When he fucked me, I saw God.
My mood is
indescribable.
A downspout of
misguided
rain freezing
overnight.
A complicated
mountain fold,
its peak
sheltered
by sensitivity
and fog.
Its hardened
crust evaporating
into
sadness.
My desolation
comforted
by his imagery
and love.
Pain is
romanticized
inside
my mind.
Literary connections
found
in pulsating
isolation.
Love me
back.
I am
disconnected
from the norm.
Relieving cuts
pour
blood onto
canvas.
Empty.
I offer
definition
unintelligibly through
matte abstraction.
I am
complexly
overwhelmed by
simple movement.
My mascara
smears like—
A whore.
My legs
spread
wide,
knees bent,
my aged hips
crack with
temporary
satiation.
Heavy
sighs are
my aphrodisiac
into
oblivion.
The warmth
of
the sun
on my face
is my
mother.
Nature
hugs me
with
its splintered
bark.
Gasping
with emotion,
the thought
of him
hurts.
Moved
to tears
when
Mozart's plays
tangible.
A grin
too wide and
too toothy
silently churns.
My stomach hurts
to the tone of
laughing
like a clown.
Names
spelled wrong
hang on
the air
make
me dizzy.
Contradicting
comfort found
in
metaphors
and equation
abandon me
ad infinitum.
Abhorrent
shock at
mass blindness
ruminates.
Raw.
Despair drops
into buckets
of mud
in my chest
when
I think
of you.
Despondency
covers
my shoulders,
my grandmother's
shawl,
when
the chill
of
loneliness comes.
Inner epiphanies
debate
over desire
and
reality.
I stand
still and
frozen in
my existential
existence.
I know
my bravery
exists
but I am
fucked
between
folded linen.
Stale.
And
the closet
is closed.
And my
heart
drops.
There is
no point
anymore.
I am sad
and
I am
grieving
indefinitely.
You are gone.
It is dark
The Blues of the Affair
Graham Greene portrayed it best—
The fine line between love and hate
The pendulum of ecstasy and pain
Swinging between freedom and desire
A glass monkey chandelier waiting to crash—
I realized I only loved him
Because he loved someone else.
In the safe space, that is
Rejection pro hac vice
She murmured the phrase over and over
For only during this season did she
Sub-into something foreign
Something not hers—
He rested his head on her shoulder
She stroked his hair, they rarely spoke.
Like two mimes moving in the dark
Slowly and clumsy
Their intention was palpable but vague
Open to interpretation, she digressed
Into a cocoon of familiarity, and
Solidarity stood stoic—
Chaperoning from aside
The moon and the spring night
Warm like memories afraid to stay too long
Youth stumbled behind her, stubbing its raw toes and
The calloused knees of her history
Marched inward toward her mind.
She pushed loved back. And need, and—
Through the lacquer of passion
He never left.
Despite her flailing and pushing, and
The disconnect between her words and
Her action, he spoke louder than all
She loved him, and she hated him.
She was disgusted and turned-on.
But his grace spoke grandeur, and
She was addicted to it all.
existential happy hour
I fell into the vacuum. I don’t care who is sitting alongside me at this faux wood table made to look like a redwood sliced mid-thought. It lay there dead, palms-up. Sad.
I eavesdrop on the conversation between an unlikely pair of men beside me. He, kids 4 and 8–wife stays at home. Him, dating two years—when she finishes graduate school, they’ll be together. Boring.
Across the room, not far enough away, a crowd of eight gather celebrating an engagement. They are hanging foil balloons and landfill paper signs: “She said “Yes!””
I, on the other hand, am gravely alone. Soothing an Amber because they don’t have anything darker this time of year. Checking and rechecking my pocket with the hole for my chip to a second.
The day grew morose early. Which made it long. And it is still going.
I am not lonely except during times when the thought that I should be encroaches upon me.
I will drive to the ocean this weekend. I focus on it. The future. The fact that there is one. Wishing my life away—
And in the meantime I stay busy. Busy with work and grossly interrupted sleep and, this bar.
There are at least 15 in the engagement party now. At least three generations. I try to look into their eyes to see when hope leaves. But several are familiar and the others are cutting cake so I give up and use my chip.
And just as I sit on the other side of the room, someone walks in and everyone else screams “Surprise!”
And I can’t get out of here fast enough.
Lovers pass drunk in the night
My breaking point. Singing in hymns. He texted me at midnight. And I was ready fast. Waiting. Wet. And thirsty. But I woke up the next day: I was sober and numb. I would travel the earth with you, she said, if our timelines had aligned. But they didn’t. And they won’t. Two minutes too late. And I sit here wondering what went wrong. Within me.
she bartender
I like that it looks like you just rolled out of bed. Your hair is kinda greasy, hanging dirty down your back. Your face is greasy, too—but I like it. Your basic clothes—that may be dirty or maybe you slept in them—are just right. And your cheap shoes, knockoff Keds, are perfect because they wear the streets you take to work Sometimes you don’t wear a bra. Ideal. Or when you do, it's not padded or a push up, it is cotton white and stained. I assume you have a male roommate who is overweight and games all night. And you can barely make rent. Maybe your Dodge doesnt turnover in the cold, and you have layers of childhood trauma. But you are confident. And you’re sexy. You are more woman than most women. You know who you are, and you own it. And I have a crush on you. From afar. And the way you mix my Manhattan, in my peacoat and privilege—I’d love to take you home, but I don‘t have the courage so I admire from my barstool instead.
