Poems from My Weekend

really these should be called poems i wrote a sunday afternoon but scheduled for later
1:
Dammit there was something I was going to say.
It was going to be good –
The best –
But I didn’t write it down.
“I’ll remember.”

2:
Every once in a while,
I come across a word I’ve never written.
I check the spelling – I check the placement of the “e.”
I wonder how it is I’ve never written that before.
I determine to write more.

3:
I met an old friend from college
With her advisors and the other two-year, grad students.
God, I’ve missed being around smart people.
Who will push me,
And not mock me for knowing too much about something they don’t.
God they weren’t trying to sell me anything, it was lovely.
They didn’t care about me –
and told me so.
God it was marvelous.
And he dismissed me once I told him I wasn’t going back to school.
God I love that – that ignorance of the practical necessities of every-day working.
Oh, the majesty.
I miss being told I’m stupid. I miss not having a reason to learn.

4:
I want to start over.
I want to have the know I have now sometime else.

5:
I’m never sure when the fears I have will continue, “for the rest of my life.”
My back hurts –
My ribs ache –
My knees creak –
I’ll always be alone.

6:
My mother always says, “in the grand scheme of things.”
To give herself perspective. Like,
In the grand scheme of things, this decision I’m making right now isn’t important.
“And I just don’t want to ruin it for the rest of you.”
“I don’t want your memories to be bad.”
She seems fixated on the idea,
The importance of memories,
And not ruining them,
Like,
Somehow,
That will heal the old ones.

7:
I interviewed and said I was good with people.
Then proceeded to be awkward for twenty minutes.

10 Poems (3-28)

I wrote ten poems today. And here they are.

1:
Please tell me it’s not tomorrow,
Please.
Can I have a stopwatch with magic,
So it can be today forever,
Until I want to be tomorrow?
I used to want that in school,
During finals,
A pause, where the clock would stop,
And I could study more, longer, better.
But it occurred to me, that even with infinite time,
I’d still wait until the last minute.

2:
I’m scared to start something,
With someone who will make me lonelier than I am now.
I’m content, sort of,
To sit here, and know it could be better,
But also not worse.
There’s a safety there, here,
In knowing exactly how miserable I’ll be tomorrow.

3:
I feel everything I do is the midday snow in March.
I’ll snow in the middle of the day,
Be forgotten by the night,
Never stick,
Get complaints about my timing,
And brushed away off coats
With a sigh, and a backwards glance.

4:
I wanted you to be my go-to boy,
The, I can call you to tell you about,
Oh my god this crazy thing I just saw on the side of the highway, guy.
I just needed someone who valued me more than something else.
I though it could be you.
I let myself hope for just a second.
But, wait.
If you like me,
It means you’re like me,
And a flake.

5:
I went to this bar where they brew their own beers.
I watched a skinny thin boy in a black v-neck sing his heart out
To people watching the basketball game.
He sounded like pre-recorded coffee shop guitar music,
With just the right touch of passion.

6:
I can’t even look at him.
He thinks, I’m sure,
Oh look how demure,
No he wouldn’t think that,
He wouldn’t know what that word means.
I see him and remember.

Those would have been perfectly fine to stay hidden, just there.
I won’t think of the memories,
But I know how those memories feel.
I know how I should feel,
If I was remembering those memories
While I look at him.

7:
I’d like to hold my breath for as long as I can,
Just so my body would do what I told it to.
This body I hold,
Has nothing to do with me.
It just holds me for the next one,
The next one of me that will come along,
Once I lose my lease.

8:
He said, he doesn’t want to get out of bed.
Well, his back hurts,
I mean, really, I’m lazy,
Ok it’s like 20% back pain,
And I’m comfortable right now.
I wish I could turn off the light without having to get up,
God I’m so comfortable.
Could I like make a pulley string that would turn off the light from here?
I should have been an engineer.

9:
I miss the way my people sound.
The people I grew up with,
They sound a bit like home,
God I miss that.
I miss that I trained myself to never sound like them again.

10:
I use my nails to stop the thought train derailed.
Nails in the palm of my hand.
Red half circles.
They say, stop,
Stop thinking about that.

