Three Thousand

bygones

i remember that time when the sun danced on your face on the bus ride and you thought you looked beautiful

once, long ago, when your hair was soaked with water and happiness

your friends asleep on your shoulders on a bus, your throat hoarse from laughter

the light left as the planet tilted, but so slowly you didn't realize it was night until you couldn't see the sun

you used to press pen to the paper without hesitation

without an eye for your own failings

you would stand outside and inhale the fresh air and feel a lump in your throat.

i wish i was like you

that i could draw forever, and play forever, and sit on a bus and laugh

i wish i had cherished you while you lived

your golden days, to you, were brown

overlooked the happiness for the homework

i wish i could go back to that time, when i was you and we were one and our memories were events of the present

i wish that the days hadn’t moved like the tides, puppeteered by the swiftly tilting moon

but the times have turned and sand once dry has been dampened

i still see the stars

i’ll cherish each light until i'm left in the endless abyss

and i’ll realize that these were the good times too.

breezeblock

it is beautiful, quietly beautiful

it needs no announcement nor gaudy proclamation of arrival

gentle patter of snowfall,

whispered brush of leaf

it is there through blustering sunshine

it is there in deadened sleep

the silence is a thing in itself, the

backdrop of every play

you are never not without it

it's patient, it lies in wait

and when you are ready for it, though you may never be

going out a thing of rage,

riotous against the peace

they'll tie you to the bed

and you'll spit out useless fury

it will greet you, with open arms and heart

it begs you to forgive

but you're animal, not god

and love spawns hatred in your heart

when you're tired and heaving

back bent and wrists red,

the silence will creep

aimless night will descend

and if you've never lived without sound

the quiet is unfamiliar, in the end

it's just you and the trees, and they're scary, yes

but they are soft,

but they are friend

to the one --

you’ve been forever a lack,

a hole, an absence

i cannot imagine you,

because i idolize you

i want, so desperately, for you to be

an absence yet constant presence

you lurk, a nagging feeling

an abcess, an itch

and yet i could not seek you out

because a part of me still thinks

we will crash on the street,

or touch hands at the bookstore,

we’ll smile shyly and pass,

gazes will linger

amid flashing lights or buzzing drone,

or elevator music, or raucous home

any way that would seem

like the stars drew our fate

but you can’t argue that from a swipe,

so it scares me, to find you that way

in the pit, the emptiness of my soul

when i should’ve been looking to the ones who fill,

to the excess, to the outpouring

to the ones i know.

you are quiet giggle

confession stuck as it leaves,

weaving through the crowded street

you are late nights texting,

and the last one to put the phone down,

and borrowed shoes for the night or the week,

and fingers gripping my back when we hug

you taught me ‘i love you’ when i leave the car,

and you taught me to face what i truly felt

you taught me it would turn out okay,

and you taught me when to fight back

love is a whole,

tangible and real

i’ll recognize you when i see you

when i know you, it will mean

i was not fixed,

didn’t find my other half

you were never the first,

you will not be the last

excerpt from ch 9

Zela’s place was not here. Not in this restaurant, not with these people. The sooner she recognized that, the sooner she could get over it.

Wiping angry tears from her blotchy face, she rushed out into the cool night air, retreating to the safety of her car.

She slammed the steering wheel. Once. Twice. And then she crumpled.

Was it so bad to have company pride? To love what she did? Should she not adore her workplace and the people who worked there?

She fished out the rook, placing it gently on the dashboard. She still remembered it as if it were yesterday – Christmas, age twelve. The snow was falling hard outside, and Zela had woken up to a wonderland blizzard. The family had stayed inside, yelling in joy, chasing each other, wrapping paper strewn across the carpet. Her father had swung Malin around, who, of course, was jubilant. Zela watched, wanting to join, but Darren couldn’t hold two daughters at once. So her mother had pulled her from behind, shouting and grinning. She had brought down the chessboard from the shelf, and said with candy eyes and a nutmeg tongue, I think it’s time you learned the game.

Zela refused to stop until she won, but hours passed, and she couldn’t. After her fourth checkmate by the rook and a break for dinner, Zela snuck the piece off the board. Her mother pretended not to notice. Kita won anyway – but she never asked for the piece back.

Zela didn’t win that day. Nor could she the next, or the next week, or the next month.

Within the year, they were at a stalemate. After a year, Zela was consistently winning.

After two years, Zela started high school. According to her mother, there wasn’t time for chess anymore. There wasn’t time for family.

Her chest ached.

She still remembered the scent, the laughter. The warmth of four bodies in the same room. She still remembered the music. 

