10 Poems on Traveling Back

talk to me

1:
The city smells the same you know,
That really distinct smell of hot trash,
And smelling like it needs to rain, but hasn’t.
The highways move in the same swirls.
The buildings seem to be newer and there might to be more of them now.
I forgot that the heat stays around all day, and doesn’t take the hint to leave when the rest of the days guests are departing.
I forgot what it was to walk outside and have the shirt stick to your back. Instantly.
I forgot the colors people wear here, the pinks and blues that you don’t see near Seattle.
Mostly, I forgot how lonely this city is when you’re poor and cannot afford to go anywhere.

2:
He picked me up from the airport,
Even though I had to change my flight time.
I wasn’t expecting to land,
I wasn’t expecting to make it on the plane.
I’d heard people say before it all feels like a dream,
But never felt it myself before,
Are these really my hands back in this city?
Are those really my shoes?
Did he really give me a hug?
And then leave me on my own?

3:
Watching someone buckle or unbuckle their belt,
Clicks my brain into what-if’ing.
Even buttoning or unbuttoning their pants,
In the living room,
On the couch,
Checking the loops before walking out the door.
Draws my eye.
And my body.
So I stare, every time.

4:
We’re getting drinks on Friday,
With people I haven’t seen since, was it Christmas before covid hit?
Dinner on Wednesday,
I’ve got a tour scheduled of one of those homes an architect owned and mosaic’d himself.
There’s concert tickets I’d like to buy,
And a trail I’d like to walk again.
And, oh, that one restaurant that survived the pandemic has their patio open.

5:
I haven’t been able to work.
I tell myself this,
I tell myself that,
I calm myself down trying every trick my therapist knows.
And here I sit, in front of my computer, or book, or phone.
Unable to do anything.
Thinking through mud, moving through molasses.

6:
Eavesdrop and people watch.
Those are your goals in the terminal.
You can try to read, or get something done,
But it never works,
You can’t even watch out the plane window.
Learn about what semi-conductor job the person in front of you does.
Be a nosy old lady for a few hours.

7:
I didn’t feel anything when I saw you but confused,
And trying to figure out how to act.
What was I supposed to do.
Can I put my feet up on your seat.
Wait I have to call my mom.
And you haven’t even looked at me yet,
Except to knock my glasses off.
Was I supposed to respond to that?
And you telling me you had to go back to work.

8:
You won’t still like me
By the time I get back,
You’ll have been on date three with the ice cream shop girl,
Who elbowed her coworkers about you,
And your huckleberry flavor I’m sure.
The girl who liked to hear about the history of the Idaho star garnet
Will have decided you’re the one for her.
And I’ll think about your curls from over here.
Forever.

9:
I take the 803 to get to your apartment,
The northbound,
It’s a five-minute walk,
Then I know how to get to you from there.
I’ve got the pass on my phone.
It’s planned in my head,
It’s just whether or not I can do it,
Get myself up from sitting when the time comes to start moving.

10:
She talked to me the whole way there,
At 4:30 AM on the winding path from our town to the airport,
So nice of her to drive me,
And it was going to be her first time driving my car,
When she went back.
She talked to me about odds and bobs, her family and how smoky it was because of the fires.
I’m not sure if people don’t take her seriously,
Or if she flies under their radar or what.
She works so hard,
I’m just not sure if the sense, the common sense, the practical nature, whatever,
Is there to back her up.

Ten Poems for July

forgive me

1:
He got married,
The boy, the one who said,
I don’t want to be with just one woman,
I don’t do well with those kinds of commitments.
Why are those the hardest to take, I should be happy for my now friend, my former lover, who I know still is attracted to me. I don’t even want to be with him.
He didn’t tell me, warn me,
Even though we made plans together on our birthday.
Did he propose?
I would have given them a gift goddamit.
Were his kids there?
Did he tell her he loved her?
Is this envy? Sadness? Judgement of myself? Contempt?
I can’t even name it, all the feelings go by so quickly.
Why was he in a blue suit?
What do I do now when he dirty texts me? Will she look into his phone?

