If you couldn’t tell If you couldn’t tell If you couldn’t tell
I’m spinning around like I’m in the dryer at a laundromat The ladies and gentlemen walk by They don’t check up on me like that Now I don’t even remember how To get you to react It seems like my silence Is doing enough for the pact
Poem: Noise (continued)
Now how come you can’t tell How come you can’t tell
That one of my favourite artists dropped an album All I really thought about was you Listening to each track on the record Thinking of you punching your fist through the wall That we had just painted And me, jaw on the floor Incredibly amazed at What I had created
Poem: Noise (continued)
If you couldn’t tell Now how come you couldn’t tell
I’d go sit at your desk, like a little doll Spin around in circles in your armchair Feeling faint And small You liked calling me that Made you feel something too I think it should be the other way, But I feel so indebted to you
Poem: Noise (continued)
Now how come I couldn’t tell How come I couldn’t see Everything that we did Had really nothing to do with me Now how come I couldn’t tell How come I couldn’t feel Everything that we did None of it was very real
I step outside Of the curtain lining To tell you the truth But you’ve already gone to work
I step outside To my midsummer garden Cos it’s all about myself In my own little world
And in my opinion, it wasn’t meant to be I see it in the palms of my hands See it in the trees But looking at past daydreams I so wanted it to be A universe where things could work out for me (playing the victim?)
Poem: Haunted (continued)
In the grand scheme of things They’re always listening Don’t pay much attention to it cos I spend my days dreaming Future apartments with bay windows New acrylic nail salons Runs with my dog on Lake Shore Drive
You could have just told me Though you did in your own way I made sure to Curl up in a blanket I didn’t cry at first But then the weekend came I was tangled and interwoven into you and me again
You should have just Taken it out on me You should’ve just – You should’ve just – But you stopped yourself. I don’t get how You didn’t take it out on me You should’ve – You should’ve – But you stopped yourself.
Poem: Haunted (continued)
In an arboretum I found truly my favourite flowers Next few hours, you grew so bored, I thought you would fall straight into your hands The thorns from the castle drains would Stop to tell you that This wasn’t exactly Part of her plan. I grew quite timid Wasn’t born to be an alarm clock So I let you sleep the next day while I did my own thing The thing was, it was my birthday And anyone knows that can have meaning So it isn’t worth the frame-worked lawsuit The heavy weight in my mind
You shouldn’t have Taken it out on me I thought we were different people Living new lives, so it seemed. You shouldn’t have chosen To take it out on me I thought we had become new In the grand scheme of things.
Poem: Haunted (continued)
Fortune surrounds you So I’m in a blanket Wishing you well in skyscraper heaven. If you turned around, To retrieve your belongings –
My apartment would be empty, But it would still be haunted.
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Nuclear envelopes A testable hypothesis Will you still love me if I – Will you drown me out Like the noise in a soundproof room He always said he’d like to go to solitary confinement just to get away For a honeymoon
Light leaks Asparagine and leucine Convoluted sighs and my pink floor-length satin dress Eating three times on Mondays, Eating four times, the day after Consuming enough carbohydrates to be like a plant A prisoner in your gardener A wide-awake blooming orchid Couch that fell from a truck bed onto the motorway We could just make it ours Watch the fires and fireflies swarm in the distance Devouring apricots A routine for my bedtime
Poem: Ant colony (birthday balloons) [continued]
Letting go of lethargic tendencies But I don’t have the energy I’m miserable, with or without you Have to be the writer of my own memoir, the heroine in my own maladaptive daydreams That serve me quite well Like soft serve by the beach Made from plant-based oat milk & Oreos I’ll let the sea and the sun and the sky devour me, so I can merge with the ants and Worry only about my colony What a dream it’s becoming
Empty head Empty thoughts Your Percocet My writer’s block I’ve been too, afraid, to put this down on paper A typewriter with no keys Hands that swell Knees that bleed I know perfectly well That I’m who you need Will you be there for me, in the daylight and the evenings? My handsome prince Tread carefully I’m exactly who I aspire to be
Poem: Ant colony (birthday balloons) [continued]
I believe in myself, most of all Though, the cognitive dissonance gets swept like ashes At a fireplace Melting, blurring a reality that you swore was three-dimensional You vase of a porcelain starlit galaxy You atmospheric void, claustrophobic from your own apprehension I’m so in love with every part of you Especially the pieces you really disdain
