1051 tomorrow is the day when all things stop short i wish they'd come to their sorry endings and pity me for saying so but your lack of understanding stains my face like grape juice. my wings have nylon holes crazy glue my life back together.
TenFiveTwo When all things stop short, where do you go? What do you do when you wake up one morning and find yourself walking down a one way street leading to a different destination than you had in mind? What do you do when you're in a car with no brakes tumbling down the freeway, eating up the yellow lines like candy, palm trees screaming by? Would you breath? Would you look out the window at the trees a minute before you crashed? Would you see an image of my face in their leaves? I am unreal today. Everything I ever said or did is unreal and I wish that all my words had a leash so that once they were spoken I could pull them back again to safety. When all things stop short, words take on too much meaning, they could crush you with their intent. I'm trying to pull myself from a speeding car with dignity and any second now it's going to crash. ~Becky~ 1053 When all things stop short, all i ever wanted to know is who do you dance with now?
OneOhFiveFour who do you dance with now? i get tired of watching you dance you know? it's like you're holding me there with my own eyes and i can't go live i'm just swimming you know? upstream. i try harder than ever to kick my legs but they just won't move so i dye my hair like i said i never would and i wear it cut short as a sign of forgivness and giving in (and to look like yours) and i sing this song even though it hurts so good you know?
OneThousandFiftyFive Blocked the ball with my nose. it hurts I don't mind. Shake it off run back and keep playing. Pleased with myself. What did I prove there? I'm not as fragile as I must seem to you. I'm not a porcelain doll I won't break if you crash into me. And the only reason I can't play as well as you is I've never played before. And the question remaining, why did that need proving at all? ~Qetyria~ OneThousandAndFiftySix I'm not as fragile as I must seem to you. Though I rock and toss in this wild sea, I find a patch of ground And simplify myself At once. And all at once I knew The forest secrets, come and go. I knew the woodland creatures, to and fro. I sat myself beneath the nearest tree And whispered, Come be yourselves, don?t fear That I am here. Come rustle bushes, Let the berries fall. Come press the leaves Under tiny feet. Leave golden footprints By my dangling fingertips, So carelessly stroking the ground below. And all at once I knew! I felt myself flung back In endless space. I felt the vortex spin me Like my memories of your wind-tossed hair. And all at once I knew! I felt myself land hard in gentle space. I felt the forest ground come back. I felt it meet my skin, My fragile skin, so must it seem to you. And open eyes, My crystal, sapphire eyes. And first it seems the dawn, And then it seems the dusk, But no, it?s day, just as it was before. And all at once I knew Without a doubt I knew at once, That faeries fly, But fly in empty space. -Mel(Other) TenFiftySeven Come be yourselves, don't fear. When you first met me, dangling my feet in the creek and talking of eternity, didn't you know I'd never betray you, always listen to your words as though they were poems made just for me? The days pass juicy like blackberries, and this waiting presses against my skin, old leather secrets and new memories fluttering in my brain like giddy butterflies. I wear red all day, and hope for blood before I go, but what I am really hoping for is freedom. ~Becky~ OneThousandAndFiftyEight The days pass juicy like blackberries Fluttering away on wings of moths. The wings of moths flutter away Fingering soft folds of air. The fingers fold the air softly And give way to patches of satin sky. Sky gives way to satin patches And bedspreads underneath me heave and pitch. I heave the bedspread underneath my pitch And sing a lower note than came before. Notes that came like singing came before When everything was quieter and breathless. Breathless is the quiet and everything was Before time began. Before night ended. Before night began. Before time ended. Ended time before. Began night shifted. Shifted time ended. Night time before. Before ended shift. Time night began. Began shift. Ended night. Ended, passing on like juicy blackberries. Ended, fluttering on wings of satin. Ended. -Mel(Other) OneThousandFiftyNine Fingering soft folds of air The scent of summer palpable with My hands my mouths drinks greedy gulps Of crystallized beauty. A butterfly, no, a flower. Breezy As it is, the difference does not matter. I'll wander this evening Whether I am accompanied by roses Or thunder, which might -- Accompany me as well. I would enjoy a companion on This eve of dewdrops and summer breeze. Lazily -- We'll speak of drifting hours And wander easily into the future.