2:
I asked my friend,
How he deals with that kind of thing,
When an ex gets married,
After telling you something different,
Realizing it was you all along, that they didn’t feel that way about, just you.
He said he categorizes, not compartmentalized, categorizes.
He said there are buckets he sorts things into,
Hurts or not hurts.
I asked him which one I was in?
He didn’t give me an answer.

3:
And she looks just like me.
He liked me because I was his type.
That feels so degrading, to be liked for your body type, so inhuman,
The person inside doesn’t really count, no, not really, it’s just those thighs.
To see someone who looks just like me,
Right there.
In the white.
On Facebook,
When he wouldn’t even tell his friends about us, were we an us?
Why did she have to look just like me? How rude.

4:
What if all that time ago,
I’d given him the other reading,
The other tarot reading,
The one he made the decision based on,
The one he used to get back with her.
What if I had told him instead, the cards said to get back with me.
Would I have been enough?
Or would we not be together, because I wouldn’t have pushed him,
Pushed him for commitment.

5:
You don’t have to hear about my day.
Naw, it’s alright.
I remember you said that you just don’t have the energy to listen to me or deal with my problems, you’re too busy.
I’m sold for an extra 50 cents on the side.
You don’t have to tell your parents about us, I don’t need to meet them,
You don’t take us that seriously anyway,
And besides you’re so far away,
That concession is definitely worth, what, a dollar?
And it’s money you care about at the end of the day, right?
You can only take care of your people if you have your money, right?
How much am I worth to you, hmm?
Not even a concession of an evening.
What bottom scraping scraps do you have for me that I can thank you for?
A birthday card?
A pizza you ordered me?
Sure. That’s good enough to live on.
If I asked nothing of you, and said please for each dropped piece of popcorn, I don’t think you’d love me anymore.
I’m not your it.

6:
There is something beautiful about switching on an old computer,
Hey this thing isn’t worthless,
I’m not worthless.
I haven’t seen this off gray color on a monitor in a while.
I have to push in a turbo button to get out of DOS mode.
I haven’t heard those sounds in a while,
It still reads the 3 ½ inch floppy disks.
Maybe it’s half curiosity,
Have exploration,
Half archelogy,
And half proving to ourselves that even if we’re as old as the clanky keyboards,
Someone will still save us.

7:
I’m playing a game with him.
Yes I know that’s a bad idea.
I even know it’s a bad sign.
To see if he remembers to celebrate my birthday.
To see if he cares enough.
I don’t know what I’m proving to myself or him.
I’m just not going to remind him.
I’m not going to bring it up.
Just to see what happens.
To try.
Maybe I want the attention and guilt he’ll feel when he forgets,
Maybe I want a sign he cares.
He’ll figure it out quickly after, what, the third call I get that day?
Maybe he’ll say I assume you didn’t want to celebrate it.
Maybe I want the moral high ground clear and fair and square.
Why am I testing him? I don’t know,
Looking for an excuse to leave and be with the curly-haired boy?
I’m not sure.
I want that power over him of knowing he’s forgotten one more thing,
And maybe this one more thing will be the thing he’ll finally start organizing himself for,
My missed birthday for the second year in a row, will be why he finally starts to schedule.

8:
I’m a bad plant keeper,
I don’t check the water or nitrite levels enough
I’m never sure when to fertilize.
“But you care and that’s what matters.”
No, it’s not, keeping the damn things alive probably matters more to them than how I feel.
I killed my friend’s cactus once, I’ve never gotten over it.
Me. Responsible for all that death.
Even plucking the leaves to help it keep its shape.
I turned that brown me. And my deadly fingers.

9:
All I want to do is research,
Says the woman who can’t even do the research she’s paid to do,
Instead she pretends she’s working and hides in her room,
So that the days blur together before the big report is due.
And it’s just like it used to be,
When I couldn’t move for feeling guilty.
Will there be anything I can do without all this muck dragging behind me?
Even brush my teeth?

