What the World Feels

Sometimes I write poetry that enumerates the trickle of rain drops
off a luscious moss covered trunk
That I have never seen
But can feel like the gust of cold air penetrating the pores on my cheeks
And for that one special moment I think I can feel generations crying,
hoping to go back to it
And sometimes I feel the warm yellows and oranges circling tender skin around my legs and dancing around what I have come to call as my body
Squinting my eyes because it won’t allow me to see its full beauty,
its immense rage
And as the grass tickles extremities which I have come to call as my toes and fingers
I realize that I have come to a place that has nothing to do with me
And all to do with the world
Wishing then that I could be bigger than I am
To take up the full burden of nature
To hear its cries as it dies and suffocates from sharp knives slitting lungs,
never to return
And it is then that I know the pain of scientists
Wishing to extrapolate a truth that is too hard to stomach
Of the world dying because someone once told us we were the most powerful
And the flies circle around,
trying to find a place to rest
And the sun suddenly hurts
And begs for mercy
And it is then that I wish I could tell the branches, and the clouds, and the atmosphere,
the yet living
That I am sorry
But all I am left with is poetry that enumerates the trickle of rain drops off a luscious moss covered trunk that I have never seen
And a tear that fixes nothing
But serves merely as a small pathetic portion
Of what the world feels

A sentence

I know I’m a bad writer. I’m sorry. I wish I could say I can make the petals of a rose come alive by way of my imagery. I wish I could say I take travelers on remarkable quests full of illusion, hope, and realization only to come back to a complexified equilibrium.
I can’t.
I can’t make the sky look anything other than blue or the trees seem in any way more significant. When my pen hits the pure white paper with a force that rapes, no beauty comes out, no struggle, no pain. I look down on it and realize I’ve said nothing. I’ve shown nothing.

But there’s always that sentence.

That one sentence that taunts me because it shows me that for a moment in time I have beauty. It comes in encompassing everything that is me, showing me its elusiveness by way of a breeze meeting my cheek and entering it by way of diffusion. Down to my heart, out through my fingers. Telling me then that it’s gone.
NO more.
Was it ever there? Does it even matter? That sentence you see, that one beautiful sentence that swallowed the very air that I breathe, wasn’t me. It was never me. I claimed to own it for that fraction of a second but it left without so much as a goodbye because it was telling me something. It was telling me I was speaking from a place not within me but all around me. I was a hand, a curvature of the fingers,
A word.
I wasn’t its creator. It created me.

Onions

You’re standing in the kitchen, now
slicing open an onion
While the pot sizzles out a cry of anticipation
and the window is open, letting in sunshine that illuminates the atmosphere of the kitchen;
Your hands, meticulously cutting, quickly but ever precisely on the chopping board

I’m sitting on the kitchen table, looking at you
much as I do most evenings that I am home
but there’s something about tonight that is different.

Perhaps it’s the way you’re cutting up that onion
I think it’s the first time in a while I really take to noticing your hands
They’re manicured and lightly polished but what strikes me is the wrinkles
veins protruding, as if they want to escape the frailty of your body
The sunshine is showing me the bald spot on the top of your head
and the smile wrinkles on your face
Your foot in a medical boot, because it gives you trouble now

A tear makes its way to the bottom corner of my eyelid
and with the excuse that I want to help you cook I get up, place my head on your chest, listen to your heartbeat, and close my eyes
It sounds the same, at least I think it does, from the number of times I have done this before
I ligt tip, pissh, tip, with she occasional ssssh background sound of your heart murmur
But the skin of your chest on the outer corners of my ear feels different somehow, this time
It is as if your body knows what I am thinking
I let out a tear and wipe it away just as quickly so you won’t notice
And as the last remnants of the sun make their way into our kitchen
We stand, chopping onions together
Like you taught me.

Back from Hiatus- Take 2 (?)

Hi Everyone,
You may have noticed I have been a little (ahem) a lot emo as of late. I stopped writing, and instead entered the:

rambling, I will now write emotional love poems in the hopes that someone hears my pain, or that he does, and takes me back realm.

phew

For many reasons, I have been down in the dumps. It has not been pleasant. Everyone got fed up, I got fed up. I have not mentioned it before but I am about 9 months into

"program"

(that's whats the regulars call it). In other words, I have for nine months been willingly going to something called an al-anon meeting every Monday night with a room full of strangers, talking about our feelings and such. Al-anon is a program designed for loved one's/ family members of alcoholics or those that have been affected by alcohol. I fall into that category for many reasons. Despite the fact that we are not alcoholics, we go through the twelve steps ourselves. The premise is that we are also alcoholics, it just doesn't manifest itself with alcohol. In short, we are addicted with the alcoholic, whatever form that may take.

