I want to be more than convenience or charity.
Little Red One
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
Sunday, September 20
Sea Shanty
I want to be more than convenience or charity.
Saturday, September 19
I Want To Be Very Married
The day after he asked a question I wasn’t expecting but knew the answer to immediately I wrote this. I hope the damn wedding happens someday, and these will change if it does. But they’re real good and I meant every word when I wrote em- so they should exist somewhere.
—
Two years and three days before you put my favorite number of roses on the steps up to my apartment after twelve hours in petit four hell I wrote a thing about a man I had only known for 47 days.
“I think maybe the stars wrote you like a poem
Not the kind that rhymes and has some rigid scheme and is all flowery sentiments
The kind that keeps the reader alive
The kind that turns one way and then the next with those perfect imperfections that fold right around your soul
The kind that makes the reader wish to be covered in the words and completely consumed
I think maybe the stars wrote a messy, twisted, beautiful poem and have been waiting for 32 and a half years for the exact right moment to plop it in front of me
It’s the most thought provoking, hope inspiring, calm inducing, faith restoring, courage building, lovely poem I have ever laid my eyes on
This poem understands pain and deep joy like two sides of the same coin
This poem is comfortable with madness
This poem holds up a mirror and tells you the truth your eyes haven’t translated yet
This poem wraps you up like it doesn’t want to let you go and yet… it still does when the time comes, without any anxious fear that you won’t return
Of course you’ll return
That poem is THE POEM
Nobody finds THE POEM and just reads the next one like it’s nothing
That poem gets folded in your pocket and plastered on the walls of your heart and recited to anyone who will listen and some who would rather not
I think the stars wrote you like a poem and hand delivered you to me the last Monday of December all unassuming and nonchalant like it wasn’t the gift I’d been longing for my entire life.”
Two days after I wrote that you made this bracelet for me, and I made one that said “you are the poem”
You are still the poem. You are more of the poem every single day. I have watched you love me through the darkest, saddest, most hopeless moments of my life so far. In my puddles on the floor, in moments I felt invincible, in all of my mess. I have watched you delve deep into the who my babies are and what incredible things they are capable of. I have walked with you through multiple losses, those creatures we have long loved and those who never got to be. We have grieved both sets, and carry them with us. I have seen you daily choose to learn languages and cultures that are not your own for the sole purpose of being a good friend, being a resource, being better. I have napped through so many band practices and jam sessions that turn into moments I got to see you be a goddamn rockstar whether or not you see it. I watched you get up every day and go to bed early than we really want so you could achieve a level of security you never wanted for yourself, but chose to give to me. I watched my kids and my dogs and my self find out that you are in fact the person you claim to be, not a lie, not a pretender, not an opportunist.
And I stand in awe of all of it. All of you. This beautiful poem that I promise to keep reading, that I promise to always find a way to harmonize with, that I know will change. That I intend to know the last line of. You’re The Poem. You are my person. And I intend to be yours, forever and ever and always.
Thursday, September 17
The Women
The women are speaking
The women are crying out
The women are begging
The women are screaming
Penelope had a lovely idea and I wish there were more men who listened
The women should burn things
All of this waiting
All of these whispered words
All of this “he promised”
Must we always sit and weave the burial garments for the love that can not be placed under a shroud
It will burn in our chest whether we dig the hole or not
It will burn in our children even if we set the boats ablaze with us and the dead on board
When we are long dead and our grandchildren’s grandchildren breathe in the hot breeze that once blew through our hair it will wake, yet again
I weave the shroud and embroider the shadow of this love drenched rage and I hope the day comes soon where my sons lock the doors and burn those leaning heavy on the laws of gods that mirror the worst in every father
You could have come home any time, if only you’d learn the lesson the women were force fed from birth
Put down your sword and feed the beggar
Teach your sons to write songs
Let your daughters choose which ones deserve singing
But sure, go be a hero shaped fool
Maybe in exile I can teach you to protect love with more of it
Tuesday, September 15
Bianca
Taming the shrew wasn’t good enough for you
Had to sneak up to stab up my back
But good guys finish last so I guess that you had to
Play the long game to make up the slack
Did it slow but not easy
Kept me a breath shy of breezy
Gave me shoes but keep me with child
Got bored with your start up
And started to mark up
The wrong parts of my kind of wild
Bianca
Where are you
Are you blonde, are you young, are you still
Bianca
Tear in two
Do whatever I say when I will
You wanted a fight
But not one that bites
Wanted the flame that don’t burn
Kept me on the hook
With your all knowing look
Like there were mysteries I had to learn
Did it slow but not steady
Kept me just one step from ready
Made me question all that I knew
while I named my believing
In every new season
That never gave reason to you
Bianca
Where are you
Are you blonde are you young are you still
Bianca
Tear in two
Do whatever I say when I will
You liked me proud
But not when I was loud
Wanted a storm that stayed in her place
Told me to stay small
So you’d love me at all
I could’ve vanished with barely a trace
Kept me near but not equal
Made your game of the sequel
And goddamn you had something to prove
Gave me room but no freedom
Said I was the reason
You had anything left to lose
Do it slow but not easy
Kept me a breath from believing
Made me forget
All my best bets
Gave me a reason
To stay through the season
But never a reason were you
Bianca
Where are you
Are you blonde are you young are you still
Bianca
Tear in two
Do whatever I say when I will
If I Am Going To Be Water
What if all I have wanted this whole time on earth is to move with abandon, twirl around and feel the weight lift
What if the dancing makes the puddling on the floor farther away for a moment
Alone, sure
Fine.