OneThousandSixty wander this evening through the alleys of self doubt wishing that you knew how to be brave enough to watch needles poke through the truth and remain conscious.
OneThousandSixtyOne I wander this evening through the dog-eared insides of my mind, looking apathetically for new thoughts, new feelings. The TV is on and the computer calls me in its soft, whining voice so of course, I answer. My life is like going down a rabbit hole, new things everywhere but seen through tunnel vision. The edges are unclear, the future hazey, and all I see is what's smashing right into my nose. ~Becky~ ten six two the edges are unclear where am I stepping? don't mean to intrude, so... intrusively i'm just curious, why did you bring me here... is this some sort of game you play when you don't know where to turn so you turn me around into believing you started giving a damn where am I stepping so intrusively the grass seems greener on my side but the grass is dead, on my side. -jessica OneThousandSixtyThree where am i stepping the train tracks grow slippery with every gulp of carbonated electricity the gravel/broken glass beneath my feet teach me how to walk on air. you teach me how to fall and have someone to catch on to. you show me where i am in relation to who and how i got there. i didn't need you to teach me the romance of deserted warehouses but i needed you to hold my hand while i tripped over chunks of cement shooting up through the surface of my complacency and when i stumbled i thought i was flying.
OneThousandAndSexyFour Over chunks of cement My puppy dog laments But does he see the cracks His chewy lies between. "Oh chewy mine!" quoth he. Its taste: it's so divine! "How many hours I've chewed on you! Like a cud-chewing cow saying 'moo.'" But how will little dog survive? From thy chewy what vitamins derive?? Or is it just the pleasure sweet? Or maybe just the overbearing heat? That causes him to chew and moan. To bark and drool and scratch and groan! But lo! to find it! Oh what joy! I'll "give" it to a little boy! And run and leap o'er hill, o'er dale, Then I'll send it back, by mail... But what is this? A ball, I see? "Oh ball of mine, come here!" quoth he. To be evermore in doggy bliss I must give that ball a doggy kiss! And chewy laid, forgotten quite, Though doggy never meant it spite. -Luke & Mel OneSixFive I must give that ball a doggy kiss and see if it will fit between my teeth i'll bounce on my paws and say play with me! I'm not a dog anymore i was once you know i could run like the wind. i WAS the wind now i whimper as if in pain but it's really just bcause i don't know what else to do i must throw that ball in a creek and watch it float away.
OneThousandSixtySix I was once you know. I am twice, I am the multitude the media the mob magnanimous to those fewer than me and I am the minority many, bonded together, fenced in and grabbing the fence, my own I am the fence, link by link by link I am the hole under the fence absense of space I am out of my fence, I looked back twice and they waved, they followed me They didn't hate me when I clung, when I promised I never would, would never, stay away, stay away... I told myself. My self told I, you are out. Grabbed hands to dance but it was easier alone We sang together "Fuck you... fuck you..." I know it meant as much to her, was it as good for her as it was for me "Fuck you... fuck you..." I came home and I am different, "You've been around them too much" I am them too much I am brave I am expirienced I am creative I am following a path beaten straight by so many feet, I leap from print to print I am the path, follow me, walk on me I am the way She is the way and I step up from her hand He is the way, I walk backwards knowing where not to go She is the way, spinning He is the way and I glance over to see if we are still parallel Sie is my way and I am eir way and am I a trampoline or about to land on my head or a mussel holding tight to a tarry pillar trusting the tide to feed me and to be fed on and there is only one question in my head: How can I be me when everyone else is so much more me?
