The Old Man Is Talking

Hair too short to hide behind

I’m crying in class

More fragile than even I had realised

I am afraid

That I may break myself

The old man is talking about poetry.

He wants us to hear without reading

to read without thinking

to think but not to analyse

to speak without hesitation

and to talk without raising our hands

The old man is talking about orchestra.

I am afraid of him, so I listen but

do not look, focus on page

Focus on words, mine, his

He has forgotten Step Two

I will not cry, I do not,

The old man is talking about culture.

I am ache and cramp and tear

I am afraid but do not fear

Trying not to hide behind my language

I want to be a poet of the people

I am a perfectionist but I’m not any good

The old man is talking about novels.

I am sick of too many epiphanies

I want to be read

The old man asks “You dig?”

Eng. Maj.

The bricks are all different colours.

That bothers me. There’s no reason it should, but it does. More than bothered. Upset. I frown up at the bricks, head tilted, neck craned.

I click my thumbnails on the buttons of my shirt. click click click

click click

click click click click

My brain falls into easy patterns as I start walking again. The sun is hot against my legs in dark pants, the air smells of grass and leaves and maybe even flowers? Surely not flowers. It’s October. But I can still smell them.

I want to write. I want to put the words in my head down by hand. I want to write!

But I don’t want to write.

Being a Liberal Arts Major is bullshit. We sit around in vast halls, talking trash about style and form, kicking hegemony and society and culture in the balls, we disabuse each other of long-taught norms, free ourselves from the shackles of stereotypes.

The old man at the table in front of us says “don’t raise your hand. speak up. when you talk you should be heard.” and we try to unlearn our own habits and politeness.

We succeed, to some degree. Unlock our inner radicals, why wanted to create and write and speak our truths in the first place, we argue and agree and commentate and feel and speak.

All of us together laugh at convention, at pretension, at canon.

We write for ourselves!

But the reading log is still due at 5.

I want to run out into the sun and throw away my textbooks. I want to write and live and think and be, not to go back to class, a lecture of an hour, an hour and a half, two hours.

School is overrated.

The bed is too small and the chairs are too hard, the wifi sucks balls and there’s too much homework. The teacher drives to me to the verge of tears when he raises his voice. I never have enough time to write.

But I want to stick around, just to see how it ends.

Differently coloured bricks and all.

Poems For Her: 11. Downfall

I hate how good I am

At predicting my own downfalls

The train

the moon

a fox

and you

You are my greatest downfall to date

I should have known not

to date

you

I was stupid, and I see that now

And I blame myself, of course I do

But I also blame you

How could I not

Of course I blame you

You broke my heart

I knew you would, but I believed

You knew you would

and you did it anyway

Some people aren’t capable of love

and I know that now

And maybe I’ll die alone

Or find someone else

and I doubt very much that we two will speak again

I hate you

It’s hatred now

Love gone sour

Because you said

“I Love You”

And it took two months for you to admit you didn’t mean it

And I did

I meant it

Every

damn

time

Poems For Her: 10. My Moon

They think that you are changing now, while I remain the same

It is a matter of perspective, or perhaps they are simply wrong

I am the Earth and you are the Sun

I seem to be steady and unchanging while you plot your slightly varying course above me

Never still, traversing my horizons

While I stay fixed, immovable, and unaltered.

But in truth, it is I who hurtles recklessly through space

Bound only to the edge of your influence

While you unerringly grant me light to live by

From your place in the heavens above my sky

And I am moving, ever moving, turning and spinning and changing

Through hour and day and season and year

You are the Sun and I am the Earth

And we speak to each other through the Moon.

I may be unaltered of body, but my mind and soul hurtle

From one extreme to the other

Anchored only by thoughts and love for you

Perhaps your body does change, a slow progression allotted by time

And the miracles of modern medicine

But only to serve your more rigid, fixed mind and soul

Living as it was all meant to be.