10:
Your sister is having a hard time,
She called me to say,
Her husband isn’t doing what she knows will help him.
He’s not listening to her.
Not listening to her unsolicited advice,
Coming from a place of comparison not love,
He is a little like me, in that we’d prefer to fail in anonymity quietly, on our own.
Otherwise, leave him alone.
Or wait, is it me I’m putting in that slot,
Me who she wouldn’t leave alone to make her own failures.
Let me fall on my own please.
I too, would like to live.

Spokane Summer

cup lines

bridge lines

railing lines

water lines

Ten Poems for Summer

i don’t know what to make of it either

1:
Safe. I told you.
After you said that you have trouble to talking to pretty girls.
I said you wouldn’t have that problem with me.
You said, “don’t you remember the first couples sentences I said to you?”
I said I just remember you were safe.

2:
I found myself uncaring about promises,
That had meant so much, so much.
When I was alone, wanting that stability, to know I had a place and a title, with a boy.
I found someone I liked.
Do you know how hard it is to find someone I like?
Who automatically understood,
I didn’t have to explain things to,
Didn’t have to burden them with the knowledge of all my trauma,
They got it.
I’ve never liked someone else while I was with someone else before.
This is a new one on me.
Decisions to make, I guess, assuming fate stays on my side.
Chance it for nothing? Or stay with the angry one?

3:
What am I doing,
Calling this late at night,
For talk through the phone I would never say if I weren’t sleepy,
Playing with the edges of the knife.
Please just help me feel.

4:
My professor uses jumps scares to test your biometric response.
He says “Boo” really loudly.
They don’t think about PTSD responses to these sorts of things,
Or these fireworks going off tonight.
I get teased for jumping if I’m deep in thought.
Or pushy relatives who want a hug, when I don’t like to be touched.
The loud clapping to call your dog.
I’m constantly vigilant for what will set me off,
One more filter to add to the pile.

5:
What will it be like to be with you?
Are you a kind lover?
Am I making a mistake?
Will we instead have no química?
Will you not like to kiss, or think I should shave more than I do?
Will that one spot on your neck taste like what I think it will?
Will my thighs turn out to be too big?
Will your dog stare too much?
Will your meds let it go through?
What if you’re the perfect height?
What if your hair curls exactly the way I want it to?
What if you look at me like that forever?
What if I hurt you?
What if I snap and yell?
I have to get myself sorted first.
I should have gotten myself sorted out first,
Before I sent those texts.
Am I really thinking about leaving him?
For a chance?
A chance at touch?

6:
What will it be like to see you again?
Will your mouth attack me again?
Will I be put up in one of your houses?
Will you drive me up north to see my friends?
Will you let Grace eat pizza on your couch?
Will I be able to sleep again?
Or will I walk your paver stones in the backyard until I can rest?
Where will I talk too loud?
Who will I love?
Do you even remember how I feel to touch?
Will you call me fat again, well not fat exactly,
Tell me again how I’m not your type, meaning chubby?
Or un-makeuped?
Will you just be drunk again?
And order food all the time?
Fight with me again that women shouldn’t be believed straight off.
Tell me I’m not worth your time with deed and action.
What if what I will makes it true.
What if all I do is cook for you?
What then, is a month too long?
What if the summer isn’t enough?
Will you let me drive?

7:
I can’t get it out of my head.
You said you’d think about me every day.
You knew how powerful that was, I hope?
I hope I’m nice in your memory,
Or your new created fantasies.

8:
There’s a check I can’t cash from my father
For money for a hotel room to escape the heat bubble
Because we don’t have air conditioning in this part of the world.
I can’t cash it.
It’s too much.
I didn’t buy the air conditioner either.
Too scary.

9:
I can’t brush my teeth today.
I couldn’t water my plants yesterday.
You can’t see the floor of my room this evening.
I can’t eat properly anymore.
I want to be a magical pretty number that means I’m healthy.
I have a pile of work I haven’t started.
A boy I haven’t called,
Money I haven’t organized.
And love I haven’t spent.

10:
Say you’ll like me until August?
Please just put a pin it in for me?
I can’t ask,
But it’s all I want to do.
Love me just a little,
Little enough to wait.