OneThousandSixtySeven there is only one question in my head... why do they all keep dying they fall around me one by one like the tears from my eyes and the accusing words from across the border because I was not there not that being there makes much difference it doesn't change a thing except perhaps to try to say goodbye in the closest way left or maybe if you're lucky enough to hold them before they go but I was never there coulda, shoulda, woulda guilt the now and all that passed before the things you'll never get to share the look on my grandfather's face when he came back that Tuesday night which was probably Wednesday by then... no matter, it'll always be a Tuesday... a rainy April Tuesday when twisted metal and broken bodies rested within earshot of home spinning, spinning, spinning and then Jonny's at our door ten minutes after 10pm on tax day because he heard it happen so close and yet so very far away one to live and one to die two cars, two people, rain, oil, and confusion and dreams that never were a tool set bought for him that very day that would never get to be used and three weeks before when he was still tied to the earth we watched the little girl look upon her young father for the last time and her uncle, our friend, brother of the murdered torn with grief and anger and hatred four shots to the back and the world was shaken in the middle of the night, a few blocks away and we all knew who did it even if the police could never prove it we stood with him then before he was sent away lest he exact revenge lest he fail, lest he succeed and Ira would lose yet another son and he in turn stood with me when the one who stood with both of us was no longer there to stand we watched each other lose our brothers less than one month apart then one early morning in late July of that same year 1997, that bastard bitch of a sun's round I awoke and saw the body on the floor laying stiff by the sliding glass door and recalled her eyes from mere hours before she knew even if I did not, even if I refused to know she stood by my bed stood and sat and waited and looked at me after days of being so weak she could hardly get up I could hear her heart beat from across the room and beyond at 3 o' clock in the morning too loud, too hard, oh God I should have stayed up and held her when she died loving canine companion of twelve and a half of my fourteen years but I went to sleep cuz if I pretended things would be okay, then they would be I didn't know, didn't think... oh how the universe laughs at such foolishness I never got to say how sorry I am for the times I was not kind they were all so very close, yet so very far away so much to say so many to mourn so very tired of grief one night my grandmother became incoherant but my grandfather didn't call the paramedics til the convulsions of the morning what would have happened if she was helped sooner? she went into the hospital and then that horrible rehabilation/nursing home that smelled so bad and felt so cold confused, sedated, and tied down to the bed crying to be released covered in tubes the aftermath of a stroke Febuary 5, 2000 and she didn't hurt anymore we got on each others nerves a lot we we loved each other too if only I didn't think I had all the time in the world to find out who she was I used to fight for the green recliner but now it sits alone unused by all the household and now today...well yesterday the sparking of this poem another death, another life fled a small, furry white body in a house several thousand miles away and I feel so much regret and guilt over the one I brought home first in my attempt to ease the pain of losing all the rest all the ones I mentioned above and the many others I didn't I should've been the one to bury him I don't even know if someone else will once again I was not there I keep thinking about the bananas he'll never be fed again that favorite food that most people wouldn't think to associate with rabbits and about the two that are left do they know that he's gone? they didn't see him pass if only they'd stop dying before I could do something right if only they'd stop dying while I still have the ability to feel if only they'd stop dying Jauss OneThousandSixtyEight the now and all that passed before hits me hard in the gut. at night, i feel like an empty bodyshell shot from the gun of my mothers womb into this life i cannot claim. i love cigarettes. the way i can curl my mouth around dirty gray smoke and exhale out my nose. i started this habit at age 15, sitting on my roof at night. the packs increased as i felt the sky taking larger and more immense bites of me. is this natural? i have always wondered, to feel as though there is some huge black hole above who's immediate purpose is to tear me away from myself. the decisions made in my 18 years come back to haunt me, and i often wonder where the person i