Condolences

 

Thoughtless things that you did and said hurt me,
starting from when you discovered
that I was no longer a child,

assumed what I would do with my legs,

and told me not to marry my love because it
interfered with your beliefs of separation of race.

 

What was most terrifying was the lack of anything to be felt because you had been dead to me for so long already, and all that you could really do after you said that line was to find how unforgiving I am, firsthand.

 

Maybe you thought I had done it intentionally, gotten myself pregnant to spite you, or my parents, or life in general,
but even still, you drove someone who would have been your strongest ally away. You judged me for being unmarried. You belittled everything from my mouth. It is because of you that I truly learned to hate myself for things
I couldn’t have controlled in the first place.

 

And then suddenly I was the bad guy
for running away and shutting you out,
and what choice did I have? You had done so much already, by allowing things to get worse. I told you about the abuse, and how much I needed someone constant, and you told me that you couldn’t, that you’d prefer your space. It was as if you and the whole family conveniently looked away.

 

I don’t blame you for what happened,
but you shouldn’t have blamed me.
I’m not sorry we weren’t closer
because that’s on you too.
And if you truly wanted in my life
you had every opportunity to make
amends, and instead you decided to hold out, because we are both stubborn.

 

Neither of us yielded, and neither of us won.

 

A Collection of Feelings

I wake up today and I love you.

Will I wake up tomorrow and feel the same?

Sunset Over Texas

There was no snow in April,

nor thunder in Febuary, 

but now the sky grows grey

and dark.

I tried to tell you that evening

when the day had waned to

thin orange stripes, contrasting

bright pink clouds, a sun half-sunken

below a somber horizon.

You would listen by and by,

a solemn nod, faint smile,

but your eyes were lightyears

away from whatever 

I was saying.

I wonder now if you will miss me,

when you find I’ve gone.

If only heaven and earth were not

so great a distance,

and there was only the

white porch swing

on a patio of this

too small house.

You

I’m impartial to lukewarm,

and annoyingly cautious, so

I understand that you would test

to try and gauge how I react,

but then I wondered if it was a game,

and wanted desperately to trust.

So, when we climbed the cliff’s tall face,

standing at the edge, I stole a glance,

and envied your decided jumping.

I rebalanced, tried again, but could not

commit.

Stuck on the edge of this earth, caught,

wishing just to be reckless enough to

plummet for my own reasons,

but I keep looking for you,

and I can’t let go.

Rally My People

It does not matter if you loved me,

or if you love me still. 

You can call

to my window. 

I will not hear you.

I spent hours in my fortress,

wondering if you felt anything 

other than the most shallow 

form of affection. When 

I needed you, you did not answer.

Deaf to me, my muse had become.

I embody my own

Lady of Shallot, peering from her perch.

Weaving for no greater purpose,

seeing you only from the corners 

of my eyes, contorted reflection,

never as you were.

Half-sick, I tried to call to you,

but you did not heed my cry.

It was then my mirror shattered,

frustration and anger, its 

demise.

No longer do I wait and watch,

nor listen for your voice.

I await the death of love.

Rally what you can, 

but do not hope.

As for my people, 

I have none.

Unquieted Love

There are times that you try to make
me smile, evoke a giggle, or laugh,
but instead I cry.
I cry because you don’t take me seriously, and you’ve never been
a shoulder to cry on:
it makes you
hostile to see me miserable.

I try not to
show how deeply it hurts to
feel laughed at, nothing I
say is ever serious to you,
and perhaps it is because
you’re not serious.

But I am.
I have been since I decided
at four-years-old, when
some person would sweetly call me silly, and I’d correct them so they’d know.

And now I am twenty-seven,
still wanting to be taken seriously. People tell me,
“Lighten up, it’s just a joke.”

How frustrating
to not have someone
love me for my serious mind, and
terrifying to fear such severity,
for when the world needs serious
thought,
I will not falter or fall.

Just like them

I know that I do not fit in,
and often some well-meaning
person in society finds me,
and wants to show me off.

I don’t fit because I move to
my own rhythms, which change
time and signatures swiftly,
and I’d rather be alone.

You tell me I bring joy,
and that you miss me,
but what you miss is the way
I make you feel when I am around.

You bring me torment, and
when it became clear I brought
with me a storm to rival any
better tempest, a temper that
can only be tamed with love
and peaceful message,
you instead pushed me away.

I’m not upset. I am just not
surprised. I knew it all along.

Unanswered

You asked me if I liked to watch
men fall under my spell,
as if I weaved a clever message,
subliminal in my lines.

Let me tell you,
man I have never spoken to
face-to-face,
I don’t.

And my poetry isn’t crafted
to ensnare unsuspecting men
like you,
but happens
almost compulsively,
to better understand myself.

I keep shreds of paper near me
at my desk, in my car, near my bed,
and somehow make sense of
fragments and pieces. It is like a
jigsaw of words, trying to escape
my mind, and I want to understand
the way that they build thoughts.

As for men, they are not my trophies,
nor are they my victims,
and if showing men my poetry makes
them fall in love, then
should I don a habit and
marry to a church?

Am I such a danger,
wielding a pen? Do my words
make you come alive?
Are you, too, under my spell?

Song of the Sparrow

Oh, solitude come to me now.
Sing of intimations,
allow my thoughts to free,
and counsel me through this unrest.

In these trees, I cannot sit–my
place is taken by a shadow.
I am forced to take my knee,
and humbly I resign to fate.

Patience is my longwinded ally,
for it is what
I feed my anger. I bide my time
and bite my tongue, to wait just a
little longer.

I wonder of the parallels we take,
the two roads we walk down,
and though we’ve never even met,
I think about you fondly.

Grotesque

Could we take a moment to consider O’Connor,

maybe Welty, or Faulkner too? Where regional

works are absorbed into families, and deformity

is linked to the spirit.

Because that is my own dilemma.

Can I have a club foot, or a disfigured

face, a hand that never lets go?

What would they have said about

my spirit? What would the lesson be?

There is a theme among parable-like stories,

short and long, novels and poems,

and words that sound like home,

every page I turn.

Perhaps I am already grotesque,

and that’s why I relate

so well.

Although, I’ve often felt closer to Chopin’s

characters. To take my clothes off near the beach,

run into the the welcoming waves,

and become so lost in my own awakening

that I drown.