Utter Garbage™ that is helping me make sense of my world at this moment
Idk why it makes me laugh that I wrote these in the opposite order then how they are presented here... maybe because I'm trying to pretend my brain isn't unraveling.
You & I
I.
You threaten to destroy me.
I want to let you into the knives.
You promise it has nothing to do with me.
I want to trust you with your words.
You walk slowly as we try not to char.
I want to be known by you.
You ask if we can be unchanged.
I want to give you everything you want.
II.
I say,
This feels like we are putting down a dog.
A young, healthy, wonderful dog.
Four or five years old max.
You grimace the way you do when you want
to hide inside your mouth. You’ve never been
apathetic. At least there’s that.
III.
I tell you that it won’t be
what you’ve known.
I ask you to please remember
who I am.
IV.
There is someone cleaning their shoes on the balcony
above as you tell me that it’s really in my best interest.
I don’t beg. God knows I come close. I’m not her, I promise.
How can someone feel so much like home while telling you
you cannot be theirs? At dinner I stop myself twice
when I start to tell you who I am. Silence shattering
on silence. I ask you why you had to go and know me
to begin with. I tell you it’s a good thing I never set you
up with my friend because she can’t stand flakes. I use
my words intentionally, and occasionally the intention
is to wound. I ask you to dream and it comes out soft.
I want to land in it. Walk around. See sights. Paint walls.
I ask you to dream and your dream includes me.
I just can’t be sure if I trust you to hold me steady.
V.
Please let me stay
in the quiet
warmth we’ve made.
Please let me prove
that I love gently.
VI.
I’ve known you five times.
I’m not sure how long I can
hold my breath when it's cold
out. The buzzing in my ribs
stopped for now so maybe
I’ll be able to eat tonight.
You told me that it takes
our bodies fifteen minutes
to acclimate to a change
in temperature.
When you asked
what I thought,
I said it doesn’t feel
like this happens every
day. But it does. Not to
one person. But every day
it happens. Even if we
never meet a sixth time,
it will keep happening.
I said, I didn’t plan
for this, for us shivering
at a half-lit table, breaking
in this way. You tell me
it’s up to me to decide.
I don’t tell you that I wished
for us. I don’t remind myself
that the way I wished for
never required me
to plan an ending.
Don’t Talk to Me
It’s not even four pm on Saturday
and I’ve already embarrassed myself
in front of myself
twice.
Sat myself up in the corner chair
to watch as I threatened my body with
hypothetical worlds and underground fires.
Suppressed a chuckle
while I ordered myself around
as if the day hadn’t been cruel enough
already.
What a fun reminder
how long it takes to unlearn the unloving.
As a last failsafe,
the gentle one whispered in my ear,
give it four days honey.
everything will be okay.
What a hopeful, caring
bitch.
She might be right, I know.
Even if I wanted to
I can’t hear her,
just my measured excuse
on repeat:
since the day I put you into words,
I haven’t trusted a single syllable.
A Vow
He isn’t mine. He isn’t mine. He isn’t mine to be had.
No matter how much I want the river to flow north,
no amount of wanting can give me what is fragile.
I can feel the wires curling. I was programmed so well.
To wait for the gesture. The glance. The nervous hands.
To want him even when we can only be hours without
oxygen. When was the last time I sat in silence?
Each conscious moment a terror kicking its way out.
Fear must never go to bed hungry. From the other side
of glass, nothing much has happened, so tell me why I am
wondering what it must feel like to be awake and unhurt.
Why I want to drink my Wednesday nights through a straw.
October runs its fingers down any spine it can find.
Just to make me jealous. I haven’t found a way to trust
myself with my hands yet. The cold air makes me a kite,
without a voice to my direction, but moving nevertheless.
Time drags me along on its errands and finally there are days
I can breathe out. I don’t know how to stop waiting
but at least now I know he isn’t mine. He isn’t mine.
I can accept the river’s breeze. I am routinely reminded
that I was never promised fairness. But if he can’t be mine,
it only seems fair that I should get something in return.
If I beg the right way, can I know which cords to cut?
Let me be my own. I won’t scream. I won’t wake the baby.
I will leave with the day. No one has to know I am free.