Finger the fear out of me, I’m longing for your ease.
My bigness consumed by your business.
all that I am, delighting in your hands
& the way they hold what is bitter
so sweetly.
My stinging nettles becoming
something intriguing.
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“yeah I don’t know man, I feel like, why would I want to sleep with someone you’ve slept with, and care about, when we live in a city of like… a couple million people, ya know? It just lacks, like… integrity.” I wiggle my fingers at this last sentence, and bring them together in a neat little tipi to illustrate that I have found the word I am looking for. That I give it a home in my palm.
“Hmm, I mean in a way I can’t say anything because I’ve done it. But I did it when I was denying that I’m a garbage human. Now I know I’m a garbage human.”
There was conflict in her eyes, the insecurity she felt coagulating with the anger of the situation. I’m not sure I even know what the situation is or if we are discussing the potential of one. Wondering if either was justified. “I feel like she’s just doing it because she can.”
“Maybe. I can’t speak for her, obviously, but it seems like if you’ve talked about you liking him before and she knows that you’ve slept with him, then why even bother pursuing it? I think it would be different if there wasn’t any knowledge, or if she had had feelings for him before hand. But this seems almost like a seed was planted or something? And she has some like, competitive thing to prove to herself? Or maybe she isn’t even aware and is just insecure in the way that she’ll go after him because she knows he’s interested in someone else. Like a power ploy.” I was trying to justify the way she felt about the actions without giving away that I think she is the one who needs to do the work. That analyzations of others don’t amount to an understanding of your own feelings; feelings she would be in denial about until she could face them with something that would transform them.
I want to be touched with good intention, trying too hard to make you not want me. Not putting forth effort into being easy to understand, saying things like “I want to be heartless” without explaining that I just want to give all of myself away. I am altruistic in my absence, appealing to my need to appease people. It is easier to now make you angry than to later make you sad. It is better to to have no hook at the end of a line than to have to rip it from you when it is time to let go – instead just giving you the freedom to fall when you want. It is a graceless dance between grateful people, understanding although we may not move well we at least can move. Although words come out abrasive and thoughts may be ugly it is guarded by intention and I like it when you massage my head.
You swear that if he stood in the West that’s where the sun would rise. Then you remember that you’re also watching a sunset from the wrong side of the world. Now you wonder if a ball of fire in the sky wants to resign it’s position. You think that if you saw a new colour for the first time it would feel the same as when you saw him for the third, and the thirtieth, and the three-hundredth time. Then you remember that pink used to be your favourite, but now it’s blue. Now you realize it’s not the pigments that have changed, but you. You think about how when the sun sleeps you love red, but when it wakes you love lavender.
It’s not that I want to die,
it’s just that
I would.
To see your face
one more time.
You miss him. At 11PM when he’s laying beside you and you wait too long after eating ice cream to kiss him with a cold mouth, because somehow that means “I love you” without having to say it. You miss him when he’s lost in his thoughts or when you’re lost in yours and the only good thing is that you get the missing in now. You’re begging the universe that you won’t have to too much in the future. But it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you miss him the most right before he tells you he has to leave at 6:30AM to move the care because even though nothing changes your mouth is now warm, and wet, and lonely and you’re forgetting what it’s like to have his words melting on your tongue. Even though you swore everything he said was tattooed on the inside of your cheek. You miss him when the bed is empty and warm.
This is not a love story.
This is not a poem, or a novel, or a song. I don’t know what it is but it is none of those things.
What this is, though, is a collection. A collection of explanation, and occasionally some apologies.
Like how I am sorry that when I am with you I often can’t speak because the words in my mind don’t come out as smoothly as they are thought, and how my tongue trips over them. They are prisoners running and running and slamming hard into my teeth; getting caught. And when I kiss you I’m trying to release them and I hope that these words run through your bloodstream and that you understand and when I bite your lip I’m trying to get the residue of the vowels out of my mouth before they become to sweet and let me rot.
When you question me for how I look at you and I tell you it’s nothing, follow your gut. You know what I’m thinking. I’m sorry I lie. I can’t handle the truth. You know what I’m thinking. I’m afraid it’s too much, that it will come down like a tidal wave and we will not be strong enough breakers. I’m sorry I’m not afraid to feel but that I am afraid to speak. I’m sorry there is any fear in me at all, and if I can console any hurt let it be that I also feel safe. With you.
For every time I pick a fight, know I am picking you. For every time I am short on words, on breath, on life – understand that I sing to the fucking moon every night you are not with me hoping that one day I will make it up to you because I am not lacking in determination what I am lacking in courage.
And while the moon is encouraging others, I praise every cloud that crosses the sky because I don’t want you to see me for what I am, and I am jealous of every ray of light that gets to touch you in place I cannot, when I cannot. And it’s so sadistic that I love that you’re broken but the thing is I don’t think you’ll cut me up. Despite your warning label you’ve been an emollient to yourself and your rough edges have been smoothed out. I want to drink you up like too much of a good thing, I think that would be the best way to go.
When I wake up in the morning I don’t think about how lucky I am. I don’t think about how handsome you are or that I want to touch your hip. I think about how soft your eyes feel on mine and how this is the one thing I never dreamed of and the one thing I never want to lose.
Am I doing this right yet? I’m sure it isn’t a love story.
Cut throat razors will remind me of you,
like cut throat words remind you of me.
I will remember yogurt scooping,
cake bringing, ice cream eating,
and messy room.
But how will you remember pushy,
on-time, omelet making,
and clean freak.
When you might be remembering
skinny dipping, house rules, nice bum,
doesn’t like chocolate,
and daddy issues.
But then again you might think I remember
socially awkward, baggy pants, always late,
big mistakes, you deserve more
and nice eyes.
What I know we know is special chocolate chip cookies,
stigmas, stahp, late night Wendy’s,
cry-laughing, medium double-double,
and eskimo kisses.
Safety-pinned socks will remind me of you,
like safety-pinned seams remind you of me.
I’m so tired. More than I just need a good nights sleep. More than I need to slow down, or life to slow down, or that I’m holding on to too many things; getting dragged down. I’m so tired and it’s more than just over-bearing responsibilities, not enough coffee, and too many late nights. It’s more than just a drowsiness in my eyes, in my muscles. It’s in my mind, in my life. I’m tired in a way that sleep can’t cure, that money can’t buy, that caffeine can’t infuse, that lust can’t ignite. I’m tired in a way I can’t reach, like the deep of the sea. I’m so tired and I can’t rid myself of it like a job I’m not satisfied with. I can’t ignore it like a friendship I’m no longer interested in. I’m so tired.
