My Fragile Happiness

I coax it, like an animal,
out of hiding and into my presence.
It wants only what I can give it, a
crumb in the hand--it is not after
the pleasure of my presence.
Alas, my hand is empty, and I
have fed it the last grain from my pockets.
"I have nothing for you,
today." I whisper, and off she scurries
to find someone waiting
with full hands.
But where are these hands that
are empty? I look around me and see
the grain drying in the fields, food
scraps scattered on the pavement, a
tree blooming. "Come back!" I call
after her, but she is
out of hearing.
So I go out searching
for the seeds I can feed her
tomorrow.

4~24~13

Questions

Do you know which way my 

window faces? 

Do all the stars point 

North? 

I am living on pavement with lines painted.

I am living with railings close. 

What does your footstep 

sound like? 

A stone tossed upon water 

breaks

the stillness of thought.

Our basic biological functions.

Coil of wire

twirled

around the live cable

I want to crawl in and

under.

I will tell you about the cat’s claw scraping

my windowsill

If you tell me about something, 

anything.

I wait for the other hand to reach out, 

always. 

These days, 

what is the color of your heart? 

Talismans

When my mother

left me home

with a babysitter, she used to

give me the cloth--

the piece of cotton

she kept by her bedside

to rub between her fingers

in hours of anxiety.

It smelled of her (roses

and patchouli, kissed by silver).

The T-shirt you left me

(soft cotton, burnt orange)

hasn’t been washed.

I leave it folded on my bedside

so every night I smell

the faint pine man sweat green skunk

hinting of your presence.

Nightmare nights, I used to waken

and reach for the comfort

of my mother’s room, where I could

hear the television

running, even when the bed was empty.

Those voices

a source of comfort.

Now, nighttimes,

I reach for you in darkness, stretching

my limbs from the silent womb

of solitude, groping like a starfish, missing

the silent curve of your body, slipped

so perfectly against me, inside of me

overwhelming me. Pulling myself

towards you, inside of you,

wrapping around you,

stacking us

within one another

till we no longer distinguish

our seamless skin, a

gleaming surface. Our

selves no longer

fragments. Take me in.

This missing is not a new sensation.

I’m used to holding

conversations with silence.

I write poems in half-light

(laptop glowing in my college dorm room)

and send them to you in

California.

I get up, take a shower, scrub my torso.

I am washing you, sanitizing

my remnants. I am renouncing.

Materialism

Our flirtation is a 

history of shared objects. 

The apple you brought me, plucked from the orchard 

where you stained childish fingers 

and bruised elbows, climbing. 

The sketches I left in your room, abstract

representations of my longing. Lines and diagrams, concentric circles. I was not an artist 

but chose anyway 

to torture you with my obscurity 

and litter your desk with my love notes. 

You sat on the floor 

of my tiny apartment,

folding paper cranes 

out of post-its. You left my table littered 

with intricate paper sculptures;

origami was a reflex, they were not 

signs of your affection.

I placed them on my dresser, re-

arranged them. As if 

our hands were touching.

I still carry the broken  

heart you folded from scraps of wire. 

It is a scrap, a trinket, 

that serves as a reminder. 

The only letter I wrote you 

remains unopened. 

I had to pinch your nose

to get you to swallow it. 

The last gift you gave me, 

on the day we parted, 

was a daisy. You

left it on my desk 

to absorb the sunlight

and my roommate placed it in a glass of water. 

I tucked it 

behind my ear and 

let it wilt in my hair.

Pittsfield to Santa Cruz, Via Chicago

Written on September 30th, 2013

After my thirteenth birthday party,

after she had

brushed my hair

and we had

told each other secrets and

eaten chocolate cake at midnight,

my best friend Amanda

said “goodbye” and “see you later” and

left me a card that said

“Friends forever.”

That was the last time

I saw her.

And you wonder why I am crying

driving you to the train station

In the heat of Indian Summer

And I wonder

who I am saying goodbye to

as the train picks up its

shiny fetters

and churns off

into the distance.

Spinning down tracks

in a single spool.

I have to wonder who

is waving back at me

from behind the darkened

train windows

as I stand,

feet planted, on the platform

but propelled backwards

by some inertia

that makes things

on solid ground

feel as though they’re spinning.

(We’re all

spinning, I remember,

as I turn and leave the station.

moving

apart and towards

one another

the liquid of our molecules

expanding and contracting.

The minute

I said goodbye to you,

I felt

the sorrow

lifted

from my shoulders, as though

THAT had been the burden,

the intangible contraction.

Days before, I inhabited

a brief, determined

blissfulness

that comes of

treasuring every moment

we had left

together.

But your release–

as the

source

of my happiness

sped away from me

on tracks pointed

into the distance

and upwards as they

do in a painting–

was freeing.

