Posts tagged poemsorwhatever

when you were gone i spilled and stayed that way, a stain, until you came back to contain me. i cannot be this way, a liquid woman in love with a man made of glass.

skin    my wrapping      
rag soaking up the stain that is     my body
bandage clutching together this wounded     meat       
keeping     me a secret
keeping me a     made bed

eyes    traitors    spilling always spilling
always so wide in the    mirror
oh    you forgot me again

hands        my broken pavement    my
unmade bed        my    little    animals
i am vain enough to assume that all    my
belongings are in love with me

body my     dream-logic
my forgotten thing.

to every man who has tried to “fix” me-

the only thing wrong with me
is my taste in men.

maybe you know everything
and maybe the slanted kind of love that fills this
little nutmeg-colored body
is all wrong. maybe when i look at you without
blinking, it is not love. maybe i will never be right until
i learn the urgency, the aching of
a pair of hands emptied of another’s body
maybe i am a coward. maybe i have left
too many things behind. maybe your name will trickle through
all these holes i’ve cut through my ears. maybe i filled all the space
with metal. maybe i’ll forget you and
maybe you will hate me, maybe i’ll be sorry, maybe i wasn’t
even there, maybe i fell out of my own body and watched you
grab my shell by its face, maybe you didn’t see my eyes,
maybe you don’t even know me. maybe you don’t understand
what i’ve had to leave behind because maybe you don’t understand
what i had to begin with. maybe i should pay attention,
to tell myself about this later.

i sat outside of my body and watched you tell me i was doing it all wrong
i am blinking and it sounds like water and you are so hungry all hands all mouth i am
only eyes i blink hugely i make a list of everything i have had to leave behind
you don’t even know me    you don’t even know me
why do you get to assign me your love
you are begging     i can’t remember where my hands have gone     i
should go but i’m not here right now i am pressed up against all your begging,
narrating the whole thing to myself    you want me to be sorry that i left
i never even got here    i don’t know what you want        i don’t know what i have
i don’t have anything    you don’t even know me    how do you know that i am even
what you want    why are you so hungry    no no no no no no no no no no no no
i’m sorry     i’m sorry    i’m sorry    i’m sorry
i’m trying to pay attention     to tell myself about this later

what control-hungry age is this
that we have taken from our ghosts
the decision to haunt us
and have shackled their imprints
to static and light

what re-murdering is this,
draining the warm flush and pounding blood
from a memory, claiming
a buzzing trick of the light
as resurrection, claiming
that if you choose to make yourself
nothing more than voice and body
you too can live forever.

the oranges kept in the refrigerator overnight
the crisp shock of sweet
the rose-gold of the clock as it spins towards california

the last recital of a faithful teapot
its butter-bronze, its hiss-hot skin
the eyelash-girth leak in its spout
the plastic plate collecting its cinnamon blood

the tumble of hair released from its topknot
the cool spread of water across the skin
its trickle down the neck, its curve along the cheek
the rumple of saturday’s still-packed bag
the inviting mouth of wednesday’s suitcase

the graceful, not delicate
still the relish of the impolite
the expensive joke
the stomach-laugh
the unstarted paper
the collaged dinner
the wide-open midnight
this wealth, these crisp-sweet oranges
this indulging and this affording

or “what happens when you irritate the perpetually irritated”

ask any of the ten times the world has ended
in the past two hours
anything about me that you need to know, eyes
widened, like if you stretch them out big enough i’ll
find the threat you’ve tried to piecemeal out of every time
i was kind to you and every time
you thought that to mean that you should not be afraid of me. you can
try your scary eyes at me all day if that’s how you
choose to waste this good weather, but know
that a snarl and a stern voice are a weak imitation
of everything about me that you fear. which is to say,
learning the words to a sorceress’ spells does not
teach you her magic. so try your stern, try your
big-girl voice, try your shoulders back and chin raised and
try to keep your gaze from faltering. i’m not here to stop your playtime.
but if you bring your borrowed weapons into the air
around my face, and square your shoulders and act like i
will not hurt every feeling in your body without raising
an eyebrow, do not come to me for a handkerchief when
i hurt every feeling in your body without raising an eyebrow. you’re
a smart girl- before you strapped on some woman-shoulders and
tried to start a war, you should have considered the reasons
why everybody you know is scared of me.

Pretty girl, he says
I’m just a pair of eyes, you say
Your hair, he says
I’m just a pair of eyes, you say
How’d you get this one, he asks
I forget that there’s a rest of me, you say
Is that your mother’s smile, he asks
I never left my mother’s body, you say
Are those your father’s eyes, he asks
The only part of me that got born, you say
Why your eyes so big, he asks
They are my whole body, you say.

when i like somebody i
feel like i am the
butt of some joke, like
all the men i’ve ever
hurt are crowded around a

table, watching the whole thing
happen, shaking my lover’s hand
and patting him on the
back.

strong girls like you must be 
the world’s loneliest creatures 
your silences, their own wilderness 
where the men 
come with promises that they will be
the one that gets you to stay.
big-shouldered boys who will melt 
their bones down into currency 
and will want to conquer you but
never claim.
you are the girl they chase 
not because they actually want you
but to prove that they can catch you.
what they haven’t learned 
are all the times you’ve broken your own heart
on their behalf, those clumsy hunters
who never know the right sequence of words
to do the job properly

He is singing and you’d swear on every tooth in your mothers mouth that it is just for you. You are hollow instrument waiting for singer-breath to coil into your empty and make you alive. I know. This is your woman-plight, the man who said the song was yours. The music turned whisper come morning. The way your music men recommend you to each other, saying they’d never met a girl with so much room for another’s breath, like last night he hadn’t found all the twenty prayers in your name. But the boys in the band, their mouths all full of song and woman-names, they evict all your secrets from their bellies the moment you button up your blouse and go home. Diana, they say, the instrument so empty she’ll sing no matter what kind of breath you give her. Diana, the moon goddess, she’ll suck the darkness all the way out of a room and invite you to come find it. Diana, nighttime name, nobody’s song, the instrument the boys always blame for her hollow, the girl they can’t wait to turn to melody.