I wait on your shelf, two feet flat to the wood,
Tossed up here by careless, distracted hands.
You come and go; the lights turn on and off.
Dust gathers on the bridge of my nose. But still
They insist: you have your own worth, sense of
Purpose, you should be better at living in the moment.
Look at the sunshine, the trees that grow-- you
Should be as thoughtless, as effortlessly vibrant,
You should grow your own soul as natural and wise.
And I with my skinned knees and two bare feet
Flat to the old lacquered wood, my curved hands
Clutching grime, dust, time and skin cells,
I can only leave or go, which is to say, stay
Or jump. And what would they say if I did?
I would be reduced to a sadness, an illness, and
The works of your hands would stay invisible.

Someday I will go to a cabin
By the water, by the gulls
And I will watch sunrise
And drink through the afternoon

Someday I will turn my cell off
I will not text you back
I will not need to
Because you will be there

And I will drink constantly
I will chainsmoke at the waves
I will write bad poems with no meter
And the same adjectives in every line

And we will toast the passing hours
With noisy, sweaty sex
And another beer before going
Back to bed, hungry, ravenous

Deep in the swill of booze and sex
I will tell you secrets, and you will hear me
Then, we will sober up, leave, go back
And forget the blood pulse of love

I can hear the crickets already

Where can I be, and also be with you?
Where, when, is the chance for
Your body next to my body
Where I might hear your heart, your breath
When I might touch the reality of you
My daydreams and I coexist
Peacefully enough, holding hands
But squinting in sunlight when subjected
To reason. Where can I be
Except lost, who can I be but yours?
When do we rejoin, colors upon colors,
Noise upon noise, chasing each other
Into ever more secluded chambers
Of heart and hill? I would lay
Dying in the cloudtops, before
Putting one toe onto an earth
That no longer supports your weight.

Take me to winter
And the bare knuckled stress
Of tires slipping in the snow
Rescue me from summer
The same way
Perseverance, focus, and
The twist of your strong shoulders
And hope for future warmth

I want to write a poem that creaks like floorboards
That peels, in long strips, in layers off the walls
Dis colored by years of slatted sunlight through the blinds
And cigarette smoke, yellowed, cancerous.
I want words like age and illness to bend themselves
In content and form to my meaning, to grab imagery
Like the neck of a guitar and pluck noisy discontent
Out of five worn strings: boredom, lust, anxiety, alcohol, loneliness.
Like dust motes idling, hovering in a still room,
The way mildew quietly makes itself known:
I want to weild a sentence in silence, to snake it up your sinuses
And wrench the way you think about me out into the bare daylight.

Why not fall all the way in
Every time?
Why not, with intention, with desire,
Give it all away--
Time, faith, focus, humor, sex, words,
Self explication in all its forms--
Every time, every time it is asked?
What do I gain from holding back?
The more times I
Say myself-- explain myself--
Articulate past, present, future--
The more I think I can change it all

I forgot you are mostly interested in speaking. In being heard,
In making the hearts around you stop.
I have been an engaging playmate, careful, intellectual,
Pleased to bend my body to pleasure you.
Pleased also to bend my will: what would you have me do?
What ought I, in this moment, say or be or want?
I forgot you are distant, hard to read,
In a way that I (stupidly) find incredibly alluring:
Why can't I know you?
I will make assumptions anyway, and these
Will help me guess at what to do or be to best please you.
So it is a cycle, powered by my desire--
Ostensibly, I desire your friendship, your partnership,
But-- what if I am learning that desire can be made to be superficial
While the host remains deep, hot, secure? Can I not
Imagine the taste of your skin, while also
Fastening my heart to the weight in my gut-- weighted
In part because I know that you will leave me?

I am here for those who will not 'go with the flow'
I am here for those who are not 'chill', who will not
'Wait and see', who cannot 'just hang out'.
I am here for those who stake themselves firm
In a fast-flowing current of judgment and idealism,
Who grab hard to dreams and goals and eke them,
Inch by inch, out of the silt of the future.
I am here for those who will not prevaricate, who will not
Be domesticated, who never got the hang of fitting in.
I am here for the ones who make art that is daring,
Who write words that shock us, who weild music like a tornado.
I am here not those who are not bound by other people's timelines,
Or other people's senses of self or love or pride.
I am here for the ones who guard up their sex
Like the beautiful, precious charm that it is, for safekeeping;
I am here for those whose love is hot, and fierce, and wild,
And demanding of mutuality and admiration.
I am here for the women who mourn in public, whose tears
Make us awkward with accountability.
I am here for those who speak too loud; I am here for those
Who cannot speak at all, whose wills and opinions
Are just as vital as those of us who stand on street corners and yell.
I am here for those who cannot be idle; I am here
For those who find deep strength in stillness, in nature, in reverie.
I am here for the ones who will not accept burdens
That do not belong to them; I am here for those who,
Seeing weight on others, must stop and help shoulder the pain.
I am here for the bright ones, the burning ones,
The scarred and perfect, the serious and laughing.
In all our variations we are each pursuing our own truths,
Standing still in our authenticities, leaning
Into the current, face to the sun.

