sick note

I feel like writing a list of symptoms;
"please mister doctor,
I can't look at myself in the mirror,
I can't look at her self either,
I can't even think,"
I can't even find my way around my own thoughts,
my own state of mind doesn't feel quite like mine,
my music and I aren't getting along,
reason and nature no longer singing my songs,
no longer anything solid to stand on,
and can't move on.
From this thought, I'm running around in a circle
of trust which can't rust,
a love which can't change,
I don't think,
but I can't think at all,
I can't sleep,
my head hurts,
and I feel like the water's so deep
all around me, above me, below me, between;

and the one lifeline I have is around my neck.

"so, doctor, now why don't you tell me what I should do next?"

debilitated

I take this necklace off at night, I always have.

I used to take necklaces off at night because of something
a grown up once said about the dangers of strangulation.

But that isn't why I take this necklace off.

I carefully unclip that beautiful little physical reminder of
you as a part of me every night because
I am scared that it might break.

And this reason instills as much fear in me as the former,
which may sound a little ridiculous, but not to you.
Because you can see that it's that same fear
for my life that goes against my innate
lack of discipline every night
and reminds me quietly not to leave it on.

Is this a weak analogy?
It seems to fit to a strange extent,
right down to the tiny tug in me that doesn't want to let go and hear
the cold clink of metal on windowsill or bedside table tonight.

So here's what I want you to tell me,
because trying to figure it out without you feels like..
a lot of words, all of which mean either wrong or ridiculous
or futile.

Or as impossibly difficult as writing is when I'm so utterly lost.
It's like I'm stuttering, wading through something thick,
and frustration.

See?

What I want to know is if you think that leaving this necklace on
is maybe something I should risk.


I'm sorry that this isn't more eloquent,
a hundred times,
my best;

I am debilitated by the lack of your input in an area of my thoughts.

detour

I am Radclyffe.
I am Melissa.
I am Ani.
I am my father.


I am me,
then in walks she,
with all her entourage of pain,
her pockets full of promise,
and her heart full of distain
her mind full of the questions
for which I have all the answers,
her face full of stained memories,
lost "happy-ever-afters",
and all dissonant rhyme
my honest melody surpasses.

And then, of course, she needs me,
maybe even it's a want thing,
and then of course I start to think
that it's all real, start falling.
And when I say "fall", I mean
fall to my knees, fall for her,
I mean sacrifice arteries
to drip red carpet for her;
I mean that she walks in,
and I stand up, suddenly Hall,
and by the time I hear the
"chime-clunk-chime" (winner takes all)
I'm Prince of Denmark, heart of gold,
not expecting the fall,
forced by the weight of that
crude metal, and I'm left here all
bloodless and wandering
for years, wondering what I missed,
robbed of my rightful place there
as King of Her Heart, I miss
her as much as I hate her,
and what she turned me into,
I hate that someone will
someday do what I couldn't do,
I hate that she's still hurting,
her cheeks still tainted with salt,
myself for taking the bait, I hate
that it wasn't time's fault,
(and don't try to blame fate).

But most of all, I hate that
once the characters are gone,
the faces and the phases, and
the lines and all the songs,
I'm back to sitting, writing
in some two-bit cheap cafe,
healing myself with words,
because sentences don't decay,
and I am me again, and I'm
March, April, and I'm May,
and I am me, but John's still hoping
you'll show up someday.

Silvered Glass [still drafting]

You're her at sixteen,
everything but clean,
everything we lost;
you're not what I mean.

You're her way back then,
you're her before them,
you weren't without warning
(all over again).

And that's why I know
what you're about to say,
that's why you've always
affected me this way.

And that's why you hate her,
'cause that's how it goes,
like a shard of mirror
in her face, 'cause she knows

that you're her at sixteen,
that same smile, same inflection,
and that's why you hate her;
who likes their reflection?

Dinner party conversation..

A premature prompt you didn't need for the next line of suggestion; preceded by your line, rehearsed, gone over in your head a hundred times; followed by more of the tiresome same. How many hundred more before you convince yourself it's true? It doesn't make the difference you think it does anyway, because there's no escaping air; especially the sort that hangs between your past and this. And I'll crop up again regardless in some other city, a different name and voice perhaps, a different color eyes. And even that won't make the difference up between your future and the fact that I am the best opportunity you'll ever think you had to lose (and did).

hospes

My music is painfully loud,
'cause I'm trying to drown out your eyes.

Meanwhile, I'm the one who's crying into my philosophy;
what's a little more logic washed away by this, "you & me"?

You've got your hands over my eyes, I can't judge,
and your name's etched too deep, can't forget.
All that time spent convincing myself it can't work,
we don't fit, we don't know- we don't, yet.

I feel like a moron for walking away from you,
shying away from more pain,
when I know I would never stop thinking about you
if I never saw you again.

I acted like a stranger.


Maybe that's what I wanted.

To meet you tomorrow, to know you and love you again,
to go back to darkness and red light and love and no pain.

As I Said

I felt shy for the first time in a long time when I saw you,
just couldn’t get past all the things floating above our heads,
and couldn’t work out where I fit or how I felt or why all
the songs that I’ve been listening to about you now seem void.
Is there a chance that after all that’s happened, you’ve grown up?
Is there a chance that I have too? If so, what does that change?
Do we become suddenly perfect, or no longer fit?
Are these just more questions, unanswerable, to avoid?
I felt shy, as I said, when I saw you, when we talked,
not because, as I have said before, I don’t know how you feel,
but because, with irony immeasurable and predicted,
now that circumstance has caught up…