The Story of Us

Everything I know

is white noise
blurring inhibited boundaries
permeated by a choice
numb skin under my feet
blend with paper, with ink
losing lines, defaulting forms
banter cannot clothe me anymore

moving from light into dark
and i must look away just to see
with ones and zeros
learned last night in a dream
my insides now speak to me
but my eyes were closed
and the voice in my head
can't see enough, enough to be

no stories left to tell
standing on the edge of my map
compass ceaselessly spinning
before me only black
anger in my jaw, fear lumped in my throat
there is no going back.

You lured me out on a limb

with soft pleas for openness
only to hang me from it
my own feeling
twisted in on itself
to make the noose.

then you whipped me
with your promise
not to care,
and spat at me
shards of my broken promise
not to love.

my body twitched and swayed
in the hot lies
of friendship
while you drank in my sex.

you cut me loose
and then crawled into my bed
stroking my wounds with salty fingers.

you assault me, then insult me, then pull me close.

Because she wouldn't take it

I bent my body
to fit around hers,
but couldn't get close enough
to touch.

Twisted words
to fit her silences,
but the twisting made them
untrue.

Laid myself beside her,
under her,
over her,
attempts to fill her emptiness,
but she couldn't feel me.

Patience
for her promises to break,
but it was mine
that shattered around her feet.

Waited for her
to take it,
to break it open,

but now
a bent body
twisted up in half truths
standing alone in the emptiness
with this bloody beating thing
in my hand
in my left eye
bruised, but not broken,
because she wouldn't take it.

New Year's Wishes

Sitting in a dark room
glancing back and forth
between my Past and my Present
and already I am weary.
Then she says
"Let's write letters"
to ourselves
to each other
and I am stricken with panic,
but my silent terror is outvoted.

Maybe it is the lines being drawn
in Christmas snow
between Past and Present
that weighs against my nape
forcing my head down.
The shadows coming in from the corners of my eyes,
taking all clear sight.
But I acquiesce.

In words to myself,
hopes for a future me,
all I have is half a hope
that I'll survive another decade
intact.
And
I'm breaking down.
Breaking open.
They promised if I let this happen
all light would pour out.
But curled up here
in the Present's bed
it is all blackness
dripping from every opening.
Smudging the ink, ripping this page.
Three decades of darkness
that I have pushed aside,
hidden inside;
Three generations
of lethal misery.

I can not read this to you.

In a letter to you
I find some hope
and some shame.
This Present is no better for me than my Past.
But I want it more.
And I have it less.
And I am no good for either of you;
still not good enough for my Future.
And my hope for you is that you find the love that I can't give,
not to me, and not to you.

and now Present is Past
and these letters are sealed up
and left in a drawer that holds all the things
wished for and gone.

twisted up in your contradictions

and i lost my place.
i don't know you
and you don't know me.
but you pull me away from myself,
though you don't want to,
and against my better judgment.
because you are two people;
the girl who wraps herself up in me,
mumbling intimacies beneath me in the night.
and the girl who breaks up with me every morning.
and i am two people;
the girl who does not get involved in complications.
and the girl twisted up in your contradictions.

you let me go again this morning
and this time i didn't hold on
to either of you.
and now we are untangling our intricacies from each other.
and in my attempt to integrate my two selves around my whole,
i find that i am bent,
wanting still to be twisted up in you.

no thing

swallowed whole
a hole
drowning in sticky icky mess
of my own insides
self-loathing, self-effacing, self-denying
denying myself
nothing of me left to deny
i have nothing
no, i am nothing
because i have nothing left to give
gave it all away
away to nothing
and now nothing to show for the effort
no thing.

its been nearly a year since ive been here.
i havent had words
none that were good enough
none that could hold
everything that has happened.
my last poem was about a fight i had with my girlfriend.
my now ex girlfriend.
if that was all there was,
well i would not have stayed away so long.

but there is more.

i am walking home from the subway on a random summer eve when i hear the little chime of my phone telling me i have a message. my brother in law is crying. its hard to make out what he is saying. but i heard it. he said, "your mother is dead."

my mom is dead.
she died on august 4th, 2008,
and i have been waiting since then to have words.
i wanted to have some way to say this,
something powerful
something eloquent
something that would be enough to hold all of the months since.
but i still don't
maybe i never will.
maybe the only words that have enough strength to hold this are these:

my mom is dead.