Secret thoughts,
Secret thoughts,
I have about,
Those who I adore,

Secret thoughts,
Secret thoughts,
I have wishing,
They loved me more,

Secret poems I've writ
Secret words scribbled on page slips
Wishing they would love me different than they do
And wanting to tell them the secret words
But then they wouldn't be my secret thoughts
Secret thoughts,

I guess I want everyone to puddle
In a pool of loving goo
Around me
To lay on me with the couch
Wanting nothing more
And nothing less than
The couch of rest
Together

Is this just a place where I go to feel lonely
To write my secret thoughts
Isn't it so much better
To love how they love me
To appreciate how they are able to show their love for me

So what if he doesn't love me how I wish he would
Doesn't want me how I wish he would

I feel sexually attracted to anyone I find attractive
So
I don't understand how
Him not loving me
Not wanting me sexually
Means anything other than that I am unattractive to him
I think this is something I will learn
On my own
And I don't think it's something I will ask

I am sinking deeper into the couch
Knowing I need to go put chicken in the oven
And chop up the zucchini
I thought of texting my ex this morning
To see if he would want to go get a coffee
Check in

I can picture him saying, "stop being weird! Just text me"
But it was early and he was probably sleeping
And if I'd texted him maybe he would have followed up
Later in the day
And tried to rain check
But no
I don't want a standing rain check on coffee
With someone I only want to see on random mornings
When Gotye is stuck in my head

I am dancing much more lately

I am glad the other guy left town
It was too much
He was here for too long

I am being more open
To life
To friends
To opportunity
And also to
Energies around me
They are getting in me and on me
And being big and large
And feeling larger than me
And it's hard to feel so stuck up with other people
To feel so affected
To wake up with thoughts
secret thoughts
of someone else's life

Secret thoughts, secret thoughts
The secret thoughts I have about myself
I don't want them to be secret at all.

What will I do in the absence of ***
Will I paint more
Sing more
Spend more time with my friends and the birds
Will I dance more
Maybe in the rain
Will I lean on my friends
Get to know my pen
Lift my arms when I feel afraid
Maybe I'll feel way less afraid
Actually
Will I cry more or less?
Will I get closer to my family
Will my energy still flow
I won't be a frozen bird in a cage of my body
I'll be jell-o and slime in my body
My energy will still flow
But it will all be mine
Once
Years ago
I didn't have *** for a month
I saw a friend of mine and he said
It suited me
To not have ***
Maybe I'll be even more beautiful
and for who?
Not to attract someone new
But just a result
Beautiful like a wolf when she leaps
I don't think this takes away my polyamory
At all
I will still have partners
Big and small
Short and tall
I just won't need to hear them moan
**** their *****
Press my fingers gently against their *******
Feel their wetness
Or their hardness
I will just know them in other ways
And maybe not feel shame
That *** scares me
That ****** intimacy
Is something I'm not ready for
Maybe I'll write more
About what I want
What I crave
Will I crave?
I'm sure I'll crave just the same
I'll have more energy for the healing
I will still be ****
No doubt, that will never leave me
Will the world present itself to me again as it once did
In crevices
In textures
In moods and soundscapes
I think no
It's going to be new
That's the point of this part of my life
Is that it's all new
There's no movie in my mind
Of what this is all like
What this will look like
Everyday I feel the sensation more
That this is just what life is for
That life is for the living
Sensing the world as best I can
Realizing nothing matters so very much
As connecting
Breathing
Feeling
Loving
Breathing
Leaving
Growing
Tou­ching leaves
Climbing trees
Making art
Interpreting life
Sweet privilege
a privilege to make the choice
to heed my body who has been telling me what I need
No one will praise my waist but me
Maybe I will finally understand my waist
The space where I bend
Where my body processes food
Nutrients
The space where my floating ribs float
The space where my ovaries bloat
The space where my solar plexus knows what she knows
It's a relief actually
To let loose my ***** of all foreign energy
Knowing that no new foreign energy is coming here
I never got the time
My ***** never got the time to be alone
The time a ***** needs from birth to around late adolescents
Save for some childhood musings
To be alone
She was invaded early

Now she will finally get the space she needs.
As I let this resonate in my body
This sexlessness in my future
For the first time I feel the power I hold
Or rather the power that holds me.

