On The 365th day of Quarantine

 

It’s December

tis the season

a once a year wonderland where there’s no room for tears and fears, but it’s 2020 and 

here’s the thing

as the temperature fluctuates as much as the direction can changes directions at any given moment

all I could think of is all the Grentches outside of Christmas

how they’ve stolen more than just one holiday,

more than just some materialistic presence

how over this past year

how their spread of concurring and divide has taken over how this shit frightens me and the still young child inside that still grabs at hope like cookies in a jar for this world has proven the victim and villain, the thresholds none has overcome

the newest form of fine print

in our daily contrast constructed lives 

when people ask me

what I want this Christmas all I could really think of is my wishlist of face,

how I wish the emptiness that fills me to subside like a drought

after years with no rain, all at once and without warning

how this entire time

just like so many others I’ve been looking for a way out,

one without damning dishonor,

how to build a latter out of tinsel, 

how to build a bridge out of gift boxes and ribbon

how to construct a way out with ornament wires and candy canes

how to find a way to get those out my window bridging the gap between me and the bittersweet taste of freedom I’ve almost forgotten the taste of

the funny thing is you’d expect an artist,

a poet like me to break free from my chains and find ways to thrive,

while the truth is I’ve learned how to build a raft out of 

my own sheet of poems, 

how to keep afloat among the wave of my own covers and 

speak with the tongue of the night owl poets

It’s 2020 and all I can think about is how I can’t wait to add that one.

Rules of Heartbreak 101

They say if you don’t heal what hurt you 

you’ll bleed on people who didn’t cut you

They don’t tell you that you’ll bring the storm with you everywhere you go

even if they have already been fighting to contain their floods

how your lack of emotion and drive has expanded droughts, past any chance of recovery

That your state of denial blinds you from the fact that this game you keep playing has ended as soon as you tried to make the first move 

They say if you don’t heal what hurts you

you’ll bleed on those who didn’t cut you

that only time can heal

They don’t tell you band-aids don’t heal incisions,

that gaze doesn’t stop the crying

that pain killers aren’t the Mr. Clean magic eraser for life

They don’t tell you 

how healing is all about what you say, how you act, in your mannerisms

They don’t tell you that moving on is like taking one foot in front of the other in dry cement or getting out of a blizzard on foot

They say if you don’t heal what hurts you

you’ll bleed on those who didn’t cut you, but

never tell you that sometimes all the scares and bruises that those 

incisions left behind

seems to be all that you are and 

you’ll learn to love that,

handling the before and after on your walls like metal

nobody thought you’d make it this far

Healing Time is Reletive

 

Healing Time is Relative (4)

Einstein once said that time is relative

meaning the rate at which time passes depends on your frame of reference

the faster a clock moves the slower time passes

so for all the time that passed this year, 

people will still say only time will heal, but my problem is 

my time of self-reflection 

all my time only seemed to have stopped without you

So if time is relative then I must be frozen in time

perched on a horizon one a sun in your presence will never rise

cause if only you knew

how man feelings and encounters ill leave out while telling you about my day or when you ask why I’m feeling the way I am

If only you knew how many of my smiles were fake

how often I’d start to say something, but

bit my tongue or change the conversation all together so I wouldn’t leave myself too vulnerable o because I’ve already said so many times my feelings should be known

If only you know how often I wanted to say 

I love you, but took into consideration the timing so I’d just blush and whisper it to myself

how often I’d allow myself to say it, but desperately needed to hear it back

if only you knew how much and how fast m sorrows

vanished once in your arms

how all my traveling demons 

all my lingering repercussions of mistakes,

suddenly can’t touch me and almost disappear while with you

If only you knew how many nights I yarned for you, but fell asleep with my cat by my side instead

