Ten Poems for a Hotter July

1:
I can’t quite believe he’s really sitting over there.
On the couch, as a boyfriend,
And we’re living together
And it’s going well.
He cannot be real,
Like sixteen-year-old-me would have been thrilled,
That’s all I wanted in the world, to be wanted, normal, and accepted,
And a boyfriend was the key to all that.
Now he sits there, on the couch, and he’s all that.
I keep forgetting he’s real.
When I get dementia in a couple years, I will one hundred percent not remember his exists. I’m so used to it being just me.

2:
I did it all alone.
That was what I could tell myself about how much better I was than my sister,
Well, yes, she did this and that,
But look at all I did,
All by myself,
I didn’t have anyone to rely on, it was just me.
Except now it’s not.
There’s someone who comes in and asks me if there’s anything he can do to help.
And now I don’t know if it’s better or worse, and which is the hard way of the two.

3:
I thought it would get better,
After I got what I always wanted.
Once I had someone who loved me for me,
And was supportive of my bullhonkey, and mental illness, was cute, and had his shit together,
Who would visit a taxidermy museum on a road trip with me,
But it’s not,
My depression is still hanging around,
My anxiety still plagues.
And I keep telling myself it’s not fair,
It’s not fair.
This was supposed to fix me.
I just want to be normal.

4:
The down key on my keyboard is stuck.
You wouldn’t think it’d make that much of a difference,
But it does.
It makes excel sheets hell.
And every time I open my laptop and the key doesn’t strike properly,
I think, ah yes, this, this is the time when the misstriking key will break the camel’s back.

5:
There are some words I just don’t like,
So I don’t use them,
And I frown when other people use them,
Because they just don’t sound right.
I have no explanation, I act with instinct here.
But like, damn, that’s such a terrible word.

6:
He walked in as I was writing these,
And I noticed how much I like the bridge of his nose,
Where it bows out a little bit,
Do other people like random parts of his face too?
How many times has someone sat next to him on the bus and thought how nice his nose bridge is?
Or do you have to clock in a certain amount of hours spent looking in the vicinity of someone’s face before you can start to say,
My,
What a nice nose-bridge, my good man.

7:
I do nothing all summer, and think of all I could have been doing.
All I could have done.
Instead of crying on the floor with a fan going in the window.
If other people were me, they’d be so accomplished by now.
If I were better than I am,
(Why am I not better than I am?)
I would already have published and chosen a specific field,
And be doing radio spots filled with love and success,
And people citing me.
Instead, I can tell you how great the goodreads top-twenty, high-fantasy romance novels are.

8:
My mom worries my brother doesn’t sing enough to his son.
She thinks the baby won’t be talking enough,
And you know,
She’s already worried that the mother isn’t quite the thing,
And doesn’t quite talk enough to that beautiful baby girl.
I say, Mom, it’s probably okay.
And then the next day, here I am worrying that her vocabulary is a little small.

9:
They want to know what to get me for my birthday when all I want is money.
I’m moving across the country,
Just give me the cash.
Well no honey, I want you to buy something frivolous instead,
Just for you,
Maybe some clothes you’ve had your eye on?
Like, lady, give me my free, pass-go tax and leave me alone.
Here’s a link to a sweater, I say instead.

10:
It was even bad on vacation you know?
I was even having trouble getting out of bed on vacation.
Like, at that point, it has to be not my fault, right?
Like I was going to get onion rings at a place I like and go to a bookstore,
That’s prime –
I want to shower so I can go –
Motivation.
And yet, I was stuck on the bed
With the water running
For twenty minutes.
Telling myself to get up,
And then saying, well we don’t have to shower,
We can just turn on the faucet.
Then we can pull the curtain.
Then we can not be such a failure, my goodness.

Eleven Poems in October

i had a hard time getting these out. have mercy.

1:
She laughs louder when she’s watching Friends with you on the couch.
Her teeth stained wine-red,
One of the glasses that means something sentimental to her in her hands, thumb out, under the bowl.
I’m vaguely suspicious of people who use things every day that are precious to them.
All sixteen of these mugs are important to you?
There’s something there under the alcohol, and the Ado Annie squeal that makes me squint.
Something a little frantic, something a little covering-up. Something suspicious when you don’t get my lube jokes. A craving for, what is that? Fulfillment? Recognition? Love? Stability?
She’s searching for something over there, in that laugh of hers.
One of those people who haven’t been told not to laugh all the time, at the end of every sentence, even when you’re feeling awkward. Like one of those men who’s never been told he’s not interesting.
Something scary in the too wide smile, that foreigners think of as stereotypical American girl.
Something just a little bit whitewashed that doesn’t come off with the makeup remover.
Something.