I'm 28
and I'm reclaiming my virginity
I've just realized in my bath
That *** is optional
Which came from the realization that ***, good or bad is amoral
***, good or bad, has no innate wrongness to it
**** is wrong
*** cannot be wrong, it can only have varying degrees of good to weird or mind blowing or awkward
Just like a sandwich
Of course it is more than a sandwich sometimes
Sometimes it deep and energetic and connected
Sometimes it has ramifications
Sometimes it makes life
A sandwich cannot make life
So the good and badness of it carry more innate weight
But in terms of morality *** is eating a sandwich
A poem from my bath
"*** is 100% apart from ****
But it happens in the same place
Here in this body
That remembers it visceraly"
I said this poem and thought
That this would make a good moment in a play
A woman in a bath sitting up tall in the tub with her arms against the wall, saying "*** is optional" then slumping and sliding down until she was submerged, breathing a long loud sigh on the way, only to muster the courage, arm gliding upward first and body trailing behind to sit up straight and again say "*** is optional" and to repeat.
And then I wondered if this part of me
The artist
that has visions and is mysterious
It felt clear to me in this moment that my creativity
Came from the confusion in my body of *** and ****
And wondered if my creativity, my artist, knew that she had come from this confusion
And then it dawned that maybe she has always been
Maybe I haven't been enjoying ***
Because I've been having the wrong type of ***
I don't know what the *** I should be having is
But I am willing to try things
And then I realized I am maybe scared of what I might like
And then I realized I was scared
Because lately my fantasies have been me naked in heels and chained, walking into a room of naked huge hard men who I have to ask for help because I'm a damsel in distress and then they touch me and **** me
And that sounds like an actually very scary fantasy to come true
And then I realized that maybe it's my fantasies
That don't match up
Maybe I want completely other stuff
Then I got worried of what I might like again
I rememered my ex-partner who one time made a sound like a baby in a tub when we were in the tub on shrooms and his **** was hard
And in that moment I thought oh god is he into adult baby stuff
And I was super icked out by it
And then just now I thought, did I only think that because maybe I am into adult baby stuff?
And then I thought am I into adult baby stuff?
I'm not but it does really upset me
In various ways
And then I was like oh right of course,
Because I was molested as a baby
And then I remembered the ****** I have when I'm alone
and how only two men have every given it to me
Out of the nearly 100 I've ******
Only two
Maybe I shouldn't be ******* men?
Maybe I'm actually really gay?
Though women haven't given me that ****** either,
The ******* fantasies I have
Leave me feeling so vulnerable
But *** that doesn't do so much of what I like in those fantasies
I don't enjoy very much
It would just be so much better if he choked me
Or held me down
That would be more exciting
It would send a thrill through my body
But afterward I'll feel exposed and
I'll want someone who loves me
To hold me
And if someone who loves me
Is there is there to hold me
I may shut down in fear of intimacy
Probably I will cry
Why can't I have that ****** with partners?
I have a fear that my squirting and the ****** I have with ******* doesn't count
Because that one ******, the best one, the one that waves me and quakes me and send my ***** into outer space, the readiness of my lips, the bloat of my *****, the viscous wetness that drips down my tingling *****
Doesn't come out with partners
Something faster comes, something hot and wide and flat, something high shine and piercing comes, white hot pleasure. Dehydrating waterfalls that spill out, calming the white heat before the next attack of pleasure
I'm exhausted by the latter
I'm exhausted by ***
I'm underwhelmed by *******
At this point
I've been ******* since I was four
I've had *** with all the hotties
In many countries
In all the seasons
In every stage and phase of romantic attraction or plutonic mistake
And I get it
I've squirted on so many people
I've *** in my own hands so many thousands of times
And I'm exhausted by it
But of course also I crave it
I think?
Or do I just WANT to be a sexually healthy woman who WANTS it
and I remind myself again,
*** is optional

I appreciate your mouth that is like a plush bow
Thoughtful words shooting from between like an arrow
I love your dove-like qualities
But you’re not like a regular dove
You’re dove who was perhaps a spy
In another time
In another life
You’re a dove who makes you think she’s shy
Until you look her in the eye
And she fluffs up her down
Pounding the air with coy wings
Sending shock waves through your things
Cooing
All the while looking so inviting
A bit naive
With soft, shiny eyes
And just below those fluffy thighs
Are talons that might clutch
You if you’re lucky enough
And the harp song and lightening storm of your mind
I think it’s really really divine
You’re as much vintage Chanel as you are a steaming bowl of organic porridge with honey and fresh berries and a bright green mint leaf on top
You’re the long red hairs on an orangutan’s elbow
And you’re the sweet way
A primate
Holds her babe
To her ******
You’re a late dinner with friends in 10 years
Wooden bowl in hand
Comfort in your hips
Power in your feet
And an expression on your mouth
I feel lucky to imagine
You’re a face I wanna watch age
You’re a place where I can misbehave
You’re a space I sometimes crave
You’re ripples in a pond
And you’re a rave
You’re a song
I’d love to keep humming
For a long
Time
You’re a natural
And you like to pretend you’re not
And I believe that sometimes you really believe that you’re not
But nevertheless you are a natural
And you make me feel like one too
I love few things the way I love being natural with you

He was a meteorite
that night.
She was a lamb.
Not innocent, but soft.

He didn't know
he was such a meteorite though.
Hurtling through her pasture,
blazing out her sky,
raining down sweet fire,
upon her winter coat.

She ate it up.

Wanting nothing more than his meteor heat on her throat.

I like my hairy legs,
They make me feel like a sunbleached cowboy.
They make me feel like a long, lean man with elegant lines and a strong forehead.
I like it when they’re blonde
And they just glisten on my skin.
Like a faux-protection or a cloak,
A delicate barrier between myself
And the world.

Or really I guess I just like the way it looks:
Textured
But smooth.

It looks wild but soft.

A landscape.

I think the hair compliments
The shape of me very well.

I’m always amazed how the hair grows everywhere,
Even on the back of my knees
There is hair

And I like my boyish pretty toes.

I guess I like the sort of genderless aspect to my legs.

From far away they shout
I AM A WOMAN!

But from near they could be anyone’s: hairy with little scars here and there, hairy toes with some dead skin in the toe nail creases. A sort of chunky pink toe there on the end.

A bit of dry callous on my heels. A strong, curved calf muscle. The hollows at my ankles, the delicate depression behind my ankle bones just before the rigid wrinkles of my Achilles tendon.

I like the bulging veins in the arch of my foot when I point my toes
How they press their purple faces against my see-thru skin
Squeezed by the muscles that bump against one another beneath the hard arched bones above
I like the little bubbles of fat that pad my heels, turning bright yellow when I stand on them
Never-smooth legs that even when freshly shaved still prickle
Like a cactus
“Don’t get too comfortable here” they say
These beautiful legs aren’t for rubbing and lounging though my calves love to be pressured

These legs are made for exploration

My therapist said we're enmeshed,
The further you get from me (just like I asked you to),
The more I want you,
I knew this would be true,
It's always when I sense you don't need me,
That I want you.

