Clean

Upon feeling overwhelmed by the world
by a growing to-do list, by finals, by too many thoughts in my head

I clean.
laundry will do, but dishes are my favorite.

I love the rhythmic repeating and repeating of motions
circular scrubbing,
circles
circles
circles
until the pile of once dirty plates and bowls and glasses and stress
is dripping dry
and my mind is a little calmer

That's what I was doing when you stopped by my apartment.
I was cleaning.

You tried to get my attention
insistently placing yourself in my path

I had a goal I was determined to achieve
I needed to clean
I needed that calming rhythm
your presence was an annoying distraction, a disruption in the melody of order that I was conducting

You told me to calm down
to slow down
told me that I was scaring you
how quickly I was going
how focused I was
I needed more dishes
I wanted more things to clean
circular scrubbing
circles
circles
circles
until they were free of blemishes and imperfections

Finally, I bored you enough that you were ready to leave
you asked
no
you demanded a good night kiss
and you put your hands on me
reminded me why I was in a frenzy in the first place

A week and a half before this.
the night we met
when you touched without permission
took things that didn't belong to you

afterwards
I felt dirty
blemished
unclean.

I wish i knew how long I spent in the shower
scrubbing at my skin
scrubbing circles
circles
circles
circles
never feeling clean
never being able to reach deep enough to remove the marks you left on me
no soap was strong enough to erase the scarlet letter I was sure was branded across my chest
maybe it was just all that scrubbing
rubbing my skin raw so that I couldn't remember how it felt to have your hands corrupt the secrets of my flesh

I denied you a good night kiss
and told you to leave.

I went to bed, exhausted
I had cleaned myself out
my hands were dry and cracking
my back, sore and tight

I forgot you.
slowly but surely
let you fade away from my body's memory
a stain on my past that has finally been washed away.

still, even now
when the world is overwhelming
i clean.
laundry is good, but I prefer dishes.
prefer the repeating, circular rhythm.

but I no longer feel the need
to clean
my own skin.

I am not dirty or blemished or broken
not any more.

1957 cadillac

Your touch is a reverberation
from my past lives' best moments
rumbling through my tendons

that's why my knees shake every time you kiss me

your finger tips are willow tree leaves
softly dipping into my mental rivers
rippling and redoubling
pressing against their banks and levees

you bring chaos floods to my organized aquatic system

and I love it.

you can tell
put your head to my chest
i think you can hear me purring like a 1957 cadillac
a true and trusted classic
sleek and shiny and ready to go

Toenail Poetry

I don't want to write you toenail poetry
like
when your best friend goes on an experimental baking phase
and you're the guinea pig
and the piece of pie is delicious
except that somehow
a toenail
ended up in the middle of it
but you pick it out and pretend like nothing is wrong
and smush the rest around on your plate
because you don't want to discourage her

but every time I try to write something for you
I find gross bits that are proof of terrible hygiene in all the pieces
and I can't help thinking that you're smiling at all the delicious parts
maybe I'm just using the wrong recipe or the wrong metaphor
but you deserve more than toenail poetry

you deserve a verbal van gogh
words with beauty enough to rival any starry night we might ever see
that I can only write for you when we've turned the lights out
and I've curved my body to match yours
like we're double open parentheses at the beginning of our story
when my fingers are knotted with yours like tangled kite string
and I hear the familiar lullaby of your sleeping heartbeat

I write you pages and pages and chapters and entire BOOKS in my mind when no one is listening
One night, I was first author on the box set of sonnets about your eyes
that no one will ever see
because I can't ever make it to paper quickly enough
maybe it's because when I try to get out of bed
you pull me back towards you
even when you're asleep

and I know better than to try to get away from you
you're too strong.
you're a warrior
with the gentlest touch I have ever known

you...
you're not the Romeo to my Juliet
because I actually read that shit all the way through,
unlike Taylor Swift
and I'm not a big fan of tragedies or double suicides

so
you are the Han Solo to my Princess Leia
minus the Luke incest weirdness
You are the Ron Weasley to my Hermione Granger
without Harry's angst
You are the Doctor to my Rose Tyler
but not in a parallel universe
You're the Corbin Dallas to my Leeloo
and the Commander Shepard to my Liara
without me being an alien
You're the Howard Wolowitz to my Bernadette Rostenkowski
but less creepy and high pitched

you're the honey bee to my honeysuckle kisses
you're the man who makes me feel more beautiful when I don't wear make up
the one I fell in love with the exact moment we met
under tall trees and twinkling lights

I thank whatever gods of fate that decided to be kind enough
to let you be mine
you are the single most amazing, wonderful, and handsome man I have ever known
who deserves more than toenail poetry
so I'm trying to make it sound right
trying to make it match the feeling I get whenever you smile at me
when hummingbirds flutter in my shoulder blades and give me goosebumps
when I see that the rest of my life is always going to begin with waking up next to you
I'm trying as hard as I can

to put all you mean to me
into the words
"I love you"

In search of beauty

Poets
we are merchants of beauty
we love to find beauty
to describe it
discover it in new places
or with new looks
and we proclaim
AH! Yes!
look at how beautiful she is.
the infinite muse for us all

because most of us believe
that we are not capable of housing beauty in our own bodies
we see ourselves as broken
and as such,
never deserving to possess her

that is why
I have not been able to write recently.

