When I was sixteen
I wrote you a love poem
or rather
a poem addressed to
the semblance of someone
worth loving.
I’ve never been great
with words spoken aloud
those uttered without room
for consideration
or revision
and so I wrote you a poem
and another, then
another, and
you changed,
not only in your self
but as a concept,
reduced slowly to a slew
of male pronouns, the latest
no more profound than
the last.
i always thought i’d be the kind of girl
to smoke between pauses in conversation
that is, if i had the money
or the insanity
to pick up an addiction with a price tag
if i grew tired of feeding my impulses
with obsessions locally grown
i’d be useless with a cigarette between
these fingers always grabbing at something
the edges of your coat as you walk away
the turf of imagination, yesterday’s newspaper
the love letters i’ve yet to receive
time and its taunting invisibility
i’m always reaching for the panic button somewhere
because someone is always loving someone more
and i never knew you but still felt hollow
without you
and i feel emptier now than ever before
no one prescribes open heart surgery for
the broken-hearted, only time
unavailable for sale or even rent
there is no time to be found here
imperceptible hours scrambled by miles
i’m missing someone, always loving someone more
and before i met you
there was a different subject;
i wonder if he feels the shift,
knows i gave up on sharing our story.
It seems impossible that there could be two of you. The man who’d share his yolk, tie my shoes, run along behind my bicycle (and later fix my car), offer me the remainder of his pocket change or the entirety of his bonus; the man who’d cradle me, guide me, hold me up, come to my rescue at any hour, invest in my future without hesitation or doubt. Mama says you are just like him, but how could there be another?
Twenty-three years. I can’t even imagine twenty-three days without you, can’t fathom how my life will continue beyond yours.
I listen to the fireworks from my bedroom window as I close the blinds.
On Sunday a pretty girl tells me I’m gorgeous. I had to wear my old glasses today and waited until the late afternoon before slipping into an old t-shirt and baggy jeans. I’m home alone. With no place to go, I straighten my hair. This is a city of connections, neighbourhood borders blending and bleeding into one another with such concrete, ten-lane certainty, but I’m nowhere nearby. I write a to-do list with nothing to cross off.
I don’t believe her. This feeling is not freedom.
At the airport I watch a lady and her two-year-old daughter ride the escalator up and away from the terminal building. “Wave goodbye to Daddy,” she says as they pause at the top, and I picture a handsome businessman beyond the security checkpoint, his wedding band the only indicator of a family back at home. Suddenly I crave not a child, but a husband: to hold the breathing reminder of our union in my arms; to foster love in the purest embodiment of romantic love; to encourage one last look back at Daddy when the glimpse is for me alone.
eBay > Toys & Hobbies > Educational > Other
PEEING BABY MAN: the clay pocket-sized natural wonder
Hours of urinating fun!
(Pyrex jug not included.)
Starting Bid: $0.99
When I was a little girl my parents bought me one of those realistic toy babies. It was cute and far from the scariest doll I acquired during my childhood, like the ones whose beady eyes close as if they are “sleeping” when you cradle them. What made this imitation baby so disconcerting, however, was how lifelike it was, albeit minus the bloodcurdling screams that so often emerge from the depths of a real tot. If you’re a toy manufacturer planning to design a baby with the ability to perform one realistic action, though, please take note: imitation bowel movements should not be top of that list. The toy baby of my youth wore diapers and peed if I bottle-fed her water through the convenient hole in her mouth. I, a particularly meticulous child who always kept her belongings in pristine condition, squirmed at the thought of actually using the doll for this intended bodily function. I was already potty trained and guaranteed to come into contact with an abundance of spitting, peeing, screaming, and generally obnoxious children throughout my lifetime; changing diapers and accumulating memorable stories of urination would be in my adult future, so my six-year-old self opted to avoid this artificial demonstration.
It’s difficult to imagine what my assimilation into 7th grade would have looked or felt like had it not been for my accent. That sounds cynical, I know, but I’ve heard my fair share of new student horror stories, tales of children whose families perpetually move from city to city with little relief to be found on a school campus. Not all kids are cruel, it’s true, but the curiosity I inspired in my peers worked to my advantage. I can’t help but wonder how that would have changed if I’d walked on to my Californian middle school campus that January day with a Southern drawl. It just wouldn’t have been the same.
the space i’m in
belongs only to me and someone
absent, anonymous
you keep thinking about lies
and i keep talking about dying
and everything’s rising while i rot
it’s like a horizontal bungee jump
this past and these mistakes
the farther i get away
the more violently i’m pulled back
and i’ve been through deaths
that hurt less
know it will take a death
of myself
to rebuild a new one
growing up is killing me
have you ever heard of such a thing?
mama found broken glass
found an empty bottle
found you lost
thought you’d disappeared
and you almost did
wake up wake up! wake up
nothing
so symbolic right there
the way you captured me
captured us
captured the night
in one inaction
the way you’re unresponsive,
asleep to it all
your wide eyes
i remember the surprise
remember the silence
remember the way
you said nothing
with your mouth
the way
you absorbed
every verbal blow.
You said,
I have nothing more to send,
no obligation to timeliness.
We lost years like fallen pennies,
the gradual descent of a distance
far more potent than geography.
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