am now was before she was here in me. 1069 I love cigarettes They always remind me Of sitting outside work with my friends. There is something that is So cool about holding one Half burned in my hand Driving, Talking Conversations with Josh Trying not to laugh Trying not to choke on the smoke. I'm going to quit And I'll miss only the talking The cigarette dosen't really matter. Nick H OneThousandSeventy I'm going to quit. No, really...this time I mean it. I'm going to wake up tomorrow and see the world with new eyes, big and soft and all-encompassing. I'm going to wake up tomorrow and when I rise out of bed, I'm not going to walk, I'm going to fly. No more giggling, shiny and brittle as tinfoil, meaning nothing. No more hiding behind masked silences when I could be really saying something. There's always that fear looking out at me from the mirror in the lonely afternoons, always that hungry fear, big stomached and toothy, whispering that one day, if I say too much, mean too much with what I say, you're going to see the real me, you're going to look at me with shock, with boredom, with disgust, and go away. I give myself so easily but ask so much in return. Can you pay the price? Can you just listen to me and all my stormy nights? Can you take me down from my pedastal and let me just be me? I'm going to quit today. Quit trying for other people and start trying for me. ~Becky~ OneThousandSevenOne No more giggling, shiny and brittle as tinfoil Your laughter stays in your eyes, twists them Deepens the color, winds sorrow and delight inextricably together-- No more skipping, You walk and your head touches the clouds without your feet leaving the sidewalk You don't roll down a grassy hill, you sit on a picnic blanket so the grass doesn't stain you and you stare at the horizon, and at the small children around you You smile at them, wipe their noses and give them crackers take them to the zoo You hold their hands as you cross the street and their small voices and sticky hands make your eyes smile with that curious blend of sorrow and delight that makes you so wise and beautiful
OneThousandSevenTwo You don't seem to see what it is that makes you so beautiful. There's a magic in you. A sparkle in your eye as you dance along. People want to touch that be swept along with it but sweeping swirling they can't catch you. You won't be held for long before you're out dancing on the breeze again. But I wonder if perhaps, can I touch you? hold you? not hold you down I wouldn't ever want to do that. But perhaps you'll let me in. Let me see the side that isn't quite as intoxicating, perhaps. But all the more real. Perhaps you already have. ~Qetyria~ OneThousandSeventyThree Let me see the side that isn't perfect. Let me see the side with the cobwebs, and the scars, and the darkness. Let me brush away the locks with my fingertips and peer inside. Because I'm not all sunshine either, though some have yet to find that out. I'm not all pleasure and smiles and hopeful fairy tales. So why would I want you to be? No one knows exactly what I am, sometimes not even me. Everyone wants a happy ending, but what will you risk trying to force it to end your way? What will you lose? I know the door is locked. I know the door sticks and creaks and shudders, and has more protections on it than I can imagine. But everyone has a locked door inside of them, old mansions full of locked doors, dark and secret hiding uderneath their eyes. But there is unexpected pleasure in opening them sometimes, and releasing something painful and precious, and aching softly to be set free. ~Becky~ OneThousandSevenFour to be set free to fly far and wide up out of the darkness and into the light high above. To wake up in the morning and not have to realize that my dreams were just that. Dreams. And no you're not here. to be set free and go soaring. But... to be set free from what? ~Qetyria~ --- OneThousandSeventyFive Understand that I don't expect you to even try to Understand me. You sound happy You destroy, restore And laugh some more Frightening, exciting That's who That's what you are. Sometimes I feel like I love you And sometimes I feel like I can't And sometimes I feel like I couldn't It wouldn't seem right Like a lie, to you. You are happy And then you hate You hate the others And the time they waste You hate the order You hate the orders And who you order But not what you scream You hate so much To be set free from what? Yourself, and nothing more. If you were in my world They'd give you tests And warnings to others In hushed tones They'd give you pills And give excuses to others With embarrassment They'd give you rules to follow And they'd cover your shrieks With hurried explantions When the others stare. They can't understand. Stupid people. You might give more hate And that's probably it. Maybe there really isn't anything wrong With honesty.
