Poem: Baby blue bone marrow

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Poem: Baby blue bone marrow

Watching a girl in a long, flowing, blue dress pull her partner up
I am painfully aware about my lack of community
Keep thinking things, like, oh, it’ll happen next year and, oh, I’m so busy anyway
So much to take care of within the home
She’s sick now, she’s so sick now
Have to toughen up, get better at not crying in public
I’m really losing it, you guys
I say to no one at all

The sun makes its way through the trees and dapples right onto me
Finds me intrinsically
Melancholy heartbeat
I hate your white blood cell count and I hate the lack of snow in this town
Find me on a day where I’m not going crazy
Perhaps we can make a deal so that Jesus can save me
What you want, you get, pretty much none of the time
What I want, is far-fetched, and I’m not delusional this time
Cell count like frostbite
I hated how the physician thought he had to
Explain anything to me
Then paternal, now maternal
Panic attacks in closets turned into panic attacks in the restroom, at my shifts
You made a headband out of a shirt and the creativity that showed made me immediately
Begin to cry
You already took one, you can’t take another
He already took one, He can’t take my other

Poem: Baby blue bone marrow (continued)

A person saw me wiping my eyes while writing this at the park
Watching my dog, so full of life, so naturally exhibiting pure freedom
We bought so many little sleep shorts at Brandy Melville
It’s so funny—we will never run out now!
In bed all day every day, get well cards, from no one
We keep things so, so, so quiet within our house
Nobody will know
Our little secret
When I’m crying in the car
They’ll think it’s about my romantic relationship
Keep things just between you and me
Like, all of the time, forever
Like a leech, it’ll get us, don’t you know that well enough?

Like paternal, now maternal
The panic attacks have come back
You already took one, he can’t take another
He already took one, He can’t take my other
What am I to do with all of these tiny sleep shorts
When they’re worn and I’m bruised and the sweetest colours of baby blue
Surround you
What am I to do
Without you
I have nowhere I want to be
If you can’t see me

Poem: Baby blue bone marrow (continued)

Thank God Heaven exists, we tell ourselves
Get ourselves ready for those gold double doors
Thank God Heaven exists, because we’ve always been heaven sent
Thank God for those gold double doors
Without question, I’ll give you what’s beneath my flesh, of course
But it’s not an option

Baby blue
Surrounds
You
I hope
To spend enough time
Because not you, too

You already took one, you can’t take another
He already took one, He can’t take my other

Surrounded
By
Baby blue
Surround sound
We sleep in the filth
Cell count like the worst frostbite
This is the start of me
Never again being able to sleep right
When I wake up
Will I be
The only one
To observe all the baby blue that surrounds you

Little sleep shorts

Love poem: Ballerina recital love

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Love poem: Ballerina recital love

You’re so small, you fit into my arms
Fall asleep to the sound of my voice
Trembling, quiet, thunder, softness
Everything I am proud of, not so much on display
Still shy
After all these years,
Still so shy
Still so shy

You’re like a riverbed I watch beneath the moonlight, the stars
The craters on other planets that I know you’ve traveled to
Brown eyes, those deep brown eyes, I could
Find myself in lilac fevers forever and all the time
We talk about the Midwest and how it’s the best
And you stay true to your word, yes you surely do
Call me late at night even though you know I’m busy tending to my garden, having family time, drinking too much wine,
Leave a voicemail every single time
Yeah, I’m in love with that
Because I wake up in the morning, early, not-yet-bright morning, and I call you right back
A thousand times over, crimson clover all over
Fall asleep in my bed to my voice
The stillness
Lilac fever dreams
Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, all for you, always for you
I’ll play the flute
I don’t even know what to do
I don’t even know what to do

Love poem: Ballerina recital love (continued)

You’re no good at planning things, so I take over
Would you rather leave on a Tuesday or a Wednesday?
For me, it’s always a Wednesday
Favourite day of the week
It speaks to me like something holy, something so enchanting I can’t really tie it up in little knots like your little socks, like your fragrant apricots
A wedding we didn’t attend because we overslept
Laughed the entire weekend, recreated what we thought it’d be like
I was so mad, oh, so mad
There’s nothing I’d rather do than go to a wedding
There’s nothing I’d rather do than go to a wedding
But none of my friends are getting married
Our first fight
We laughed at intervals