2:
Smoke alarms only go off when you’ve got a migraine and you’re already sensitive to noise.
The battery is only wired in when you’re trying for the first time to figure out how it works.
The bleeping is only at its loudest when you’re in the middle of something else.
The burner only smokes when it knows you’ve got somewhere better to be.

3:
I cannot read the articles you sent me.
I have stared at the same first sentence for ten minutes now.
I’ve checked my phone twice.
I have read at this word before.
Nothing is getting through.
The writing is too bad,
My anxiety too high.
I cannot read this wonderful thing you sent me,
You’ve sent me to die.

4:
I lost two plants this week.
My pilea mollis
And one of my tradescantias.
It was like a colony collapse.
I don’t know what happened.
I watch in slow, pitiless dread as the leaves turned brown and fell.
I looked on as I saw the clump of leaves on the ground after it got bumped by the brita filtered water pitcher.
I bought two new plants, a dark green aloe, from a lady who said I’d know her front yard by the ducks in the fence,
And from a blonde, no-nonsense woman who handed me two begonia cuttings for a $3 venmo.
I don’t know why I replaced them so quickly.
I don’t know why I think I’ll be able to take care of these guys any better.
But I bought new plants I don’t have room for.
To plant in dirt I don’t have the energy to unbag.
In pots I can’t afford to buy.
In light that’s dying this time of year,
In a room that’s too cold and too dry.
By a caretaker who’s barely hanging on.
That’s me, thinking I can keep things alive.

5:
I’ve had a thought new to me.
If people who do their best don’t always succeed.
That means there’s hope for me, because the opposite is true.
People who don’t work as hard as they can, have the possibility of success.
That’s me.
Who’s losing two days a week to depression,
Hope dammit. You’ve given me hope, I could stumble along perfectly fine forever!

6:
You do not talk to women about their food habits.
I don’t know how you don’t know this.
In the same way you don’t ask anyone why they don’t drink.

7:
I’ve taken up looking cute,
Since you told me I dress suggestively.
And goddamn if the fuckers didn’t notice!
God bless them folks who praise you for matching your socks and necklace.
That took so long to work out, you damn well better recognize.
I read through like fifteen style blogs to find enough clothes I already owned to copy a look.

8:
I’m not quite sure if it’s fair, but that’s what you’re getting now.
You don’t get my personality anymore.
You get the work me,
Which is all you should have seen in the first place.
You’ve lost access to my personal information.
I can hear my therapist in the back of my head,
Is this a reaction or a response?
Have you thought about all the things your feeling,
And then decided on how you’d like to act from there?
No.
Knee-jerk this response, you jerk.
Enjoy this blank façade wall everyone else gets.
And know that you could have had more, all of me.

9:
Fine. Okay.
What am I feeling?
Stings. It stings that somehow you passed me over,
Without saying anything. Created confidences with my roommate,
Which don’t allow me to share.
Took away my safe space,
And now my guard has to be up.
That hurt. Definitely makes me feel like I’m not good enough, that you chose someone else and made me guess, purposely kept it from me, shared your relationship info to my roommate and not me.
I don’t like playing those kind of games. I did once, apologized, and didn’t play them again.
You took my home away from me.
Then you told me what? Told me that I don’t have enough self-confidence, no that wasn’t it.
Insecure, yep, you called me insecure when I asked for your opinion.
And I really don’t think that’s it, I think it was plain-spoken jealousy.
Disappointment is hanging out there too, I wanted something and I didn’t get it.
Shame? Yeah, throw that in with the lot. I can’t believe I felt those things or acted on them.
And then had the gall to second guess myself about what I did wrong.
Annoyance, sadness, and anger. They can round it out,
All hanging out there together clipped on pieces of white paper hanging from wooden clothespins.
Now I’ve catalogued, I guess I should decide how I want to respond.