OneThousandSeventySix Maybe there really isn't anything wrong But that dosen't mean I feel good. Maybe I feel like I've never done anything For no good reason at all. So why don't I feel good? And why can I think Of so many things That I've never done? Nick H OneThousandSeventySeven Why can I think of so many things I haven't done? You've made them all a reality for me. I can still smell you, I can still taste you on my lips, and yet, I feel like it's all a dream, that has changed into reality. Make it real for me. Exist for me. Let me tell myself that your body isn't some figment of a love sick imagination. Let my fingers remember the way your curves felt under my embrace. Let my eyes absorb you once more. Let my tounge remeber all those words that poured out during the night. Make it real. Ben S. 1077 "My Illness" This is when the night falls Too dark too soon This is when the light burns And flickers, and gasps Whether it falls through my eyes And yours can't feel the blow Doesn't matter, I know These scouring images are no less real Because it's their shivers I can feel Gnawing, on my hands And then I have no hands to grab you Blinding, on my eyes And then I have no eyes to see you Crawling, on my face And then I have no face to turn To the sun: eclipsed Through the sound of breaking hearts This is what drowning is like Too harsh too much This is what the darkened dream Sings, and I lay down I could open my mouth to scream Sometimes I do And then the water comes rushing in.
1078 "Old Ladies In The Ghetto" Old ladies in the ghetto With their oversized bags Going to the store Kids shouting on bikes Pass them by And they're ignored And maybe they are glad. They take drags on their cigarrettes But they don't pretend it's cool anymore And they never finish the whole thing either. Old ladies in the ghetto Know that for every bright day that dawns A brighter day has been left behind And nothing's the same anymore The neighborhood went down long ago And their friends die, and after a while Well, I guess they get used to it Maybe they stay here because they like the noise When the silence is too mencing to bear They hide inside their homes And take happy bright pills in the morning Afternoon, and night. And morning, again. Old ladies in the ghetto keep a sharp eye out For children pushing children in the street They don't have children no more Not since the last one died in the last gunfight Or, if they were lucky, got a shit job Down south someplace. And they never come back They never come back to visit Old ladies in the ghetto ride the bus But no matter how long they ride it They never get out of the neighborhood.
1079 "Growing up Here" The sun, makes a pulsing noise Inside the cars, by the arcitecture Of broken dreams, and transient minds It means that as a child You make a wish and jump over an oil spill It means that dandelions choked through Glass and concrete, I blew their heads off It means standing in front of your window Watching an argument on the street A man, and a car headed towards him like an arrow. Through it swerves and screeches off The scowl of an old day remains, Even as a new one begins. It means the water is so thick You should chew before you swallow Standing on your porch, gagging on granola Everyone seems a little strangled here. It means the high rise of the night Walking through the smoke and feeling like The shit. Hell, I'm the shit. But the morning lets you down again I know I want a clear head And it's not just the smog that hides the view. Over on the park bridge, a man growls at the child Who's throwing bread crumbs into the water To dissolve the sins of her short life She may jump at the sound of shots But it's a different kind of hate that Makes me run away.
OneThousandEighty I know I want a clear head when I fall off the cliff. I know that when I feel the wind rushing through my hair and the sky falling away from me like a dream I want to know I did the right thing. I want to know that I did the only thing that I could do to live. Invisible rocks at the bottom, are they jagged only in my mind? Which cliff do I fall off of, the known one or the one imagined? Or are they the same? The more I am told which one to fall off of, the greater the appeal of the other one calls. But in the end, there is only me, standing here windswept and aching louder than a nightmare, longer than a dream, and I am the only one who can make up my mind. ~Becky~ OneThousandEightyOne in the end, there is only me, standing here windswept and aching because i don't believe in poetry right now but that's all that i have left. i believed in the flesh and blood of you. of course i shouldn't, but we never learn that till later so i guess i have to trust myself. and poetry. because in the beginning that's all i ever had.
OneThousandEightyTwo I believed in the flesh and blood. It's the only thing I've ever loved. I tried having fur But it got burrs. Oh woe, oh woe, is me. I never believed in slippery scales, and yet I still love clearance sales. Where lizards shop, and frogs go kerplop, jumping off the tables. -Mel(Other) and Her Mom 1083
I believed in the flesh and blood
life had tossed onto my hands when i was only ten.
i believe that Fuck Vagina and Bitch
hold power anger and beautie.