The Sun is set now, and it is mighty dark

A sky now dim and dappled with weaker stars

The Earth still plummets in its rash journey

Its mad traverse of this orbit

You are far from me, across the miles

But we can both see the same moon.

Poems For Her: 9. Talking Clean

I want to bed you

Of course I do

I know that’s an old fashioned way of saying it

And do oh so many things to you there

So many things

Deliciously unspeakable things

But there are so many other things I want

Things that have nothing to do with sex

I want to hold you hand

I want to tell your you’re pretty

I want to run my fingers through your hair

and braid it

weave flowers into it

Make you an elvish princess

I want to smudge mud on your nose

and blackberry juice

Have you taste all the green growing things

all the berries and flowers and leaves and roots

Of my childhood

I want to jump with you

Off of rocks

and docks

Into cold deep water

in rivers

and creeks

and ponds

and high mountain pools

I want to lay with you

with clothes or without

and watch the stars

Hundreds of them

that you have never seen before

and that I know by name

I want to lay my cheek against your cheek

and my lips against your neck

I want to touch you

and hold you

and simply be beside you

and then

Oh gods, then

I want to fuck you.

Poems For Her: 8. A Temporary Cure For Dysphoria

“Has he ordered yet?”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And how is this young man related?”

All it takes is a flannel. One plaid shirt, and I’m one of the boys.

Strangers know no better. They call it as they see it, and they see what I want them to.

“Yes, SHE has.”

“Did he just call you sir?”

“Oh, this is my granddaughter.”

As soon as someone who knows me speaks, my illusion is destroyed.

They allow what they think they know to over rule the evidence of their own eyes.

He says it’s not about “Who you are” but “Where you belong. Where you fit.”

Lately, the only place i seem to fit comfortably is in your arms.

Poems For Her: 7.On "Casual Insults"

These deriding tones

And mocking words

Harsh comments

And Catholic Guilt

I am used to.

She’s my mother, after all.

She can ignore me,

Ignore who I really am

Call me her Daughter when I might be

Her Son.

As I said, I’m used to it.

But should she turn her sharp tongue to you

My dear,

I would not stand for it.

If she damages me, I can recover.

But nothing gives her the right to hurt you.

They say “She’s your mother”

“She loves you”

“She wants what’s best for you”

“She has your best interests at heart”

I reply:

“That’s as may be, but for now-

She’s fucking up my life.”

Poems For Her: 6. Layover

It’s nearly 11. 1AM where you are

I went to Chicago once

You’ll board your flight in half an hour

More or less

And come flying back to me

Not to me

A 14 hour journey. Poor dear.

I love red-eye flights. They let me see my madness.

Soon you’ll be back on the west coast.

San Francisco is nice.

Poems For Her: 5. Now It's July

1.

I am an an Aries, with Mars as my guiding planet.

Let’s have the war god in all his aspects, shall we?

You are a Sagittarius. So far apart and yet we both have souls of fire.

2.

I wanted to write you a poem

A real one

All symbolism and rhyme

and romantic language.

But I can’t quite. Not

yet.

Rhyming poems are better

for love that can

be diluted

Distilled

Bottled and corked

In pink glass

and put on a shelf

Ready to be drunk.

My love for you is not so

Capitalist

I love your mind

And, of course, I love your body

But not

Neatly

Not in a way

I can easily

Put to lyrics

3.

I want you here

No, I want to be with you.

No, I want us BOTH to be somewhere

else

Far away

Alone

Together

4.

I see your face in song lyrics

And hear your voice in poetry

And your names, over

and over

and over

5.

I hate kissing

But I want to kiss you

Be kissed by you

Braid your hair

And tell my mom

To fuck off.

6.

I want to see you dressed up in pretty clothes

And then undress you

Completely

All of you

As bare before me

As I always seem to be before you.

Poems For Her: 4. Lady Capulet's Balcony Scene

I, who was once Juliet, the naive young girl crossed in love, now play suitor to you.