10:
I don’t know how I want to respond,
Respond is the longer-thinking one,
Unless my dyslexia mixed up those terms, in which case, sorry stressy-management therapist guy I’m trying my best.
Do I still want to joke with you? Do I still want to give you the benefits of advice and consolation? Things I didn’t get? Play ball with you and your dirty innuendos? Do I want you to know you broke something?
Do I want to hear your worries and frustrations? Be the kind of friends I thought we were? I’m not sure.
How I would like to react is to be invisible, coast by and coast through and not have to deal with it. And I think you might let me get away with that. With the coasting by without talking about it, you’re gutless enough.
Now that you’ve got a serious-enough girlfriend, what’s appropriate?
See, when this has happened to me before, my relationship with the guy was already understood, but in this gray patch?
I think I would like to bring it up at some point, maybe let him know that I think that was a little rude, and that I’m not sure I can trust him with personal information. And then keep my distance.
I think that’s what I’d like.
I would like to not care, or rather, I would like to appear to not care.
Be polite but keep my shields on high-alert. Let nothing escape that can be used against me.
Keep that vulnerable heart of mine a bit more protected.
And I’d like to not change my mind, not be petty, but self-contained.
Whole, and okay on my own, not seeking, but sustained.

11:
Today, all I’ve got is fire.
Fine, body, if this is the one emotion you’re going to let through,
We’ll go for it.
What battle do you want me to fight today?
Should I yell at the Dean’s office some more.
Maybe I’ll finally get my internet fixed.
And I’ll just keep reminding people that you have to tell people these things,
Whatever these things are.
Otherwise they wont’ know.

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 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.

Two Poems for October

because i couldn’t get out the other eight

1:
I miss you.
I miss the way you say my name,
Just that hint of accent still kicking around.
The way you would have helped me know what to wear on the first day of grad school.
And be quiet, when I needed, while I cried.
Told me about some new $300 kitchen thing you don’t need, a better version of my Midwest hand-me-down crockpot and crochet oven mitts.
Why couldn’t you have loved me as a friend?
Why couldn’t you keep me?
Why did you have to cut me off and wait for your feelings to go away?
Why did you have to do what I did to you?
Why couldn’t you have just put me first?
Even said there was potential to put me first.
So I could have stayed. So I could have loved. And gotten to ride in your car one more time.
Hear the gear shifts through the iPhone mounted to your vent.
Made you hike in the woods in your good shoes at dusk.
Made you laugh, and shake your head, and gotten distracted in a work meeting,
Just the once more.
So I’d feel like I still have my friend.
And I’d feel like I didn’t do something wrong.

2:
Please don’t kill yourself this Christmas.
Don’t do it for me,
For my entirely selfish reasons.
I want to know there’s someone in a worse place than me,
So I can feel better about myself.
I need that someone with a darker sense of humor,
So I can still be surprised by jokes darker than death.
I want to feel like I’m bad, but at least I’m not that bad.
I want that illusion that I can help someone who needs it,
Bring food to the needy, have a purpose, keep you alive.
I want to have that edge that says, yeah I have a suicidal friend, but I’m helping her through it.
How cool is that?
I don’t want to be the kid in class who has an edgy reason to be late on her chapter summary.
I want to hear more weird german words, to remind me there’s more to learn.
I want to hear your impossible to hear voice over the phone.
I don’t want another cause I have to take up because another one of my friends died because of it.
I don’t have that kind of time.
I don’t have time to grieve you this year.
Wait just a minute or two, okay?
I would have to meet your family at the funeral, and they sound like total assholes, who wants that?

10 Thoughts on the End of the Relationship

1:
He told me I have one setting.
I only behave with people one way.
I said yes.
He said he was just noting.
I told him that he hadn’t seen my other sides.
He told me to drop my filters.
I said they’re there for your protection.

2:
I knew he was immature.
I knew it.
I told my sister.
And she laughed at me, that I need someone communicative.
She laughed because she think I don’t share.
But I knew he was incapable of talking about his feelings, at least with me.
But I need that kind of transparency.
I don’t think he knows enough to try and change.
To ask for what he needs, to infer, to care, to suppose, or touch me with anything other than his hands.

