long

under the covers, i mean
i swear i don’t stare at the river
longingly
when i cross the bridge
i promise i didn’t mean what i said

my mood is always a step away from
sensible
a leap away from yours
and it seems if i’m happy with you
i’m a little less here

on the nights you are missing
on the mornings you don’t try
i climb inside the hole in my mind
and surprisingly,
eventually,
i take solace in the discontent

i didn’t think i was the type
who pushed away
i didn’t think
i could only do easy
but it’s always been like this

your inconsistency
my dissatisfaction
are the only reasons
i’m still waiting

cryptic appreciation

the word for your being
and the word for mine
separated by the sound we make
when we have something to prove

the small sentence
they all speak so lightly
overheard
undermined
and meaningless
most of the time

i missed it for a while
but lately i see it often
magnified with quantifiers
or the addition
of my name

it dives off the page
and into me

a settling of my panic
from across the pacific

tube life

i was standing on the train
an antique pendant
on a gold chain
around my bruised neck
made eye contact
with a girl across the way
and miraculously
in this cold city
she smiled at me

oldest child

i had never felt older, and i have not felt older since, that summer afternoon when we were sitting in your mom’s van, parked behind some big shading trees, and you reclined my backseat, unzipped my jeans, pulled them to my ankles, and went down on me.

i had that black tank top on, my bare arms behind my head, and i looked down at your playful devotion. my eyes were lazily shut, almost bored – until i came in a soft scream, bringing my arms down so i could pull your knotted hair.

summers were good for us. i was sixteen.

i had never felt older in that moment. i’m not sure why, but i haven’t felt older since. maybe it was the way you were bowed to me, or how i knew you were wrapped around my finger. but it could have been that you were two years older, and and my mother didn’t want me out with you. maybe it was in me – my attitude, my pretentious disposition that would soon fade with high school but at the moment kept me on top of the world.

these days, i’m not sure where i am in it.

leaving london

i feel the urge but
i’m not yet drunk enough
to sit in the bathroom and cry
and i know these people
too well now
to walk out with clear eyes
but not well enough
for them to see through
my lies
i’m not sure how strong
we’ve tied
these ties
i guess we’ll find out
when we fly home
and spring sighs.

hopelessly devoted, there i said it

and at the mention of seattle, i forget california. the realization hits me: i’d praise anywhere, as long as it held you. so who am i, really? where am i going and why? these questions would be so much easier to answer if i had a passion in life. but i don’t, not really. i like frivolous things, like reading books, writing this, flirting with men who are too old for me, entertaining my friends, philosophy and coffee, free art museums and my own sad painting skills, the prospect of having long hair and being ten pounds lighter, sugary cereal with vanilla soymilk, song lyrics and poetry, the dream of an eloquent apartment in a city near the sea, running for hours, swimming for minutes, chocolate, and you. oh my god, you. if i knew you were mine for life, i’d have nothing else in the world to worry about.

but at the mention of seattle, i know you’ll be gone soon. maybe not to oregon, or california, or south korea, but you’ll go away because i see something in you that i once had in me. call it unrest, call it dissatisfaction, call it not-quite-love, call it my impending heartbreak. i felt it with the others; they were wonderful and kind and devoted – but i needed more and i couldn’t stop looking around. leaving each one of them was an easy slip. i don’t want you to slip away from me, but more importantly, i don’t want you to want to slip away from me. i want to be everything you need.

but at the mention of seattle, and my quick praising of the city, i know that i can’t change for you and i know that even if i were to try, it wouldn’t be enough. it’s not me, it’s you. you have changed me irrevocably but i think you’re the same person you were when i met you, with your cynicism and your chain, a chain pulling you to a different life. from day one, i knew you wanted out of everything i was in. but i fell for you anyway, and it’s not my time to leave yet even though your day of departure is impending.

at the mention of seattle, i call my best friend, and i hear her sporadic plans for her departure day. it finally sinks in; i can rely on no one. i need a dream, a new dream, a dream with no room for people and no hope for love. a dream that only changes with my mind, a dream i can pursue independently. but a dream is something you desire, and everything i desire involves more than me and more than my mind. i am nothing without love and others. but, thank you seattle, i have learned that i need to change.

at the mention of a suicide in the middle of the ocean, i am even more desperate to change. i may soon be living alone, but i will never die a lonely death. i will learn to turn sadness into enlightenment and pain into strength.

at the mention of seattle, i remember we have three months. at least three months. can we fit it all in three months? i hope it is impossible.

in my head

i told myself i’d fight this sadness
but sometimes you get me down
you apologize
sorry is simple to say in the dark
and for the first time
i make love that i don’t mean
you tell me it’s all in my head
well that’s where i live
and most of the time
you’re there too