Tag: love

how you really feel

him: we’re not dating.
me: tell
me how you really feel.
him: I don’t like you
that way.
me: tell me
how you really feel.
him: you’ll thank me
for this later.
me: tell me how
you really feel.
him: I’m not over
my ex.
me: tell me how you
really feel.
him: you’re boy crazy.
me: tell me how you really
feel.
him: I don’t miss you, I
don’t need you, I don’t
love you.
me: okay you can stop
telling me now.

little Lost Boys

why do I find you
so very attractive? is it because
I wish someone would notice
how very lost I am
and try to rescue me?
or is it because I hope that in
helping you – not fixing you,
not changing you to meet
some ideal you in my mind, I hope
(though often I see your potential
going so sadly unrealized) but by being
there for you, supporting you,
loving you – I can make myself
useful, needed, and valuable?
because I don’t believe that I
have value in and of myself –
always always always times infinity
not good enough –
so it’s help or die?
or maybe because
your childlike enthusiasm
makes me long to
join your games long enough
to forget my own sorrows?

Wendy eventually
grew up. she even married
a Lost Boy. but she loved Peter
and he refused to grow up,
so he came back many years later
and her daughter became
his new mother figure.
maybe every girl needs her
lost boy phase. but lost boys
don’t hold you tight, they’re too busy
having adventures and asking
for bedtime stories.

I don’t know what the answer is.
I wish I did. and it’s not like I want
to grow up either. just somewhere
in between childhood and adult,
some teenage Never Never Land where
no one talks about boring things like mortgages or politics,
but they still get to kiss sometimes.
does it exist? how about if I clap
my hands and wish real hard?

spanner

when things seem to be
looking up, that’s when I become
intensely fearful. it can’t last, it’s too good
to be true, when’s the other shoe
going to drop? the wheels
are turning so smoothly
right now, the gears are going
like gangbusters and it’s too
scary and I can’t bear
the suspense and so
I feel compelled to stick
a spanner in the works.
this tactic has backfired on me
a million times and yet, I still
do it. it’s the waiting
I can’t stand. the not knowing
just how my world is going
to crumble, from whence the blow
is going to come.

I put an end to the uncertainty
of waiting for life to fuck me
over, by breaking it myself first.

the things I didn’t know

I didn’t know
that when you asked me
that question, you were reading
far more into my answer
than I intended.

I didn’t know
that when I lied
and said those two
things were not related,
you actually cared so much
about my answer.

I didn’t know
that you were angry
at me last night. I wondered
why you were behaving
the way you were, and I felt
like something was wrong
but I couldn’t figure out
why.

you’re not the only one
who sometimes realizes things
way after the fact.

and really, given the extremely mixed
messages
and lack of communication
going on here, can you
blame me? oh wait. I guess
you can.

should you ever
care to forgive me,
I’ll be in the corner
wearing my dunce cap,
wondering if I’ll ever
get out of the doghouse.

wish granted?

I don’t get it. I
thought that this
is what you wanted:
for me to stop
pestering you
with my unwanted
affections.

yet now that I’m
over you, you’re sulking
like a little boy from whom candy
was taken away, candy
that he claimed he
didn’t want to begin with.

dude. make up your mind,
already. do you even know
how hard it was
to make myself stop
being in love with you?
it took everything I had.
if you don’t mean it, don’t
tease me. I’m not your
weathervane. don’t blow
in my direction and expect me
to twist. been there, done that,
made me miserable.

expeditions

I would go to the Himalayas
and tramp through the snow
with a sherpa carrying my luggage
on his head, searching for the footprints
of the mysterious and elusive yeti
that is your love. I would hike
through the densely wooded
forests of the Pacific Northwest,
braving the killer mosquitos,
looking for the coarse hair tufts
of the big hairy Sasquatch
that is as obscure and cryptic
as your feelings. I would look
in the mountains of Borneo,
chasing the mystical half-ape,
half-orangutan that is as mythical
and fabricated as your
heart. I would do all of this gladly,
without a qualm, rather than dare
to ask you a single personal thing
to your face.

crumbs.

all those crackers you and I put out
for the birds
got wet
and ruined by rain
before anybird had a chance
to eat them. then,
not too long after
I finally cleaned them up,
I saw a single, lone bird –
a glossy black slightly iridescent-feathered guy
with a brassy, sassy chirp and
a bold yellow beak and legs,
cute as the day is long
and twice as brave
in the face of my extremely
interested cats –
come by and land right on the
deck, to pick and peck
at the crumbs.

the moral of this story?
turns out it is possible
to have too much
of a good thing.
save your spread
for the ones who will
appreciate it
rather than pouring out
your whole heart at once –
spending your love like something
you’re trying to get rid of –
in the hopes that someone
will happen by
to eat it all up.