Again and again and again

Every time I check the mail and the box is empty of everything but bills and advertisements I swallow a tiny disappointment. I wonder if those disappointments will collect in my stomach, undigestible, making me heavy. I wonder if the combination of their weight and the way my heart skips beats when I read your name—even if it’s not you being written about, even if it’s the name of a stranger or included in the title of a book—will cripple me, make me unable to walk without my knees buckling. I wonder if one day I will be picking the paper up off the end of the driveway and your name will be there on the front page and I will fall, crying out, onto the pavement and the blood on my knees will stain my jeans and no matter how hard I try to scrub it out it will remain there, a reminder. I wonder if every time I stir honey into my tea you can feel the curve of my fingers around the spoon, a spoon you once handed me over breakfast on a Tuesday while you smiled and said, “You’re so sexy in the morning.” Can you hear me, when I breathe into the pillow? Because I can hear you: the absence of your soft snores, same as the absence of your hands on my waist and the coldness of your feet on my calves. I say your name and the walls toss it back at me, my own ears cages for the sadness in my voice: the same pain that leaves dishes in the sink and laundry on my bedroom floor. I stare into the bathroom mirror and I tell my sunken-eyed reflection that no matter how many hours of sleep I lose, I won’t dream of you. But I wake up remembering, every time. And it’s only on Sundays that I can forgive you for the letters you never send, because I don’t have to listen to the mail truck rumbling past, knowing that there’s nothing coming for me. But still I sit by the window, watching. Swallowing, again and again.

I made a blog

dedicated entirely to my poetry, because I didn’t want to flood this blog with the results of what has obviously developed into an addiction. But I swear I wrote a sentence earlier this week that was prose. And I will continue to post prose here. And if you want the link to my poetry, just ask, and I’ll give it to you. 

Sometimes when we’re lying in bed,
your eyes glistening in that wet, sleepy way
fingers twisting in the ends of my hair
I see the roll of muscle beneath your skin
and I can’t help thinking you’re inside out,
a bag of blood and bones
pressing to me with the hot weight of heavy veins
pink, fleshy fingers tracing over the bulbs of my spine.

I close my eyes to the thrumming of your exposed organs;
anxious muscles that shudder against my side
but as I recoil from the jut of your skeleton
I find myself reaching forward,
aimlessly searching beneath your ribs to find
that dark, fluttering heart,
fingering the sticky sack where you keep me
feeling the life of you rushing in my palm.

I draw my hands back and look up
to see your lidded eyes and your face taught in skin
and for a brief moment I wish you were a vault,
something made of stone or steel and locks and promise
instead of a bag of blood and bones
trembling in my bed. 

“Are you laughing or are you crying?” You asked me with your eyes shut, darling, and I wanted to  tear open your eyelids and make you see me.

You are forever not looking, my love.

You are always trapped inside of your head, the way that I am trapped inside of my heart.

I ache for the weight of your gaze. I hurt for the hot feeling of your eyes on my body. Not hands, no, don’t touch me. I don’t want you to touch me.

“Look at me, at me, at me.” The words fall out of my fingers. They settle in the cotton of your pillowcase, in the skin behind your ears, in the soft pieces of hair that brush the collar of your shirt.

You are forever not listening, my love.

I want to be more than wanted.

Selfish

I don’t remember what part of the Bible it’s from, I don’t know, I’m not religious, but isn’t there that passage that says love isn’t selfish? And isn’t that such bullshit? Of course love is selfish. It’s the most selfish thing in the world. You want to have every single part of someone, you want to know everything about them, you want to climb inside of their head and their heart. You know that they have secrets, you recognize that, and you think that you’re comfortable with it and then they show you a little piece, a little slice of that secret world. They share it with you, and then you realize that it’s a sharable thing that they’ve kept hidden from you, and you feel a little lost, and then you feel awful because of course you want them to have that, you want them to have everything. But you also want everything they have. You want to feel like you know them completely. And you feel a little sad, but you forgive them. Because you love them. And maybe that’s the unselfish part, maybe that’s why they say love isn’t selfish. Maybe that’s where I’m wrong. Maybe it’s just me that’s selfish. Maybe it’s just people and I’m just looking for something to blame.

