Love poem: Passenger door // grocery store

Love poem: Passenger door // grocery store

Fresh lint from the dryer
My niece is crying
Because a boy pulled a baby-pink ribbon straight from her hair
& I told her, don’t worry
He didn’t take anything real from you
The most genuine things are
More intangible than they seem

So now I’m at the laundromat
Watching my lavender and velvet blanket dry
Something too delicate of material to end up in this white, vacant space
But I have already been charged
For a thousand liar’s crimes
Not my own, but it’s easy to take the blame
When the minds of the reckoners aren’t something you can change

Love poem: Passenger door // grocery store [continued]

I used to dream about being held
By someone so powerful
That they could both start and end bar fights for me
Think I was in my early twenties
So my wildest visions
Would make little sense to someone truly thinking of settling down
You have to act your age
In this kind of upscale town

Then you handed me a receipt
Me, counting your naturally full lashes
How strong they must be and if only
Mine were too
To resist my pulling them out
When I both do and don’t have free time
Which my mother would say is a crime
But laugh with me thereafter
Because true love doesn’t see you in black or in white
Genuine love both does and does not fight

Love poem: Passenger door // grocery store [continued]

Your voice was alarming
Because it began softening
Every tense fibre locked and chained to itself within my body
I warm my shivering shoulders with how hotly
My breath is on evenings
Like this one, in which I could not care less about who or what surrounds you and me
They are just bodies
And you are warm nectar
That only the most tender of creatures know how to find

I showed up on time
Your shift is almost over
But I am too shy
So, I take my bags
Spill a few things, say it’s alright
“You don’t have to help me”
(Oh man, but I want you to)
Pretend I have plans when you ask what I’m doing
(I am such a poor liar,
the truth practically stained on my teeth)

I want you to go sit in the driver’s seat
Open the passenger door for me

Come home and help me with the groceries

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Not a love poem: Olive tree (take your pick)

Not a love poem: Olive tree (take your pick)

I think we’re
Not getting too wrapped up
I’ll get up soon
To turn the microwave off

I think we’re
Naturally not too wrapped up
I’ll get up later
To turn the microwave off

I scratched my leg violently on rose thorns
As if I would ever mind
It’s been a long time since
Brown eyes, green eyes
I hate when they turn hazel
Like an olive tree
Park my car on Chestnut avenue
It’s a longer walk but
I like the name
Burn it to see embers
Collect street signs
All the rose thorns in the world are allowed to scratch me
In fact, I’ll invite them with bliss
Using long, Bambi eyelashes

Not a love poem: Olive tree (take your pick) [continued]

I think you would be
Friends with the quarterback
I never cared about football
We could make fun of
The way they drop the ball
(Again!)
Wearing their jerseys’ cos we like the material
So supportive
What a team effort
I clench my hands together because otherwise I think I’m going to lose my mind

I never really understood the concept of romance
Is it you buying me a vegan strawberry milkshake?
Dirt on my face at the park and you think I look pretty?
I have thousands of songs I’ve been dying to share
With somebody
They mean
Too much to me
To share, though
So I’ll
Keep them to myself
Out of bad habit
I’m the bad habit

Not a love poem: Olive tree (take your pick)[continued]

Show up late and get there just on time
I wouldn’t get through security clearance with that
Type of ambivalence I could
Make a rosebud dream
Of grabbing me from the interior and
Turning me inside out
So the world could know
I wouldn’t get through security clearance like this

Not a love poem: Olive tree (take your pick) [continued]

What’s that?
Is that romance
You getting me a vegan strawberry milkshake?
That I put in the fridge
To enjoy my second half the very next day
Laughing to myself
Sharp edges soften
My shampoo smells lovely
I can’t get through security clearance like this

An olive tree
Okay, I’ll be an olive tree
If you pick me
Okay,
I’ll be an olive tree
If you choose me

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Love poem: Asleep (daylight)

Love poem: Asleep (daylight)

We were watching King of the Hill
And oh my God, I miss your laugh
The gleam in your off-shadow hazel eyes
I want it to come right back
I wish we could go back in time to having everything
That was really all I wanted
You- I will never know, the records you don’t share with company
The places you go when you fall sleep

I wanted, to lay down my study materials
On your teenage-flannel-style twin bed
My God, I miss the whiteboard on your wall
Reading all the strange things you write in your childlike handwriting
I felt reserved over a handful minus one of four nights
Held them damn near so close I would get tongue-tied, just trying to make conversation with a cashier at the grocery store

Behind my eyes, blinking – in time-lapse frames
Your smile like a diamond without that discomforting glare
You were my centrepiece, and I was quiet as a soft stone, and I liked that
Not yet realizing how far-fetched it was of a thought that I could keep you
Where you are
And be there, too
(Just a thought)

Love poem: Asleep (daylight) [continued]

Oh my God, you swallowed me whole
I looked forward to the weekend like I never had in my teenage years
All I ever did back then, was dance around my living room like I had friends
You widened my gaze and we created our own place
Where teenage-flannel for a thirty-something was awfully inviting and I
Never cared or considered that you weren’t romantic
My God, I loved being with you
Like I was of no importance
You took centre stage and you painted me a grave
It looked just like it does in the magazines

You went down, so far down
There was no way to follow you
I would have, if I could have
Was not under the impression that a few bad days would turn into half a decade
Panic attacks because I couldn’t reach down and grab you
Shake you, wake you
Get you out of this rancid, deeply isolating dream
Say something like, hey,
(maybe this is really nothing)

It wouldn’t have helped
Because my wishes were far-fetched

Love poem: Asleep (daylight) [continued]

But to this day, I don’t know if you’ll make it
To be like what you created
When you first said hello to me,
“So, um, who are you?”
So, so, so, so, so in love with you
(Are you kidding me?)

Fresh piece of pastel paint
It’s archaic – the cinema is
I remember, we were watching a movie
I got so scared
You made fun of me with distant disposition and cruelty
In that split second, I developed this pit in my stomach
That you no longer were capable of comforting me
Whatever pulled me towards you in the beginning, was not based on effort
The film was playing, and I felt like crying
Crawled to the kitchen and wanted to crawl out of the window
So terrified of what had become of a bruised reality

Image generated for me using DALL-E by Erik Huerta (@Erikismissing on Instagram)

Love poem: Asleep (daylight) [continued]

Can never get right, on paper
The hypnotic daze that expands in my most cherished memories
“So, um, who are you?”
So attached to that phrase
Teenage-minded girl
Hopeful in a self-defeating mannerism
It leads me to wonder
It keeps me awake

What if it was a dream?
What if it was all fake?
Best Cabernet Sauvignon I’ve ever had in my life
I could have slept for days

We were watching our favourite show
And oh my God, I miss your laugh
Waking up to you, hiding from daylight
Should have ripped off the curtains and made you face it

Love poem: Asleep (daylight) [continued]

Please
Come back
To this life

There is
A girl
Who cares

But I can’t come down
That far
To meet you
Where you sleep

In shallow pools, I still grieve
There is nobody to wake me

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