Night Out
Faces, painted with smiles,
Girls are sad
That their friends are late.
Boys are constantly
Scanning the crowd
For who will be
Their next date.
Faces, shiny with sweat,
Girls are dancing
In circles with friends,
Boys are scared
To look silly as
They wait for the
Night to end.
Faces, wet with tears
From conversations
That got too real,
Boys are waiting
Out the girls
Expressing
What they feel.
Faces, sticky with
A hint of vodka,
Will they get home safe?
I can’t speak for
Them, but I will,
‘Cause I never
Left my place.
The Choice
When I am alone on the floor,
Sitting cross-legged like a kid,
I remember the days before
We went and did what we did.
When the song echos throughout
The house, and I hear your voice
laughing and dancing about,
I sit and I question my choice.
When I am alone in the room,
On the bed I jokingly claimed,
I lay and I wonder if you
Are laying and thinking the same.
The More You Know
The more you know,
The less you know,
If you don’t think
That’s true,
Try knowing something
You didn’t know,
But you always thought
You knew.
Kinds of Words
He stares at the ceiling
And describes something smooth,
A tint that he likes,
A shade that will cue
A reaction—he describes—
As calling for his touch,
I look at his face
When his cheeks start to blush,
A flush washes over,
I can tell that he’s thought
About this, about her,
About them, and I’m not
Mad, I’m just sad
That I’ve never heard
Him talk about me
Using these kinds of words.
The Seedling
Once it drops,
You must clean it,
Even then,
The floor leaves it
Soft to the touch,
You can feel it,
Squishy, and bleeding,
And peeling.
Then,
Once it rots,
You can't eat it,
You take the seed,
and you feed it,
Soil, and water,
And repeat,
Until it is
What you needed,
But,
What if it is
a bad seedling?
What if the temp
Drops to freezing?
What if you grow
Something new, instead,
That's better than what
You are leaving?
***This poem has never hit me harder than it does now. I wrote it when I couldn’t decide whether to stay or go. I finally did leave, and I discovered that, for me, planting a new seed was millions of times better than trying so hard to regrow what was rotten and past it’s expiration date.
Arguments
I see
A closed, white door,
A flickering candle
Creating shadows
With its light.
I hear
A waking vent,
Or, is it a step
Up the stairs
In the night?
I feel
Fear enter my toes
And swim through my blood
Until my whole body
Is tense.
I am
Not scared to sleep,
but scared to wake
Tomorrow, and do it
Again.
Introverted
You don’t like that I’m quiet,
You don’t like that the sounds
Echo throughout when
It’s just us around,
You think gardens of venomous
Snakes grow inside
The violently quiet,
Dark parts of my mind,
As if a closed mouth
Means a wide-open eye,
And evil desires will
Creep deep inside,
You think that the quiet
Is THE place to hide
My truest intentions
For all the outside,
I’d say you were wrong,
But I need you to buy it
longer, so I can
Enjoy all this quiet.
Wandering eye
It is lust
That drives
The eyes.
It is want
That strays
The gaze.
Your face,
Your lips,
Your thighs,
A fire
That rages
For days,
Light in
Your smile,
And I
Know that
I should
Look away,
But it’s me
Who he
Pushed aside,
And you,
Who I found
In my way.
Pretty Faces, Ugly Places (Explained)
I have carried you
Through screams and
Through senseless commands,
While sporting a face
For commercial drug ads,
While pulled at
By wandering hands.
I smile, not slap
At the fingers that grab
Because THAT is the service
That YOU should demand.
I have fought for you,
Through taking the hits
You should take on your own,
And why wasn’t I
More careful, my cuts
Got blood on your nice
Shiny coat.
I smile, not scream,
At the changing energy
From the second I matter
To the second I don’t.
I have sacrificed for you.
My peace, the comfort
Of knowing my place
Near ailments and liars,
With a smile, I thought,
Was the shield that I needed
To keep myself safe,
But the smile was wrong,
Turns out, all along,
“Yes!” was the prettiest
Face I could make.
Quite simply, guys, this poem is about an entity that values a '“yes” person over anything else. If you agree, smiling or not, hard work or not, time and energy and effort or not, you matter. You matter for that single moment that you have agreed with the masses. The second you don’t, nothing else matters but the fact that you dare question or go against those above you. We’ve all been there. We all know it when we see it happen to those around us, but it hits differently when the swing comes our way. On the day I wrote this, it was my turn to take the swing.
Enjoy the poem.
On Your Mind
You think about me
A lot, it seems,
Thank you, I’m really okay.
Did you know
If you think about
Things that aren’t me,
Soon, a neural pathway
Will form, like a sidewalk,
Right through your brain,
With only new things to see,
Expanding your mind
So it doesn’t get stuck
On the path you have leading
To me.
