The 500th Poem

I remember when I started this.
The moment this sounded like a good idea.
My face numb from the freezing rain
As I walked across this tiny town.
I remember thinking I could never do it
But I’d try nonetheless.
I thought there wouldn't be enough inspiration
To spread across the last 12 months
But here we are.
I wrote more than I imagined I could about my heart.
Not enough about my past.
All too much about that certain boy.
 But I’ve done it.
500 poems in a year.
500 poems like time capsules
Taking me back to where I stood when I wrote them.
500 poems,
Good,
Bad,
Beautiful,
Ugly,
But 500 nonetheless.
And today when I stood in that spot again
Saying goodbye to the past year
And the town that made me
I realized
I’ve got at least 500 more in me.

Summer Rising

I can feel summer rising in my veins.
Ferris wheels and long night talks.
Screams in the dark and long hearty laughs.
T-shirts, shorts and flip-flops.
Road trips to nowhere just to have something to do.
I can feel the summer rising in my veins
And my only wish
Is that you would be here to share it with me.

Holiday In Your Head

I want to take a vacation in your mind.

I thought a lot about living there once 

but I don't think I'd like the weather.
I want to spend a few days in your pool of distrust and distraction.
I want to sleep between the sheets of your self-image and self-worth.
I want to take your voice home as a souvenir.
I once thought I’d like to live there
but now I think I’d just like a holiday in your head.

Electricity

I feel like my skin is full of electricity.

Currents running through me to say that I am alive.

That things are headed my direction.

That life is finally looking up.

Like the goods things

Well the good things are coming.

But the problem with electricity is that its unpredictable.

It hops and skips and runs amuck.

It can feel like one thing

And then be something different all together.

So I’m shaking as my skin fills up with electricity

Praying that it doesn’t break through.

Praying that for once in my life

This current running through my veins

Is real.

Is meant for me.

Is bringing the good things. 

Learning to Get Over

I wish someone would’ve told me what it felt like when I was young.

The act of getting over someone.

What it felt like to not hate them anymore.

But to still feel that twinge where they’ve claimed a part of your heart forever.

I wish someone had told me it was gradual.

So I didn’t spend so many days slamming my head into walls

To drown the pain of them out with new pain.

But I guess that’s part of growing up.

I guess that part of being an adult.

Knowing the only way to wake up and not think of them

Is to wake up so many days with them being the only thing on my mind.

But I’m old enough to know now.

Old enough to know that love like that sticks to you.

There is always going to be a place in your heart where they fit.

A place only they have claim over.

I am old enough to know that now.

And I’m old enough to know the reason they don’t tell you this when you’re younger

Is because it can’t be taught.

It can only be learned.

Learning to Fly

I remember the first time I wandered out on that branch.

I stood gazing down at the rushing water below.

And when the branch broke and my wings failed me I thought I saw the rest of my life.

A life full of falling and crashing and burning and breaking.

But its not.

Sure there is a lot of falling.

A lot of uncertainty on these ledges.

But someday my wings will work.

Someday I’ll fly. 

Muse?

Even if I can never have you

I am proud that I love you.

I wrote a lot of poems about you.

Scratched enough ink onto paper to fill oceans.

Funny thing is you were so fleeting

Just a brief moment in this last year.

There were moments I loved you

And moments I hated you

And everything inbetween

And whenever I sat to write a poem

It was your face I sketched out in ink.

And I don’t know if you know that.

But its really not that important to me anymore.

Because you’re gone

I’m standing

And I’m still writing.

I thought you were my muse

The one from whom all my inspiration flowed.

But I realized it was me experiencing the life you created

That gave me inspiration.

The whole time it came from me.

So I could write a thousand more poems about you.

I could fill another seven seas with ink

And it still wouldn’t matter.

Because even if you’re the face I’m sketching

I’m the one holding the pen.  

A Man Like You

I am proud I fell for a man who is kind.

