Category: 2016

the call

it was an accident, I’m so sure.
how many times
have my friends accidentally
voice/video called me
from messenger in the middle
of chatting? happens
all the time. I’ve done it myself;
that call button is so very
easy to hit.

but usually I hang up
before the other person even
has a chance to answer.
and if someone I’m chatting with
calls me, I don’t pick up. people agree
in text first before they
talk on the phone
these days,
let alone video chat. so, knowing
it’s most likely a mistake, I’ll
normally hit decline
automatically
and resume my
text-based conversation.

but.
not this time.
I answered. we were both shocked
that it even connected.

our video chat lasted
less than a minute
(54 seconds, to be exact – but
who’s counting)
but it was so nice to hear
your voice and
see your face,
even if I was forced to
alternate between them
because my phone and video chat
don’t seem simpatico,
at least doing it via messenger –
someone screwed up somewhere,
I think. or I need to read
the help.

but anyway. it means
nothing.
a random accident,
a finger slip.
but. for what
it’s worth, I’m glad
you rang, and gladder still
I answered.

categorized

at the end of the day,
what difference does it make
if I have attention deficit disorder
oppositional defiant disorder
non-24-hour circadian rhythm disorder
and/or
bipolar disorder?
I’m still
fucking crazy.

what difference does it make
if you refuse me because
you’re afraid, and can’t admit
you have feelings
or because you think
I’m so ugly
that you wouldn’t fuck me
if I was the last
woman on earth, or with
your worst enemy’s dick?
I’m still
going home alone.

what difference does it make
if the surging waves of
contradictory emotions
that sweep over me
like a flash flood,
making me want to
scream out loud
cry
throw my phone out the window
tear my own skin off, or
move across country
are caused by tiredness
a long day of travel
with its attendant frustrations
the fact that I can’t control
my environment
a lack of serotonin
the weed wearing off
my new tattoos itching
the fact that I’m almost home
but not quite, agonizingly close
or some other bullshit I have yet
to figure out?
there’s still
nothing I can do about it.

it must just
be endured. I write
my impotent poems
squeeze my eyelids tight shut
against the next wave of tears threatening, grit
my teeth, and
somehow summon patience.
this, too, shall pass.
by the time I get home
I’ll be okay.

I tell myself this
because even though
the category doesn’t matter,
though my mothlike feelings flutter by
far too fast to be
pinned down by even the most
pointed of words,
and trying to put my wild
heart in a cage only makes it wilier,
sometimes I have no choice,
sometimes I need something
sometimes I’ll settle for whatever
can get me through
the next five minutes.

dinner of a lifetime

sometimes when I’m overdue
to feed the cats, they look at me
and I can practically see
the thought go through
their furry little skulls: “Is today the day
we get to eat your face, mommy?”

and when Diablo runs between my legs
as I’m running up or down
the (narrow, steep, dangerous) stairs
I tell him, “you know, you only get
to dine on my face once.
then you’ll be hungry
until someone else comes
and takes you away. not trying
to tell you what to do, but
you might want to
keep that in mind
when engaging in activities
that seem likely to precipitate
my premature death.”

he draws my hand towards him
with his paws
and gently bites my fingers.
he insists on cuddling and then
nibbles my face. it seems
like a love bite but I know
he’s taste-testing me,
checking for doneness.
Kitty is more discreet;
she just licks my hand from
time to time almost
like a dog.

I hope
when the time comes
for me to die alone
in my apartment
that the cats find the act of
dining on my face
as exciting as all of us anticipate
the happy event to be.

the maze

I understand how and why
you have this labyrinth of thorns
around your heart. it’s to keep
you safe, innocent
while savagery is inflicted upon your suitors
as they hack and slash
at the cruel, cutting brambles,
dodge and duck the sharp-toothed
greenery, hunt and search through these dead ends
in the ramble surrounding your true
feelings. it’s to make sure
that only the most worthy
and determined would-be lover
gets through to your hidden and
vulnerable, secret soul. Sleeping Beauty
would be jealous of this spread.

I get it; we all have our own defenses –
sometimes the way looks clear,
even inviting
right until the moment one falls into
a moat full of angry crocodiles –
that we use to see how badly
someone really wants us.

I think part of you is hoping
I’ll give up if the going gets tough
enough, because
this will prove you right
in rejecting my advances. if I
was not worthy
to begin with, then your own courage
forever remains
untested.

what you don’t understand is
how my own armored knight of a heart
dearly loves a challenge,
how having to fight for something
only makes me want it
that much more,
how the single best way
to get me to try harder
is to say unequivocally
that it can’t be done.

so if
you really want
to discourage me
all you have to do, dear,
is invite me in.

beaten to the punch

our words were flying
back and forth
over the ether
like butterfly fists
whizzing like bullets
our metaphors
exchanging blows
like prizefighters.

I thought
I was keeping up
my end pretty well,
since in some circles
I am known
for being quick
on the draw,
possessing a hair trigger,
having the fastest words
in the West, and beating people
to the punch.

Imagine my surprise
when you bested me.
I’ll hand over
that belt now – careful
with my six-guns, they’re loaded! –
and send you the crown
tomorrow.
well played, sir.

mea culpa 2.0

you asked for one thing.
I had a distinct sinking
feeling that I couldn’t
give it to you,
not because
I didn’t want to
but because I
didn’t know how.