Another One Told Me This

Don’t tell me to think I’m beautiful,
Like it’s a gift,
Like I should,
Because you’re the first to say it, you think.
My strength comes from me.
Don’t lecture me about how pretty I am.
I’m not very pretty.
It’s fine.
It doesn’t bother me anymore.
It just is.
You can say all women are beautiful.
But it’s a line you think you should say.
You don’t know me well enough to say I’m beautiful.
You think all women should think they’re beautiful.
Like all people should have confidence.
And that you’re God’s gift because you can tell this girl
This one right here
How pretty she is.
And that will make it all better
You can fix her sadness if she knows she’s pretty.

How Great You Were

It used to be you
That no matter who I talked to
I was talking to you.
But not anymore
I almost wish I was back there.
Where I thought you the greatest,
But I’m glad not to wear the acolyte robes
For the great priestess anymore.
I can see your loose seams now,
And I can speak to everyone I want.

The Poems I Wrote Today (November 27th)

I Wrote 10 Poems One After the Other
Day November 27th

Poem 1:
Home for Thanskgiving
But after I moved for school
Dad moved for work
And now I travel four hours to be
Home for Thanksgiving.
He said don’t feel obligated to come and see me
But I think I should, so I did.
And here I am
With all it’s quietness and hot food
In someone else’s house for Thanksgiving.

Poem 2:
He went through so much work for us
Made all these dishes on all these plates I never saw otherwise
This ceremony he takes up, otherwise shunned the pop of cultural
So we ate, but she usually had a cold
And would lean over to say
I can’t taste any of this,
Then tell him how great it all was.
He cooked because his mother cooked on the same day.

Poem 3:
I shouldn’t have been driving
I slept in my daydreams only
And I ran into the snow
Little flakes flew off at first
Then it stuck
I should have pulled over
Kept saying at this one the next exit
Behind blurring red dots of a FedEx guy.
If I’d ‘ve stopped I would have stayed stuck
Like after a while I couldn’t change lanes
Because of the ice in the middle,
Keep yourself there.

Poem 4:
I don’t mind you at all
I won’t have that all consuming passion
But I won’t mind
You’ll be there for a while
You can have me for a bit
Then give all my me back when I leave, please.
I’ll promise to give you back your change.
But I won’t mind, I don’t think.
I never expected to be attached,
Just scared to have no strings.

Poem 5:
And now, it’s been too long since I’ve seen people
I get all jittery
And giggly and I’ve lost all my charms
To be relearned to be with friends
If you’re around the vain who won’t let you talk.
I have to remember I’m worth a glance.
When I see a friend tomorrow.

Poem 6:
I love the space between Thanksgiving and Christmas
Not either of the holidays themselves
But just the stuff that goes around them.
Well I guess why
Is that we all seem to be thinking something like the same thing.
And I feel closer to the girl siting next to me.

Poem 7:
I’m so cold I can’t sleep
I wait for it to take me
So I’m less cold
Or forget I’m cold
Or something
Beyond
It’s cold.

Poem 8:
I flit across a memory
One I don’t want there
My hands freeze up
And I stare at what I was only looking.
I say, I’ll put this in a box
I have a case in my mind full of wands and witches and bits of rubber
They hold all my boxes
Some with extra tape
All the times I’ve fell.

Poem 9:
I need a buffer with me
For most people
Stand over,
Yes, right,
There.
In their way, in front of me.

Poem 10:
The first time I disagreed with my father
I learned I was wrong.
And just how wrong I was
With citations and page references
Footnotes and verse
There was no other option.

10 Poems in 20 Minutes (November 23rd)

Ok, I’m just gonna go ahead and say it. I miss having a structure and a deadline to write poems. I really do. It’s like part of my day is missing. So I wrote more poems, off the top of my head. And I feel better about life.

I Wrote 10 Poems in 20 Minutes (7:09)
Day 11-23

Poem 1:
I’d like to think I’m good
A good person
Who does good
Well
Well, I mean, I’m not sure anymore
I can’t find a good judge
Someone who’ll fair judge me
And say,
Yes you do good.