You didn't believe me but I meant it,
When I said, that I still love you,
It's all the
Other stuff
That gets in the way of the desire,

The mistakes, the stupid mistakes,
The (two) lies,
The need for me,
The weakness in your spine,
That is now getting stronger,

I look at you and I want you,
So bad,
But really I don't,
Because it's not healed yet,

It was so many things that got in the way of: in love
What was it? let's see:
1) the lie that you would work on yourself like an adult
with intention and clarity
you didn't do it until now that we're no longer sharing a bed
and I think that is good
2) the need for your mother
3) the need for me to need your mother
4) the inability to let me fly
to let me be big
to let me be strong, stronger than you
and you called it selfish when I used my strength for me
5) the need for my time
my mind
my thighs
6) the total acceptance and denial of your need for me
without ever accepting that it was too much for me
or that you shouldn't need someone else so completely
7) the boyishness
the child in you that you refused to admit was running the ship

Basically,
if you don't come correct
I can't *******
if you aren't standing proud in yourself as an autonomous adult, as a man,
I can't sexually resonate with you,
why is that so hard to understand?

Your sister said I was throwing you away,
**** that,
I'm doing anything but.
This whole time you were throwing yourself away at me,
and now I've closed my doors to you,
So that I can be alone like I need to be
So I can heal from all the dents in my walls where you've hurtled your body,
begging to be loved.
in a way that you approved of,

I'm a wild woman
A flame
And sometimes I need to burn all the way
Without fear that I'll burn that man-child underfoot
I need to run barefoot
Paint naked
Without being sexualized by the guy who needs my ***** to validate his ****** prowess
Scream
I am a woman-child too,
in the right place and the right time and I don't bring her to you,
Maybe I did, I'm sure I did,
I'm sorry that I did but she's not your responsibility,
she's mine.

I need to cry for my ancestors
Chant for my descendants
And it scares you
But you love it

and I could not hold space for both

You need your wild man
not your weak man
Your wild man does not need me.

I like to smoke
I guess
It makes me feel like a moody
Old but very important man
I have a hard time though with
the contents of the smoke
I don't like to get too high
I don't like cigarettes
I miss his stomach
And the way shirts fit him
I miss his arms that aren't here
Did I only love him so much
Because I knew that soon
I would be an ocean and a country or three away?
I hope not, I hope I'm not so fickle
Is that even fickle?
I also like the sound the embers make
When you breathe in
The little crackling sound
soothes me
It feels nostalgic
Almost like I could be inside those crackling embers
So complete
He would do this thing, I'm sure he still would
Where he would close his eyes to calm himself
And let a big slow breath from his nose
Because the sight of me was so exciting he didn't know what to do with the feeling
I ******* to his voice
Just his voice in my own head
It's so well memorized.
His upper lip I could never really know
Because it was under that beard I love so much
I love how he's never on his phone
He's just thinking and looking around and eating
The smell of his beard
The veins on his big bear hands
The warmth of his arms
The cave of his chest when he's holding me
His sensitivity

I've never loved, seen or appreciated a man in this way
I think he's beautiful the way
A magnificent beast is beautiful
Nothing about him is pretty
But he's delicious
He's like a mountain
A meadow, thick trees letting sunlight onto the ferns
A forest lake
A stag
So strong and transparent
So disarmed
So wild for me and me for him

I'm so stupid in love and there's really nothing to do about it
Especially because
I'm still more important than the way I feel for him
Anything and everything I need to do here
But let's consider that,
What do I need to do here? That I couldn't do there.
But of course there are logistics to consider.

I see it so clear is the thing
I see the yard in front of the house, the strange slanted wall up the side with the little road above
I see the goat
I see the stained glass windows
And the wooden table

I've never felt so safe and excited before in my life
I felt wild and free but held and protected and looked after in a way that did absolutely nothing to shrink my freedoms
I want to breathe him again

I want to go on about him in Spanish with a girl I just met while he stands there talking, probably understanding more than I know

I want to go to Spain with him
Live nearby
Visit his mother
Spend Christmas together
Meet his dog
Be adored in the way he adores
To be eaten the way he eats

I remember I loved so much to watch my pretty, delicate fingers with my long nails touch his hands and face
I like that he's rugged but gentle
I miss his back
Covered in runaway hairs he doesn't know about

His big, strong, hairy thighs
I still wish I'd wrapped around them in the sea
Calling his name
Casting a spell on his hands so he would massage me later
And he did

I want that romantic feeling again
Something about smoking always feels a bit romantic I guess

That you that very extra part of who you are
That extra you
That refuses to be blue
That indulges in the new
That loves things examined and profuse
That darkness in your rhythm
That glory in your spine
That faded glow
Of mornings light
Living in the dusk of your smile
That raspberry bliss
That kiss on the lips
From these tips
The little pout of skin
On the rim of my digit
Is belightful
She’s a white stone
And a blue moon
A dark morado heart
And mint ice cream in her tones
She’s tralificent
Piercing eyes like a taradactal's call
Nose as knowing as the bill of a heron
She’s green corn
And green lights on Santa Monica Blvd
Cars passing before her on parade
Wizzing ever to her aid
She’s maple syrup
And pink Helvetica
16.7 or 32 pt font in bold
She's wistful
She's perfect
She's Buster Keaton
And Jessica Rabbit
She's Chicago in Paradise
She's Arnie's Vegan Pizza Palace
She's A to Z as many ways as you like
She is passion sizzling on a stick
She is upside down and inside out and abiding in her own bowl of Magic Soup

Recently, she’s baby blue, too
A color she’d never met that she never knew
A color she’d never thought she’d be
But now,
In this new season of weeping
Cerulean and turquoise go sweeping by
She’s heard blue in her ears caught this blissful mist swirling in the corners of her spies
And now here they are together in a dance in the ether
Both surrounding each other
Neither knowing either
Strangers to the danger that must surely lie within
But deep inside there does abide a spoon big as the moon to lap up the soup she's stewed and brewed since June.