I have this deep pink nail colour painted on, with ‘Cat’s Eye’ print
Charming but not revolting like absinthe
The prettiest bottle that I saw in the store, had no idea what the stuff was, didn’t buy it
Am so careful with the few dollars I possess
Then you had me, like candy, pass me a water bottle because I am thirsty in this exhausting heat
It’s melting me
Driving me to insanity
You drive all the time towards me, my direction, my deflection, away from me because I want the spotlight on you
Shining, glimmering, frosting, ice cream birthday cake
Your birthday is in March, and I am
Planning
Already
For how we’re going to celebrate
Ice cream birthday cake
DIY bday present because after all of this give-and-take
I want nothing more than to give you the best day you’ve ever had
Ill-fated farmer’s tan
Fresh farmer’s market apricots
Yours if you’ll be mine
Too late, too late

Love poem: Ballerina recital love (continued)

You asked me out on a Tuesday
I don’t like Tuesdays
I like them now
I’ll celebrate every Tuesday now
One week
Two weeks
Three weeks
Four
Monthiversary, the kind no man ever wanted to celebrate with me
Except one
But he
Ran
Farther than I could ever reach
Was so distant when specifically next to me
I couldn’t figure out what he was saying, so I paid really close attention in my sleep
I thank whoever’s watching me that the relationship escaped from underneath me

Found my favourite album that year
One of them, at least, but certainly my favourite song of the band’s
That’s the best part of that
You buying me different shades of brown lip gloss
Cookie butter, cappuccino, espresso for sure, on a Tuesday, every Tuesday
I’ll be there, listening to your voicemails
Calling you back in the morning
Crimson clover all over, what are we going to do in December

Love poem: Ballerina recital love (continued)

When it’s going to be so cold
It’ll rain
It’ll snow
I’m counting not the weeks down, but the days
To hold you
So close
Make sure you know that you’re mine
I’m yours
On purpose and by accident
Total ballerina recital, no tragedy

Involved in the way your ship collided with my stupid little boat

Poem: One letter sent, one letter kept (lunar crater)

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Poem: One letter sent, one letter kept (lunar crater)

Even the smallest meteorites can make a dent
A shower in the afternoon, music absolutely must play
I can’t give my mind too much space
Tried to hate you, but the action is impossible for me
A sensitive, contemplative queen
Take inspiration from the female main character on my television screen

Dying to spend time outdoors
Perfect place to talk with you
Where nobody can yell
Keep up appearances, keep moving forward
Naturally, I’d be stopping to take photographs of plants
Though I am truly interested to hear how you draft
Your words so carefully and yet,
They still hurt
My own oblivion—how unusual; it’s a first
Why people search for someone to take accountability
Finally makes perfect sense to me
It would mean everything
Though I have no expectations
Now that’s truly uncharacteristic of me

Poem: One letter sent, one letter kept (lunar crater) [continued]

Hold myself close
Hold myself close
Favourite Radiohead song for when I’m depleted
Not what I wanted, perhaps what I needed
To relate to how people in certain circumstances feel
I don’t like it
But I’m committed
To better understand the world
I want fresh florals and my favourite perfume
The sunshine is out there for those that feel consumed
By hospital bills and mental notes
It’s precious, our time, so I’d like to enjoy it
But we’ll never move on if we don’t address it
Neither the one affected nor the one who bears it

It’s shared, can’t you see?
I believe in harmony
Have learned I can never convince somebody to promise me
It’s better like that
The effort sure does count
I’m seeing blue
I think of you

Poem: One letter sent, one letter kept (lunar crater) [continued]

I’m in a gown, I’m ready
The water can take me
Reshape me
She only writes this much when her heart is breaking
Turning hobbies into routines
Cut-outs from magazines I’m framing
Made me feel ill, vomit on a television screen
The way you talk to me
It feels so mean
Your absolute favourite colour is also one of mine
Sage green

Don’t be dramatic
It’s just television static
None of it truly qualifies as far-fetched or theatric
You said there’d be plenty of room
For me
In the dusty attic
I looked for my favourite pen and a piece of A4-lined paper
My words had a breathtaking honesty that made me proud of myself
Celestial equator, vintage coffee maker
Elegant movie-maker
Pretty little lunar crater

One letter sent
One letter kept
If things change, it could be a new beginning
If they don’t, I’ll begin anyway
The sunshine is out there
For those that feel like running away
But once the meteorite hits,
A lunar crater forms
Prettiest thing I think I have ever seen
True harmony