3:
It feels like he threw me away, by not taking the time to think of me.
Just because it doesn’t show on my face doesn’t mean I don’t feel it.
But now I read something online that says, adapting your actions based on how you think the other person will react is manipulative. Is it?
I don’t know.
If you’re only responsible for how you feel, doesn’t that let you get away with whatever you want? Lead to pleasure-seeking behavior only?
Maybe it’s just a sign that I was raised in a bad emotional environment.

4:
He keeps calling me weird,
I think I asked him not to.
I told a friend,
Who said,
Anyone who still has their bed against a corner isn’t mature enough for a relationship. Doesn’t take into account basic accessibility of two people sleeping.
I sat there at two a.m. wanting to leave.
Because I couldn’t sleep.
Because I didn’t feel like he liked me.
I don’t want to be called weird.
I want to feel normal and fine just as I am,
Not different,
Not away from you
Just okay for being me.
I’m sorry you don’t come across people who behave differently than you expect.

5:
Is it because I already had it worked out in my mind?
He isn’t for me.
He makes me feel bad about my body.
Goodness gracious. I’m supposed to say out loud –
Please don’t blame me for the way my body reacted, or
I’m sorry I threw off your groove the first time we tried to have sex?
What else can I say but I don’t have a lot of sex, and I’m sorry.
I’ll be a joke you tell in stand up.
And you can be my thought in a poem.
My heart was protecting me, I knew this.
And I’m little mad at it, for not letting me get hurt, feel.
But I’ll be leaving unscarred, and with a little more perspective on myself.

6:
Here’s what we’re going to do.
We’re not going to initiate contact.
I left nothing in your apartment.
I figure in a couple weeks you’ll invite me out on a Monday.
And I’ll decide from there.
I won’t seek your attention. So I can detach.
I’ll be horrible, and not speak how I feel out loud,
I’ll turn into the ball of self-sufficiency.
Wring out the old happy face leftover from my terrible years of living with my mother and telling everyone everything was fine.
And you’ll get no part of me.

7:
Even though I laugh all the time, and can usually keep a conversation up,
I’m supposed to be quiet?
While you make me feel bad for taking too long to get wet?
You’ve never said you wanted me.
I would have thought about being body monogamous, but my heart would’ve remain elsewhere,
Behind those filters you hate so much,
Behind the never minds you don’t want me to stay, that’s where I keep it.
Because I need a depth you can’t provide, I need understanding, compassion, and bluntness.
I need it. I’m not scared to ask for this, it isn’t rude, and I’m asking politely.
Is it because he’s going to say what I think he’s going to say,
The same thing I’m going to say,
Which is I’m indifferent, and my body needs warmth?
And then you compare to me a character from an anime show?

8:
Is it my work to fix it? Do I want to take that on?
It isn’t my work to point out what your mom didn’t teach you, and twist to make it better.
For someone who hurts me?
No.
You don’t really get to hurt me twice.
Those doors shut honey.

9:
I’m sorry I have too many filters?
I’m sorry sex makes me jumpy and tense because I’ve been assaulted?
What would make it better?
I’m sure it’s my fault, but let’s keep putting the blame over here shall we?
What’s he going to tell those friends of his that would never ask after me?
She found someone else,
Hand wave, haven’t seen her in a while,
I don’t know, good as far as a I know?
No one would ask him what happened.
No one would be like, bro, you’ve been an asshole.
Do you think because apparently I’m a machine, that I don’t need words, feelings, water, and food?

10:
Obviously oblivious.
He’s hurtful in his casual everyday.
I told him he can say whatever he wants, but that he’s responsible for the result.
And he told his friend that he has to watch what he says around me.
Equality feels oppressive sometimes to the ones used to getting their way.
Go ahead, keep calling me a robot.
Then ask me why you only see one side of me.

7 Poems with Titles

i will post something better, and better written tomorrow. this is all i can do for today.

Heard in the Hallway
I thought,
I’m not in rural Alaska anymore.
I won’t have to hear abuse happen and be powerless and guilty.
But I came home.
And he hits the dogs.
Not in a, I’m venting my anger,
But in a, you’re not behaving properly way.
And I want to go away.
But he’s old, and hopefully dying.
And I don’t want to deal with it.
Or make my mother deal with her husband.