I have tried to woo you, Lady Capulet, you who swore not to love after what that young bitch did to your heart.

Lady Capulet never got a balcony scene. But I stood beneath your window at 4am tossing pebbles at the glass to get your attention.

I stood beneath your window on a different afternoon, this time it was open, and I called for you to “let down your hair!”

But you are no Rapunzel. You don’t need to be rescued. And that is just as well, for I am no Prince Charming.

I, who was once both Dromio and Dromio, would never presume to call you Nell.

I love you just as strongly as he did her, and others might find fault in your beauty, as they did hers.

But you are too witty to be Nell, and are no man’s servant, nor wife.

I, who was once Julius Caesar, would not fear the Ideas, were you my Soothsayer.

And should my death fall into your hands again, should you be my “Et tu?” I would let your blade pierce me again and again, thrusting with eerie precision, until you illicit my final moan and I fall silent and still.

I would throw my laurels to the curb for you.

I, who still have the 14th sonnet committed to memory, could recite it all for you, and gladly.

But your beauty is not comparable to a summer’s day. Rather to an evening, in late spring or early fall, beautiful and clear but slightly chilly, with the moon a faint sliver behind the maple leaves. Dew on the grass.

Poems For Her: 3. In June, Missing April

I don’t know how to say

what you want to hear

But I do want you here

I want to go swimming with you

(to get our hair wet)

and splash you

(you splash back)

and kick mud at you

(my aim isn’t very good)

and try to catch tadpoles

(we can’t, we’re too slow)

and walk up to the school

(your hair is still wet from swimming)

and hang out on the swings

(my hair dries in the wind)

and pick blackberries

(they aren’t all ripe)

and paint our lips red with them

(some gets on my cheeks)

and kiss

(you taste like blackberries)

and walk home

(holding hands)

sticky with berry juice

(your hair is still wet)

Poems For Her: 2. I hate being in love

I hate crying. It’s supposed to make you feel better, but it doesn’t.

I think I’ve only cried twice this term. If that’s true, than I’ve only cried because of you. Once for not wanting to lose you, and again for having to let you go.

I hate this. I feel like I’m in high school again. “Have a good summer!” “We should keep in touch, okay?” “It was nice getting to know you!”

I’m not sure if I was upset by what you said, or by what you didn’t. GOD, I love you. And the fact that you don’t is killing me.

I’m writing sad poetry and crying. The sun has set and it’s getting dark. I’ll be home tomorrow.

Every song sounds sad, or like it’s about you. I hate being in love.

The worst part is, even if every part of my dreams came true, if you fell in love with me, and we dated, and everything was perfect, it would end up even worse. Because you aren’t who I’m in love with. Not really. I’m in love with April ash she is now, not who she will be, with hormones, and surgery, and time.

I don’t deserve you, and I know it.

Shit, I’m crying on the page.

This started sounding like a suicide note, and it isn’t.

I promise, it isn’t. I would never kill myself because of you. That wouldn’t be fair to anyone, least of all you, and it wouldn’t solve anything.

But worst of all, it would be terribly cliché.

I’ve dealt with unrequited love before. Proust’s best work came from it. I’ve just got to channel it into something productive.

I’m fine.

No, I’m not.

But I will be.

Poems For Her: 1. The Sunset

I just remembered something important:

I’m no good at goodbyes.

The sunset is sad, 

But not as sad as me.

The sunset is beautiful,

But not as beautiful as you.

I’m sitting here crying in a room that’s no longer mine.

In a residence hall where I am no longer a resident.

I don’t know why I’m crying: You said exactly what I’d hoped, you said it perfectly,

But you don’t mean it the way I do.

I say it every time I leave you- for a minute, for an hour, for the night,

And I mean it every time.

When I say it tomorrow morning, I’ll mean it more than ever.

And you won’t.

I suck at goodbyes, but I’m good with I Love You.

And you’re not.