Tag: writing

• i’ll be there.

  (escapril, day 30: catharsis)

  You were fresh and furious,

  Bright winter sun burning down hot for a split second,

  Burning, burning, burning up.

  Your magnifying glass focus

  Searing holes through green leaves, squirming ants, the soft meat of your palm.

  You said you just wanted to know how it felt, to be an insect under the eye of god.

  All that we feel is reducible to mere fluctuations of chemicals, the shifting of the sand in the hourglass.

  Will you let it scrape you raw, or will you fight?

   

  Breakdown was inevitable.

   

  I saw you crying in your car.

  You didn’t know I was there, and I didn’t know what to do.

  Does anyone ever know how to cope with someone else’s grief?

  I cannot take on your pain no matter how hard I try.

  There will always be something bent inside you, after.

  I cannot scold you, cannot cry your tears of release.

  That is on your shoulders.

  It seems awfully unfair, pain begetting pain,

  But it is what it is.

  You have to let yourself let go.

  I’ll help you after everything crumbles, when you are tender and new.

  I’ll put all the books back on their shelves, run a hot bath, and scrub every surface.

  Throw open the windows and settle into bed while the sheets are still damp,

  I’ll tell you a story, something with a happy ending. Something good.

  When it all falls apart, I’ll be there.

  May 1, 2019

  writing

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• gratitude

  (escapril, day 29: may flowers)

  I am tired and footsore and my head hurts something awful.

  My lips are chapped and I can barely speak-

  But let me think back.

  Why do I ache?

  From dancing, coughing, laughing in a crowd.

  Relentless motion, sending my soul upwards.

  Why am I on the cusp of voicelessness?

  From singing my heart out under the lights.

  Today is one of the good old days, no matter the soreness.

  I am glad to be tender, glad to rub bruises and bandaid blisters.

  They are reminders of strange, wild bursts of joy that come

  From doing my best, in working my hardest.

  From shining my star, proud and exultant.

  April 30, 2019

  writing

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• of the woods

  (escapril, day 28: reflection)

   

  Oh to be eight years old and unafraid again!

  A little gremlin with twigs in her hair and dirt on her cheeks,

  Baking cakes from mud and castles in the sky,

  Never once thinking to look in a mirror.

  Nothing was about self, only about doing, about being.

  To laugh loudly and let my teeth show.

  To run without pain,

  To dance without shame.

  Feet made rough by rough of stone,

  Slicing green veins open with sticky nail edge.

  Sucking my thumb clean, no heed to germs.

  It’s some kind of summer dream where boys are friends,

  And they only hurt in games.

  I broke what she was, and now I am something like a woman,

  Staring in the mirror, wondering when my fingers got so clumsy.

  April 29, 2019

  writing

  ---

• something or something else

  (escapril, day 27: the state of it all)

  What’s going on here? Is there something? Are we something?

  I think you want it. I know I do. But still, it’s uncertain.

  Sometimes I think I’m imagining it. Whatever this is.

  It’s undefined, blurry, hard to make out,

  Hazy like the shimmer of oil on the asphalt of the school parking lot.

  I snap a picture of it, my beatup boots framing the edge,

  Before running to catch up with you, looping my arm through yours,

  Teasing you about something silly.

  Run your fingers through your hair, the smell crispy clean,

  Our bellies stuffed full of cheap coffee and candy and all kinds of crap,

  We try to stave off that inevitable late night crash,

  Giggling over God only knows what.

  It’s something like teen rebellion.

  April 28, 2019

  writing

  ---

• the me in you

  (escapril, day 26: girlhood, boyhood)

   

  You know you’re meant to be something.

  I just want to be someone’s.

  Well, not just anyone’s. I’d like it best if I could be yours.

   

  I smile as you talk about all the things I was never allowed to do.

  Baseball games and late night runs and an actually absurd number of shirtless shenanigans.

  What do I have to tell? Only silly little things. Mine against me.

  You chuckle at my embellished aggravation,

  At my confirmation of your subconscious disdain.

  We all like to believe certain things.

  I don’t fault you your chosen blindness,

  When I would tear the very muscles of my eyes from their sockets

  If only you’d soak up the blood.

   

  I’ll pick the lint off the sleeve of that ridiculous sweater,

  Brush my hair while I put in my pearls,

  Fix the clasp of my necklace and

  I’ll straighten your tie.

   

  Let me curl up in your lap like a little cat,

  Rest my head above your heart,

  Let the beat lull me to sleep.

   

  Love me in my ugliness,

  A naked ugly peach colored peach fuzzed thing, I am, I know.

  But you can look past all that, can’t you?

  Love me in my lines and dips

  And salted, speckled surface.

   

  Let me be an extension of you,

  Flesh of your flesh, bone of your bone.

  Let me keep your fingernail clippings in the locket around my neck,

  And I’ll do anything for the me in you.

  April 26, 2019

  writing

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