how many tears I had shed over you and 

how each tear is something I didn’t say to you

If only you knew all the things you don’t know,

all the things that weigh on me

all that I haven’t yet written

how I now I’ve lost you before,

how I’ve felt and fought against that pain,

lost that sleep after doing so

how I’d rather disappear in thin air

become your friendly ghost

one who’ll never allow you to feel alone ever again

before I’ll ever get close to going through that again

how I promise I won’t lose you again

elusive dreaming

 Look in the mirror, tell me who you see

it’s in your best interest, to be honest with yourself

Look in the mirror, tell me who you see

I see an empty shell of a woman

a pearless oysters held tightly in the grasp of a still young little girl

who’s still trying to find her way home

look in the mirror tell me who you see

I still see the marks the waves of one-night terror tears had left behind

I still see bruises from fear,

I still see those waves crashing against the rocks in their way

I still see them crashing against the walls of my ribs

breaking them, sharpening them, turning more of me into a weapon as they do so

I still see all the lacerations they all left behind

Look in the mirror and tell me what you see

I still see a little girl,

a still young little girl whos still very much cradled, 

rapped inside the woman she’s supposed to be

like a cocoon that already let the butterfly out, yet keep the caterpillar 

I see a queen who still sees herself as a princess stowed away inside

I see the tower and its captives

I see my silhouette staring back at me

Don't Like It, Change It

 Look in the mirror, tell me who you see

it’s in your best interest, to be honest with yourself

Look in the mirror, tell me who you see

I see an empty shell of a woman

a pearless oysters held tightly in the grasp of a still young little girl

who’s still trying to find her way home

look in the mirror tell me who you see

I still see the marks the waves of one-night terror tears had left behind

I still see bruises from fear,

I still see those waves crashing against the rocks in their way

I still see them crashing against the walls of my ribs

breaking them, sharpening them, turning more of me into a weapon as they do so

I still see all the lacerations they all left behind

Look in the mirror and tell me what you see

I still see a little girl,

a still young little girl whos still very much cradled, 

rapped inside the woman she’s supposed to be

like a cocoon that already let the butterfly out, yet keep the caterpillar 

I see a queen who still sees herself as a princess stowed away inside

I see the tower and its captives

I see my silhouette staring back at me

Silence

Silence

The world outside of these four walls

Being just as out of reach as a cobblers chocolate 

chip cookie on the top shelf of the pantry.

Silence

once again slamming the doors shut behind me,

like a draw bridge of a tower

making them impenetrable with barbed wires and bullet prof metals

making them unopenable from the outside with 

locked chains wrapped between the handles like slinky coils

Silence 

you finally allowed the room around me to stop rotating

I can feel the smile that was once plastered on my face 

like the posters on the walls of my prison cell 

smear and melt off the surface of my face 

like makeup once a drop of sweat attacks

Silence

you have learned not to keep me to my own devices 

You have taught my mind that my body and my heart are the enemies, 

the ones who deserve this solitary confinement so we can finally be safe.

You have allowed my thoughts to play the records of every

“I love you” lost loved ones and twist their words to better tighten the restraints,

The better and sooner cut off the air supply so 

I become nothing but a cute little piece of 

furniture you have the abilities to say you own.

Silence 

You have become the master of my sleep patterns, 

my self-love movements,

you’ve been in charge of my free time the people 

that I am able to use every dime on the dollar to use 

in hopes, they haven’t forgotten me.

You have manipulated my schedule, molding them 

as kids playing with slim,

I’ve tried to find ways out, to slip through the cracks and 

see more light then I have in years 

Silence

You’ve given worry and fear full rain over my emotions, 

Young girl,

 Young girl,

new delicate woman

why cry your eyes out

why have your tear be counted like

mistakes you've made

why stab yourself in the back 

when so many others have done that for you.

My sweet delicate woman

you're still to leave childish dreams along with

Disney-like expectations behind you.

Do not surrender your rights, your body, 

your dreams to the one who's fast asleep 

covered in his own security of metaphors,

of hidden words you've told yourself

you've found,

that he's given you.

Dear sweet newborn of a woman,

rest well tonight.

