List poem, 12/28/2007

These my unedited goals
my list
my accomplishments
not yet started:

Step 1: Grow a spine towards friends
do not bend so easily and
when their kisses disgust me,
push them away.

Step 2: Laugh when I am amused,
not when it is appropriate.

Step 3: Avoid sex unless I want it.
Badly.

Step 4: More vegetables. Less sugar.
Less meat.

Step 5: Do not be so forgiving --
I didn't ask for it.
Is this Step 1 again?

Step 6: Fall in love as much and as often as possible. Keep two or three at the most -- don't lose contact with them.

Step 7: Write like a madwoman
and don't let that boy
get in the way of things.

Step 8: Stop missing Michael.
Just STOP.

Step 9: Finish this book
before I land.

Unmasked

We have been friends
for 4,020 days.
Lovers for five.
And everything should've been perfect,
but you, like all others,
are a signal misinterpreter.
And you say that I
am playing you a pawn
in my games.
As if 4,020 days was not enough
to excuse you from playing.

You have confessed, too,
your manipulating sin
as if I am some young,
unknowing, foolish churl,
as if 4,020 days wasn't enough
for me to read you
like lines on a page.
You say you are never wanted,
no one likes you:
it is because you are,
in truth,
unlikeable.
And you have hid,
I have watched
for 4,020 days behind a mask.

Darling, the strings fell long ago.
That mask has become your face.

static

Too many poems in my head
to actually write down
I am abuzz with sex
and I am feeling dangerously pretty.
I don't know.


I love you.

Family Matters

Amid Christmas wrapping
and bitter coffee
(two cups a mistake, I am jittery again)
My mother and I are breaking
we are crushing the shadows
of an adult-realised heritage
letting out the secrets
Unpenning them carefully
and narrowing our eyes cautiously
shot guns at the ready
We are tearing down the house
our ancestors built
with deliberation
and planning
This is no chaotic invasion.
No terrorist bombs
No government sanctioned war on privacy
Just us.
Careful. Quiet. Unseen.
And when they see what we've done
to these maddening generations of
shadows and lies
They will know
they were wrong
and they, too, will embrace the sun

Polaroid Portrait

She is wrestling with iTunes,
and it is late.
She is glancing with longing,
and fear,
at the boxes littering the floor.
She is tired,
you can see it on her face.

Her hands are tensed.
She is listening
to a ghost's voice
and a ghost's guitar.
She is remembering
what it meant.

Similes and metaphors,
a body wrapped in literary vomit,
a body kissed by ink.
She is thinking,
dear body,
I hate you.

She is world-weary and exhausted --
you can see it on her face.

horrible, stupid rhymes.

Little girl blue,
so tiny and frail
what could she do?
reflecting on her thumbnail

taken in by sweet dreaming
the autumn is gone,
now winter's night gleaming
on the marble of a pawn

so take heed, little girl
don't be tranquilized
by his fresh, filthy hands
on your lily-white thighs

no, he'll get you dear
with lips of strawberry lies
sickening and sweet
plucking roses from your eyes

he'll taste so good
but those kisses are fake
but his precious pills --
to dream, you will take.

Love Poem for ? - Aaron Kapin

So, I don't know what love is.
I can't define it.
Love is a cloud of fog:
when it's near you,
you can smell it.
When it's thick,
you can't see beyond it.
But rarely can you really know
if you are right within it.
The boundaries:
nonexistent.
The density changes every minute.
I don't know, ok?
But I can't see when I'm around you --
just some glimmers of sun.
And I can't breath around you,
I can't walk or run.