is it that struggling with issues of self worth keep me humble
or is it that i am humbled by an honest self assessment

and how to define what i need within those parameters
when what i need will be graded by what i am worth?

i just want to go to the art museum
and stand in front of the Monet
and feel simultaneously indelicate, and beautiful
harsh, and feminine
insane, and certain
for what i am in looking at it.
not ever enough to know it-- not sweet enough, educated enough,
docile enough, tempered enough--
but changeable enough to have room to hope.

and then to go sit in the green grass by the reflecting pool and maybe even write something which isn't shit, maybe even something which isn't about you, maybe think calm and approachable thoughts about who i am and what i want my life to be, maybe think thoughts that are not about you

i want someone who objectifies me just enough

there are too many images in my head for them not to explode outwards, a tsunami with several shock waves, words upon words upon texts upon emails upon articles upon poems, an endlessly flowing disaster of words. (i wait for your withdrawal, i wait for your escape.) i would feel better-- cleaner, tighter, controlled-- if i could stop myself from speaking of you, stop myself from texting you, stop myself from seeking out your words like the quick bursts of drug-fueled satisfaction that they are. with endorphins and pheromones chasing each other like packs of abandoned dogs through tide-swept streets-- feral mouths, long teeth, concrete and sharp hunger-- each release is bright and painful in its relief. you are looking forward to it? you are? you are?
but i feel so far beyond this already-- drawn through the haze of questioning and wondering-- pulled straight into acquisitional curiosity, how can i be better suited to you? what can i give that will please you? and working so hard to overcome the most honest part of my emotions: the urgency with which i trace you, ask for you, seek more of you. i apologize, i amend, i edit my words and my emotions in the name of looking more like the woman i imagine you to want. in my gracelessness i seek grace, in my rush for you i seek quiet, sidelined moments, the chance to pause, reflect, and apply innumerable adjectives and dreams to you in hopes of articulating and processing the pressing crowd of feelings inside my blood.

i should be grateful for anything that makes me write, anything that bubbles and froths so forcefully up through my throat that i have to put it on paper. i am struck by memories, a different set of beginnings, the gifts of doctrine and confusion and desire that he gave me. here and now i feel i am choosing a different path-- trying to consciously direct myself away from previous paths, lessons i should have learned-- making decisions on personalities and people and a possibility i might not have allowed previously. whether this is right or wrong, learning or denying, remains to be seen. (i must not let it all hinge on any one other person.) will i still fit into my own skin, at the end of this? is it better if i don't? one of the biggest things i like about you is your understanding of the trials of starting over-- repeatedly-- of migrating, of stationlessness, of distance and solitude and independence. i could never have explained but perhaps, with you, i might try to articulate...
on some level you are on paper what i might have put together as desirable. i don't know what, if anything, this will look like in future weeks but i am glad at the chance of seeing what screening by resume results in. and even, i suppose, the chance of seeing what doing a complete 180 might be like. it feels strange to feel hope. i think-- don't tell, don't breathe, don't move-- i might even have a crush. years, okay year, since i felt this way, and i have not forgotten what i did to slake this thirst last time. i hope i am less awful, this time around.

I have disconnected myself for my community
Not once
Not twice
But three times

For this, I think, there has been an uncountable price paid.

i will never be too tired to search.
i will never be exhausted enough to give up.
i will never be motionsick.

when the mountain is too steep, i will stop and examine the path.
when the night is too dark, i will ask my community for a candle.
when the distance is too great, i will invent new methods of movement.

and i will move, i will walk and carry and lift,
i will dance and sway and swing,
i will feel the flex of the muscles across my shoulders
and love the burn in my thighs as i climb.
and i will be still, i will remember to pause,
i will take stock and account for all the moods of myself,
i will watch the wide world
and catalog all the wonders i am privileged to witness.
and i will speak, i will argue for you and with you,
i will use my words as a sword,
i will examine and analyze and decide and declaim
and build cityscapes out of stories.
and i will listen, i will give you my undivided attention,
i will hear your message and your intonation,
i will take in your words with consciousness
and i will love you for the journey you have taken.