I’m Sorry
He called me a minefield.
I keep thinking,
He’s the wrong one to practice this on.
This time,
I can’t disentangle whether it was him, or it was an old hurt
That I’m just deciding to feel today.
I flashed back to all the times I would be excited, or mad, or really happy.
And my sister would be there to make fun of me,
So that I never showed how I was feeling,
No one would notice and no one would hurt me.
She would flick her thumbnail over her ring finger and tsk,
God, what is wrong with you.
She’d say.
He was teasing my mood in a casual way.
Then.
I lost it, and started crying. Why was I crying?
Suddenly all those 13 year-old me feelings come back,
I got quiet, and I didn’t know why.
And I don’t think he’s strong enough to deal with this,
Or smart enough.

I Lost the Whatever I Had
My sister says I’m wasting away.
That’s what living in this house does to me.
My mother’s house.
She says she can’t watch it.
She says come live with her.
This is what happens when I can’t speak my mind,
When I can’t criticize,
When no one thinks I’m important.
All the whatevers I found living on my own disintegrate.
So that I have to cry silently at two in the morning so no one bothers me.

I Don’t Like Her
My brother’s first girlfriend.
When my sister pushed me for the whys.
I said, “she’s young.”
She’s …
How do you say someone is accidentally racist?
They’re only 19.
And he’s sillier with her than I’ve seen him in a long time.
She’s a lot like me.
And it’s hard to see your own traits reflected back at you by a prettier face.
She asked me to tell embarrassing stories about my brother to her.
How do I explain what’s wrong with that?
I told my sister, she’s very much raised as middle-class suburbs Indiana.
I think he’s smarter than her. I think he can easily out-maneuver her.
I worry that she’s not enough of a force of nature to counteract the abusive tendencies his father taught him.
He asked, and I said, “you like her, I like her.”
Cop out. I’m a cop out.

She’s Way Too Good of a Person to Be Friends with Me
It’s not often I’m the crazy lady who takes someone on adventures.
Except with her I am.
I’m the brave one.
And she takes me seriously, and the things I tell her actually seem to help her.
It’s almost like I’m scared she’ll clean the cynic out of me and I’ll have to start caring again.
Oh god save me.

I Haven’t Found a Job
I shake, literally my hands shake, like they do when I confront my mother,
When I have to apply for jobs.
I have to put my hand over my eyes, scary-movie-watching style, and just type.
To the outside, it’s such an easy fix.
I want to find a job, almost any job, before I move,
Just kidding, I want a paying job that isn’t demeaning.
And there go all my options.

This Counseling Book
Don’t worry about why I’m reading it.
Listen to what I discovered.
If the counselor and the client have different social-economic status, personal values, background and experiences, they might not click.
My god. This is why people who move have so many problems.
Think about it, if you don’t want to share with a trained professional who’s a little different than you, why would you ever be friends with someone so vastly different than yourself. They, and I quote, don’t have “intuitive insight.”
And you know what else?
This is exactly why my roommate up north couldn’t find any friends,
Because she doesn’t have anything in that list in common with the locals, and she didn’t know how to find common ground.
She thought the common ground should come to her.

Poems from My Day (11-7-16)

1:
I hate it when my mother is right.
She said, you’ll have a time when two different guys are after you,
And you won’t know what to do, and they’ll tell you how blue your eyes are.
When I finally thought I was good by myself,
There she is in my head,
The woman who never leaves,
Telling me they’d love you more if you were skinnier.
And they only like you because you’re new in town.

2:
We did thirty days of yoga,
On the thirty-first day,
I asked my roommate, are you ready to go at seven?
Yes.
At 6:55, dressed and ready,
She asked me how I did it, how I could keep going?
I did yoga in my room by myself.

3:
I said something in a bad tone that upset someone’s cousin at a luau a couple months ago.
So my friend’s friend was mad at me on her behalf,
For months.
No one said anything to me.
That’s why half the town hasn’t been talking to me for a months and months.
What kind of people do that outside of middle school?
Do I want to be friends with people who do that?
Am I being snotty?
My mother said, when I called her to cry,
Well, they got over it, so it’s all in the past,
And doesn’t matter anyone.
That doesn’t feel right either.

4:
I listened to the OBC RENT soundtrack while I folded laundry.
So many nothing were on my list today,
So many different lines to cross off,
And I got one done.
I folded laundry.
That’s all your going to get from me and my couch today.

