Hello To All That
“I never want to catch up to the letting go.”
Unfinished Love Poem For Tom Waits
We were nothing if not traintracks
Every part of the journey
going nowhere at all
We were nothing if not stuck in
ground
Moving until losing hurt far less
Moving until exit ramps were just that
Sloped and
easy and
free
But I was your surrogate set of lungs
Your stomach was my bedroom
Hipbone windowsills
We were bodies for the sake of living in
Bodies for the sake of limbing in
Bodies for the sake of tongue
We were
We were
Nothing if not a fire escape from
Every window without edge
Every room we’d burned down
Buildingsides longcarrides
Parkinglots forgetmenots
The world above your bellybutton
O, vertical world that loved us all along
We never lifted our chins
For the first train of morning
We weren’t prepared for the quaking track
We weren’t
We weren’t
you could be full
doing a thing
that you yourself
did not know
before
pleasure.
suppose
you know
trouble.
something cold
and
needless and wrong
slowly
you know
alone and nowhere;
never as anything else but
completely shaken
home
is
this uncalculated
uncomfortable pattern
and
you
could be full of
house and
day and everything.
become clouded
become terrific
sky and shining
bodies close together
in the street below.
lay in the blood
and
nerves
and
numbness
meet
love
always new
and
a little
destroyed
it’s
not enough
nocturnalisms
maybe night means risk anyway;
maybe risk sounds like the skin of my
shins against starched white summer
sheets. what i would’ve told you if you weren’t
sleeping. what i would’ve traded the moon
for my eyelids in return. it is lonely at
night. the driveway turns two shades darker
from the upstairs window and i think of the
rocks on which i split my head that august
evening at the river when my palms were
small and the days were long. there is no
place at night for restless girls, except behind
a window or anything as stable. (risk—
it’s the same sound.) i do not know how to
keep you and i do not know how to keep you
from sleeping. if you knew the difference, you’d
have to dust the dirt off your irises and open
your head too. i lost my memory that evening
at the river. i only remember the sparrow’s song.
- I did not know I had opinions until I disagreed with every word you said.
- I did not know I had eyes until they leaked out every look you ever gave me.
- I did not know I could clench my fists until I ripped out my eyelashes, two at a time.
- I did not know I was stubborn until I refused your hand on my back, your leg on my waist.
- I did not know I was troubled until I could not cry when I supposed to.
- I did not know I was pissed until I loved saying good-bye. Until I realized I felt, absolutely nothing.
- I did not know I was introverted until you turned me rightside-in. Until my skin bled secrets.
“
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I fancied you’d return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
Do you know what growing up looks like?
The other day, my best friend told me, “We never grow up. Don’t be fooled. We’re all still immature, right there with you.”
I hoped to the stars that she was right. Days passed. I felt like I was growing backwards. Growing down. Like my past was swallowing me. Does that make sense?
Does growing up make sense?
Every cigarette was a day marker.
Day One: close.
Day Two: closer.
Day Three: closest.
Day Four: boom.
Love is the hardest simple emotion we will ever know. It is more than ‘chemistry.’ It is a chemical reaction. It is an explosion.
Do you remember princesses, Little Girl? How you used to dance around the kitchen and believe that fate would deliver you the palms of a boy who had it all figured out?
The other day, I told my other best friend, “I can’t not go for ‘fucked up.’ I am drawn to the mess.” It’s true. When the mess is not there, when the heart is clean, I have nothing to say. I pretend to sift through chaos that does not exist. I throw around my own thoughts in their ribcage, scribble anxiety on their stomachs.
But don’t you see, it’s a mirage. I cannot carry my clutter into other people’s chests. It is hardly portable. It is much too heavy.
So I picked the messiest mess, and for once it was not mine. I dove right in. (I thought this was not possible. I thought that I’d already seen the filthiest faces, the most disheveled of shoulders.)
I never stopped to consider it takes two to wreak that much havoc. I never stopped to consider that I was the one throwing all the shit around in the first place. Messmakers like clean hearts to make messes in. I never saw a heart before I stepped inside. Maybe they were all clean in the first place.
Little Girl, start dancing again.
Stop throwing things.
Chemistry’s not always strong enough to react. Explosions are not always beautiful.
Notes, Room #216
I could sleep for months on a motel mattress.
There’s something about the fleeting of that temporary that makes me want to clench my fists around these pillows. To pay the fee for forever and a day.
I told you I was never one for stability.
I told you I was never one to stay. But here? (There? Anywhere?)