I am teenaged again, awkward and stumbling and
Using all the wrong words,
Overspeaking, oversharing, an onslaught of opinions
And data and questions and why would I even think you would care?
See, I am only covering up teenaged self-doubt with
The slather of words I might hide behind:
Too many stories, too loose and uncovered, to try to show
That I am not afraid of baring myself to you,
That I do not fear rejection because I know myself to be worthy of your
Time, or at least attention.
But these are all lies; I am maybe an adequate match to you sometimes.
It is possible that we might enjoy each other's company.
And I should be grown enough
To leave it at that, to abandon the self deprivation and the fear and stress,
To stand in my sovereignty and maturity, except
Alongside the insecurity comes teenaged desire, curiosity, instinct,
The kind of lust that would meet you after school
Or in a hotel bar bathroom, for the sake of
Touching you, of knowing what it is to taste your mouth.
For these base and basic feelings
I cede adulthood in an instant, give up security or self possession without a thought
To be driven by full-blooded need;
I need to know you better.

In the silence of the morning his long arms stretch up

Towards the grey space, loosening, stretching, 

And I watch the muscles in his shoulders rise and fall.

Something about him seems sanctified--I feel prohibited

From reaching out to touch him--and with a yawn, 

He struggles up out of warmth and soft quiet.

On the edge of the bed, feet flat against the chill floor,

His spine curves out toward me, all tense muscles

And tired stacks of bone. I could press the stress out

But I don't, and after a heartbeat, the length of him is upright,

Breaking the illusion that we might have stayed, here, together.

i can make a world of lillies and wine and home-cooked meals
i can make the whole thing shine, the burnished shine of pride
i can make a quiet place, serene, a single lit candle in the shade
i can make a scene, all dance and drive and sex and seeking
i can make a life in all the alleys and byways of the world,
i can make home be wherever i am or want to be:
but is it worth it, if i am the only inhabitant?

I should know better, I am old enough now
To second guess the way I build up a new person, a new feeling.
I should know better than to imagine futures, imagine houses,
Imagine feelings or hands or late-night contentment or
Any of the thousand ways in which I am lonely

Being fulfilled by you

It is already a questionable proposition, that my heart
Is not my own to fix, that someone else might be depended on--
Much less that I should choose a stranger I should know better

I am old enough now for old dreams and young fears,
Matured desires and a fresh tinge of what-if-I-never.
Still, I am at the long end of the clock (maybe)
And at the very least, there is a possibility here
That I should know better.

i went to manhattan and wrote down a bunch of questions i am pretty sure i will never know the answers to

there among the monoliths and neck-breaking heights i wondered why you didn't love me

on the ramble i wondered, and knew that i was not on your mind

at some point we have to stop doing the things we do to cover up the fact that our hearts are uninvested, that our motives

are less-of instead of more-of

in a hard hotel bed i wished for more of your body and noise and heat

alone in cafes i wished for more knowledge of you and your words and the way you laugh when you tell a joke you like

during the long journey back i wished for more of your time so that we could have adventures together, so that we could share, so that we could

build

while you wished for less of my expectations

less of my pressures, less of my irritability, less of my sarcasm, less of me

and this is what happened, and why i cannot change or affect or even understand any of it

you wished for less of me

while i prayed for more of you

if i could have been enough for you

(little enough, sweet enough, dumb enough, simple enough)
IF I COULD HAVE BEEN ENOUGH FOR YOU
MAYBE I MIGHT HAVE BEEN NICE
OR SOMETHING

if i could have cleaned enough or cooked enough
cooked good enough
cooked food like how your mom makes but never as good as how your mom makes it always slightly off or one wrong ingredient or not spiced quite the same way or not as sweet or as savory or as tender or IF I COULD HAVE BEEN GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU
MAYBE I MIGHT HAVE DEMANDED LESS
AND ASKED MORE

there is a bitterness
in emptiness

if i could have been enough for you
i might have been focused, or is it unfocused?,
on seeing only the best, and not criticizing, which is apparently
what i do best anyways only seeing the negative or what should be done better or how you aren't doing the things you promised you would do that a normal human adult male would do that the promise of you being with me is supposed to mean that you will do if i could have been
enough
for you

i run out of words, leak ideas, puke sentences.
i am not enough, i am not good enough.

i am wrong, all wrong.