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Love poem: Charcoal-stained t-shirts on porcelain skin

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Love poem: Charcoal-stained t-shirts on porcelain skin

To a home I don’t want to come back to
I have been feeling this stifling feeling of wanting to get away, to get away
But I don’t run away from my responsibilities
Something to be proud of
Dad, did you see that, all of these times, from wherever you have been relocated to
If there is a Lord, they are a God—genderless, liquid, solid, vaporous substance
Never parasitic
Always appreciative
Who you are, where you came from
They don’t see that in you
The people in your surroundings, the ones that make such
Wild accusations, to my peril it used to be
Until I found a form of insanity
That blanketed me in a comfort I truly feel is finally real

I must sound crazy to you
All of this I’m so aware of that I think it’s started to crack my skin apart
In tiny little precious spiderwebs
I collect
In a drawer beneath my queen-size bed
I collect all of my tiny, little, precious memories

Love poem: Charcoal-stained t-shirts on porcelain skin (continued)

Have come to realize that being blanketed in softness
Makes life feel finer than operating in a self-isolated cave
But I feel deprived of a human spirit
Perhaps it’s too much for me to think about, yet I still do
It’s not overthinking if I’m hit with the infinite branches of how deeply in love I am with you

Never want what I can’t have
I make my palette worthwhile if I’m going to move at all
It has to be at a target
As of late, it’s been moving at a frightening speed
Take my physics equations and calculate
How I could throw the baseball in such a way that it would land in my teammate’s glove
Belief in others
A steadfast, full-depth, incisive belief in others
Some of which I’ve had to let go personally
But never universally
Everybody deserves to feel half of the things I feel when I’m next to you

Love poem: Charcoal-stained t-shirts on porcelain skin (continued)

Typing this on a plane—carefully arranged composure
Your black Vans
How you don’t crash out when faced with shoelaces
They always end up bound in knots when I go to untie them
Can’t really figure out what’s wrong with me
You fixed it immediately
Fortunately for me, nobody can fix another human being
Finally evaded the line of thinking that the opposite could come true for me

If I am shattered glass, I just want somebody who comes
Prepared
Unafraid
Careful but not conscious
My eyes have started producing tears as of late—the dryness has resolved
I think about how I feel and immediately regain my composure
Charcoal-stained t-shirts from the clearance section
You said they looked good in relation to my skin
If I didn’t know it yet, my goodness, I’d have figured it out right then

Love poem: Charcoal-stained t-shirts on porcelain skin (continued)

Prepared
Unafraid
I know I can handle this
Haven’t felt it in so long
It’s been years since
I have felt
Like crying from joy when seeing a human being that is in my life
Not a musician,
Not a family member that will forever mean the world to me
Just a boy
Wearing black Vans
Shoelaces that perfectly untie
I wish I could watch our entire story on rewind

I won’t get lost this time
Priorities won’t shift
I’ll dance in my bedroom and my lifted pickup truck while I drive
Hug my children (the dogs)
Take care of things I’ve never dealt with for my mother
I’ll be alright
I won’t get lost in time
Wish I could watch our story on rewind
Go back to the very first night
I’d say, hi
Everything would turn out the same in the end
Me, on this plane
Wiping tears away, and you know it’s because I’m writing
Have no clue
Think I’m processing my stress
I’m not stressed about you
I’m miserable to be so happily in love with someone who

I could have been better to.

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Poem: 77 in

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Poem: 77 in
cinematic, eerie tenderness

There, concrete bridge
Throwing up like a landmine
Shocked to the brim
Might let you in

You—there for “support”
Always following me
Wherever I turn up
Scared for me
Budget B-movies
Film star queen
The things in-between
Get me out of this serene dream

Poem: 77 in [continued]

Them, rotten toys
Making all of this devouring noise
Unedited, spherical bends of water
Shriveling cold beats
Turn up the heat
To do away with, that’s a fact
Or a vision—to destroy
Our friends we’ll employ
If we have any left by then

You, not forgotten in the least
Leather jacket, cold-hearted beast
Pockets so deep I put my hand inside
And I leave it inside
It’s comfort I find
Ask how many inches tall you are
No matter the answer, it’s still up far
But with my hand in your pocket, I smile
That little girl smile, you know
It’s comfort I find, you know

Maybe one day it’ll start to show

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