I’ll take them in my hands Like the softest of sand
Poem: Ant colony (birthday balloons) [continued]
I don’t know what to do with all these birthday balloons The vinyl you bought me, thank you, by the way You precious thing. And the things I have to move on from Tangled in grief-ridden spiderwebs Merging through lanes with my blinker forever on I follow all the laws When the crows are watching, carefully
I’ll let the sea and the sun and the sky devour me, so I can merge with the ants and Worry only about my colony What a dream it’s becoming
Put your right hand over your heart Haha, like in first grade Before the twin towers exploded When things felt so safe I was so wild I’d light papers on fire and stand there, with a smile I didn’t know I’d be a poet But I knew I’d be a doctor Didn’t know I’d lose my father Not once But twice Human beings, being rationed Five grand so it actually happens Nothing too romantic Left roses wrapped in plastic Thank you for the merchandise
Poem (continued): Merchandise mart
Yes, he was Only your voice Trembling softly Telling me the truth
Thinking of finding You, for the time being Ready for the evening A humble pursuit
I don’t want to let go If I do by chance let you know I don’t want to let go If I speak up and ruin my softness The sand was abrasive It spread out like marbles And I was shaking You kept asking me to stop
Poem (continued): Merchandise mart
Moving like an infant that Can’t locate sound Moving like an infant that Doesn’t think he’ll be found A trade-in, a day bed, a hospital-sized alarm clock I watched you roll down the window, like a dream I had slept in, for a very long time
If I ruin my softness And the ground is abrasive Will you trust that I always carry first aid with me Like an emergency medical technician from the Merchandise Mart
The call dropped when I turned left I thought Will you trust that I say what I mean, and I mean what is fair The call dropped when I turned Right Where I decided to finally belong.
Rose petals with lime in my hot coffee Author’s alterations, metasomatism beneath my bedsheets Making changes to my will because I will outlive my instruments & garments I’m the most proper fit, and I laugh to myself Because nobody else thinks it to be true Playing in the garden all night long
If you’re made of arachidonic acid, you’re still not essential to me Accelerated depreciation is like using plastic So casual for you The cavity where I reside is not accepting visitation Though you can leave the fleurs and baguettes at the doorstep Can I be a princess for once, please? Can someone naturally want to take care of me?
Poem: Four thoughts (Chicago dandelions) [continued]
My abdomen is covered in spears I don’t know where they came from He found it addicting, and I chose not to feel bad, because I settled for a freedom that involved both him and me I’m stored in the nacelle, and you’re a half-decent engineer Who works so much he loses sight of The real thing When it’s engaging in self-piercing Damaging increments Fingernails painted dusty pink
I feel a permanent wholesome vacancy A vacant office A vacant smile A vacant estate A vacant room A vacant seat on a bus A vacant throne A disengaged observer Sometimes I wish you would just look at me Stare at me so I would feel like I was really living, here.
Poem: Four thoughts (Chicago dandelions) [continued]
An abandoned factory An abandoned field An abandoned vehicle An abandoned baby I was left to fall into a state of disuse And then I had to pick myself up Here we are, I’m staring at Chicago on the plane’s seat live screen map, and I want to cry, because it’s screaming out at me
“You need to get rid of everything so that I can consume you in full” Nobody can love you so much to the point that you can’t leave This is everything and all that you want To the point where a low-quality live map brings tears to my turning-dark-green eyes Straightforward without reserve, my advocacy for my well-being Openhearted and honest with my eternal sin That I’m falling more and more in love with
I want what’s favorable I accept what makes me want to sink, not just mine, but all of the ships Things highly unpleasant to me are advantageous to the attitude I want to cultivate Impartial to how we couldn’t quite relate
Poem: Four thoughts (Chicago dandelions) [continued]
I’ve got dandelions in my hair The right guy won’t blow my wishes out A commendatory view of my well-calculated decision and unruly spirit
I appreciate it all The astronomical pitfalls Everything is beautiful to me If it wasn’t, I would not have stayed around here
Poem: Four thoughts (Chicago dandelions) [continued]
Sweet and angelic of you, a stranger said Looked at me with the admiration the last few lacked In a Duty Free store
I learned to be safe in my own skin Complimentary to my own skeleton Dandelions in my hair The right guy won’t blow my wishes out
She was always four thoughts ahead of everyone else