A 47 foot tall marble woman resurrected by some teenagers trying a spell in the park
Shades of white with royal blue speckles
Lilting away into the day with 1000 pound foot steps and unstoppable knees
Leaving evergreen and fresh pine leaves
In her wake.
Spring up life where I touch down with these cool marble soles
Massive and made of ancient earth not knowing anything but what she must
Forsaking the flaws of humankind that would do her harm
be her fall
Paint her speckles
Cry wolf calls
Awareness found apart from that familiar shade of jade is what she seeks now clothed in freshly spun flesh

Been lost in the dichotomy of black and white
Of dark and light
Of wrong and right
But there is a shadow and a dim and a bright
There is a disaster and a mess and a slight
Colors and shades galore; eggshell, magenta and quite a bit more I could go on
But rather I’d tell you that

She’s skirts hoisted up crossing a river at dawn
She’s the soft pectoral muscle of a sweet mare in the hot summer sun
She’s a lineback dun
She’s creamed corn
She’s soft core **** but give it a slap, a thwack
A proper ****
Again
With feeling

She’s neon nightscapes
She’s every book she’s ever read
She’s scheming tree nuts finding the perfect spot to burrow into the soil nestled by nature’s urging to sprout a root and grow into a baby leaf creeping up towards the sky and downward further downward rooting deeper ever growing always breathing never being the same never changing in any way but in all the ways she must
A 1960’s average family man’s mid-life crisis convertible
Something turquoise
Fit for the kids and the wife and the ego and the front lawn and the grocer and a hightail down the coastline
She’s cinnamon and thyme
She’s spicy
On the back of her neck in the crook of her spine where the stardust that she’s made of meets for the millionth time
She’s a wave breaking in your mouth

She’s pouring boiling water into a lukewarm bath
She’s love

Salt water spewing levitating you but not for long if you don’t carry your own weight be dragged to sea always with me don’t get lost in my motion in my ocean in my Trojan horse my gift you mistook as something you could own

I like that I still get scars on my shins
I like that I prioritize play
I like that I roughhouse and shriek in joy
I like that I’m still entranced by soil
I like seeing earth in my nail-bed
And feeling sunshine on my towhead
I like giggling in fits late at night
It makes me feel young and bright

The childhood I left so long ago has returned
Its a new home I’ve been so lucky to earn
Made of companions, pals, partners, art, pets, plants, rocks and lovers
Feeling safe but free and deep and wild
Belonging and nomadic at the same time

The glimmer and **** of youth will never fade
So long as looking silly and getting scars doesn’t make me afraid

Where is boyhood lost I wonder
And why must the sweetness there get lost
Swimming in a masculine parade
Of shades of rage
Does he know at 9 years old
That somewhere between 10 and 11
He must pretend
He doesn’t want to be held?
Looks from elders who were shoved  
Tell him to be rough
To give up girly stuff
To get big and buff
To be quiet and tough
To call girls *****
To disdain getting cuffed
To maintain
an illusion he doesn’t need love
Sameness painted across generations
Taking its toll
While sleeping giants get old

So let him be soft
Whimsical
Effervescent
Delicate

What is it like to be a man, I don’t know.
Ask him.
Does he know?
Is it cramped?
cold and hard?
Is it full and bold and large.
I hope
I hope
It’s a bit of it all of it
I hope
Every angle gets explored
And every piece gets adored
And that boyhood softens
Rough knuckles

I don't need you
But you help me
And I help you
And I like having you around

But I don't need you
And then sometimes I don't want you

Can you be okay with that?

Can you just exist with me?

Does it have to be so connected all the time?

Why do I so badly never ever want to hurt your feelings?
Why do I think you're so fragile?

I still think you're lying,
And that you did cry
Silently on my back when I pushed you away from my thighs.

Why can't I believe you?
That you're not as fragile as that?

I just think you're quivering
And that without me you'd suffer
Anxiety attacks.

Is that selfish?
Is that narcissistic of me?
To think that you need me the way your face convinces me you do?

The way you cling to my hands
Though you've stopped doing that so much
I suppose.

You leave me alone now all the time,
And that's nice.

Why do men
The sweet ones
The good ones
Still only want to say your beautiful
And daring
And smart
And an unstoppable force
They only want to say it to you
But if you say it without them
Telling it to you first
Now your selfish
Now you didn't give them enough praise
Now you're vanity with too much self-praise

What if I know I'm beautiful
And strong
And courageous
And bold
And adventurous
And resilient
What if I know that without a man ever even entering the room

What if I don't want to be saved
Or fixed
Or complimented
Or comforted

Would you know what to do?
Nice man.

If I didn't need you?