I tried so hard; I drove
myself half crazy
trying and trying
to deliver on your request
but in the end sadly
it turned out
that I was right. I knew
what I didn’t know.
but now I think I
may have taught myself
a thing or two
about that thing you wanted me
to do for you.

please accept
my heartfelt apologies,
my most abject
prostration, and
this rain check,
and do let me know
if you’d like to schedule
an appointment for me
to assist your hara-kiri
at your earliest convenience.

car.talk

as soon as we reach
the place where you like to
drop me off,
you turn off the engine
and turn on the hazard lights
so we don’t get creamed by a bus
while we talk.

we twist and turn,
side by side but
in our own seats.
contained,
constrained,
conscientiously
abstaining.
I take off my seat belt or
put the top part behind my back
so it doesn’t rub me on the neck
like a tiny straitjacket.
we turn to face each other
as we talk, and then squirm
awkwardly away. I roll my head
against the headrest just like
I do on the pillow at home
when I can’t sleep, which
is always. I’m so desperately tired,
crazed with it, and yet
I can’t seem to bring myself to leave
and go back to my home, alone.

you always roll down your window
if the temperature outside
is above freezing.
I’m often cold, but I
don’t say anything.
I’d rather suffer slightly
than inconvenience you,
especially to make you
turn the car back on
just for the blessed heat
which would also
make you sweat uncomfortably.
I just hunch and snuggle
in my coat,
snap and unsnap it nervously,
or eventually take the excuse
to get out and smoke a cigarette.
if I’m going to be cold
anyway, I might as well
be smoking.

we talk about everything
under the sun, make each other laugh
when we least expect it
and neither of us wants
to say goodnight. and yet
I never dare
and you don’t seem to care
to suggest
that we sit in the back seat.
what would we do,
who would we be
without our safety precautions?

I’m afraid to find out
if I’ll become a stranger to myself
or you’ll decide you can no longer abide
my bothersome corporeality
in such a confined space
and yet I secretly long
for a some sneaky, underhanded
chance, some miracle,
some blessing,
to let me get
just a little bit
closer.

body.hate

it took me 40 years to learn
that my body is not my enemy
but my oldest, longest-suffering friend,
that my being fat doesn’t mean
I don’t deserve love or am
any less beautiful, that
when you love someone,
when their soul speaks to yours
and you can see it clearly,
unclouded by your own doubts and fears,
the vessel they are currently incarnating
becomes sanctified by its beauty –
like a candle holder,
illuminated from within – that
my body is always worthy of love
because I’m in it.

I didn’t learn that by myself,
many people taught me these things;
I first learned to love myself
by seeing myself through the eyes
of those that loved me,
and I’m still learning these lessons,
still on the path.

so
I understand.
you aren’t there yet.

I wish I could be the one to teach you,
but even if you can’t/won’t let me –
because my body reminds you too painfully
of your own abundance, because
the idea of us together
probably makes you feel sick,
because the only way
you can imagine yourself
as sexually viable
is if a thin person wants you,
because the idea that I could be fat
and still be attractive
is scarily close to
the same being true
for you –
it’s all right.
I hope someday you get there.
you deserve to be free
of body hate, too.
we all do.

the weight you need to shed
is not measured in pounds of flesh
but in the self-hatred
you’ve been carrying
your entire life.
let that burden go.
put it down, take it off, release it.
you don’t need it.

I’ll be waiting for you
at the pass on the top of this
mountain of self-respect.
the air is thin up here,
but we don’t have to be.
it’s very clear, heady, transcendent.
I can see for miles
and we don’t need our baggage
where we’re going.

scrimshaw

by far the cruelest thing
you ever said to me –
and there were
so many candidates
to choose from –
was “I believe in you”.
it seemed to be
so kind at first that
I could not believe it –
too good to be true, not real
my stunned gut said –
and it turned out I was right.
you did believe whole-heartedly
in the version of me
that you wanted to see.

you spent so much
of our time together
trying to destroy my belief
in a whole self, specifically mine,
by trying to carve me
into what you wanted,
painstakingly cutting away
all the extraneous pieces of my
life, my heart, my body and my soul
that didn’t fit the image
you held so dear.

but.
I fought back
with all my might,
having been taught
by my mother’s example
that I’d rather be a
lumpen, misshapen
piece of raw ivory
that is uniquely mine
than a carved masterpiece
of someone else’s creation.

the gamble

in our little game
of mutually assured destruction,
I betrayed my hand too soon;
I gambled big and lost it all.
now you hold all the cards
and I hate it.

in the past I admitted
certain things to a certain
heartless psychopathic fuckboy;
I lost my cool and revealed
just how very much I cared
and my feelings were turned into a weapon
that was used against me
countless times, while he
said many things he later claimed
he never meant, but never
the important one,
never the L-word
without a “we” in front of it.

see. given my ancient
and not so ancient history,
it’s no wonder I’m angry.
show me that you can be trusted
not to abuse the upper hand,
and I’ll stop feeling so outraged.
if there’s a world
where the house doesn’t always win,
I’d like to know about it.