A Failed Attempt at Projecting My Adoration Into The Written Word
~thank you i am here
i imagine us sitting in the laundry room without shirts on
you laugh at me when i say “i don’t care about poems that aren’t about love”
(even though i’m laughing as well, and not really serious about that statement)
i imagine reaching out to touch your hair and say “boys are idiots”
and in earnest, you’re an idiot.
but so am i. I’m not a boy, i mean,
but i am quite the dunce.
ha
ha ha ha
once you told me it was okay to be fragile and breakable, because I’m “mortal”
but then i just giggled nervously and said “but i’m not real at all”
and this whole poem is really only about the rainsong of your hips
and the words you say without making a sound, really.
i am sorry that i like you better than my own butt.
i am sorry that you aren’t eating sandwiches with me in my bed right now.
i am sorry the lines of this poem aren’t long enough to connect our fingertips.
i think, really most of all, i apologize for knowing that no line, no stanza or limerick
could get me as close to you as i need to be.
you’ve drawn sonnets on me without ever being within 17 feet of my body.
i remember you
stumbling into my room,
inebriated to the point of bizarre courage.
you stood by the door and stared at me,
nodded a few times and whispered to yourself,
“hmmm. Interesting.”
i know how Ophelia felt.
“o, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown”
a consequence of crippling silence
i just saw a scary movie.
i’m home alone now and every noise makes me jump
a towel just fell off the rack
and i screamed.
so now i’m sitting at the kitchen table
remembering you laying behind me,
watching 8 Mile,
and laughing at Eminem’s nose.
i told you about all the things your lips reminded me of,
like how when they moved all i heard
was echoes.
there are 1232 species of bats.
i am afraid of all of them.
watching you makes me think
that’s wrong.
makes me think about what’s really important:
the ringing in my ears that night,
after you left out the door;
how i called my sister,
told her to drive safe because the roads are icy
and i loved her,
and i hoped she was having fun.
and when she hung up, i whispered into the darkness
beneath my blankets,
“i will never put my own pieces back together.”
i slept abnormally well that night.
i’m warming my hands with the steam from this tea.
also thinking about acrobats and circuses,
and this book i read once about water and elephants.
elephants are really cool and big,
i mean, how can you not fall over,
you’re so gigantic.
if i was ever that big, i feel like i’d try to
tie my shoe or something and just topple right over.
that’s a weird thought.
i don’t think i’d very much like being big.
“I’m laughing into the anthill of you”
i am an ant
i have crawled into your bed
and i am so small
that you squish me,
and you never even
realize it.
you never think about
how heavy your shoulder is
when it’s crushing my tiny .0003g
body.
i am special because
i can swallow 8 pills at once.
on the list of drugs i’ve done,
there is one at the bottom.
i wrote it all tiny-like,
so you have to squint to see it.
i finished writing the list,
and my mood ring was purple.
i have no fucking idea what that means.
i started to think about the part
in the Odyssey where Agamemnon
died, and how maybe i cried
and maybe i didn’t.
I mean, i had to think about it
really hard. so that lead me to
think about how i really have no idea what
i’m even doing anymore,
and how many thousands of miles away
i am from everything else.
emotionally, at least.
and like, i have this question in
my mouth all the time, like
“how aren’t you as sad as me?”
and it’s weird because some people are
just so goddam motherfucking happy.
Look at Steve Roggenbuck or Daniel Alexander,
for example.
how the fuck did that happen?
people tell me that you have to work
at being happy.
I bet those dudes have killer work ethic.
I kind of feel like if you try to be sad,
that’s cheating.
i mean, ‘cause then it’s not just a
mental disorder, it’s you romanticizing
everything all at once.
my sister says that my poetic nature
and romanticism are what
detach me from real life.
She’s weird and she rolls her eyes at me
a lot, so i don’t know if I take her too seriously.
I think i forgot to mention:
I wrote your name at the
bottom of the list.
here’s an ebook of some poems i wrote
Love this!! Brilliant read, very succinct and strangely poignant.
Hello! I’ve finally gotten around to writing an ebook, it is called “I Don’t Know If You Panic on the Phone”
feel free 2 read it, idk.
i love u, we all love u,
please enjoy
xx
11:47
it is thirteen minutes to midnight.
i am thinking about beggars
in madison or minneapolis,
or anywhere, really.
I am in my bed and I am sorry.
i am thinking about the man
who not only lost his job,
but lost himself.
I’m thinking that sometimes,
your whole life blows up
in your face, like a supernova.
and for one blinding second,
everything is beautiful and disastrous.