It's been a while since I've been here
Since I've done this
It is quiet and calm but still passionate in its own way
Sometimes do you ever feel like the passion you have now is just burn marks left on the wall from a flame thats gone out?
I guess I do feel like that sometimes
But probably only when I'm tired.
Being self aware is a hard thing sometimes,
You can't lie to yourself like you used to
and you realize all the lies that kept your roof up
And now theres no roof and I'm that much closer to the stars because of it but sometimes there's a breeze that blows too cool
But then the other night a new friend
Asked if we could all share some poetry
And I realized
That magic and childhood and vulnerable smiles live all around me
All the years thinking
Knowing there was no one like me
No one to call "like me"
are long gone

An old woman sits alone in a room
Counting words as they fall from her mouth
Creaking and groaning
Falling from her mouth
Crackling down like dry leaves

She is dying tree
With roots that feed the earth

She wears a cloak around her shoulders
Tassels brushing at the floor
Capturing dust from all the rooms
In which she's sat and spoke before

She is spooky
She is powerful
Within her darkness and light

Her ample hips covers the ground beneath
Wrinkled and fallen flesh
Her crossed feet have walked for miles on earth barren and dry
And in a garden lush and supple is where she learned to cry,

She is the woman
My old woman
Who's come for my nightmares
To ***** away the part of me that cries when she is scared,

She beckons me into the night
With long fingers
Wrinkled, knobby, soft, veiny, calloused,
And says:
'Child don't be afraid
Your time is nigh
Trust me for I am your old woman
and I lead only where you will go'

Thank you for everything you ever did to me
Said to me
Thought of me
Thank you for the awakening
For the clash
Thank you for letting a famished lion drink
thank you for the visions
The melodrama
The in-tents-ity of my late youth
Could have never been such a tremendous explosion
With anyone but you

He’s just a boy
Who likes his friends
And prioritizes his comforts
And that’s so lovely
I can go to bed early
And feel like myself

The more I let my future be
The more she looks like me

I have been having
Good days that I work for
And I patiently await the return of
the middle moments where you look at the wall
While you’re taking a ****
And think
Man
The wall is pleasant
And I feel good

Haven’t you heard
The howling’s on tap
Even the birds bump
uglies and love a night cap
Uglies? Why uglies
I think I disagree
With that phrase entirely
Some transparent ploy by the religious patriarchy
I guess we don’t bump uglies
But it rolls off the tongue
Either way
Thump and bump
Smush and ****
Hillbillies and heretics and hummingbirds and Haye’s
All have to howl
Then heckle the other
For doing the same  
So please for the love of
Patricia who can’t say ‘*******’ and the Preacher’s daughter down the lane
Lets just agree to oust ****** shame

Something that could have been terrible ended up not
And
That
Is
Just
Fantastic

Where you that great?
Is this pining merited?

Unfortunately I’ve realized it doesn’t even matter.

Because to me you were a meteor.
To me the pining isn’t even a choice.
So many other things I would choose.
But it just won’t soothe.
This ache I can’t shake.
It peaks and brightens and sharpens it’s teeth when I think just for an instant that I
Wish
I wish
That I wish

Only for you. And you are not.

Go into the dark to love on the pain that hides there,
But don't shine a light on that what hides,
It's not ready to be seen yet,
To scalp a pain of it's darkness before it’s ready for the light,
is like birthing a babe too young to leave the womb,
Harm done for impatience

Today in LA
It’s humid and gray
And the pigeons are flying low

The air feels like wind
From a laundromat

I've got oceans
You've got boats
I think your solar plexus is also open

I get a feeling in my fingers and my mouth
That tell me to type "hel" into my browser
Chrome remembers the rest and I find myself here
"Title" I leave until the end
"Poem" usually knows what to say

This time I just want to say thank you hello poetry
For being a place where I can put my thoughts
Organized and attractive where I read them over and over
Where I can write new words and not get carpal tunnel
A place to gracefully dump out my feelings

A place to cry with words
Dance with syllables
To romance with the tapping of my fingers on my keyboard
To maybe catch someone's attention
And also maybe to not

Thank you for years of thoughts spelled out
Thank you for a place to read my ex's poems about me
Thank you for a page to write poems about my ex's
Thank you for a community of a few

Thank you to everyone who's ever liked my poems
The "<3" always make me giddy
Just to think that someone read my words
And liked them
Such a delight

I love this place to collect my words

Judgement is the end of truth

Feel good
Be natural
Look good
Never again will I point my foot to elongate my leg to look like I’m sexier than my self with my ankle flat

Honest decisions
From people who feel good
Are the amber of the earth

A notebook
A blank sheet of paper
You aren’t bringing old things with you into the now
Because you are present.
You have never triggered me
That’s amaZing

All the other necks I’ve kissed
Were nostalgic
Because they reminded me of all the bodies of the necks before them
Because all the bodies of the necks had minds inside who needed things from me
But this ones needs no thing
No adjustment
So when I kiss this neck
There’s no click in my brain
That says
Oh this is like the one in junior high or 19 or your first days in LA
There’s no bucket of grainy photos stacked behind this neck
It’s a new neck
Memories are stacking up though
Of just the one neck and the one body attached to the mind inside that needs nothing from me
That has no adjustments
Lacking nostalgia and pain

Youuuuu
are
justlikeastrongcupofcoffee
in the evening before bed
to keep you uh-wake
on a day where the afternoon was so divine
it sloshed into the night
and now you don't want to close your eyes
and miss whatever else
magic might
befall your nest
So instead of rest
youjackuponcoffee
withmilkandsugarandcream
that feels warm in your throat
that feels smooth on your teeth
and you walk up to the window
and feel nothing but content
to let your feet peruse the hardwood floor
or to sit in your favorite chair
your lower back relaxes
and the lighting compliments your hair