Poem 2:
I spoke to my sister today
In a way I haven’t in a while
We talked of all we’d loved
All we’ve had
All she’s loved.
Because she has that in her
To love, this man
She loves him.
I’ve never had that in me,
I’m not sure, it’s even there.

Poem 3:
And I couldn’t speak
Everything I said got dissected
Or told that wasn’t right.
So I held my tongue
In the grip of polite.

Poem 4:
She says to us
You could have said it this way
And it wouldn’t have been mean.
So I write that down
In my playbook, my list
Of the proper phrases I can say to my mother
But she keeps editing
To say
I’m angry with what you’ve said
So I’ll keep picking at you
Cross that out and only ask for my love this way.

Poem 5:
Find me sunlight and
I’ll show you shadow.
I will.
Find me good
I’ll turn it wrong
Just by titling my head
And saying look how the sun shining on us
Misses all those over there.

Poem 6:
What do I say?
To my father when he asks where my job is.
How do I bargain with peace for stillness
So I don’t have to explain myself.

Poem 7:
I haven’t seen it
You know
I never have.
My face from your eyes.

Poem 8:
He said, let me get a job
And we can flirt with the idea
Of buying you a plane ticket out to see me
He priced them out for me.
I’ll probably hold grudges against him in time.
Just give me time
And I’ll find fault in the hundred percent.

Poem 9:
I sold something back
For less than I paid for it
So in effect
I spent forty dollars on my birthday and
Got hassle.

Poem 10:
I want to know what I’d look like skinny
If I was thin
How beautiful I would be
I can almost see my bones now
Without the added weight.
Beautiful in mirrors with pinched skin
And drawn on lines
With perfect shades,
We’re artists of our faces.

10 Poems in 20 Minutes (Day One Hundred)

This is the final day I’ll be writing ten poems in twenty minutes. From now on I’ll post the poems I write, but there won’t be a time limit or set number.

Thank you so much to those of you who’ve read my poems, because it means a lot to me.

For the final day of ten in twenty, I thought I’d write each poem about someone I know, I won’t dedicate the poem to them, because it may not be flattering, but I’ll try to keep it true. Here we go.

I Wrote 10 Poems in 20 Minutes
Day 100

Poem 1:
My Mother
You told me first,
I was beautiful.
You didn’t mean it from the mirror’s point of view,
You meant it because I was yours.
You had made me, and I look like you.
You love me for looking like you,
But not for who I am.

Poem 2:
My Father
He says, I see you all grown up
And I get flashes back to when you were little
He said, it’s hard to tell the difference, and remember.
But you’ve never remembered,
You treated me as background and expected.
I don’t think it’s purposeful, you talking down,
You do it to everyone who’s not as smart as you,
But the little girl in the white cherry dress who flounces,
She doesn’t have a chair in your mind
To sit and talk over the table.

Poem 3:
My Sister
She wants to make me perfect
Who she wanted herself to be
And mom reminded her, I’m the Mom here.
She was so proud I turned out well,
A nicer version of mini-me, you said.
But you taught me that people who love me
Tell me what to fix,
And disregard you if you make a mistake.
You taught me with your being,
That I should be better,
Unacceptable, as is.
That’s never gone away.

Poem 4:
My Brother
I don’t know you yet
Except that when I got back from school
You shoulders turned to boulders
And you couldn’t sing falsetto anymore.
You don’t seem to care much,
About grades, or propriety, family, or kindness,
I hope when you find something to care about
You can make something of yourself.
But the way you don’t seem to mind Mom’s insults
Makes me think you’ll be happier than us all
For living through the torment of being alone in the house.

Poem 5:
My Step-Father
I look at you and sneer.
I don’t remember why I feel revulsion anymore,
But it’s there unerring and unending.
You never placed yourself in another’s position,
Never thought, if I do this, she’ll feel this,
Or if I say this, x will happen.
There’s one good thing that comes from your being in the house,
Always angry, fuming, smoking, not drinking beers,
I can read a temper from across the room
I easily pick out who can hurt me from expressions alone,
I have you to thank for that.