5:
I had to have a talk with him because my conscious kicked in,
I don’t know what to do about him,
I’m being silly to start this at all.
It’s all in my head.
He could be showing the pictures I’ve sent him to drunk fishing buddies out on the boat,
So that when people see me they blush.
But I had to talk to him,
To say,
Hey this other guy messaged me,
Do you have a problem with this?
But unlike the good lawyer’s daughter,
I didn’t know the answer I wanted to that question before I asked it.
Because I can’t figure out how I feel about this,
It would all be easier if I were more decisive.
He said I was sweet for asking.
I want to take it all back,
At least the thought of being duplicitous
Gave me something to whittle away the hours with.

6:
There’s such beauty in going back to something you love,
Because only you have changed,
It hasn’t moved,
The words are in the same order,
Scenes fall the same way,
But how you see it has altered,
So you’re able to learn about your self,
Through the old memories you keep,
And the new thoughts you have.
God that was a bit heavy-handed, wasn’t it?

7:
I like thin crust pizza. Dammit.
If I’m making the pizza I can make it however the hell I want.
I can make the crust thin, the cheese too heavy and the pepperoni stacked.
It’s my goddamn pizza.
And I made it from scratch in my oven, in my house on my pan, with my cheese.
I don’t answer to anyone.
I can make the pizza however I want, and the rest of you can eat it
And be happy.

10 Poems from My Day (10-27)

these are a bit long. i’ll post lots of photos tomorrow to make up for it.

1:
I angered my sister via text about casserole.
I’ll tell you the story.
My father sent me money wrapped up in a church bulletin.
A line at the end of the page said, “You can sign up on the clipboard in the narthex.”
I sent it to my sister. “This has to be the most Presbyterian thing I’ve ever read.”
She said, “It just needs casserole.”
“I’m partial to ham loaf.”
Here’s when I messed up.
She said, something like “you know, tuna noodle casserole has always been one of my favorite things to eat. “
I sent back a one word reply.
Pagan.
Then it began. “Geez, I try to share one silly thing about myself with you and you make me feel bad about it.”
This right here is where I should I have apologized for hurting her feelings.
Instead. I said,
“That’s what you get for liking tuna noodle casserole.”

2:
She makes me feel alone.
I have a real problem with people who treat people like little things they can squish between their fingers.
I am not your caricature.
You will treat me as a human being, not a story to relate to your next roommate down the line.
I don’t know how you are a teacher, when you look so far down on anyone who needs to learn.
When you yourself are embarrassed to have more to figure out.
You talk, but it’s not the conversation I like to have,
It’s placemat placeholder placating blah-ness.
I told her, actually, I said, I love to have arguments,
When I can separate myself and just go with the logic,
I can argue a point, it feels like stretching my wings.
She doesn’t understand.
I always feel stupid after an argument, they always end badly, don’t you always win?
I don’t want to share myself anymore. I want to say, good you should feel stupid, it makes you want to learn, be better. Arguments can be so much fun, they can change your opinions. I’d say with an evenly matched partner, I win half the time.
She doesn’t understand.
I miss my friends, my friends who would push me,
And not talk to me about their Facebook headlines.
Maybe I am wrong, maybe it is better to never open yourself up to be wrong, to fight for what you know, to have to explain yourself.
Maybe it’s better to be safe where you are, to know people.

3:
My first thought on seeing a sex ramp was,
“Oh my god that must be so much better on your back.”
I took some quiz about fantasies,
Googled half of the questions.
I’m glad to know, though,
That some part of my conservative upbringing has stuck around.
It feels safer somehow, that I’m still the prude I was in High School.

4:
I called my brother for his birthday today.
Plastered on a smile and jumped up and down a few times in my doorframe,
So I could have the love to sing.
I said I was worried about turning into Mom.
He said we all turn into some part of our parents.
My sister got the fussy part,
Maybe you got the storytelling part.
Would it be so bad,
If all I did was narrate my life?

5:
I’ll explain myself here, where it’s safe.
I don’t know what I’m looking for,
But I want more.
I don’t know how to say what I need,
And for someone who tries to use her words,
That’s really frustrating.
I would love to depend on someone.
I don’t know what that looks like.
I’m so scared about sharing myself,
Because you’ll use it against me.
I have this window of vulnerability,
Before I shut people out,
And your door is closing.
I’m doing it on purpose,
I won’t say I’m sorry anymore.
I need you once you’ve gone to sleep.
I don’t know what we have in common,
I don’t know what I can offer you.
I’m waiting for you to get tired of me and ghost.