Zela exhaled, half expecting to see her breath puff before her. But it was summer, and the snow hadn’t come in years. 

all the people i wasted poems on

i hope you get your peace

i hope this lets you feel release

i hope the hurt was worth it

i hope the feeling raw

i hope it scalds when you remember me

and burns the skin right off your lying maw

cowardice (1)

you wish to hide from your mind,

you wish to not be real

you hunger for experience

you crave their artifice

you yearn for something better than this

the curve of smiling lip

you let the colors consume you

if attention strays, it never dips

you want to look and not be seen

you want the mouth to open

you talk of vulnerability,

you hide behind a screen

you indulge in habits you hate,

you hate yourself by proxy

it holds no violence, but it festers

a sight you cant unsee

you wonder how you got here

you wonder how to flee

it draws you back, time again,

its a funny thing like that

habits form, but once they’re there

they’re awfully hard to crack

elpis

nobody taught me what happiness was,

i had to teach myself.

i sought it in a golden fleece,

but it wasn’t found in riches

i sought it in the thunderbolt,

but it wasn’t found in god

i sought it in my mother’s hand,

but she never learned it either

i sought it in my own heart,

but the feeling wouldn’t linger.

nobody taught me what happiness was,

it’s simpler to stay sad

you have to save yourself, i realized

it’s easier said than done

when you’ve convinced yourself you don’t need saving,

that the bone-deep hurt is in everyone.

i made myself happy enough, i bluffed but i should’ve known

enough is never enough

my heart was never my home

i flayed myself at the altar

i bent backwards for pelias

his upward gaze did not falter, 

a midas touch could not settle the rest.

there was no reason, none at all

but i could not accept it,

i think i've always been a little scared of happiness

for me, it was never destined. 

nobody taught me what happiness was,

but i’m trying to learn it now

i’m sorry i hurt so easy

i’m sorry i didn’t treat you well

i’m sorry i stayed complacent, couldn’t face it, didn’t cherish what you gave me 

i hope you can forgive this 

i hope you trust me with your gift

i’d turn back for you, every single time

for one sun-dappled glimpse.

nobody taught me what happiness was,

i think i figured it out.

it's trying, with everything you have, to find it

you owe it to yourself.

on scent

scent indicates familiarity; it’s always there but doesn’t really mean anything until it means something, 

and now its not just brownies cooking, but ours over stifled giggles at two am

and now its not just a car exhaust, but yours singing songs into a sunset 

and then, years later, you catch a whiff

and your head turns, inevitably, because it would be worse than shame, to miss something you love

and maybe a part of you wants you to be happy

and when you lose that forever maybe you’ll seek it in a bottle, or save it in fabric, or even try to rediscover it in the recesses of your mind, 

but scent is uniquely reserved for the here and now,

and i will never live this moment again, but 

maybe i will catch a whiff of it on the breeze 

and my head will turn ever so slightly, 

and i will remember oh, how i loved you so.

unsent

i don’t like saying ‘i love you’ because my heart catches in my throat every time,

the truth can be written with greater ease:

i love you so much it hurts.

and i know you so well, all of you

yet your favorite color still surprises me

i cannot think of who you’d get along with, or what you’d like

because you’re mine, even if i know, i know it’s just a little part.

i think the beauty and fear of knowing someone comes from the vastness.

because you are an endless impossibility,

a miracle.

shall i compare thee to a summer’s day?

or a winter’s night?

or the first taste of spun sugar, melting on the tongue?

shall i compare thee to a sunrise, all dusky blues and cadmium hopes?

shall i compare thee to the calm before the storm,

the silence that descends at the first pluck of a string;

reverent?

you are more than all of it, of course, and maybe one day,

when it feels a little less raw,

when a brush against my skin doesn't send ice skittering through my lungs,

maybe in a week or two,

i can show this to you,

all rapt nervousness and unmet gaze

even in the surety of reciprocity.

and maybe i would say, ‘i’m sorry’,

and you would understand that if i felt it any less

then i swear i would tell you so.

neptune

we are simply the universe interacting with itself, a tentative touch, a shared breath.

and we must be tender with each other, for we are fragile

and we are real,

and you are real.

and you know yourself best, so you should know best that you are deserving of joy and every delicate softness that you stop to rub your cheek against, to feel that conjoining of two forgiving things.

to know that you can love, wanton and gorgeous, sunlit smile touched by every person who has treated you with care,

and possibly treat someone else with care, too.

you can have everything you want, dear

you only have to know that you deserve it

you only have to forgive yourself

dread has no place in our ecosystem, in our tangled, finite hearts

we are the universe, of the same stardust sprinkled onto fertile soil

we are the universe, nursed and nurtured into our positions

we are the universe, laid gently to rest when we are done

we are the universe, and we can help make it a little more bearable before we take our final bow.

don’t go chasing the rest, darling, because you can care without reciprocation

you can simply love

and it is a vulnerability, yes, but not a weakness

it is not a weakness.