Imprinted in my mind
is
my foot pressed against your eye
as
we made the bed a slip and slide

Vulnerability
Makes me feel
kind of strange
very strange I'll be honest
it makes me want to overeat
it makes me feel like Im an alien learning to swim with no feet

But none of that's true and I'm a human
and I have feet and ankles
Vulnerability makes me feel
Very aware of my shins
It makes my head swirl and the back of my neck feel more naked than a dog shaved for summer

But in a way
it feels like home
is that too much to say
Do i really feel that way
go with it
try it out
its probably true

I used to like vulnerability

Maybe this is where I get my creativity back
Actually maybe this is how I combat
My detach

Maybe this is where my strength lies
Maybe in this honesty I am more myself than ever before
Maybe I've shed the fear that used to make other people a bore
I've been coming to this for a while
Now that I look back on this year
I've been craving this earnest collective of presentness being picked up by my ears

Little hairs swaying back and forth
A strange notion

Simpler and fully in
Learning to remember that I know how to swim
My calves engulfed in blue
feeling fresh and new

I did always say that I wished I was a fish

I don’t know
But I know that I’m liking this beau
I’m pulling back
And in the moment I feel off
Until I don’t
Everything feels good
And conversation feels easy
Until there’s one little lull
And then suddenly I feel that it’s always been a lull and I don’t really feel queasy
But that’s because I’ve already started pulling back
I also think to myself
It didn’t feel this way with that other one
Who pulled me in a direction I didn’t choose
Who wanted things from me I didn’t want
And who was not so generous
But could offer me value
In ways I know other people value too

This one doesn’t require any anything of me
This one is happy to watch and let me be
Paranoia sets in as I wonder in what way
He’s trying to take advantage
Trying to sway

But then I remind myself that’s an old way of thinking
An anxiety not meant for this party
And then I’m left feeling lulled
And awkward
Without much to say
Feeling confused because this is different
There’s no game
It’s so simple
There’s no jaded ulterior motive
There’s no underscore of disapproval of anything about me or the things that I’ll become
There’s no needing me to change
There’s no need at all

There’s a like and a desire that is plain as day
And the same from me

I don’t feel scared
I feel cute
I feel confused
This different and good
I am actually safe
There’s nothing nipping at my ankles

The conversation does flow
Actually
But sometimes it stops and I think that’s normal
It’s my choice to be okay with a silence or to feel like it’s gone on forever and always will

I just get a little tired after a few hours
I think that’s normal too though
To get tired with someone who’s also open
Who I don’t know yet very well

There’s nothing spoken into the middle
No commands
No plans

So I get tired with nothing to follow
No expectations to uphold

With the other there was a regimen, a schedule, an intention
But with this one the intention is just to be present
Just to be delightful
Just to exist and enjoy or not

It’s new to me to have nothing resisting
To have no little fear growing
To have nothing that seems like it will grow into a problem
On my plate

To just have this good, plain as it is and honest of itself until it changes into something and honest about that too

I am open and he is open and I just get a little tired leading
I think he also gets a little tired leading
Maybe
I don’t know, but I could ask and he would be honest

He’s really nice
And I get prickly when I feel off
And I only felt off bc I felt rejected
A rejection I created mind me
And that’s okay

Okay so here’s the play
Look at my past
Look at who I’ve been
Look at the models I’ve had they’re ****** up
But look at my future and where I’m going
Look at how good I treat myself
Look at what I want and what I’ve been getting
It’s drastically different than the past

This is different too
And actually really good.

I will choose to go with the flow then
I trust my feet to step on solid ground as I lay my heel

Do you ever have those days
When you wish it was night?
So guilt could slip off your shoulders
And down onto the tile
That you’ll sweep up tomorrow sometime
Between sunrise and lunchtime
Or who knows maybe after
You’ve got lounging to do
If only the sun would take a nap too

I used to write poems
Who knew how to rhyme
Easy words hung out together
Matching pace, keeping time

But now I like my proses
That don’t have to try so hard
I can write each phrase
Quick as it catches ablaze
No rhythm in it’s ways
Just minding its own business
As it swirls across my page

But I guess it’s not the words themselves
That put in the effort
That craft phrases so pristine
You’d think they’d been conceived by Robert Redford
(Oof)

It’s my latent mind
That no longer lives in the land of
Rhyme
Where AABB and ABA
Just aren’t my preoccupation
They don’t rise me to another station
Of talent and prowess
Of being the very best

I just want to write out how I feel
And not worry how it sounds
That is until I go back
And see how emotions lack
In words that don’t capture me
Don’t rapture me
With their romanceless apathy

I forgot that poetry is poetry because it is an art
That a lion is more a lion for his mane than for his heart.
Would a balding lion still best the other beasts?
Perhaps
But if so,
Wouldn’t you know
That a bald lion is a she
The one who hunts and bears new beasts
The one who bleeds and shares her meat
The one who mangles cub thieves
And I’m sure the one who untangles
Knots in the mane of the he

I digress from this feminist lioness
But I like this point of view
That sometimes beauty is better
And sometimes better is use
But I also already knew that
And if you’re still reading, so did you

My point is that though I am
Smarter now
Older
More mature
With thoughts that vibrate higher
And far less victim overtures
My poetry has suffered
And I enjoy it less
And now to create
Swooning phrases capped in rhythm
I must confess
That I labor

In my old way of feeling I found it easier to create
But in my new way of thinking