You see,
words used to flow from my fingers like drops of water from the tips of icicles
about the eccentric, estatic, erratic men in my life
and how we would escape from daily life
to our unconventional romantic misadventures
we took mini vacations into each others minds
thinking ourselves archeologists, finding truths that were long buried and preserved by time
but forgetting
that sometimes
the most important things
are soft enough
to never leave a permanent imprint on the world.

we were triumphant and glorious
allowed to become perfection in someone else's arms
and returning to mediocrity the moment they leave
letting the zombies arise from freshly dug graves
with tombstones reading "irrational self doubt"

Loving someone who is brokenly beautiful
is one of the most transforming experiences I have had in my lifetime
that I have known three times over
we were escape artists
breaking free of our own rules and stereotypes we tried to hard to ascribe to
letting our minds wander freely through the possibilities of never returning to who we thought we were

now I know that this fantasy world
is a place you travel to
with someone who helps you realize
you're not as broken you've been telling yourself you are.

you will bear your soul, just to know how it feels to do so in front of something besides your mirror
and you will ask them not to look
but they will peer through their fingers at you
and you won't mind.

they will play connect the dots with your scars and you will see your body
not as flawed or imperfect
but as a canvas ready to be transformed into a vessel
for all the potential explosions of phenomenal self expression
that you now know you were always capable of
and just for a moment-
you understand how lovely it would feel
to exhale the word "beautiful" into frozen air
because it is so deeply embedded in your being
and just like that
the passing of moments whisks it away
and you return.
they leave.
you move on.

and that wanting of beauty
and believing you are never capable of truly knowing it as your own
is one of the best muses I have ever known and loved

so... that is why I haven't been able to write recently.
you see, ever since Daniel said he loved me
I see my reflection and see beauty written in each of my movements
it is in every moment that we share together
so I do not seek it out
when I am filled with it and surrounded by it
constantly.
continually.
forever.

empty

Beautiful woman,
 we met almost five years ago
during a hazy freshman night
full of loud laughter and unexpected compliments
we started the most epic of adventures

 my undergrad years were bearable because of you,
best friend.
where others saw prison bars, I saw a playground
the world was not our oyster, it was our sandbox
and we were free to build and discover as we wished

I was your candle during the long nights full of loss and grief
I watched you struggle and persevere
to declare that the dark places in your mind
did not have a part in your life

we were determined and strong
we learned what it means to call ourselves women
we were always going to be there for the other
and we were the next big thing to hit the academic world

so tell me,
please
what could have possessed you
that night
when you decided it was your time to leave this earth
that you simply didn't belong here any more

I can't comprehend the past events
They simply will not dissolve into thoughts that I can make sense of
still-
 I wish I knew how you wrote your demise into your own future fault lines
why you deepened the cracks of scars that already ran the length of your years
because I know the monsters in the closets of your memories
the secrets scribbled on scraps of paper and hastily shoved behind your day to day thoughts
 I'm the one whose arms will be around you when the pain from your past threatens to consume you
 I know you better than anyone
 I am your rock.
 you don't know this, but you're mine.

 yet
 how am I supposed to lean on you
when your foundations have all crumbled away with a few handfuls of pills?

 You didn't look the part
when I saw you sitting in the crisp hospital bed
telling me why you thought I would be okay if you were gone


Honestly,
 I think that your excuses and your reasons are total bullshit
know that if you had succeeded, I would never be able to find peace.


your attempt on your own life has left me... empty.
but that's not the right word.
is there a word for the pain of accidentally cutting your fingers on the pieces of your shattered anger?
there should be.
it would make my explanation easier to fit between my lips

I want you to know
that if you left,
I would lose my mind
on purpose.
drop it down a storm drain
so that it would wash away the hollow feeling
that wishful wanting that never fully goes away

 Baby girl, I am not okay.
I wish you could be here to hear these words
and understand how hard my heart pounds whenever you call me in tears

 There is a fear slowly gnawing at my sanity
that flames during the moments between waking and sleeping
and the drips of consoling thoughts that you're still here don't do much for the burns I've sustained

 so how do I end this?
with hope.

 maybe hope that next time....
...next time you'll take just a moment to realize
exactly what the chaotic aftermath of blades inscribed with self-blame and remorse cutting through my ability to be functional
would really look like.