February 2012
43 posts
2 tags
Don’t mind these narrow
Limbs of mine
Take the arms and tie
Them in a knot about
Your neck, I learned
Long ago how to
Feast with my eyes.
3 tags
Will you speak to me softly
With lips and teeth and fingertips?
Your voice causes
Shivers, quivers
My skin bears the words
In blushes, goosebumps, love bites
I’ve become a journal
Legible to anyone with eyes.
2 tags
People think I
Send mixed signals
They can never
Tell how I feel
About other people
But the answer
Is obvious
I never believe
Someone could be
Interested me.
5 tags
I let you in
Between two breaths
You slipped
Past my ribs
Making yourself
At home
I let you in
But I still haven’t
Given you a tour
Of my scars.
3 tags
Don’t smile at me
When I’m in a bad mood
I hate how hard it is
To frown around you.
3 tags
My tongue
Stumbles, stutters
Over your name
As common
As it is
It’s always hard
To say
Those words
That mean the most.
5 tags
The door frame
Developed a
Sudden fondness
For my hand
Bestowing its
Hard kisses across
Narrow knuckles
Like an elegant
Lord to a lady
But tell me true
Does love always
Leave a bruise?
3 tags
You trip up my thoughts
Leaving my mind
Knotted and confused
I would prefer to
Be tangled up in
Your limbs and lips
Than lost in this
Endless maze of maybes.
3 tags
People speak so much
As if the air would be
Lonely without their
Words to fill it but
We sit in silence while
A dozen unspoken things
Populate the space between.
3 tags
I knew better
But matters of
The heart never
Called upon my
Mental facilities.
5 tags
I don’t know the words
To say, ever
How to offer comfort
With a phrase
I’d choose silence
If I could
If I could, I would
Simply kiss your cheek,
Hold your hand.
3 tags
My mouth is a graveyard
The thoughts in my head
Expire unspoken on my tongue.
3 tags
Many are the things
I like about you
But what I enjoy most
Is the way your shoulder
Makes a perfect pillow
For my cheek to rest
When I grow weary
From the day.
3 tags
Catching snowflakes on
My velvet dress
An elegant handkerchief
A plush cushion
For the sky’s frosty tears.
4 tags
A secret passing:
Warm breath
Raising hairs
Lips poised
Inches from skin
Blush spreading
Pulling away
Knowledge gained.
3 tags
Borrowed tripod
With no intent to return
Another gift from you
To me
From the time
Before you were my father
The metal legs
Don’t whisper to me
With legends of your
Past of the girls
Who toyed with your
Heart before you
Met the girl who
Was not yet my mother
Silly inanimate object
It won’t tell me
Of the races you won
Or the field you set
Ablaze (from bottle
bombs) and...
5 tags
Words are an ugly substitute
For smiles and shy gazes
Poetry is insubstantial
Compared to the faintest touch—
A fingertip brush
I’ll save what there is to say
Hoard these thoughts inside
Letting them press and push
All other things from my mind
Mentally consumed by you
Until the time when
Everything can be shared in silence.
3 tags
I am not her
Or her either
Can’t you see
How different
These locks on
My head do fall
Instead of curl
Or hang limp?
Didn’t you notice
The way I bit
My tongue
When she spoke
Out or she
Laughed aloud?
Why were you
Silent when
She ran ahead and
She kept pace
I fell behind
And I sat on
The cold ground
And waited for
You to say my name.
4 tags
Kitchen battle scars
The fading mark
From the oven’s
Hot kiss
A fresh pink blemish
Courtesy of a burner’s
Incited throes
When will I learn
To not wage war with
Inanimate objects?
5 tags
Years later when her face was only a shadow in his mind, he still remembered her hands distinctly. Small and pale, much like the rest of her, with slender fingers and blue veins that showed through at the wrist; her hands had left their mark on him. She was able to sit so still and walk quite sedately, but a restlessness in her spirit always revealed itself in her mercurial digits.
He had...
6 tags
You asked me
Why I don’t like hugs—
Was that rhetorical?
I can never tell between
The two and I skirted
The issue as I am apt
To do when put on a
Spot, twirling away
In my dress
Suddenly afraid of you
Of what you might
Learn of me
But hopelessly hoping
You might ask again
Because it’s not that
I don’t like hugs
It’s that I like you
Too much.
3 tags
We are in love
With places and
People and things.
We are together
In our fear
Of the future.
We are kissing
Blue devils
From the past.
We are a couple
Of people.
We are nothing
At all but
We could be
Everything.
3 tags
She doesn’t like to say
Those three little words
My mother, that is
They stick in her throat (my throat)
But I hear them anyway
In every brief phone call
“Just checking in.”
3 tags
I eat candy hearts by the mouthful
Breaking each one into tiny bits
Destroying what was happy and bright
Coating my tongue with sugary death.
5 tags
I spend my nights wishing
We were kissing
All those things you said
I’ve forgotten
If I ever heard them
I was too distracted by the stars
In your eyes
By the waves beating the shore
Their pounding echoing my heartbeats
To hear your words
If only I could as easily forget
All the things I was too shy to say—
Why were we never more?