I felt as though

I were the one

travelling

(the strange freedom

of close quarters

and the rhythmic TUG

of train cars)

and you seated, me

cemented

to the platform and

stationary, you

moving away from me

became an

other way of moving

together.

So that I

could begin my journey.

So that you, loving,

and leaving,

could release me.

Since last October, I have been in a deeply involved romantic relationship with a man significantly older than me. While he is steadfast, loving, and respectful, I have struggled with the containment that seems to automatically result from a committed relationship, or at least the patterns that I find myself revealing in the context of inhabiting one. On the last day of the month of September of this year, he left for California. Although I felt sadness at his going, and anticipated much mourning after his departure, I was surprised by the sense of lightness and freedom that filled me and led to this poem, which I wrote almost immediately after dropping him off at the station. We have agreed to part ways for this short period (until his return six months from now), mostly with the intention that we can experience our own adventures and so that I, in my final year of college, can get a taste of the independence that is impossible, or at least extremely difficult, to cultivate in the context of any committed relationship with a loved one, be they family or significant others. That sense of release is at once frightening and exhilarating, but not nearly as frightening as the thought of suffocation. I write this knowing that he will read it, knowing that the best prescription for love is utter honesty, and wishing him all the same freedom in his own journey. 

Reawakening

She takes a deep breath and steps off the back porch, into the downpour. So many years spent trying to acquire wisdom, and in the end it all gets washed away. Can it be that blindness is the only comfort left to us, that silent roar? Daily life, with all its discontent and disappointment, seems like all that’s real enough to hold her. Yet she’s always known that wasn’t enough.

She looks up into the sky, tastes the sulfur on the air, and hears the crackle of lightning, the very potency of its sound stinging her bare shoulders. She smiles and, very slowly, feeling her bare feet pressing into the pavement, begins to strip away her clothes. For the moment, this is all that matters: she can’t atone for everyone’s sins, has only begun to comprehend her own. But now they fall away with stunning clarity, vanishing the moment that they brush the ground. She tastes the salt on the tip of her tongue before she knows she is crying. And the knowledge of that makes her laugh, a harsh, dry chuckle that is lost in the sound surrounding her. 

One by one, she peels back her soaked white t-shirt, sports bra, shorts, throwing them to the ground and running till they are out of sight. She spins, spins, feeling the awe and delight of new sensation, and then stands still, illuminated by the glow of the storm and the rain on her upturned face. It washes her clean, pools up around her ankles, blots out what has been. 


Dedicated to Laura G. H., who dances in the rain.

Academic Existential Crisis, 1 am

--There’s a conflict, a frustration, when it comes to being a good student and a good human being. It’s not that they’re mutually exclusive; it’s just that they interact and repel one another in complicated ways.

--There’s so much I could be doing; but I’m held back by what I “have” to do. 

--I don't know why, or what, I'm doing here. 

I remember during workshop week everything was so beautiful we were all being oriented everyone walked around barefoot why couldn't it stay that way? 

--I remember Anne O'Dwyer saying "Don't fall in and out of love." Haha, yeah. Right. What happens automatically when you tell people not to think about or do something?

--Faculty senate is apparently what happens when you "Put a bunch of nice people in a room together, and they all turn into jerks."

--This morning I slipped on ice and fell sideways, on my knee. I was trying to skip. No one saw. 

--I have utterly rejected solid blocks of prose as a form of expression, I refuse. Until next time. 

--Silent mad letters scribbled in the moments before class. I don't know what I'm doing. 

--"Love" written on the arm. Shiny glow letters. Must find definition. 

--Initiation and Culmination. Fear leads from faith. I don't honestly know what the difference is. 

--Start skipping when I'm by myself. The trees soft silent bystanders humming along. 

--Long, long walks thinking "This is what I want to become" seeing the line written down the center of the road. 

--I want to work for admissions or become a peer advocate. Because even though I'm part of the revolution, I still want to infiltrate the establishment. Plus, I love my admissions counselor. 

--I don't know if at this point anything I say should be taken seriously. It's all far too ontological and intellectual. Nothing will ever be what it seems to me again. My consciousness has fundamentally shifted. I suppose that means progress.

--Never before did I realize the power of restfulness. Sleep is  gorgeous thing flannel floral sheets caressing me absorbing the tension building up in my extremities, blotting out the glaring light. I love the nighttime. 

--Glimpses of the sun, caught through a window, glinting between buildings. On my way to and from, I view the earth.

--Social studies division head, quest for understanding. 

--I don't know even what I'm writing about anymore. It's all abstract and self-centered, feel free to abstain. 

--Music: I don't remember what I've heard, I remember different songs played on repeat for long intervals, I remember the music video for the scientist glaring up at me as I crouched by my bed, I remember albums, becoming obsessed. 

--What is this bubble I'm living in? There must be something out there! Some larger world? Hello? Hello?

--Yet I've never felt this enlightened.