But with a someone…
To be fools together
To feel a weight lift from two souls
Yeah you can step on my feet
Don’t worry I’ll catch you
No, it’s fine, we don’t have to know what we’re doing
I think I would always rather people think whatever they will
So I’m gonna dance
If not with my someone, then with everyone
Because I have puddled on the floor
And if I’m going to be water
I’d rather be humidity in air and sweat on skin
Hard fought with a good time
I’m not sure I can wait on you to catch up if you want to pool around my ankles asking me not to dance
Sunday, September 13
The Web
Such skill with words no one should hear
Why did you have to bring them here
I don't recall the summer sun,
the games you said we played
I only know the twisted ones
that somehow never went away
I know the floorboards knew my name,
I know the walls were listening
I know a child can learn real young
she’s only lovely when she sings
Charlotte’s weaving another web,
silver thread from beam to beam
She catches pieces of the past
and calls them what they must have been
There's something buried by the creek,
something underneath the stone
You can cover up a thing with dirt,
but roots will find their way back home.
Charlotte, Charlotte, spin it slow,
don't pull the thread where I won't go
You ask me for a name I know,
but some things die before they grow
I've given you all the words I know,
I've given you my oldest tongue
I've told you every little thing
I thought a little girl had done
But I am tired of telling it
I'm tired of making ghosts behave
I'm tired of digging through the dark
for something never meant to save
Charlotte’s weaving another web,
but I won't give her words again
I'll leave the little girl alone
sleeping soundly in my skin
For there are things the body knows
that mouths were never meant to say
And there are many ancient roads
that don't need walking twice a day
So Charlotte, spin your web alone
I'll take my bones and head back home
You can keep what you have sewn
I won’t belong to what I've known
Saturday, September 12
Not Better Off
Think I’m scared to get my hopes up again
Wanna have a scheme
Want it written out in paper and pen
Like it worked so well before
Like that wasn’t just a rug beneath my feet
Did it matter that he swore
Always and forever he’d be wanting me
There she is
Sitting in an open field
Isn’t this
How she always feels
Little redhead wishing on a star
Wondering why things are the way they are
Curious why people talk
But never mean the words
Furious with ticking clocks
But never with the birds
Picture this, I’m in the flock
I finally got my wings
And maybe it’s an aftershock
Of harsh realities
But building blocks weren’t working
And the future just kept smirking
Like the cloud that’s always hung above my head
I promise that I’m trying
This ain’t me denying
I’m just out here flying
Proving I’m not better off dead
Think I’m scared to say
Don’t know what it is I’m doing
Like maybe that betrays
Some hapless destiny that’s brewing
Like I’ve never needed help
Like that wasn’t a farce that kept me small
Ain’t that how I’m avoiding hell
Let some man do the thinking, be my all
There I am
Kicking up a Sunday dress
What a scam
Such an unbegotten mess
Just some redhead yelling at the stars
Wondering why things are the way they are
Curious why people talk
But never mean the words
Furious with ticking clocks
But never with the birds
Picture this, I’m in the flock
I finally got my wings
And maybe it’s an aftershock
Of harsh realities
But building blocks weren’t working
And the future just kept smirking
Like the cloud that’s always hung above my head
I promise that I’m trying
This ain’t me denying
I’m just out here flying
Proving I’m not better off dead