Sounds crazy, right? so after nine months I almost feel like I've given birth to this thing. I don't know if it's beautiful or this mutant unrecognizable creature...maybe a little bit of both. After nine months, I'm not even in step one (my sponsor says I'll be ready when I'm ready- I think she's just being nice). But I keep sticking to it, and for some reason getting deeper into this, for lack of a better word, cult. I find myself going to more and more meetings because, quite frankly, it's the only thing that makes me feel sane.

Meanwhile, I continue working at a locked psych facility with individuals with both mental illness and substance abuse problems. One of the things we stress constantly is the importance of scheduling your day. Then it hit me. Because truly we are all addicts in one way or another, why not do this for myself? Why not apply the therapy I give to myself? Hey, I'm not the first to think of this or try this (thank you Freud and Jung for preoccupying yourselves with yourselves and coming up with some hooky theories). So, I'm creating a schedule, and because I know I stick to things better when I have the possibility of being watched, I'm posting it here, for you lovely people to see. And, also, you get the added bonus of seeing how not all 24 year old lives mirror jersey shore or...heck, I don't even know any other references, that's how lame I am.


Wednesday 4/24/12 Schedule


7:00am: wake up
7:30am: read news/jezebel
8:00am- 4:30 pm: work! (leave phone in desk)
5:00pm- dinner (yum)
6:00-9:00pm- get ready for al-anon meeting, go, come back
9:00pm: shower
9:30pm: mad men,call syl, look up good books to read for future
10:30pm: bedtime

That wasn't too bad- let's see if I stick to it.

For my patient

I read your poetry last night and found myself, a voyeur
Speaking of your loved ones, your dreams, and imagination

Last night I dreamt that you grew wings
And found a home, in a place where you could always sing

In a place that you did not need a key to get out of
And a team of “experts” staring at you
Proclaiming your diagnosis
And destroying your spirit

You cry yourself at night, sometimes, in that room
And wake up with a smile, and feed me your lines

It’s the closest thing to normal that you know.
You are grandiose.
The world is against you.
I wonder how your emotions feel, stuck in that body when they are so big

Your son peers at your picture, somewhere far away.
While someone explains to him that you’re very sick.

And your father yells at me, believing I can cure you.
You are beautiful, as you are.

I wish you could see what you look like with those wings.

We raised your medication and your eyes glazed over.
You stopped creating your own concertos and tragic heroes in your mind.
But it was your home.

I wish you knew what you looked like with those wings.
Even as your body flails against you.
As we inject your muscles with a calming syrup
Even as our keys rattle on our wrists.
Even as the thoughts destroy your mind.

When Love Dies

When love dies, there is no parade.
No one holds your hand and tells you it’s going to be alright, and if they did you didn’t hear it.
Like a bad guest, it doesn’t even announce its departure.
Rather you come across it one day, as you are picking up some socks.

When love dies, it does not wait its turn.
It does not wait for both parties to stop loving.
Nor does it tell you how to prepare for the passing.

Rather, you stumble through the planet with the same confusion of a baby learning to walk.
There are no maps or directions.
It doesn’t even leave you change for the bus.

When love dies, it does not care how good you were,
or how many times you dived in, not even knowing how to swim, in order to save it.

When love dies, it only cares about freeing itself.
It tiptoes out and leaves no note.

So you make do.
You act like there is not a piece of yourself missing
And you accept the clichéd advice
Because you have no better rules to follow.

When love dies, it takes piece of you with it.
But soon in that hollow space new things emerge.
At first it’s just weeds.
You hack away.

When love dies, you learn to accept your place in the order of things.
When love dies, you learn to save the only person you could save.

Thank you, too

I had no words to say last night when you thanked me. Now I can't say them, except for here.

Thank you for...

making me feel giddy and showing me that I could be that person that sings in public

for introducing me to enrique bunbury and shock top and all of those incredible movies

for holding me that night you saw one of my first panic attacks

for holding my mother's hand as she went into surgery

for staying up with me to talk about nonsense and the world and us

for falling asleep in my bed and kissing the back of my neck when you thought I was asleep

for that amazing sex

for telling me I'm amazing

for allowing yourself to be vulnerable and allowing me to do the same

for challenging me when I was wrong and communicating with me

for loving me when you could

for teaching me to cry, really cry

for teaching me trust, and teaching me to know when to stop

for teaching me to let go

and again for loving me

thank you for loving me