We can stay and not stay.
We can have our fill and keep going.
We can grow into the rotting wallpaper and begin again. I will seed myself into those printed branches if only we can grow farther than the ceiling above us. I will swim into the faucet and stream out, clearer. More lucid.
This room is changing us, whether you believe it or not.
The other day I wrote about the way I saw the trash overflowing onto our floor. There was—somehow—something so honest about the length of time we’ve spent here compared to the amount of shit that we’ve discarded. We are a mess, Kid. We’ll leave stuff all over, if only to have the shortest amount of keeping to do. We will make the ugly into waste and let it disintegrate in the corner of our room. We’ll keep looking at these walls, tasting this sweet and stale air, feeling these softened sheets. But something will grow from it all, I promise you.
The day that we move out, we’ll feel the loss in our fingertips. We’ll crave newness in our stomachs. We’ll be thirsty for a fresh floor plan.
When we leave this room, we will need. A different room with different wallpaper. Just as lovely. Just as welcoming to our begging bodies. Beds that cushion themselves against our mutable forms.
We will love more and like less. We will be restless. We will overflow out of ourselves, but Kid, none of it will be waste. All of it will be scraps of whatever magic there was: tattered, worn and a little more comfortable than last time.
When we leave this room, we will leave that trash behind. The walls will shine differently for the next bed bodies. They will glint from the pieces of our progression. They will seep the tears of our loss. They will still be broken, but they will now be beautiful.
I know that I cannot stay forever, but you know…you know that I would. If only to grow and leave again, I would do it all over.
This evening, my mother left the room to watch her favorite TV show.
We were in the middle of a conversation when she realized it’d started.
She said she wanted to continue talking.
She asked me:
“Will I be able to find you when it’s through?”
Somehow, it was like she was asking an entirely different question.
I’m lost and alone and together and entirely whimsical.
When the dawn breaks, when the moon shakes
On some mornings and evenings, I am unfindable, Baby.
I shed colors, and hair, and song.
I shed You.
It’s impossible to hold my hand anymore. It’ll disintegrate beneath your grip.
I am a line you can’t define
This morning, I rode into town with the dawn. Everyone was so far from catching us.
So this song is restraint on piano keys and my breath is desperation in a police state.
We cannot create music without wanting to tear at the stray threads of our clothing.
I cannot write this page without moving my head to the keys beneath your fingers.
I cannot believe that the world is more beautiful than the voice behind your words.
(Because it is not. Because when I hear something that meaningful for days at a time, I’ll know I’ve reached the end, I’ll know I’ve reached the unthinkable.)
We are less reliable than butterflies.
We will disappear before the dawn lays its hands on your shoulders.
We’ll drive away again, before they catch us.
Before it’s all said and done.
I will trace over defeat and Autumn will smell fresh again. Like leaves and trees and dirt.
Like it always did before the sun set too soon. Before nights meant more than I ever wished them to.
Find me at the end of the sea, between the ocean floor and the surface that tugs at the sky.
I will wait for you and when the water freezes, I will hide beneath the glassy waves.
We will fish out the truth.
They’ll keep asking questions. They’ll keep trying to discover our faces on the wrong continent.
They’ll keep un-understanding, unraveling, until even the waves lose their blue.
We will have stolen some already, but Baby, it will be years before they realize.
Will you be able to find me when it’s through?
I can’t exactly say.
Mama, I’ve never been sure of anything that beautiful.
“Hands Up”
Neat and tidy never tells a sorry we don’t regret, Baby.
I’d like to be messy. Do you think you can do that?
These are the things that we meant to do and never did. Let’s make a fucking beautiful mess. We’ll start with your mistakes and move on to my secrets and things will really get interesting when I begin to tell you about the boy who was not you, the boy who broke my heart and then held it close and pressed it into my hollow crater skin a second time.
I’m indented with the face of a boy who is so so far from being you. You see, you were sweet, you were, “Oh this is heart, hello heart nice to meet you may I please take a seat.” And he? He was far from such pleasantries. He was, “Hands up or somebody gets hurt, is this a heart because to me it just looks like an empty open floor where I can lose my mind and unload my unhappiness.” I am still hurting from the weight of those boxes. Nothing was marked “FRAGILE” and yet he had me walking with the lightest footsteps, just in case. Just in case. Just in case he returned. Just in case he asked for it all back.
Boy, sweet sweet boy how I wish I could’ve loved you.
You were so much more beautiful than the body that followed.