I believe my own mastakes where worth it
because in the end i am teaching others from.
i believe that from my starving poetry
there is one less annerixic
and one more fighter who is willing to fight.
i believe that if everyone frowned less and smiled more
Socer the Grouch from Sessme street wouldnt be so grumpy.
i believe that i am a healer who is still healing
i believe that your a druggy who doesn't want drugs
but most days hunny
i believe that i am to old to be fifteen
OneThousandEightyFour but most days honey, i'm sick to my stomach and it isn't that i'm sick it's love and living throughness i'm trying so hard to live through and forget forget the color of sunlight on half-living grass and the way it felt beneath my figners as i held onto it by the fistfull but i wasn't afraid of floating away i was just trying to concentrate with my eyes precisly where they should be most days i'm still working on that and i wish i was in danger of floating away but i think i'm too heavy and my hand hovers over paper moves away hovers again lands in my lap my ego is heavy today and not with praise i need a sad record a record player to play it on the scratch of the needle on the black plastic than i could think of you from a distance my mind on the brown tipped grass my heart spinning around on the phonograph plucking the strings of my memory.
TenEightyFive somedays i'm bright like the sun up above and i rest like a child on the wings of your love and the way that you smile is carving my life into sections of dark and pieces of light cause when i don't have you it's like death running wild and i awake crying uncomforted child but most days honey i think about you and i worry 'bout money is that gum on my shoe? Jäfe onethousandeightysix there are days when the sunlight is magical. in winter, early evening, baby pinks and blues which fade to deepdark midnight and crimson flashes of light flying behind. these are the nights during which i get restless in a moment feeling as though my life does not belong to me i am somehow misplaced i belong barefoot with flowers in my hair i belong in some crowded nightclub, cigarette and beautiful glass. these are the nights when the sky starts to eat me vibrating with sharp biting laughs at my small humanity. i start to chain smoke get distressed. i feel myself shrinking without control (a fear i've always had) it's been moments not years, not lives, as it feels the sky's not even deepened but inside, honey, i'm already sections of dark. OneThousandEightySeven i'm already sections of dark empty places that are almost visible and that i'm trying so hard to hide so hard to belive that it was only yesterday i declared my freedom but from what? watching you watching me is intoxicating, more so than city lights flashing and my feet flying (i can dance in my dreams you know) watching your eyes turn away just in time and laughing to myself and there's something behind your eyes are you in sections too?
OneThousandEighty8 there's something behind your eyes and I can't tell what it is but for the first time looking behind them doesn't feel strange and not knowing what's back there doesn't scare me and finally I like not knowing
OneThousandEightyNine looking behind them and seeing that smile almost strong enough potent enough to make them turn around cancel their train tickets it's so much more tempting to stay here with someone's warm arms around you than to sit on blue striped amtrak seats for three days so why are you leaving? and that smile that smile was what caught your eye i envy you that smile because it's directed at you and you're used to smiles like that and i watch them from the side and wonder how i would reacte if suddenly they were pointed at me. there's a level of intoxication, being around someone in love the way their eyes glow when "that name" comes up in conversation when they sing you can feel in your heart that the "you's" in the song are no longer anonymous and the smiles. the smiles they have when you bring up the name they've been trying to not bring up trying not to bore you the smile when you ask about it gives you a little of their head over heels dreamy gazed stomach butterflies. there's a rush of happiness that comes from watching them blow kisses into the phone.
