what it takes (i guess)

not the death of two (younger) siblings;
the first a 23 year old sister struck by a car on her nightly run,
the second a brother in his 50s,
who came home from work
to take a nap on the couch
and lose his battle with lung cancer,
leaving his wife with three growing sons and no means to pay the bills,
or the death of both parents:
the sudden diagnosis and the rapid way it took her mother,
the lengthy decline of her father who held on to the bitter end,
keeping his grandchildren awake in fits of giggles with his loud, middle-of-the-night singing
and other equally amusing side effects of senility.
nor 30-odd years of struggling to pay the bills,
while feeding and clothing and raising six (SIX!) daughters
on the income of an exhausted, overworked husband.

no, no
it was my sister,
23 and fickle,
breaking up with her Catholic boyfriend of four years without a care in the world
to drive across the country with a 20 year old redhead
some punk kid she met in a bar
that at last drove my stoic martyr -- i mean mother -- to tears
that she was not too ashamed to silently bury into her pillow
and then deny afterwards.

we met at a wedding

and spent the night in drunken conversation.
we were both nursing broken hearts,
finishing summers spent wallowing in the senselessness of loving the disloyal.
you laughed at my clumsy youth through the haze of vodka tonics
while i wondered if you'd kiss me.

months and months and months of
s l o w l y
getting to know each other,
trading secrets and ideas
while i pretended not to notice
you pretending not to notice
that i had purposely unbuttoned my shirt.

fastforwardto:

four in the morning
when you whisper my name so quietly that i wonder if you're hoping i'm asleep,
and my response comes out so urgently it sounds as if i was afraid it would get stuck in my throat.
you inhale
and everything but my heart stops,
fixes in place for years
until you speak.

"i love you."


the world picks up again, only now
there is no one in it but you.

Grazed Knees

They warn you not to go to bed angry,

but I've found it usually works:

time and sleep and silence cure my ailments.

But this morning I opened my eyes

with my fists still clenched and my heart still compressed

and ugly inside things

clawing at my rib cage

and climbing my throat,

trying to push themselves out of my mouth and,

finding my jaw unwilling to loosen,

they settle for second best and burn my tongue.

I sit boiling, rigid, and hell-bent on containment,

and finally see why you tell me

anger is a wasted emotion.

Lost in my Mind

It started with the way you -

where did it start? -

perhaps it was the smile,

no, I think it was the accent that shows up for certain, specific vowel sounds,

and then I think it was that look you get sometimes-

that momentary dissolution into reaction

that I find so charming that I often feel unable to resist the urge

to say bizarre little things

just to watch you delight over them, for an instant or so.

My head is running away from me

and taking all my good sense with it.

A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left

Nothing nothing nothing

sounds the way I want it to

or says the things I want to say

without telling the whole internet

all my dirty secrets.

Don't You Want to Share the Guilt?

When you are involved and he belongs to someone else,

your self becomes less of a self.

You only get fragments.

At first they're the good parts:

excitement and giddiness,

until confusion seeps in, and confessions pour out

and then you get the sad parts and the mad parts.

All the while you're constructing yourself as an image,

spending hours creating an idea

made of lipstick and moisturizer and deep-conditioned ends,

so when he shows up -- late,

if he shows up --

you can smile and sympathetically nod,
offer yourself as affirmation,

until he exhausts himself of complaints

and you reach out to touch his arm

and provide a different way for him to exhaust himself.
This is what validates you.

And he pants

and he begs

and he whines,

and he's so much like an animal

he makes all men animals.

It is guilt

and control.

You torture yourself with pictures of his "real life",

consoling yourself with whatever flaws you can find to tear it apart --

she has man lips --

as if that's some sort of a sin she should be punished for.

As if you're entitled to do the punishing.

You are appearance.
He is not interested in insightful or profound,
so you dilute yourself,
hollow yourself out,
tightly contain everything you,
because he might get annoyed.

You don't get a whole person.
You are not a whole person,
You don't deserve a whole person.

He leaves over and over and over --
because you tried to be a real person,
you demanded attention that you didn't deserve,
you used the word 'feelings' --
but he always comes back,
pleading, insisting that he needs you.
This makes you feel secure.

You know it's only you because you're there,
but you like his reason better.

He gets to disappear
and leave you to contend with
all the ugly little pieces.

The Longer I Lay Here

   Two posts in one day? Talk about narcissism! But seriously people, shit's about to get real.

   I just had a long conversation with Johnny, who you may or may not remember and are welcome to catch up on here. He and I have fallen out of touch with each other, due to time, distance and the awkward stiff exchanges that have developed in their wake. It's often easier to let things fall by the wayside, to succumb to the seeming inevitability of drifting. Until today, when he pissed me off.
   I posted a dreamy facebook status about the romance of youth and letting the world break your heart, and he responded with a snarky psychoanalysis, claiming I was projecting frustration I felt with my own apathy onto the rest of the world. I responded with a sarcastic thank you for his insights, and forced myself not to send him a text message demanding that he never dare psychoanalyze me ever again, for fear of death or whatever.
   Tonight I saw him on facebook chat and decided to make a joke of it, asking very sarcastically when his interest in psychoanalysis had developed. He responded sincerely, the bitter undercurrent evidently (and fortunately) having been swallowed whole by the internet, explaining that it was an ongoing process, "sparked by the fire of self-discovery." Driven by his sincerity, I told him I was in the process of redefining my own identity and trying to overcome my fears of intimacy and communication through breaking down my mental barriers, but that it was still in its infancy and I wasn't sure "which barriers were appropriate." He responded with: "You are awesome. Honestly. I'm so glad we can talk like this and I want to support you any way I can." This led to an hour and a half of confessional honesty, a baring of egos and self-inflicted obstacles on relationships and the construction of self-images and the limits of our very similarly contained selves.
   The conversation ended with an agreement for another later in the week. Whether it will happen or not- your guess is as good as mine. Either way, I'm happy and nervous that I overcame a little bit of myself tonight. And that's one of the best things I've been able to say to myself in months.