Poem 6:
My Friend A—
I thought you were so strange
But you taught me that if you think someone’s strange
You’re in the wrong.
Your mind is faster than mine,
But not nearly as funny.
I’ve never gotten tired of you,
The only thing I fear when I’m talking to you
Is that I’ll have to leave soon.
You are light.

Poem 7:
My Friend B—
Someone once accidentally insulted you
While I was standing there holding grape soda
And you looked right at them,
Said, “what do you mean.”
You stood there, with brown ringlet hair
And questioned them until it was clear what they had done,
What you felt,
And what they meant.
That’s a power few women have.
I salute you for it.
You have no sense of the gray
You cannot say,
Perhaps.
You’ve never thought
To say
That’s beautiful,
I see your beauty. To the painting on the wall.

Poem 8:
My friend C—
I like you because you talk to me
Tease me,
Make me see myself as ridiculous,
And can photoshop cupcakes into robot’s hands faster than I can.
I like you because I can never know for sure
I don’t like you
Because you keep yourself so far away.

Poem 9:
To My Dead Dog
I never really liked you, you know,
I can talk to her because she’s dead,
But we understood each other
Understanding is a better kind of magic than love
It kept us going
When you couldn’t get up the stairs, or out the door
When you howled in pain from the cancer in your spine,
When you lost control of your back leg,
I brought you food and water dishes,
Petted your graying beige fur
And I sand to you all the songs in the world.

Poem 10:
To Me
I don’t know what it is you’re doing.
There’s so much more you should be
Could be
Would be
If you weren’t so damn scared.
But that’s fine,
Stay in your house,
Cover yourself in quilts of blue flowers
Forget all you might have done,
If you could have just.

10 Poems in 20 Minutes (Day Ninety-Nine)

Oh, of course, on the second to last day of me posting ten poems in twenty minutes for one hundred days, my internet goes out! I wrote these yesterday, but can only just now post them. Bah!

I Wrote 10 Poems in 20 Minutes
Day 99

Poem 1:
After I drink wine
My cheeks go all red
And my hands seem to twitch on their own.
This I do no like.
Those are my hands, I tell them what to do.
They should stay put, if I want them to stay put.
Instead of flipping about.
I don’t like this loss of control.

Poem 2:
If I have a house of my own
And they come to visit
On my land in my place
I think I’ll finally yell
Those who I hold no strings to,
I’ll get to say no,
You may not speak to me like that
Without hint of reprobation,
Because it’s my house.

Poem 3:
Perhaps she doesn’t notice.
That she’s talked the whole way home,
And I’ve only said one word responses
Looking away.
Maybe she thinks I will tell her this,
But I doubt she thinks of me at all
Except as a bit of cloth in a seat
Who absorbs information.

Poem 4:
She holds back information
She says to be kind,
She doesn’t want to hurt us.
I think she doesn’t want to talk to us
After she tells us,
She doesn’t want to be a messenger.

Poem 5:
My sister had to tell my mother
She screwed up with me,
She said she felt really bad.
She didn’t know how to properly apologize
And she can’t say she won’t do it again
Because she will
Because she doesn’t think
When all she does is for herself.

Poem 6:
It won’t listen
The part of my head that says I like him,
You shouldn’t
There’s nothing there and no good reason.
It will only end poorly.
But it hasn’t happened yet
So I get to dream for a minute,
Oh, of all the beautiful dreams,
That can’t yet be proven false.
Dreaming backwards is regret,
Either way, I’ll still think on it.

Poem 7:
She sat with her dye job pink hair starting to fade back to bleach
And I thought, she looks like a bull dog
All the features scrunched up
And she doesn’t have a neck
And she’s shapes like a square.
I liker her for it.
That she doesn’t seem ashamed.

Poem 8:
I hate it here.
I have to ask for money, but don’t because I don’t spend,
Because I have no friends,
And I’m too shy to make new ones,
So I stay in my room
And hate myself for it,
And hate this place,
And this pretend freedom
Of, oh do what you want, but you’ll be watched,
That comes with living again with parents.