A man who is warm and inviting.

A man who honestly cares.

I am proud I fell for a man who is sweet.

Because for a long time I didn’t.

I fell for men who were rough.

Men who were loud and crude.

Men who lied and cheated.

Men who couldn’t care less.

Because I didn’t think I was worthy of love.

Of love like yours.

Of a man like you.

So even if I never taste your apple juice lips

I will feel proud that I fell in love

I fell in love with a man like you. 

Just You

I want snowflake kisses.

I want our eyelashes getting caught in each others.

I want to find your lint in my pockets.

I want to treat your library like my own.

I want to brush my hair as much as I brush yours.

I want comfy sweaters and old pants to be our date attire.

I want the soft kitten feeling I get in my stomach when I’m near you.

I want your fingerprints to be over everything I own.

I want to be able to wear my own sweatshirt to bed because it smiles as much like you as your sweatshirt does.

I want dinners cooked in failing light.

I want my head on your shoulder and your hand on my knee.

I do not want roses

Or opera tickets

Or diamond rings.

I just want you.

You completely.

Just you. 

Back to the Place

I want to swing round light poles again.

I want to run through the rain gulping buckets again.

I want to walk on scalding hot ground barefoot again.

I want to actually feel like I belong again.

So I’m heading back to that town.

Back to the place I last swung around a light pole.

Back to the place I last ran through the rain gulping buckets.

Back to the place I walked on scalding hot ground barefoot.

 Back to the place I belong. 

Crows

Remember the night we took our measuring sticks

And we measured our pain against each other’s?

It was like a mirror.

Opposites reflecting down infinite hallways of who we could’ve become.

And I remember thinking

“You’re just like me.”

And I wondered if you thought the same.

Because from there on out you trusted me.

You saw where I had been and knew its where you’d gone.

But now you flittered off.

Like some strange snow white dove.

We were crows together.

Banished and black.

And now you’ve rolled in the flour outside the baker’s door

And pretending you’re a dove.

But I know better.

I know you’re a crow just like me.

And there is no shame in it.

No shame at all.

Its what we were born to be.

So when the flour wears off.

And you fly back to your crow home.

I’ll welcome you back

Because we once measured our pain against each other’s

And it came out just the same.

Just the same. 

But I LOVE Chubby Girls

I will not be your fetish.

I will not lower myself to an object.

I will not become something less than the queen I am.

Do not ask me to.

Do not tell me you like my type.

Because that is not love.

That is an object.

And I will not be yours.

I am strong.

I have a heart and a mind all my own.

I have fought battles against demons real and imaginary.

I have fought myself and won on so many battlefronts.

So do not defame me.

Do not make me any less than I am.

You say women have unrealistic ideas of men

But son,

What you’re asking for is an object.

Not me.

Not the person.

So get out.

Leave.

Because I will not be an object for you

For any man.

And I will not lower my standards to be one.

I see so many women

So down on themselves.

So degraded by media and by others.

They second guess themselves.

They have no idea their worth.

They figure the only way they’ll get love

Is by losing their identity.

But forget it.

I am strong.

I am woman.

I don’t care if you never love me.

Because what you’re offering

Isn’t love. 

I Want to Go Back

I want to go back.

I want to go back to the land where the spring rises from the ground

And falls from the sky

And meets in the middle at our lips.

I want to go back.

I want to go back to the place I first rode a bike on my own

And held a boys hand

And sang songs to myself.

I want to go back.

I want to go back to the place where I learned the sound of my own voice.

And learned to hear other’s

And laughed and cried with them.

I want to go back.

I want to go back to the palce that I left you when I was doing the leaving

And I swore I wouldn’t miss you

And yet I still missed you.

I want to go back.

I want to go back to where I last felt whole and complete

And I loved others

And they loved me.

I want to go back.

Please

Dear God

Please

Let me go back. 

Its Almost Been a Year

It’s almost been a year now.

