poem for the big fuckin leaver

my life has become this

endless loop of applying

stickers to shit no one needs &

dissociating to spanish music

while trying very hard not to

slice open my own fingers

which, I know, sounds like

party time

yet 

as long as I have this 

beautiful being

leaving me his words

riddles I can't fucking solve

picking trash from my hair

just sharing the same space

it's become

oddly

magical

*

some afternoon litter personification

there's a walmart bag

tumbleweeding down my street

that feels as if it should be going 

unnoticed but I see everything

like some silly American Beauty shit

casually hyperfocusing on

small moments & creating futures

where you goin, bag? 

he's moving with a free flowing purpose

towards main street, filling with wind

collapsing, reinflating like some little

rubbish sea creature, laying low for a

moment until a car stirs up his air &

sends him back on his garbage journey

he's early, purposely holding back

but she's already waiting for him under 

the bridge, a curvy little six pack ring,

loops stretched & broken, her newness 

long gone, but he's ripped in spots, too.

neither of them see these scars, only that

they're both of the same plastic

the greatest trash love story ever told

my thoughts whilst eating scrambled eggs

when I was younger all these

silly affirmations, mantras

  whatever

they made more sense

seemed,  I dunno 

hopeful

it's always darkest

before dawn

good things come to

those who wait

you're only given what

you can handle

welp

(eyeroll)

yeah

it's always darkest...

lately the dark has lasted

what feels like a polar night*,

(*yeah, I just googled that) 

& here I've been humming 

here comes the sun,

(it's been a long cold lonely winter) 

so hopeful, so ready for that dawn

I realize now that sometimes you just

gotta go wake the sun up yourself

good things come to those who wait.

bullshit.

if that were true I'd have it all by now.

all the things. 

no.

good things also come to

impatient assholes and I'm

starting to see where that quality 

might be a virtue.

sometimes you have to

yell for your waitress.

only given what I can handle

mm hmm. sure. right.

OR (hear me out) 

I'm just given what I'm given

which is really not even given,

shit just happens

I can either handle it or not

which is entirely up to me because the

universe isn't this benevolent force

handing me things it thinks I can hold.

y'know what

fuck platitudes 

like the weather

mother's mourning is dusking the 

afternoon sky, worried, aching

I can hear her breaking

her rumbles of impending collapse 

her clouds brimming, exhausted

I feel my own well overflowing 

thunder cracking within

her first few drops wet my skin

mingle with my own, we

cry together into my coffee

just mad at being mad at nothing

today I want to make myself

so small

outwardly, inwardly

microscopic

existence is uncomfortable

in this moment

the absence of sound is as

unbearable as noise

it angers me

just being noticed, sitting

idle in a dark & quiet room

scowling at corporeal form

doing, feeling, anything, 

pulls all energy, every breath

from this absurdly awkward 

space-taking-up vehicle

I'm annoyed at how

melodramatic this all feels

I was large and looming just

yesterday, unashamedly THERE

I'm realizing this is frustration with

time & space as a whole, 

bodies & life & thought & feeling &

that stink bug that won't fucking land

oh my god bug JUST LAND ALREADY

dancing barefoot

I float a little when Patti

sings the last bit over and over, my 

hair feels longer, wilder,

heart beats stronger

repeating along in its rhythm her

spoken word, chanting her double

meanings, love and death until

there is no boundary anymore and

I am now that woman

falling

coffee with Herbert

two tired moms smoke

sighing on the boardwalk

jeans rolled midcalf, wet feet

shoved into sandy flipflops from

prancing like idiots in the cold

April waves of the Atlantic

under the pink moon

remote control car skitters past and

I say, that's cool dude

just walking your little car

the kids are all seven floors up

faces full of phones

missing the first night but

I'm feeling so free and

chicho's has a man with a guitar

singing men at work

we suck down seven dollar drinks

realizing we're probably the only ones 

old enough in this room to 

know the lyrics

I lie down, dream these words

eat starbursts with a man in my dream

while watching him write poetry in the

corner chair, asking the story of my life

he's gone by morning

the moms drink coffee 

overlooking the ocean

name the stray sandy sock lying

forgotten at the edge of the boardwalk

Herbert.

Ella, Billie, and Rose

skies are clear in me

sparkling, scatting with Ella

April in Paris

spilling my coffee

dancing through the kitchen to

Me, Myself, and I

giggles and chee-chee

you're much sweeter, goodness knows

Honeysuckle Rose

lunchtime jibber jabber

I sit in my car

9:42

(hey, 42 is a sign)

(WHY AM I ALWAYS LOOKING FOR SIGNS)

watching the blink of the 

light outside the cafeteria 

flash like morse code

attempting to decrypt

as if this is a message from the

universe for me,

an oracle answer to

questions I'm afraid to think

now my 

SERVICE ENGINE SOON

light has (again) lit up

orange, bold, urgent

(for once)

I don't even care,

there's too much

depth in this night

(for once)

I don't even need to 

force myself to 

stay

no place

the weather is all wrong

to where I can't sit and

smoke on the front steps without

feeling the cold damp right through me

so I sit stagnant, sighing, crumbling

read some Raymond Carver and

share the couch with the man I ended

things with but still can't untangle from

he's curled in the fetal position, taking up

more than half, farting

still wearing a jacket and shoes

I'd rather not share anything anymore

I'd rather have a couch to myself

in a place that's mine

I can't claim anything

I'm stuck with a placelessness and a

headache from all the alcohol I said

I wouldn't drink and I want to throw

my phone into the North River and

maybe myself, too, sometimes

some people are just born...uhhh...dead.

I've come to the conclusion 

that there are those that were just 

born old, just tired dusty shells

resembling humans but

who appear never to have experienced joy

wrapped up in this illusion of

business, politics, finances, religion

money money money

amassing the most material shit

gotta get more, get ahead

gotta be better than, holier

who don't even smile at a good

that's what she said

never get lost in a song or

write their heart's passion and pain

never paint their dreams

i can't even imagine how that happens

where they programmed?

neglected?

are some people just inherently boring? 

i grieve for the gray souls

who can't see past the ride

the rules of this game to notice

all this life, all this beauty

music, art, poetry, humor

LOVE

those who live without

by choice

they're already dead.

things I'm quite sure that are most likely probably universal. maybe. who knows.

we all have old scars or

raw trauma, healing

it's hard to see another's wounds when you're still actively bleeding from your own

this isn't selfishness

this isn't neglect

this is survival

everyone is bleeding

we're all mind reading or

misreading or

inventing inner lives for

those inaccessible 

searching for that last puzzle piece

without knowing the whole picture or

amount of pieces still missing

we all wonder if we're doing this right

we're same enough

that the struggle is universal

but foreign enough that we 

still struggle

yeah,

I might be over generalizing here but

I don't think so