Sea Shanty

For most of my life I have been telling myself quieting stories.

I really don't need all that much. It's fine. Everything is fine.

I can just be grateful for whatever is there. Something more would be nice, I suppose, but don't trouble yourself over it - I know I'm not.

When your dad doesn't introduce you while he's bragging about all the good things your siblings have accomplished and how beautiful they all are, you tell yourself that you're just a background character in this story. Your book must be on someone else's shelf. This particular storyteller is kind of a jackass anyway, so why would you care that he doesn't want you in the foreground?

When you grow up hungry you learn not to admit you want something.

There is nothing in the fridge, so you drink some cold water and you fill your belly with a story instead. 

When your middle name is a story that something better is coming, you cling to that for dear life. You become numb to the idea that right now could have ever felt safe. 

You write songs about someday and tomorrow and you live off celebrating everyone else's today. 

You cook meals for your children so they never expect a growling stomach.

You skip them when there isn't enough to go around and tell everyone you're just not feeling particularly hungry that day. 

Or the next

Or the one after that

There's a hormone called Ghrelin that tells the brain when the stomach is empty. At the height of the pro-ana tumblr phase of life I learned to reframe the noise it made as a signifier of success. It meant I was shrinking, learning to take up less space. When a glass of water or a single bite of this or that made it easier to control... that meant I was choosing this. That meant I was not just a forgotten passenger on the ship anymore. I became the captain.

But then other ships passed in the night and they knew. The Ghrelin made itself so loud that people outside of me could hear it and they could board my ship and turn the wheel whichever way they chose. They fed the Ghrelin just enough to keep it docile. The moment always came when I would wake from a nap and see that my ship was pointed towards the old docks again. I'd be led right off the gangway into a little boathouse and watch as every piece of my ship was sold for parts to enrich the new captain. He'd rearrange it all to his liking and I would tell myself the story that I am just a background character again. 

This is still not my book, maybe that was never my ship. I don't need a book. I don't need a ship. I was not born to be a story. I am a plot device, I am someone else's galley. 

Until one day, the thought of my daughter not fully believing that she is in fact the best story that has ever been able to write itself woke the Ghrelin. That hunger drove me out of the boathouse and I built a raft. I fed the beast, I believed the promise of a middle name. I started writing a story and a whole host of characters showed themselves. 

I met a wizard. You had your own beast. You didn't even want a ship (wizards don't need ships), but you'd be happy to help me build mine. When the raft crashed you cut down trees and we made a little dinghy. We turned it into a skiff. We gave it a sail. We named it Hope and we were getting somewhere. One day you even asked if it could be our ship. Make it official. You wanted a ship now, but only with me. You wanted to write a book with us as the main characters.

I still told this little story that surviving was plenty and I never needed to be full. Your wizard's keep kept calling you back and I would sit on the deck waiting for your return. You would, but you were tired from the journey. You got mean, you got suspicious, you wanted to go back to your keep. I got sad, I got anxious, I wondered if I had believed the ending of a rough draft too soon. 

The stories are bullshit, babe. I am hungry.

I want a ship. 

I want flowers in the galley. 

I want birthdays. 

I want plans that carry through. 

I want careful tending and celebration. 

I want to be fought for. 

I want to be pursued. 

I want to be someone's nonnegotiable.
I want to be more than convenience or charity.

I shouldn't keep settling for being an afterthought in the background.

I am not a plot device.

I have to stop shrinking.

And I have to stop doing it just so someday my daughter will not think that's an expectation.

I have to write a new story. I am terrified of it. I might never have a co-captain, and I have to learn to be ok with that. But I'm gonna have a ship, damn it, and if I sink with it... maybe my daughter sings my sea shanty on her ship.

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.

The Women

The women are whispering
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

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

And what if I am dancing with everyone
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

The Web

Charlotte’s weaving another web,

up in the corner by my bed

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

Not Better Off

Think I’m scared to dream
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