hell has made its home in my belly
and i don't know how to finish this sentence without
the silent screaming, the muffled shout
this fire raging inside while i wait for something to happen

hell curls hot and sickly in my belly
with nighttime fires that consume and leave me
awake and empty shell of bitter meant-to-be
the taste of copper in my bitten shut mouth

hell burns home fires in my belly
slack-jawed yelling for a lack of things to say
so lonely that i push any other people away
for the fire that burns on inside without warmth.

8/5/2012

i remember them in lines of poetry. strange, isn't it? that they should fit so neatly into journal entries or memoirs as lines of poetry.

he was "when reading between your unlined/a4 pages".

he was "where i can't whisper...//"sweet dreams, trezo"/into digital ears".

he was "the darkness that curls on pillows left empty by lovers".

he is "we no longer love, but stare out windows/to old skeletons, the bones we expose".


i would try to explain it more, understand it more, but all i can see is loss and anger. is struggling to see something in them that i cannot see in me. unwanted and wanting. loved and unloving. desperate for something more than real.

distaste

of what use to me is the thought of love?
wearied with words and acts of derring-do,
i scoffed at the foolish idea thereof:
of what use to me is the thought of love?
it's more like a curse than a gift from above
i, in this fight, am decided: i'm through--
of what use to me is the thought of love,
wearied with words and acts of derring-do!

i am not courageous.

every waking hour, i spend like an accountant
pros and cons weighed like gold in scales
like gold in scales made before time itself
and i watch the balance shift back and forth with shaking hands
shaping weights of ideals.

every detail is itemized and i'm always in the deficit
the shape of me, the way of me
no more than a film of dust in the balance.
my ledger is thick with transactions
of a hint of sin tainting the goods.
the balance of the scales will tip with assessing the risk of you...

but i am not courageous.

you hugged me.
you can deny it now, of course. but i'll remember.
try as i might to forget, i'll remember.

week two of the summer abroad and you?
you made the first move.
you broke the rules.
you extended your arms and pressed chest to chest and folded me in your embrace.
a scant second and i knew that you and me? we.
joined heart to heart in an instant.

next to you i felt dirty and unkempt
like my high school uniform
untidy wrinkled and careworn.

so sue me if i fell that hard for you.
you, with your dorky glasses.
you, with your legs like water reeds.
you and your chivalry and outdated sense of noblesse oblige to the american.
two weeks and you enveloped me.
the antidote to a stiff upper lip.

it's nearly four years since i met you.
you wrote me letters every month.
you paid for my cell phone service so that you and me. we.
talking and texting about my trip.
you spent the bitter weekend where she got married having fun with me.
all because you reached out to me.
melded limb to limb one second.

and when i say we loved each other biblically,
i mean to say that i knew you in that way that adam
upon sight of eve
declared her at last bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh

i spent almost four years waiting on you.

and yet
now
i always remember to never mention you
in conversations with friends.
As if the whisper of your name
could conjure your presence.
i try to remember to think of you
only as broken clocks herald time.

i never remember to forget you.
you hugged me.

you won't forgive me for this

it's weird but sometimes i like girls in that way you wouldn't approve of
and sometimes i like guys that way too that against the wall desperate way that comes and goes
but i don't have the capability to love
anymore
you took that away with your pain and your tears and your perfect past of zealousness

you make me feel like a bigot and a hypocrite
magnetic word poetry strung out over locker doors that spell freedom and lies

i write things down so that i'll remember couched phrases of why we don't all gel like before
why she was a whore and he was depressed how sick
these four brick walls so whitewashed paint peeling and quiet
stones that refuse to cry out i write so that i remember and swear and never love

you won't forgive me for this

i lavish affection on the available and attainable
no effort because he's really not my type and it's just fun
and games i could play if only i wasn't so desperate for someone to take me away give me rest
give me peace and please me release

you'd hate it when you saw
half innocent half vixen half pussy half raven
200% in negative not what you thought at all

i'm only quiet because i still have respect and words can be shifted into pleasantries

i miss being able to love

Shadow Theater
Je rêve of shadows
Mix reality with lies
Forgotten past times
Nostalgia wakes me again
In darkened rooms, there’s light

My discomfiture
Proof I’m an insomniac
But I am dreaming
Crisscrossed shadows on blank walls
Restless echoes of past life

Bed swallowing me
Whole body drowned in pillows
Si c’est un confort
But the shadows ever rage
Restless again and again

our last poem had to showcase what we learned over the semester. as i learned pretty much nothing i didn't already know, i got to write out whatever the heck i felt like writing. poetry snob, yes. but since i made myself have bigger challenges than my professor offered... *shrug*

this deals with a big talk i had in astronomy lab with this kinda awesome guy named peter. we're killing time talking about the lab and it got turned into this big joke about becoming a superhero based on all these cosmic rays that shoot through us every day. seriously: you calculate than over a million muons pass through you a day, and they're irradiated particles that move so fast, time moves slower for them.

so while we were in class, we end up talking about the hulk, superman, spiderman, mystery men and how "my mommy calls me special" and pretty much anything to kill all the time we didn't feel like spending sitting there.

a sestina is 39 lines, with 6 end words rotated each stanza. so they have to have the lines end a certain way.

p.s. peter's awesome. i think he likes me.
Astronomy Lab Sestina (You’re a Superhero) ( insert awesome music here )

"wordplay." it's supposed to be puns, spoonerisms, malapropisms, etc. basically you taking on the english language. i set out to do something completely insane. look up "contronyms" on your google. you'll get a couple of websites about words that have their antonym AS ITSELF. examples include "cleave," which means both to adhere to and to separate from; "left" as in to leave or what remains; "bolt" and "fast" which both have to do with leaving and with standing still. are we clear here? good.  shape based on the word "cleave".  Discursive means to move from topic to topic coherently... or to move from topic to topic randomly. Discursive
( poem under the clickety click )