hold everything

"hold everything lightly and nothing will hurt us"
       Inadequacy: shards placed just so as not to
       stab but rather create small slivers the kind
       that sting when you ball your hands into fists
hold everything
       like letting go is the same as forgetting
       the slivers in your palms deeper and wider
       from gripping what has all but broken
lightly and nothing
       red rushing to the surface
       heat to the wounds, healing against your will
       what is numb from consistency and exposure
hold everything lightly for it may still hurt you
        like the ache of memory sutured with time gone
        arthritic from being recalled

personal earthquakes

the wares of time
       increments of fleeting and stalling
       entwined with momentum
                               forwardness - yours/someone else's
collecting seconds
a bank filled with too long glances
      distractions, near misses      
       saved up, hidden from
where times goes - the forgotten parts of it
                               painful moments shredded from memory
like pages ripped from a magazine
glossy and thin like promises
recycled with the inevitability of wanting to linger
      - and knowing better
time that, regardless of your participation, builds relentlessly upon itself.

moments: miniature enough to be survived

Red is glutenous
       like the rich velvet dessert my grandparents used to buy for special occasions.
       or the curtains that hang heavy on the stage collecting dust and sound, hiding readying          
performers from view.

Red is cliche
       like the roses stacked in the cooler of that old florists waiting to be de-thorned for less than minimum wage.
       or crimson stilettos, the right size for trying too hard or attracting the so-called "wrong attention."

Red is selfish
       the color of needless loss, breaking news, the shade of the web-banner on the website that reports your murder.
       of headlines, and midnight sirens. death, and other things that hurt.

a destination, not an escape

i think somewhere in all that i was looking for permission to grieve. feeling lighter and heavier simultaneously.

but- yearning

is wanting a by product of insecurity? do we long for things because we need reassurance .. reassurance that we made the right decision, or felt rational emotions, or made the right choice?

are these cravings a way to insure that we, in some way, justify our actions to ourselves .. and the only reason we might need justification is because we fear that what we experienced was temporary .. is it easier to seek out experiences, people, feelings because it feels better than accepting finality.

or is it that we seek reassurance that we are also wanted, regardless of what our rational mind knows doesn't some part of us need to know that some one is also craving us in return? that our sometimes desperate need for contact, for a repeat experience, is really colored by a need to be validated?

and how do we curb this wanting and remember an experience with a clear head? or would a clear head, in fact, destroy the allure of the experience to begin with? if we were always remembering things with a level head, emotionless and unaffected, then we would not crave this thing to begin with.

perhaps .. in all of this .. the thing to note is that you deemed it (somewhere in you head) worth romanticizing enough to crave .. and that could be all that matters.

beyond the sharks

we are ill equipped to let people in and out of our lives, like we are somehow entitled to permanence.

are we protecting ourselves from people who treat our lives like revolving doors? does this explain the predominant hesitancy we feel when we are presented a faded admission ticket from faces in our past? are we, in the same way, safe guarding ourselves against disappointment (abandonment) by refusing to accept that there are also those heading for the exit? (even if they are doing so unwillingly). 

what is it about the words i'm leaving that makes don't go rise like bile in our throats? do we mean it? do we need to establish this need for permanence so as to vocalize our fear of abandonment, because we know the decision has been made and the statement was made with finality? do we swallow these same words because we know they are futile? because we are expected to make an effort to preserve what makes us comfortable? this interaction is nothing but selfishness, colored only by an emotional script. 

we are taught change is inevitable, taught to except it and simultaneously taught that it sucks. do we say don't go because it embodies the suck? or is it a half hearted attempt at denial? and are we ever really prepared for an answer to our don't go? what if they don't go? or what if they had no idea you didn't want them to go until they announced they were leaving? and what if you choke back the don't go so they are none the wiser? you are still left with the salience of wanting to say ..

..or what if they come back later. after the don't go has been swallowed, digested, and left to churn in an emotional recess. how do you regurgitate don't go yet alone turn it into welcome back? is this so hard because we are protecting ourselves from future, inevitable abandonment? or is it because time and experience make strangers of everyone no matter how sincere or over due the welcome back truly is?

right tension

maybe.
       (maybe?) cacophony
       in the dark
of looks, touch.
before maybes wear-off
         like shirts; innocence
on to the floor (unvacuumed carpet)

barrierless
      for a beat
before supposed to
       sucking up what feels
for dark roast, maple sweet
    brief-ness before
     rain walking/leaving - home.

don't you long to say gladly?

both feeling for
an else.
exceptions
to each other
also,
we are also

submitting and erecting
walls with secret(s)
to allow the other
in.

dodging confrontation,
and lips to maintain?
(protect)
what we are also ..

sure surfaces

i think i have an inability to see my own defense mechanism as an excuse for behavior in others ..

example, how do you tell someone you like someone else better but initiate conversations more? something that was grating on my last nerve but i realized i do the same thing ..  everyone wants to be wanted no matter how much they don't want that other person .. and even if you don't want that other person right now if you keep them interested, even in the slightest, then if whatever you have moved on to pursue doesn't work out you have guaranteed yourself a back up plan.

i've done it more times than settles well with me but i resent being the one put on layaway. mostly because normally i don't play this game .. if i see this happening i cut ties, i don't bite .. but now i'm biting and i haven't the slightest idea why.

a lie .. i do know .. because there are inherent similarities in personality and defense mechanisms between all of the people that can tear me apart and i walked myself up to another one of these people and placed myself squarely in the palm of his hand -

because the devil i knew, even with a different face, the devil i knew was safer than saying no to what i knew i didn't want in someone else.

(is the underlying thought here that it is easier to hurt myself with something i do want than to hurt someone else who wants me that i don't want?) yes.  

violent delights/ends

nights, so easily mangled
stolen spans
without obligation

loosely based on
red wine, excuses to rummage
in the kitchen to pursue
what i should have known was time-limited

hands leaving breadcrumbs
blue-green

postcards from

(the shower, the headboard)

an admission
dropped
(like jeans, coats hours before)
on 5am tile -

'i started to like more' -
(..i know)
a door closed

is to the continuation of patterns
as saying too late is to being enough.

as much a prison

behind velvet ropes 

adorned with expectations

poised to disappoint

acrophobic in

a museum littered with 

fractured pedestals 

happy too

i see myself projecting my jealousy of one relationship onto the one i have become entangled in.

do i continually pursue superficial relationships so that i have something to project my disappointments onto?  because it doesn't take much time or effort to find a relationship that is devoid of emotion .. so do i fill these interactions with what i am lacking or do i simply develop emotions after the fact because physical intimacy cannot exist without some sort of chemistry?

or is that im unfazed by the polygamy of the relationships if i am unaware of it but as soon as i see otherwise my ego is bruised? maybe my jealousy is still projected in the right direction and what i am otherwise feeling is my consistent insecurity that "i am not enough." because if you're not enough for the guys you don't have feelings for you how can you be enough for the ones that you do?

if you're not enough for the people you don't have feelings for you how can you be enough for the ones that you do?

 

silence: outstretched for you

hardening; molding here on this limb
beauty in the temptation of 
aborting myself from this
love for your strength. 
denial rooted in our changelessness, 
growing (c)old, battered 
unable to fall, prevented, 
a death grip on this arm -
yours, familiar, in this (dis)integration 


(of us).