Why do I always cry when I think about why I love you? Why am I so scared? It is a new experience. It is like feeling heat but not knowing the source. And then One day you realize You're able to open the frosted glass doors. And behind them There is the fire. Burning with peaceful conviction. Patient warmth. Something new but familiar. Beautiful but risky. Contained but powerful.
Wears a misty cap.
And the asphalt sings
With a metallic odor.
This feeling hangs
Like a lead shawl
Drawing down my eyelids
Against the white sky.
Coastal sage scrub
Pleads on the side of the I-15
For the brush of a coyote’s tail.
Desperate optimism.
Anger, taps on the glass window
Annoyed that it has to wait.
But it’ll wait,
Even if it takes all night.
It is better to hash this out.
Kick at the puddles.
Scatter this muddy water
Across the sidewalk.
The wet season has been long
For us. A monotonous drizzle.
White noise and floods
On a Saturday morning.
Sitting on your cooler
You pull me in closer,
You say that you like me
And the rest is history.
Your smell, your breath
Your views on death
Your voice, your hands
Your working man’s tan.
I count my blessings
When they aren’t around.
I’m lost and I’m messy.
With you I’m found.
I thought I was waiting
On the right time to say this.
But I was right all along
And waiting was wrong.
The anger is changing
How I read your reactions.
Emotional violence
Ignites the dark silence.
The full moon is hanging
Somber in the smog.
We flash down the 10 West
“Would you just give it a rest?”
My fears do the blaming.
My ego is a paper maché planet.
We guard against the unreal,
We drown in what we feel.
Darling, we are waning.
Shadows crawled in our heart.
But the sun will still burn
And the earth will still turn.
And the full moon will return.
When you call someone And they don't pick up, Aren't there just two reactions? Relief or frustration. Some people I am just calling Because I think that is what I'm supposed to do. And if they don't pick up, it's like a win Because they can at least see that I tried - I tried to connect with you, but you didn't pick up. So it's not my fault. And I don't have to have a phone conversation, Which can be exhausting and alienating. So I'm relieved. But some people I call Because I've been thinking about them for days. I've been thinking about what they would say In this moment. I've been thinking about what they wouldn't say, too. I'm calling you because I've been trying to be your voice But I am not your voice. I've been trying to not need you. So I call you. And on the third or fourth ring, I imagine you Glancing down at your phone And hitting the button that makes your phone stop ringing Without making it seem like you ignored my call. Hi you've reached Danny, I can't take your call right now— I thought we were going to talk. I think about the conversation we would have had. I think about all the people I haven't picked up for.
Five years ago, I told myself I didn’t want to see people from high school. I wasn’t ready. It would have been our five-year reunion.
I told myself that I would wait until the 10-year. By then, I would certainly have a job that everyone would be envious of. I would be a doctor, a CEO, a scientist, an artist. I would have a husband and a life that made me too busy to care what they thought. I would be a completely different person from the girl who could barely make eye contact with people in the halls.
Well, five years have passed and I am just another cog in the corporate machine. I am a changed person, but not a different person.
I have grown up a lot. But I can still feel the roots of insecurity tug at my guts every time I consider going to the reunion. Roots that have taken a concrete hold in the soils of my psyche. Roots that were watered with name-calling, sunned by shame, and fertilized with all the bullshit of the bullies who made me afraid of my own sexuality.
Hey super freak!
I hope the laughs were worth it. You made me feel like dying. I dreaded coming to school because of you. I dreaded liking boys because of you. I hope that you will feel the same level of shame you inflicted on me.
I hope your dick gets caught in a wood chipper.
Now that I’ve said that, I want to talk to those who my heart has reached for the most. The girls and boys who are feeling ashamed for wanting to feel alive. For wanting to be touched. For wanting to be seen and loved. You do not need to feel guilty for letting your body take the reins, for once.
Your body. It is so incredible. It does everything it can to keep you alive. I cannot say the same for my brain, my thoughts, my feelings. But my body. It wants me here.
There is no greater feeling than letting go. There is no scarier feeling than letting go. The un-gravity is unnerving and the wind rushes past you in the wrong direction. To unsaddle the body from the brain and let it out into the world is reckless relief. And it’s okay.
To all my super freaks: I see you and I love you. I don’t blame you for wanting what you want. I don’t hate you because they hate you. I don’t judge you for being young and alive. I don’t argue with your reasoning.
I hope you know you are going to be fine. And there will be wood chippers waiting for all the people who try to make you feel otherwise.
Why am I so hard on you?
Because I am hard on me.
And me doesn’t like to hear it from me,
Doesn’t like to believe it could be me.
So me puts it on you.
I put it on you
Like a dark cloak
Made of mud and gum
And melting molasses.
“Why is she like that?
Why can’t she just stand up for herself?
Why is she so insecure?
She’s just doing it for attention.
She’s pathetic.
I hate that she’s like that.”
I hate that I am like that.
But I am trying to be
More impeccable with my word.
Inflict no harm with my thoughts and speech.
Communicate with the intention of love.
Murder the fear
That has wallpapered my mind
For too long.
Because when I think those thoughts about you
I am poisoning us both.
Love, forgiveness, and empathy
Are the antidote.
You are my Wednesday.
You are the metal clang,
And the slams that echo in the alley
At six in the fucking morning.
You are the sour, dour odor
That sighs over the neighborhood.
You are all the things I don’t need
All the carrot stems and fish skins,
And salted tissues.
You are on your way out
But you will be back in a week
To take more things from me
That I decided I don’t need.
It's not what you say, It's what you don't. What are we doing here? Was that another year? I'm sorry I can't decide. I'm sorry I need your time. I'm just afraid of making that leap. I'm just, afraid. I know that you would be relieved If I told you that I believed In people's ability to change And gracefully rearrange All of the habits we have grown In false secrets we don't own. But I don't think I believe. I cannot give you that reprieve. Not yet - at least... My dear, My soul feels full, this year. And I am trying to see it To feel it and to breathe it. To want what I've got And not pine after what's not Mine or not going to be Mine for eternity. Okay, I think that's enough My now, my comfort, my love.
Midge and I had taken some mushrooms. She was preoccupied with a jar of peanut butter And I was moving on the grassy dance floor, Sneaking sips of vodka-Redbull from behind the DJ booth. I knew the DJ. I think he liked me In a cute, early 2000s movie kind of way. At the office, he would show me music, Tell me how surprised he was to find out I smoked cigarettes. And we would blush wildly At the red-hot silence that squatted in between warm, flighty conversations. I still get a little nervous thinking about it. You came up to me and asked if I wanted to dance. It felt like just us— Except for moments when I caught the DJ's eyes He watched us dance, moving closer and closer. The night I met you, I had already given away a few pieces of my heart Slowly and carefully, wrapped in light pink tissue paper Tinged with cigarette burns. But you came in and took it, Unwrapped it, And started to give pieces back to me.
Neurotica 