Poem 9:
Three lamps stand on my dresser
Two don’t have shades,
The one works,
Because I live out of boxes,
My mother’s boxes,
And pick clothes out of what I can see,
What I find in my boxes,
My packed life from before I became,
Oh such a disappointment.

Poem 10:
I understand you now,
Come back and talk to me,
We can party
I will love and dance
And I will have a chance to smile again.

10 Poems in 20 Minutes (Day Ninety-Eight)

I Wrote 10 Poems in 20 Minutes
Day 98

Poem 1:
We drove in her car
Because she wanted to be nice
I said I like this song on the radio
To say something other than nothing
And she said, I don’t like that blue-eyed soul,
To her daughter, sitting next to her,
Staring at her with blue eyes,
She said, I only like real soul,
Soul music.
“I didn’t mean that as a slam,
Well it came out as a slam but I didn’t mean it that way.”
I laughed.

Poem 2:
Veterans day I kept my mouth held in place
I shoved it shut with patriotism
I bit my tongue so hard I showed stars
Because I can’t tell the room full of people who fought
For duty, honor, pieces of paper,
That they’re wrong
I’m outnumbered,
Not that brave,
And in the eyes of the bearded, torn jean hem, proud men,
I’m a girl who’s seen nothing.

Poem 3:
I write in the margins of my pages
I love you I love you I love you
So if someone reads me later,
After I’ve become famous, wealthy, and glamorous
They’ll know I was just like them once.
No, that’s not true.
I write it to say I love you to someone
That won’t hurt me back,
I say I love you to the recyclers who pick up my papers
After it fell off my desk.
I say I love you to no one,
Because I crumple up whatever I wrote.

Poem 4:
Dear Wes,
I’m sorry I never got the chance to be your friend
We could have been good
We laughed the same,
And you were so tall.
But I didn’t know how to say to you
Be my friend,
So I kept quiet
Silly and quiet,
And thought what great goofy hair,
As I watched you lope around after graduation.

Poem 5:
Ask me once, then leave me alone
So we can do anything but
Have to listen to how awful and negligent I’ve been
With my time and with my great gifts,
You could have at least picked up a summer job
For the cash.
I could have, but I didn’t,
And I’m sorry.

Poem 6:
I travel to my father’s house alone
For Thanksgiving, for the holiday.
I’d never thought this before, but now I have,
If it’s bad I’ll just leave.
I can stay in my car or with friends, for just one night,
No one will mind, and
My father will never tell my mother,
I have a way out,
As I never did as a child,
A way out, cold.
Would that there were cars and roads for all my problems,
I’d be gone.

Poem 7:
I forgot what the sun looked like
For about a month there
And I realized I hadn’t looked beyond a window in years.
So I stepped out from my work,
And thought, hey, look at this,
It’s still cloudy, I haven’t missed a thing,
So I went back inside,
Bunkered down,
Back to work.

Poem 8:
My dad would offer to play games with me
When my sister went to her room,
But I wanted to play with three
Not just Dad.
Even though she regretted it later in life,
How much more time I spent with him,
While she had her books.

Poem 9:
How had he forgotten our awful vacation
Full of yelling
And a man unexpectedly quitting smoking
A teenage girl who knew better
And the younger brother who never stopped crying,
Oh that’s why he doesn’t remember,
Mom took him away, because he was crying,
Away from the yelling.

Poem 10:
I’ll cry soon, totally lose it
And just burst out, with all the pent up rage
And anger, and hate, and slights
The small bitterness done me everyday
Each different way she’s made me feel small,
They’ll all come out,
But probably on myself.

10 Poems in 20 Minutes (Day Ninety-Seven)

Oh man, guys, I tried to write some love poems today. I thought, hey I’ve never written love poems, I should try, these are the results, well, you’ll see.