2 tags
I haven’t been counting
Hugs and kisses
But I know they add up
To not enough.
5 tags
Is scar tissue stronger?
Because the wounds have
Healed but their marks
Remain, the tide goes
Out but the undertone
Still pulls me in.
6 tags
I carried the ocean home
With me today
I spilled
The sand, salt, and spray
Between my sheets
Now I won’t sleep alone
But in the sea’s embrace.
6 tags
Even when I’ve grown
Old and weary
I’ll still be dancing
In a photograph.
Anonymous asked: please, please tell us more about the relationship between you and jon
4 tags
I forgive you
For stealing my book
The third in a series
Of four
It annoys me every time
I look at my shelves
And see the gap
Where it should be
Did you ever even finish
The series?
But I forgive you
Because they say
I broke your heart
Although I never knew
I had the power
Or your heart
You gave no indication
Other than stealing my book
If that is a sign
Of anything
I hope...
3 tags
Once more and
Try not to be awkward
This time, she said
As if I had control
Over my natural state.
4 tags
This isn’t ‘goodnight, sweet dreams’
Common words and familiar phrases
That I type into my phone
To send to you through
Wires and miles and miles
It is my lips
Kissing your forehead
My voice low and soft
Murmuring ‘I love you’
Before I close my eyes
To sleep.
3 tags
Cold toes in wooly socks
Bound by blankets
I lie in bed
Older than I look
But younger than
I feel.
5 tags
Sometimes I forget
I forget
I forget
The things I was going to do
The words I was going to say
They get lost in the tumbling maze
Of my mind
Chased away by the daydreams that afflict me
Striking without warning
Stealing me away from reality
But what was I saying?
4 tags
My mother likes to remind me
To eat more vegetables but also
To admire without possessing
How to love from a distance
Appreciation without touch
But when I catch a glimpse
Of so many wonderful things
I want them for myself
I want them to myself
A peek at a foreign landscape
Has me packing my bags
Every pretty dress I want on my back
How am I supposed to look at you
Without claiming...
2 tags
We write plays in our heads
Dictating each other’s perfect lines
Every word we wish to hear
All the gestures to make our hearts skip
We hide the scripts in drawers
Give the leads no direction
Then complain about the acting.
4 tags
I remember these quiet moments that sent my pulse racing; riding home to my host family in Sapporo on the train.
I walked every day to school, although it took forty-five minutes at a good pace and sometimes it snowed or rained or I’d get lost from staring at everything but street signs. But I loved the way the neighborhoods I passed through began to stir and I loved breathing in the fresh air...
4 tags
I still have a key
To the house we no longer own
If we ever did own it
But what is ownership if not posession?
Did someone paint over
The scribbles I made on the wall
Behind my bed (where Mom wouldn’t see)?
Does someone sit in that window
Where I spent so many hours
Quietly reading?
It was only one house in a string of many
But someone forgot to ask
For my key and so it waits
In the...
6 tags
He said, she said
A classic case
Of miscommunication
It wasn’t that they weren’t listening
They just couldn’t hear
Over thundering hearts
It wasn’t that they weren’t looking
They just couldn’t see
Past darting glances
If only they would communicate
Through touch
With a kiss or a hug
Intention is hard to miss.
4 tags
Give me a piggy-back ride
And I promise to whisper in your ear
All the things I’m afraid to say
When we’re talking face-to-face.
5 tags
I can’t read
Without a pencil
Words underlined, circled, starred
Notes in the margin
I can’t enjoy
A book
Without a pencil.
I can’t write
Without walking
Pacing small chambers
Chewing on pen caps
Strolls through nature
Fields, rivers, mountains
Finding inspiration
With every step
I can’t write
Without walking.
4 tags
I hear you smiling
Through the phone lines
Intimate as tin cans
Bound on a string
Shared in childhood
Can you hear
Laughter in written lines?
Am I smiling now
At you?
January 2012
59 posts
5 tags
Letter from a friend
Succinct but sweet
There’s a new boy
In this world we
Occasionally share
I don’t know much
But he eases “the pain
Inside of me”
What can I write
In reply to that?
3 tags
At the death of a day
When my final thoughts
Are of you
My consciousness perishes
While a smile lingers
Like a ghost
Forgotten on my face.
2 tags
Words carved a
Tattoo into my skin
Before fingers ever
Traced the scars
Looks brushed my lips
Before kisses did
There was no space
I hadn’t felt you
Before you dared
To touch.
5 tags
How I hate my shoulders
Not the way they look
Freckled and narrow
Nor the burdens they carry
Without protest
Just the way they slope
Lacking decisive angles
How they like to slide
Sleeves and bags
Down to my elbows
When you never follow
Their descent with
Your fingertips.
3 tags
Do you still remember
The night we lost power?
I was a little afraid
As I blew out the last candle
Laying down in a sea of black
But your hand found my waist
Pulling me gently to your side
I didn’t have to see a thing
To know you were smiling.
2 tags
You might prefer
Crisp autumn
With a thick scarf
About your neck
Hands thrust deep
Into coat pockets
As brisk wind whips
Down city streets
Stirring colorful leaves
But there is springtime
In your smile.
2 tags
