Insomnia

those songs make me sad
and my heart feels
heavy with tears
I wish I could know
how to appease it
but I just sit here
in the darkness
as the hands of the clock
progress through
the night.

brave

during the funeral,
the city was gray and the sun
had lost all its fire and fury
and his dark silhouette progressed
across the ocean
into my mind over and over again,
like his breathing was
waves crashing on my conscience,
the wind giving chills
my fever bringing
burning hallucinations about
his departing shoulders,
to hold or send away,
should I be brave?

Addict Pt. 2

Have you looked in a mirror lately?
you've been addictive since
fresh fifteen,
cool eyed and quiet mouthed,
soaking my words in
as if you weren't
flesh and bone,
but a fog on the ocean
wrapping every thought
in chill grayness,
even my ridiculous
strawberry milk words
don't scare your soul,
yes,

you've been addictive since
this afternoon,
skin on fire eighty-five
degrees Fahrenheit,
gasping for air like
resurfacing from the depths,
like life in full color,

like the tender

rawness of hearts

with no assumptions,

and now I know

trust is just 

holding hands at

ice rinks, and brushing fingertips
on summer walks, and
Tchaikovsky with my
eyes closed,

addiction--

how much you drink

on Sunday nights 

grasping blindly,

crawling across the floor

to know who you are

to be reminded

of yourself,

what can I do anymore,

they figured out how much 

I want your heart,

but that wanting is just

a thief in the night

stealing the last light

left in your body,

yes, I admit 

I couldn't stop taking it,

I've been addicted since

the beginning of our time

which has now come, quietly,

to its own end. 

Enough

back then I was
moving too fast to think
that any guy would care
cause everyone is
understanding
and has ten years to
meet and date and meet
at university anyway,
I was moving so fast
nothing got to me
I didn't think anymore
about difficulties
or having close relationships
with strange men
who wanted
"things" (sex) from me
I just pushed them off
in clubs when
they tried to dance up on me
and that was bravery
that was making "a statement"
about my preference-ridden
individuality
that was "enough" feminism
for the night.

Metaphysical Affection

that one night
vacuuming dirty floors
the sound so loud
I couldn't hear their laughter,
tears welled up
at your pictures,
I secretly kept on my phone
(for strength, for
fighting all the hardship--
damn it)
I believed
you were no better than
all the other guys
who said terrible things and
opened my eyes---
and my eyes were so wide
I didn't know how to close them,
because of that night
it's true,
I hated you too
and sometimes I still do,
whatever, maybe
you're better than
that stupid idiot in the kitchen
swearing and listing
all the explicit things I've
never ever wanted to do,
I know it seems strange,
maybe I'm not normal,
love is pretty
it floats around freely
without commitments
and from afar
love is metaphysical
affection over telephone wires
and radio signals,
love is the words we type with
fingers which have touched
merely once,
perhaps by accident.

Taking Sides

Taking sides
is saying I either
hate you or hate myself,
based on tenderness
I've never quite believed in,
when I was a kid I
didn't know the difference,
violence does nothing
for the child locked
up inside of me,
who still believes
that if I concede, and say
"fine, I'm part of the
systematic
unbeatable
undeniable
inextinguishable
fire of
pale bodies with blue veins."
then I must lay down
shut up
and stop breathing
these bleached words, and
so what?
the fighting still won't end,
I'd rather love myself
and love you
just because loving
has nothing
to do with my position
in the fallen world
we happen to live in.

After the Rain

your eyes traced the sky, but the sky
is probably cloudy tonight,
the first message from you was
stars falling, so I went to look but
all I found was the night
"standing in the...warm summer light
I can't recall the details
yet I can still see your eyes"

and because you didn't lie
you just tried to hide,

"looking far away,
avoiding...
neither of us knowing...
answers evade me 

like my memories,"
which just keep fading, I forgot

the sound of starlight

or the night in your city,

yet here you are
purpose yet unspoken,
for reasons
I cannot imagine,
because stars are not falling
but not to dissuade you,
not to turn you away, you
are so very brave,
I've come to think that
actually, you are not starlight
or the black night at all, but
since the rain
has come and gone,
I like to believe that your spirit
is the sweet, rain-kissed air which
fills my lungs.



Quoted lines from a previous poem. 

No Explanation

20/20 color vision,
you in your blue shirt
are my only envy,
I do not care
that you go away,
or that I cannot catch you any longer
in the stairways,
or that your voice fades, all
I have to envy
is her place beside you,
but she's fantastic
she knows what she wants you say,
are you sure
you aren't searching for yourself?
but wait,
have you ever considered what you
might be, apart from the scenery,
you aren't one of those milk white pillars,
and you were never these
old dark wood floors,
in the sacred place
where we now stand,
you
the ocean, sweet ocean,
sweet depths of pain and
confusion, sweet
silence on Mondays and
chatter on Thursdays,
sweet liquor on Saturday afternoon and
your brown eyes, opening
to the blazing morning light
on Sunday,
I will offer no explanation which you do
not require, simply
comfort you, promising yes
oh yes, I'll come visit
I'll bring you chocolate,
I'll listen to your stories, endlessly.