The vacuum
The car dropped her at the corner. A block away, across the street. The darkness reflected off the pavement as it does after a rain. The moon was full. Its face looking up at her in every puddle. She took a seat at a table this time. Normally she would sit at the bar. Disappear there amongst the row of stools and mostly men, mostly sitting alone and pulled away enough to bend their knees and twist towards a game playing off to the side. But this time she took a seat in the corner. She felt uneasy and didn’t want her back exposed. She had graduated to taking her vodka straight now. Sometimes on the rocks with a twist but she was cold tonight. She took it neat. A vacancy welled from beneath her soul. Her day taking from her more than what she could keep. She didn’t let him drive her home afterwards. It was over. Perhaps left to rot in a back alley dumpster or maybe it was burned. She didn’t know what they did with it once it was gone. She tried to not think about it. The bar was always quieter on Tuesday nights. The week still fresh, people not yet worn enough to drink. Starting over again. The regulars didn’t know what day it was though. Their golden steins and amber crystals— meditating on a molar of permeable discomfort. Every couple of breaths her chest felt heavy. It felt like trapped fog. Sadness growled from within. Perhaps it was remorse. Or guilt. Or maybe it was grief sitting there at the table with her forcing her to make eye contact. She shot the rest of her vodka and left. She decided to walk home. Exhausting what was left of herself onto the city streets like a virus. Going back home less than she was when she woke up that morning. She could feel new callouses forming. Hardening the soft spots of her that scarcely remained. It seemed that there was almost no space left to decay until now. And it surprised her how comforting it felt. To know now that this hurt could be used as a barrier. A tomb. She decided right then that she would bury it deep. And she decided to never speak of it again.
The Massage
She drew the curtains. Heavy with dust, unremarkable. Old. They made a metallic whoosh as they gathered. She turned around. There he lay spread across the bed like a starfish. Ready for her. Face down, moving her to rub out his day. She started with his neck. Then his shoulders. Bulky. Hard to wrap her hands around. Her hands were small, boy like, but strong. She gathered her energy spread wide through her fingers. His biceps. Undefined. His forearms, masculine. She worked in the direction of the hair growing there. Onto his lower back, she pushed forward and upward. Do you want me to rub your feet? Heels up. I’m not gonna say no. She worked thoroughly into his ankles. Carrying god-knows-what along with his day. She could feel his trauma bearing down on him. His calves were especially tight. She took a deep breath and exhaled as she worked the pain from his body. And up into his inner thighs.
And then he turned over.
Dark Musings, a draft
A long slumbering low
Beneath the eucalyptus
Time sat aside the beyond
Weathered in the great divide
Of consciousness and dream
Dancing quietly to no sound
Entering her mind at 2AM with
Dogs reluctantly rousing
The nocturnal birds hunt
She rolled into the mist
Risen between love and desire
And she heard his voice whisper
Underneath a southern moon
Igniting their path into light
17 Southbound
The pavement was cool. And the warm breeze beat against it. She felt like she could walk forever, and she considered it. Freedom was so vibrant that day that her independence swelled with its own ego. She walked past her stop. A determined bus slowing then speeding again in a hurried succession to its next stop forgetting her immediately. But the breath left behind in the tailwind of its ghost embraced her. At the next corner, a young Italian girl and her beautiful bronze friend. As she approached their path, she felt ashamed of her own filth and disregard for sin. She felt their energy, young, innocent, full of faith and grounded in hope and destined for true love. And then the pretty one lit a cigarette. And the Italian girl giggled. And she pulled from her purse a bottle of booze wrapped in a brown bag. They scurried off like a secret. And for some reason the story she had told herself shattered, but she loved them even more. Fighting to live the best that they can: she understood that. At the turn, a pigeon sat thinking. His smooth grey head turning to look and to eavesdrop or check the next crumb. She hadn’t seen a pigeon in the city for years. There’d been conspiracy tales told of the long lost feathered beast, in fact. She remembered a boy she once knew who’d told her that all birds are robots. She made eye contact with the specimen as she turned onto Porter but couldn’t process those thoughts. So she let them go, and she hustled to catch the next bus.
The bar played in notes of e-minor
She was drunk. And feeling melancholy. She ordered a Manhattan. Extra sweet, neat. She was disappointed that they didn’t put the cherry on a pick, rather it sunk to the bottom. Stemless. And alone. The bar was crowded. She watched the patrons move collectively towards the bartender as she raised her hand. A beckoning of spirits, as it were. And there was so much optimism. She tried to not be cynical. She looked for hope in their voices, their eyes, the way they ordered their drinks. And in their small talk. It was difficult to not notice the human condition sitting stoic behind them in a corner booth, smoking its green menthol down past the filter. But she tried. She dug out the cherry drowning in amber with her fingers. She didn’t care how vulgar or desperate it looked. Because maybe she was. She was old. Or older than them, she knew. She had a loud heartache. The kind that comes only from having so many chances, offering her love to anyone who would take it. And they did. And after a while, there was nothing left to return. She wished she would have ordered her drink on the rocks now. She could have chewed and sucked on the ice as a way to bargain with time. But she was done. On all levels. The marrow of her cocktail ran dry, and she left. Leaving behind another generation, it seemed. One smiling blindly into the same spotlight that took her last breath. And their hearts cried out.