I Wrote 10 Poems in 20 Minutes
Day 97

Poem 1:
I will love you till the end of time
And my bones will go on loving you
You are in my bones now
For all the love you’ve given me.
And at this point in her lovely speech,
The scientist comes in,
Usually I can suppress him when I’m talking flowers, and hearts, and souls
But this time,
Not so much.
What do you mean your bones will love me?
Those are inanimate objects and totally gross now that you’re dead,
And what if you die first,
Are you going melt the flesh off the bones and send them to me?
Here take these with you to carry around,
That way I can love you from the grave.
And how am I in your bones?
What you didn’t get enough calcium as a child
And now you’re stealing mine?
Where’s your big damn needle to draw out some marrow,
Huh?
Go ahead take it, take my bones and put them in yours
I hope you get blood positioning from me.

Poem 2:
I want him to tell me,
It is only you I’ve loved
I have loved you as long as I’ve known you
You’re perfect the way you are.
But really, I mean,
Even if you convince me to marry you,
Somehow,
I guess your juggling is kinda cool,
We’ll just end up getting a divorce
And I’ve seen so many divorces,
Oh my god,
They never end well,
And what like half of all marriages end that way now
Jesus
So before I move in with you, because I’m not sure what else
To do with this life and empty hands,
I’m putting my name in all my book covers
So that you can have my flowers, and soul, and chocolates
But you’re not getting my damn nice copy of the collected works of W.H. Auden.

Poem 3:
I’m so tired of this shit.
Really, so very,
To borrow the new common phrase,
I can’t even
I’m glad that you’re upset I really am
For once, you’re upset and I don’t care
I really don’t
I’ve done nothing wrong
You
You alone made you all this upset.
It wasn’t me.
You imagined this whole scenario
Then didn’t even bother to tell me you’re upset.
You can deal with it yourself
I’m going to get some over priced hot chocolate
Just to get out of this damn house.

Poem 4:
That first boy I dated,
You know what he said
Oh man, this was so funny
He said, I like the way you say something is funny
Instead of laughing.
I just looked at him
As he was inching closer to me,
And I thought, god this guy is fucking weird.
I was only saying that’s funny, because I wanted to acknowledge
You made a joke
But not actually laugh.

Poem 5:
I love you as a rose loves a thorn
I find you necessary for my survival
And protection from big bad things that would eat me
But most of the time you’re just
Annoying.

Poem 6:
Oh, could this be love?
I think it might have finally arrived
I waited and waited
I listened to that 60s song about not hurrying love
And waiting
Or whatever
And finally something is stirring my heart
No wait, I think that’s just the burrito I got for dinner
Way too much hot sauce
Like I thought maybe I was overdoing at the time
But man does it kill now
My heart, my heart.
Someone help me.

Poem 7:
Oh man, so much, I’ve waited for you to notice me
To single me out
Find a reason to be with me,
Just me,
But now I’m pretty sure,
Well, wait, no, maybe,
Yeah no, very sure,
That you think I’m a nuisance.
That’s ok, at least you know I’m alive,
And I got to have a whole love affair
All in my mind,
It was so great,
You were so nice,
Did you know you were there?
No?
Well you were, and I loved you so much,
It was almost like you were real.

Poem 8:
I find myself staring at you
When no else is around
Just to see what you’ll do next
And I don’t realize I’m staring.
A novel I read once,
Or maybe it was the cover of a magazine at the grocery store,
Said that being drawn into his eyes means that you’re starting to fall,
Really, though, that’s a bit much,
I just find your lazy eye fascinating.

Poem 9:
You told me, once,
I’m so ugly
And I think you were waiting for me to contradict you
To say, no I think you’re handsome
And so strong, and this gesture would be accompanied by a shoulder stroke
Or something out of a Arthurian tale,
But instead, I just nodded,
It’s true, you’re pretty ugly,
But I don’t mind,
I don’t prefer handsome or ugly guys.

Poem 10:
I can’t make a decision without wondering what you’d say
I have to wait on all my big purchases to ask you first,
My love, my heart,
Oh my love, what do you think about this brand of butter?
Or should I go for the organic?
I really want to respect the cows out there.
My dear, should I take 11th street or Lake Drive to get there faster?
Really, it’s like I can’t make a decision myself, almost like
I’ve been waiting my whole life to never have to make a decision again.