6:
Do you think after dating an alcoholic
I can’t tell when you’ve been drinking?
You touched my foot while I was doing yoga.
And said tickle tickle.

7:
I don’t trust doors.
I loved everything about this parting statement.
As the woman with the old lady white-hair fro
Walked into the wind, out of my path.

8:
It happens in a weird way,
There’s a guy you think is attractive,
But you don’t have feelings for yet,
You could though,
And someone brings him up,
Everything gets smushed together,
Suddenly, you want him to like you,
But you’ll only make the first move if you know.
I wish the world was bigger.

9:
There’s all these things I need to get myself to do,
And I can’t.
The list builds until I hate myself.
I have to wait till I’m angry,
Or have the courage,
To just plow through,
With my eyes closed,
And hope no one sees me.
Then it starts all over,
And I hate myself a little more for letting it happen again.

10:
Thought process. Goes like this.
Maybe my jokes are mean. I will just stay quiet.
They won’t like me because I’m quiet.
I want to leave.
I want her to stop talking.
I do not like this sam I am.
I put myself away in a corner of my mind so I could just be there,
Not have to be there.
Maybe it’s me, maybe I make her feel embarrassed.
But if I change me, am I still being honest?
She makes me feel embarrassed to be myself.
Do I do that to other people?
How much more do I have to watch myself?
I already try to be so careful.
I wonder if she knew I was angry.
Maybe they can read me easily,
Maybe I hide as much as I think I do.

Poems from My Day (10-18-16)

Eight poems for now. More later.

1:
I took a drive with her.
We’d never been by ourselves before.
I tell her I’m quiet, that’s nothing wrong,
Which is a lie,
She tells me she wants to know me,
Then plies me with peppermint schnapps.
She tells me about her last week in Anchorage,
Hanging out with the man she had an affair with,
Taking a bump at a strip club,
Looking for that someone who will
Make her better, into the person she thinks she should be.
She tells me about her High School English teacher,
Who wrote her a poem,
Saying she was just waiting to fly.
All I see is a dreamer, with three kids, a small house,
And too much to burn.

2:
Stop competing with me,
Please.
My name is listed on the undersides of game boards
With the date we played, and my final score.
I’ve had guys ask for my number.
I’m sorry you’re insecure.
There’s nothing here I’m trying to win.
My father sent me a gift in the mail,
She says she’s jealous.
I say it’s guilt money,
That’s nothing to hope for,
But I don’t think she believes me.
Whatever I have is worth it.

3:
You don’t ask my kids why they weren’t at church on Sunday.
They’re in a safe space here.
School grounds. Dammit.
You don’t pressure them here.
All my instincts said protect.
I hate this weakness. Oh if only I were in a bigger town,
If I was Kanye’s better, faster, stronger,
I’ll never have the guts to stop it when I see it.
I’m going to have to deal with this about myself.

4:
I drive on what’s left.
After the pot holes from sewage projects, rain, and only black gravel.
What’s left behind at the store after the barge comes through, and the rest of the community grabbed the fresh vegetables.
I love what’s left of the people they were.
I sleep on the bed from the woman who lived here before me,
Wearing clothes another dropped off at goodwill.

5:
What can I love of what a monster creates?
Who am I to judge?
Can’t I sing along with a woman?
Admire a painting?
Can’t I read something,
Someone terrible wrote,
And not celebrate them?
Or by not ignoring them,
Am I giving the virus-filled pages ad revenue?

6:
I have trouble dealing with insecure people,
I don’t think it’s because we have so much in common,
I think it’s because they can’t take a joke,
I can’t tease them,
I can’t push them,
And there’s no equality.

7:
Yesterday,
I sat on the couch,
My day off,
And ate the shortbread fresh from the oven,
Listened to Jazz at Massey Hall
And read a wallflower romance novel
In my new pair of Xtratufs.
I’d never been so happy with myself, or my life.

8:
I’m having trouble saying I need attention,
I want attention,
I feel like I’m just become nagging,
Like my mother.