Ah
There it is.
In my new way of being I think
I choose when to be swayed by an emotion
Rarely being overtaken
But also rarely feeling forsaken
Accepting calmly an occasion where my intentions are mistaken
No matter,
I remain unshaken

There we go
I’ve got it back
A little rhyme
Picking up the slack
And in the evening I’ll have a snack
Some carbs
Some sugar
And the extra poundage won’t give me anxiety attacks
Cellulite on my thigh
Doesn’t make me want to cry
I’m not so lonely
I am content
I am ambitious
I pay my rent
I don’t overeat
Or undereat
I just want to feel sated
I’m not frustrated
I don’t feel hated
And my gratefulness is never belated
I’m happy
I am not manic
An unanswered text won’t send me into a panic
I moisturize
I don’t have bags under my eyes
I don’t compromise
I won’t lie
And when I care I really try
I love my home
And love my skin
I love my bumpy shins
I don’t feel stressed about my age
Or the passing of time
So I suppose I won’t fret
That my words won’t always rhyme

I took a bath
The other day
After looking at your Instagram
And seeing a photo of you on your birthday
You are wildly different now
Then you were when I last saw you

You were so sweet with a sleepy in your eye
And smile in mind
So confused when you asked “What?” “Why?”

Now honey you’re almost ugly in your darkness  
But the curve of your brow, the shape of your teeth, the beak in the center of your face
I’m still fond I’m still sweet on all of it
I still want you in my bath
But I guess I probably don’t want you, you
I want old young you and old young me
Sitting in my tub
Making bubbles
Playfully disrespecting each other
You were a bit of magic in my potion bottle
That never stops giving
I have no angst or pain associated with our parting
Because our meeting was so perfect
I wonder if you remember it too
Or maybe you blocked me out

Either way, you’re in my mind
Always laughing in the dark looking so ******* sublime.

I forgot that I’m a lover
I mean I guess I always knew
But I forgot I’m the kind of lover
Who’ll kiss and kiss and kiss until we’re blue
The kind who’ll miss and miss and miss the sensation of a you
Who
I enjoy

Afraid
Of a good feeling
You see, it always goes wrong
Afraid of I don’t even know what
Because I’m too scared to look through the door.

Enamored
By this weightless feeling
That’s evaded me for so long
Such an immediate
Intimate
Thing

I forgot what the feeling was like
And the power it can have
What if you wreck my life
What if I do?
What if I forget all my plans
And abandon myself again
I’ve done it so many times
What if it happens again with you

Feeling pathetic and these emotions that well up inside
Triggered by this feeling that should just feel good
But it’s doesn’t feel just good it feels terrifying
I’m shell shocked
I don’t know what this means
Now suddenly my age matters to me
My desires are foreign to me
I’m scared to lose myself again
I’m scared to be torn apart

But so so so so so so so much more afraid than I ever thought I was
I had no idea I was still shaking
I had no idea I was still wailing
I had no idea I was still this girl in the dark
I thought I was doing so much better than I am

But how can I say no to me and yes to me at once?
How can I deprive myself of this maybe good thing
How can I offer myself this maybe bad thing

Where are these feelings from?
Me? Or you?

If I’m honest
And I pretend that I’m calm and cool
I’d say they’re from me
But
You like me too and now mine have doubled
Maybe
Or maybe they were already doubled
Who am I.
Where did this girl come from again.
This slick emotional heap that I’ve shamed for her passion because I thought it was sick
But now I’m feeling something I don’t want to resist

Yes we’ve been here before. But maybe we haven’t, I don’t know. How do you know the difference between what you’ve always known and it’s many many iterations and something you’ve never known that could appear the same?

Is this how I felt before? Last year? With the orange and black and the blue?
I have no clue. I was different then and I’m different now but also I’m exactly the same girl with exactly the same fears
I don’t know
It’s a lot but also isn’t it not so much?

Confronted with fear and in realizing I’m more afraid, more traumatized than I thought.
Its gotten so bad before.
How do we go slow? I do not know.

I can learn I hope. Or maybe it’ll all be okay and it’ll all work out for the best. I just don’t want to suffer in the middle, I will work hard and try and be smart and good but I don’t want to be hit anymore. It’s already been so bad, and the more I heal it seems to get better.

I can’t even hear for the fear.

I loved to watch you eat
You were like a gopher and a very silly shark
You would take a cute little bite
And then rub your fingers back and forth
and very politely lick only just the very barely inside of your lips
And sometimes if it was a very good bite
you would straighten your shoulders a little more
almost like a cartoon soldier coming home from war
It was a delight to watch you eat
actually
And then sometimes so satisfied
Your pronounced brow would hitch downward
Tugging downward past your eye
Looking at the mushroom like a pirate
or a very sneaky antagonist leopard
in a cartoon about leopard
rivalries.
A quick "Mmmm" would mutter from your mouth
and I enjoyed you nearly as much as you enjoyed that bite

You're still my vice baby
It scares me how much I love the thought that I could be yours too
The idea that I'm not
I push away
As it tries to confirm old beliefs that I am not enough
That what I want will not come to me

Because I live anew
Now
What I want lands in my path
"I am abundance" I repeat as I fall asleep

I hope with tearful eyes
And shaking breath
And that sweet earnest quiver in the bridge of my nose
That one day you won't be my vice
That you'll be my good morning
Or my Tuesday afternoon
That we'll be in tune
Like we were in June and May and October and December

I don't want anything from you that you don't want though
And how hard to know what to want
When I'm afraid.
I don't want to live in fear
So I must live apart

But is it all so dramatic anyway?