Fight against the lost efforts to reach out,

ignore the urge to tell him to acknowledge  

that you wish to fall asleep in his arms tonight,

wrap yourself in your covers and into 

a dream he is not allowed,

whisper the words 

you wish to hear 

without an ounce of bittersweetness, 

hold yourself and let the inevitable come to you.

Dear tender girl

sweet fragile woman

know their someone out there who 

will hold you without an ounce of selfishness to it, 

who look at you as you are without 

eyes intended to mold you in any way, but will take you in as his

Growing

you saying you've grown yet

boy your metallic touch 

no longer exists in my body,

your moon's winter 

luminous and attention-seeking 

is no longer in my sky,

the if you and I,

a dream of beautiful mist has died

I'm no longer anxious

I always to live, to try to just see 

my sweet wings 

fly above the world that used to 

be your domain

anxious

anxious,

It’s a quiet lazy pitch-black tunnel.

a private urge to fix yourself 

or be fixed by someone else’s hands,

It’s a doubtful dreams

Beautiful, glistening  with an abundance

of sweat droplets like glitter 

not radiant but repulsive.

anxious,

stong arms trying to scare you

stealing rest and self-love

a thousand times a day,

nonstop like your heart racing 

during a panic attack, yet

endless like the first night of winter

Waiting for the sun and that never seems to come.

My child don’t be anxious,

for this to will come to

a slow, but abrupt end

so please breathe and dream again

just don’t be

anxious.

Stub

 Hidden among other small things,

I found a ticket to Lion King, 

our first 

and last date, 

the memory of that blissful kiss,

when being with you feeling like danger.

 

We were the only ones in the theatre, 

adults away from our parents.

Two young people who mistake curiosity 

for love.

This ticket fell out of your pocket,

you didn’t think much about it, but I did

When I got home that night,

you still felt beside me

I still had the touch 

of your hand on my face,

as if you were still holding me 

I sat on my bed easing myself to my pillow,

Eyes closed as I lick my lips

I still have the sweet taste of your lips on mine.

When I sat down, my bottom 

still had the memory of your lap,

I still feel your fingers in my long

river streams of hair, tugging it ever so slightly

The ticket lays on my empty pillow, filling  where you’re not

I look at the ink and reading into as if looking into your eyes

this ticket from a year ago, still smells 

like your coat pocket, like home.

 

Love Letter

 It was our elevator, 

the elevator you introduced me to

as silent an still 

you took me by the hand and waist,

somewhere I didn’t yet know,

somewhere out of the clear 

to hide and 

hide we did.

We hid our lips in each other briefer than a moment.

it was my first and it was another tacted onto your list,

it wasn’t special to you, 

though it was for me and very scary at first.

I tried to hide the fear of what that meant to me, 

but as we both remember I failed.

when it first happened and I walked away, 

I hated myself for it,

I hated that I didn’t reach back and pull you in for more, but

then I asked myself would you have wanted more from me anyway?

I later asked and saded you said yeah, but it was my fault we didn’t,

I apologized and explained, you said I was fine, so I was because you said so.

Each day,

We talked more,

I began to wake up

knowing you would call me and for so long,

you did so without fail.

Then I guess times changed, but you were busy, I get that

I constantly kept reaching out through, but at least you saw it, 

hopefully, some of them made your day, just like you’d make mine

On the one year anniversary of our meeting,

when I found out the truth,

It hurt me deeply 

Loving Her

Damn, you’re so beautiful!

is what I think as my best friend sits 

in front of me a basket of McDonald’s fries

between us, growing cold.

I don’t mind, not hungry, 

an excuse to get together,

For me to see her.

The him, I see in her, the young men

I usually have a chance with, this is different.

These feeling are new, but

I’m not scared to act upon them.

A silence,

I didn’t know was missing,

filled the room and hit me on the head with a thud,

Wait… was she speaking?

Looking for an insightful response,

we make eye contact as she bats her eyelashes,

It’s as if we’re staring 

into the lakes of confusion

in each other’s eyes.

She raises a few fries to her open mouth.

I’m holding my breath, wondering

if she knows I like her?