Tonight
Today, I looked up at you
As they waves
Pulled the leaves
Like old memories
To the wall.
To say that I was there with you
Would imply that
What we felt and
What we saw
Was the same,
But not at all.
To me, we were floating
Through time and
Through space,
Unreal, unknown,
Undisturbed
Like a dream.
To you, we were walking,
And laughing,
And living
Like the others around us
With nothing
To see.
Tonight, I looked over at you
As the skies
Closed their eyes
And mine
Opened wide
To take in your light.
Tomorrow, I will see
Who’s vision of us
Was real,
And I will finally know
Who was right,
Just not tonight.
Dinner Date
I sat in the booth
And looked over at you.
This isn’t real.
You spoke with your hands
While laughing with friends,
I can feel
Your hand on my leg,
As sweat beads on my head,
And our meal
Is served, and I’m struck
When I never wake up.
This is real.
Cheated
When the curtains come down, I feel
Cheated.
When the wall is exposed under
Peeling
Paper that sold me a
Feeling,
Just not one it ended
Revealing,
When the engine is opened and
Bleeding,
After the promise that it had been
Healing,
I can't help but feel you've been
Dealing
Cards you've collected by
Stealing.
When the curtains come down to
Reveal it,
When you turn back around and I
See it,
I’m not sad that you're not who I
Needed,
I'm just sad I was so easily
Cheated.
Crossed My Mind
It has crossed my mind
So many times,
You’d think my mind
Was a church.
It crossed my mind
So early, I
Knew it well before
Our first word.
It crossed my mind
That day, that night,
And later, when I
Was still hurt.
It’ll cross my mind
Even after I find
That it still has yet
To cross yours.
The Juggling Act
The hardest part about moving on
Has been the drop.
Your hand falls from mine,
And the cycle starts again.
The left side swoops in
To try to stop
What could have been
The end,
Now, the right has taken ahold
Of something new,
But the grip is weak,
And my finger shake,
And when the left hand rises
With the old hand in view
The right’s hold starts
To break.
I don’t know how much more juggling
I can take.
White Sweater
A smile fills his eyes.
His chin pokes out
When he laughs.
Something like,
Surprise
Creeps in from
The back.
I knew that it was love,
But not like that.
The neck of his sweater
Rises up
When he shrugs,
And a flash
Of insecurities,
Of everything I've done,
Of the person I have been—
Someone worthy of no one—
Floods my line of sight
Until everything is gone,
And he is sitting higher, now,
Glowing like the sun.
A flawlessly sewn
White sweater,
Not a thread
Out of line,
Perfect and pure and
Worthy of a love
Much greater
Than mine.
The Push
It’s not an earth quake.
It’s not a hurricane.
It’s not the sea level rising,
Washing her away.
It’s not a foundational flaw,
Or a leaky pipe break,
Flooding water through the walls
Until they give away.
It’s not a tight rope fall
Where her foot escapes
From the balance of, she thought
A solid embrace.
No,
It’s not the shift that causes
Her to lose her place.
A shift, she could fight,
It’s the push she couldn’t take.
When You Know
When you know, you know.
When you know, you glow
From the inside-out,
Up, down, and below.
When you know, they know.
When you know, it shows
Through the warmth of a smile,
Turning ice into snow.
When you know, he knows.
When he knows, I know,
In the force of a hug
When things seem to go
To a place where he thinks
I may no longer know,
Where seeing me sad
Is the worst kind of blow,
Where a quivering chin
And the tumbling flow
Of a tear is enough
For the floor down below
To drop, like the earth
Will swallow you whole
If he doesn’t know
That I know what I know.
17 Missed Calls
You think I want you around
Like I have your poster on my wall,
Like I would go to your concert
If you were in town,
Like I care that you are happier now.
You think that I need to hear from you
Like my lifeline is your voice,
Like my saline drip is dosed with
Your response to my
Unread messages.
You think that I still listen to you
To find myself in what you say,
To hear the memories explained,
Like I will be late for work
Because I have to hit “replay”
You think you understand me
In those 17 missed calls,
I love to be the one to say
You could not be
More wrong,
17 robotic sounds from
One answering machine
Says more about who you are
Than you will ever
Know about me.
The Ghost
You say that we don't
Have a ghost,
So why does it feel so cold
Every time you turn around
And let go of the hold
You had on my hand
As stories, new, and old
Send piercing shivers
Down my spine and
Freeze my very bones?
If a ghost does not
Exist, then where
Do your eyes go
When you say it didn’t work
And how you should have known
How and what
To fix, and why you
Weren’t able to grow?
And suddenly, I feel that
You and I are not alone.
You say that we don't
Have a ghost,
I think you just don’t know
That of the two of us, you’re not
The one who she follows.