wegotism (no 'u' in moving on... but there is in 'future'...) (2003)

you say i mirror your interior, the things you hide behind your eyes
you tell me that you want to reach in the looking glass
it's hard to piece back together a past when it's been smashed
stained colors and made beautiful, worshiped like a church
and i think you're still trying to decide if that's truly your desire
and here i am, the cheshire cat, offering you paths and parallels
my lips form the words, "which way, which game will you play?
divide and conquer, like chess? do you want to rid me of defense
slide around my attempts to fight you off and capture me through wit?
or checker, want to hop and skip and jump madly about my board
until you're bored with my way of seeing things in black and white?
perhaps you want scrabble, words built off of words, trapping me
into a maze, a haze of pretty phrases and silly girlish hopes?"

you claim i'm a mirror, that your eyes and heart and soul reflect mine-

i don't know if i dare believe this to be so

i wonder if, when rejected, when i put a fist through this mirror we once reflected
seven years bad luck decided to follow me into this future

************************

this body of mine was *my* church, *my* place to be vunerable
i opened my doors to you, lit my candles for you to pray by
i was your cathedral, a place you felt safe, a place you could kneel and be helpless
and what a mess you left behind when you turned your face away from my redemption
when you renounced your goddess and broke my windows, left me open to the wind

i gaze at the alter where you used to offer me your everything, i taste your blood and tears
i pick up the broken splinters... and it's winter, it's cold in this abandoned sanctuary
i shiver, waiting to be striped purple and stripped of my sanity, left only with my smile
i know what i want, know which path i'd choose, but you smile at my inquiries
just blow a kiss, hit or miss (yet you always hit your mark, my heart; and damn you for it)
and leave me with unanswered questions heavy in the air, sharp like glass shards

************************

it's hard to be a mirror when your light is off
hard to reflect in the dark

 

This is a poem I wrote years ago, several relationships ago. When it ended, I thought I had ended. As I stopped to think, I realized the similarities were alarming- men who were directionless, pretty, but not focused, submissive in bed and yet somehow ruling my every waking moment. Our relationships started off equal and quickly became tangled messes of codependency held together with hot sex and passionate arguments. My constant anxiety and need for stability coupled with their inability to commit even to a hobby led to a deep seated fear of abandonment that was self-fulfilling and, in the end, necessary for our sanities. I became incredibly self-destructive, falling apart. Everywhere felt it had echoes of us and they were like tiny knives slicing into me when I left the house... so I didn't.

But I lived. I lived, and I moved on, and I survived, and I fell in love again, with other people, and now, I can think back on him, and smile, and shake my head, and think "wow, what the fuck was I thinking". I didn't believe it possible then.

It gives me hope that maybe, just maybe this is what I needed to level up. I have been so mired in practicality and pragmatism. I used to be a decent poet- nothing spectacular, but expressive enough. Perhaps this was the catalyst I needed to move away from prose and back into verse, back into something that's slightly more raw and expressive. Not that blogging isn't, mind, I've never been particularly guarded, but poetry... poetry can have a way to it. A way I've pushed aside for a while. Maybe it's time to bring it back.

considering how things turned out (2004)

when you left
i couldn't have imagined
life without you
love
without you
you were not everything
but close

i would have spent
days
dreaming of a way
to catch your tailwind
in my sailboat
and keep up
with your siren song

but i was never meant
for the waves
yeah
cause you held oceans
in your eyes 
and your heart
made me 
seasick

now
i'm grounded
and i'm finding
i can pull
strength
out from places
i never knew
i harbored

i am loved
by lips that whisper
to me sins
i've yet to experiance
leaves me tingling
and wanting
more

i am sheltered
in earthy eyes
and skin
soft as the soil
that embraces the seeds
of beginning

i embrace my new life
my seed
and thank the stars
i wasn't attractive enough
or cool enough
for you

oh yes
i'm glad
i'm his fair skinned beauty
glad he finds pleasure
in the way my eyes
tear up in joy and pain
glad he makes time
specially for me
and that when i need a hand
his envelops mine

but that
is not
the point
of my happiness

now

i'm good enough
for 
*me*

and when i smile

for once
i truly
mean it