some things come true. god, for example

My mother says she knew it was coming
This stagnant state of supposed comfort,
This knowing what I should do
Yet not being able to go through with it
This breaking and re-breaking of my heart
Until I have enough fragments
To ship to all the hearts I’ve collected
Over the years
I’ve become less loveable,
Less able to express myself
When I’m feeling boxed into a
Cubicle of adult loving
I am still my mother’s child
We don’t communicate
We sigh and haw and hem
Until the effort makes it seem as if
We have actually said something
She said to me
That all things can only be moved
Down
And from side to side
So when my heart jumps to the other side
Of my chest cavity
To avoid your kiss
I know that there is something deeper
When my cheeks float upward
To look down at you
I know that I am getting nowhere with this
And when I feel like I’m falling backward
Well then I tell myself that my mother was mistaken
There has to be more inside me
That can move in other directions
That the fluttering feeling I knew
Couldn’t be the ghost of all things
Broken
That it can come back and lift me higher
Than I feel I am in this life
At this moment
I am contemplating my movements
I’m shuffling and tiptoe-dancing
On top of memories from
Four months ago
When I said that the stars that shone down on me
Were only shining because I loved
I loved then
I don’t know what I am now
But I know that I am willing to bend more
I am willing to hold myself accountable
For not allowing myself to be lighter
Than the air I dreamed about
In the 12th grade on my apartment floor
When I was still certain
That I could make it to the mountains
And breathe in Heaven
I know we’ve felt it in the way we kissed
I know my body moved toward something
When we danced
I know that there has to be some echo
Of loving in me
And if I can find it then maybe I can save us.

some things come true. god, for example

“Love held tight in a sonnet” – Moira

My hands don’t grasp things in
The same way they did when I was yours
I don’t stand awkwardly
And let things come to me
I just wade in nowadays
And hope that I don’t pass by
All the things I missed…
All the things I’m missing.
You
Don’t know the magnitude of
This opening and closing
This gulping of matter
This matter of feeling more than I’m used to
Doing more than I’ve ever done
To keep my head above loving
My head doesn’t shake no as hard
As it did when I was still
I have been moving now
For longer than I’ve loved you
I forget how my ancestors
Planted themselves
So they would not lose how they lived
So they would not miss one ripple in life....

some things come true. god, for example

Sometimes I just want to leave this place
For some place
Where I can feel the sun
Creeping into my bones
To wake me up in the morning.
And sometimes
I just write to evoke sympathy
And maybe a little bit of
Hardness in you
Because there’s a lump in my throat
I cannot get rid of
No matter how much I cough,
No matter how much I tell you
That everything goes down easy.
Certain lines come easy
Like the ones I write on fast food napkins
So I don’t forget them while I’m
Trying to forget other things
Like the fact that I’m not good at most things
Including sympathy
No matter how much I hurt myself
So that I feel the way you feel
When I tell you that
Sometimes I just want to leave this place
Even though leaving doesn’t make things
Disappear
Disappearing is the only thing I’m good for
But there’s a hardness in you
That makes me forget that I am always fleeing
That comfort is always fleeting
And that laughter isn’t a banned foreign exchange
I have changed into someone I never imagined
But there is still a lot of letting go
Of all the soft comforts of being alone
And not being able to be selfish.

I want a lover I don’t have to love

November 12, 2009
Normal, IL

I am nothing more than numbers and figures
A matrix-like replication
Of something less than charming
And I’ve been adding up my
Handsome little failures
And hanging them so I could see
The ink-blot stains of everything
I once thought I could believe in
And I’ve been counting… down.
I told you I would come home again for you…
I didn’t always mean to be
A robotic production of false hopes
And unreached high expectations
I’ve got secrets too
I never told you that summer
That I have always had a knack for letting go
I’ve gotten it down to a scientific
Progression of perfect lies and saved faces
And I never think ahead
Before impulse takes control
You know more than anyone that
If there could have been some form of redemption
There is only one person who could save me
Save me
Before I forget that motions and
Emotions are the same thing
And drip from my soul into my hands
Into every letter I’ve ever written you
Lies or not,
I meant every word I said.
But I treat hope like trust and
When it’s broken it’s irreparable
So you can call me pieces
If it makes you feel as though
You can finally have something of me
To hold onto
I’ve cut myself more times than you can imagine
To see if there’s something in there of you.

I’m still searching

For something for you to remember me by
When I finally forget that I am breathing
For a reason
And hold myself and my breath
So tightly
I’m tired of escaping
I’m tired of dreaming of places
I’m destined to never see again
Like the inside of your palms
And the palms in the west.
My hands are always face up
If you still need to take hold.
Or grasp something besides
Impossibilities.

Swallow-tailed Kite

Swallow-tailed Kite, originally uploaded by Judd Patterson.

Hmmmm new ink!