OneThousandNinety So why are you leaving? Running away to crawl under invisible blankets. Is your life as a shining, glittering bauble to obtain? Like a treasure hunt, if you follow the clues, follow them in order, step by step, already written for you, you'll win the prize. Do you think that if you step off the path once, burn the clues and write your own you won't find something just as beautiful hidden in the woods? OneThousandNintyOne "find something just as beautiful beneath what you see in the mirror" she told me and i tried really i did but trying doesn't always result in sucess (or maybe for you it does) trying for me results in having to try again. tongiht i ate the chocolate concoction my brother made just to spite myself and then refused to go in the bathroom and poke my stomach and ask myself "why did you do that?". i tryed smiling once but now all i feel when someone puts their arms around me id the way they seem to sink into me and i know it isn't really true and i know they don't notice don't care but i do. i care that i suck in my stomach when i yawn because my shirt goes up and my tummy shows. -Franny who would post annonymously if she posted annonymously on PoetryMarathon just to spite myself i am going to yell and bitch and scream and say fuck you more and i miss you less to those thousands of eyes who liked my ass. just to spite myself i'm going to dress up and make myself feel like a goddess again yet i know all to well no layers of makup can cover up my fighter scares. just to spite myself i'll eat my dinner and not feel fat. mind you i've been saying that sints i was a little starving eight year old girl just to spite myself i'll send that DeadDaddy letter, clime every mountan, kiss girls and go skinny dipping i'll get sunburnt, say i love you and maybe some day just to spite myself i'll show you whos worthy of love
OneThousandNintyFour like a goddess, again she renews her belief in herself and herself without anyone to hold her up and push her along she'll be her own mountain and stop along the climb pick flowers and hold them to her nose she'll get the yellow pollon dusted on in place of the make-up she isn't wearing anymore. she can stop along the way and grow and for a second she doesn't think about falling. -franny 1095 pick flowers and hold them to her nose she watches wide eyed and smiling as everyone around her runs and laughs and as she's sitting by herself with her fistful of daffodils the people stream around her without stopping and no one seems to notice her but she's happy that way - just watching every day for a month she sits there with her flowers smelling them and watching people without being noticed or given a second thought but one day one person sits down with his own fistful of flowers and without saying anything sits down and watches and smiles
OneThousandNintySix every day for a month the rain has fallen now this rain is becoming as rutine as missing you rain splatters on the window tears fall on my pillow it's almost the same yesterday, it's almost the same as today. yesterday i danced in the rain and thought of you today i gather it in a cup and make tea with it and think of you. the rain turned to snow today and ever since i've been watching it and writing love poems and crumpling them up when i've never crumpled my poetry before but the pile is so satisfying white paper crumpled in a heap white snow heaping outside. when it suns will i be happy? -franny OneThousandNinetySeven The too-rare sunlight Shines on the bare wet branches. I've been watching it.
OneThousandNinetyEight I've been to an emotional Russia and back again without going farther than my rocking chair photographs were spread on my lap and one got squished beneath a rocker oops i didn't mean to indent your face and emphisise your surroundings and that's what it looks like now. i didn't take these photographs. someone else took them with my camera, my film while i posed with you your arm fitting perfectly into my waist mine hung across your shoulder (your shoulders were warm) and then camera energy was over and i held the strap in my hand and swung it around. i've been to australia in my mind without leaving the showers and i was carried away from the sounds of whoever was behind the courtain next to me singing as she washed her hair i forgot the soapsuds and i flew the air cool on my wet body and then i turned the water off and jarred myself into reality. i wrapped a towel around me and tiptoed over gravel and up some steps. i stood, a sillhuete, in the doorway wrapped my arms around myself and pretended it was you. -franny 1099 singing as she washed her hair she was happy and smiling and she remained happy and smiling ...until she looked down then she saw how her belly curved and how it wasn't as flat as it was when she was a skinny 8 year old running on the playground and she finished her shower in silence she dried off quickly and hurried into her clothes
OneOneOhOh she hurried into her clothes and left the warm cocoon of her sleeping bag that dream she had been walking and suddenly she needed it to be real. she needed to walk yesterdays jeans were cold when she pulled them on and she buttoned her shirt in the wrong buttons and walked down the stairs to the rhythm of her brothers breathing from the other room the front door didn't even creak and then she had the sidealk beneath her feet and the street lamps to light her way she stood beneath the golden halo of one blocks from her home and saw a figure and thought "i shouldn't be here. it isn't safe" as she turned to go he caught her hand and bowed low, pressing his lips to it snowflakes in his hair was all she could see but somehow she wasn't afraid why were his hands so warm glovless? back within her room, sleeping bag, sleepyness she looks at her hand and smiles. -franny NBTSWikiWiki | Recent Changes Edited 1 times, last edited on January 20, 2002 by fiona@nbtsc.org. © 2000 NBTSC Webmasters |