Under steaming water, I wash away an hour. I scrub as hard as I can without rubbing my skin raw, filling my nose with pleasant and emotionless scents. Tied to nothing, they settle easily on the cool mirror and hide me from myself, and I am thankful. I pick up the crumpled clothes of the morning, try to dry them and spray them with perfume. But my bra is still damp, and it doesn’t feel quite right anymore.
Then I turn to face my dress where it sits on the towel rack. Hesitating, I pull it forward and press it to my nose. And it’s there, that forgotten, washed away hour. Sweat that feels like tears on my fingers, leaves and mulch and a car door shut without its passenger, radio dials turned to smother the noise, to cover the words still ringing in my ears, the ones that feel right and so very wrong. Clay and sneakers and muscles and glistening skin, bittersweet admiration from afar and last chance lips and hands in hands and sweat, most of all sweat.
I jolt away, yanking my towel up around my chest. I hurry to my bedroom, wary of the quietly wondering voices rising from downstairs. I pass the drawer where a newly washed shirt lays untouched, a shirt I’ve worn only once, and I worry for the fate of that pretty dress, that it will hang lonely and full of memory in my closet as well. I pull on clothes, any clothes, and head downstairs. I hug my grandmother and she says I smell lovely. But all I smell is sweat.

Black and white, black and white.
Everything today is black and white.
The door behind you, the floor beneath you, 
the cup you’re holding and the coffee you’re pouring.
Black and white, black and white.
Everything about us is black and white.
I’m here, you’re there.
I am, you aren’t.
Black and white, black and white.
Everything we say is black and white.
Yes yes yes and no no no.
I promise I will or No I won’t.
Black and white, black and white.
No in-between or greys or folds.
It’s this or that.
It’s do or don’t.
It’s yes you can but no you won’t.
Black and white, black and white.
All we’ll ever be is just black and white.

To the blog

Summer is no longer in silhouette. It looms so directly above us that there is no room for winter’s shadow, which stretched us flatly across the cold ground not months ago. No, now it is upon us. Every movement, every touch has summer’s signature. It’s in the sand I worm my fingers through like a child. It’s in the vanilla drop that rolls over the ridges of a handmade waffle cone, the one I catch on my tongue before it can hit the hot concrete and disappear. It’s in the salty second skin that follows me inside after a swim. I find it everywhere. It’s why summer love isn’t just love. It’s why we take pictures of our darkened figures against the sun, admiring our own silhouettes when transformed by the summer heat.

Apology

We move slowly like the light across the living room floor as the day progresses. I sit, you stand. I read, you watch the world outside of the window. I stand. You sit at the piano and play all of the songs I hate. I play with the cat. My footsteps make soft swishing noises against the rug as I walk across it in my socks, so I take them off. There is silence. I finger the books on the shelves, searching for something else. Pride and Prejudice is not treating me well. Your playing stops, then starts again. Pavesi. I can’t stop my smile. I step away from the bookshelf and start to dance, the rug warm and plush beneath my feet. An invisible partner moves beneath my upraised hands. I close my eyes and turn, slowly, just like us, just like the sun. The music stops. It is you, now, beneath my hands. We dance to the silence. Your every movement says I’m sorry. And I forgive you, just like that.

Summer love

your fingers on my skin
are like sunburn
a welcome feeling in the winter
but it’s the summer
and your touch makes me uncomfortable

i can’t stop stopping to think
of the way you look at me
and of your boyish smiles
and the sweet way your mouth turns up 
when i tease you 

it should be darling
and i should be happy but
your affection feels like the leftover
sticky sweet residue of a popsicle
and your kiss leaves me feeling cold