A year since I stood on a street corner and I cried.

Witnessed by my mother on the phone

And 3 pigeons across the street.

A year since I was defamed and ashamed for doing what I thought was right.

A year since I was accused of being just the person I feared I was.

And its still affecting.

A year and I still replay that moment at that picnic table.

I still replay what it felt like.

I still replay the surreal nature of it all.

And I regret it happened.

I regret that awful thing will travel with me through this life.

And I won’t say I was wholly right.

I won’t say I was without blame.

But I can say that it changed me.

And it changed me for good.

So I just hope that it doesn’t keep me from where I want to be.

I just hope it doesn’t hold me back.

Because I let the pain of it do that for so long.

And I’ve finally come out the other side much more strong.

The Only Way to Get Through

There are somethings that will break your heart.

Things that will leave you shattered and broken.

Things that you don’t know how you’ll get up after them.

And then there are things that aren’t.

Things that only seem that way.

Things that make you feel like you can’t go on.

But the reality of the situation is that you can go on.

From either of them.

Whether it’s a crippling event that shatters who you were

Or something that just feels that way

You can keep going.

You can move on.

And the difference is

That people who’ve had those things

Those things that make you irrevocably changed

Things that make you who you are 50 years after the event

Things that will never completely be gone

Know that they only way to get through it

Is to get through it.

So whether its real or it only feels real

You can get through it.

You can get through it because that’s the only way to get through. 

Infinite Anchors

There are an infinite number of things that will keep you here.
An infinite amount of anchors.
Things that will tie you down and keep you close.
Things that will keep you from getting out there.
Infinite anchors to tie you to the sinking ship.
Infinite anchors to keep you from doing what you want.
And they’re easy.
Anchors are simple to operate.
Drop one over the edge and you stay right there.
But leaving?
Going off to find your dreams?
Fulfilling your deepest wishes?
Well that is a hell of a lot harder.
So I’m swinging axes at my infinite anchors.
And I hope you do to.
Because there are an infinite number of anchors
But that doesn’t mean they should keep you here.

Too Good at Being Alone

Someone once told me I needed to be strong.
I needed to learn to live alone.
She was right.
I was leaning too much on others.
And I learned my lesson.
Lived months in seclusion.
Kept my distance.
Kept my secrets rather than seeking advice.
But I think I went too far.
Became too dependent on my independence.
Friends falling off the edges of this globe.
Not caring about a world outside my own.
So I’m trying to claw my way back to caring.
Trying to find the balance between an over share
And lone wolf stare.

I'm Losing You

I’m losing you.
I’m not so blind I can’t see that.
You and I clung to each other like babes.
Like babes lost in a storm and being broken repeatedly.
But for some reason
We’re not clinging anymore.
Whether it be distance
Or new friends.
Or the argument we had the other day

We’re falling apart.
I’m losing you.
I will not hold you back.
I will not tie you to me.
I know how to let go.
But I wish it wasn’t so.

You Think

I know you think you’re alone.
I know you think no one can hear you screaming through your smile.
I know you think no one sees your fists clench.
I know you think no one sees the scars.
I know you think no one notices when you retreat.
But darling
I notice.
I notice when it gets all too much.
I notice when you feel like breaking.
I notice when you’re screaming inside.
I notice when the scars are open wounds.
Don’t feel alone.
You’re not alone.
Just as I am not alone.

Why Can't You Live Here Too?

I wish you lived here too.
Someone I could do the things I like to do with.
Someone who doesn’t judge me.
Who likes to sit out in the rain.
Who hordes types of tea.
Who laughs at all the wrong places.
Who would rather spend a day writing than doing anything else.
You’re much too far away.
And we’re both failing at this communicating thing.
So why can’t you just live here too?
Someone I can sit with and do the things I like to do with?
Someone to walk down to go buy sodas?
Someone to watch horrible horror movies?
Someone to find a joke in nearly everything?
Why can’t you live here too?