I don't want to always be so deliberate in my wants

It's not all love and romance

It's just a normal day
Meaning passing between us

Is what I pretend.
But really.
Fervently, I love you.

I love your jaw and your voice.
I love your laugh
How giddy you become like a child smiling at the sun
I love your mania
I love your crazy eyes alight in the moon
I love your BELIEF I love your ******* earnest sincerity.
Who the **** else is earnest like that?
It's gorgeous, I'm obsessed.
I could drink and bathe in your sincerity.

A bless or a curse to be the object of my obsession
I worry how my attraction to you would affect you
Would it be too much?

I think so.
Read the signs, see the facts
When someone tells you who they are believe them and all of that...
But, I'd rather not?
Instead I want to think that when we stood behind your house smoking that joint trying to stay away from the wind that you felt the tension too.

I love the way you wear boots.
I love the way sweaters hang on your shoulders.

****, each time I revisit your room in my mind I must confirm again and again with growing certainty that I am obsessed with you.

Each one giving for the other.

But then we were giving too much
From a place we didn't have to give from
From dry wells we fed each other our earth
When what the other needed was sunshine and water

But we hid together beneath the earth
Building little tunnels between our wells
Digging out the earth underneath
Forming a wide chasm between our wells
Earth cleared out by our most ancient thoughts

Our network of tunnels
Each giving consent to our nightmarish coping
Easily excavating thousands of avenues
A complex and beautiful city grid
An Atlantis a la toxic-lovers-just-learning-to-love-well built in the earth and clay at the bottom of these wells becoming one
Sweeping breaths pouring more and more illness through our tunnels

Our relationship built of the mutual chemical compounds in the poison cups we drank each day and then began to feed to each other.

We needed therapy and instead we held each other on the shower floor wailing and surviving by filling each other up with the others' insides, then dumping that new cocktail back into the other, over and over and over again. For a few moments balancing our sloshing insides between our mouths.

Each one giving for the other.

I am learning to be free
I am learning to stop giving into the feeling that I am being watched
I am learning to lose myself in the present
I am learning to stop trying so hard to be anything other than what I am
I am learning to indulge myself in my every whim
Why not?
I’ve gone my whole life not indulging, judging, chastising, trying to fit, trying to be everyone’s cup of tea.
It didn’t work and I didn’t like it.
Now I think I will just be.

One time
You used the word
Reek
To describe how badly yours hands smelled of orange
And now sometimes when peel a cutie I think about
You saying
Reek
And how your hair flopped into your eyes
And that stupid watch
Everyone liked
On your wrist
Just there
Beside your fingers

I remember your thumb knuckle
I liked it a lot
I don’t remember your finger nails
But I remember the way
Your hands sent me
The way they felt on my skin
The way I craved them
The way that electricity jolted through my throat when your palm pushed against my Adam’s apple

For my withoutness of you
I can be humbled when I need
I can feel longing when my other seeds
Fail to take root

But

I wish I knew
You
Still

So

I could eat a cutie and
Not try to remember
The way
Your lips parted
And you flashed your teeth
When you said
ReeK

Feeling like maybe for now music is too much
For now all those sounds sound like noise
Silence accompanies the flick of my lamp
And the sudden quiet of my mind
Much better than the
Constant ***** beats and nasty flows
That used to charm my ears
Now the sound of crickets in the city
Are a luxury I simply can’t override with a synth pop track
Now the way my sweater brushes against my skin
The way my glasses rattle when I spin
Around the room to a tune I’m playing in my mind is all I want to hear
My neighbors air conditioner
The random honking car
The voices echoing down the hall
All these anonymous sounds call to me

They have no master
No order
No point
They exist simply because they do, they are collateral and in that they are everything.
They are collateral and they make up the experience of one entire sense.
And I only want to hear them speak
To know what my world sounds like

Honestly the way
That Maroon 5 is constantly playing in my head
Is music enough for me
Just to sink into a pocket
Unexpectedly while I order coffee
“Give me that red velvet”
Making my hips twitch and my brow hike
Is enough music for now
Harmonizing perfectly well with the din of the world
With the sounds of my body
With the breath from my mouth

Who Knows? Maybe moans retire
Maybe silence is something else to explore
Maybe deep in the quiet a voice is calling
Maybe here there’s a rhythm I have yet to explore
Of course there is.
Of course it calls.
Of course there’s more.

Jeans tight up to her waist
And a thick *** *****-line
water dribbles on her nails
From a jar of water that still smells like Ragu

It’s okay

I want a foot massage and tea made for me
I want to acquiesce and please
I want to back and forth
I want to have breakfast at the cafe by my house in the morning with my lover from the night before
I want good *** and better moods
I want someone who I don't know yet

I want *** and touch
I want more I want you to bite my teeth
I'm hungry and I'm tired and I want someone nearby
Who knows how I like it
Who know how to grab my thighs
I want a fantasy
I want a dream
I want someone who can tease me and make me feel super green
Super lean
Don't be mean
Make me feel seen
I'll be a dream
It can all be easy

I want to laugh and dance around
I want magic and sleepy breath sounds
I want what I like and nothing more and nothing less
I want someone I don't know yet

I'm a sleek owl
With hooded lids
And talons razor sharp
My neck turns round
I weigh 2 pounds
And my call is like a harp
Who knows how I see the world
Who knows what I recall
Who knows if I live
To **** the kids
Who rule the streets  in early fall
I stay up late
And contemplate
Or maybe I don’t even think
Maybe I live in this tree up high
Counting the seconds until I can blink.