DANCER
11.20.19
petulant, showmanistic, fragile, feeble,
compromising
inefficient
like, like, like, like, like, like, like
the ring around your neck
slowly untying
raw – the way i like my knees
what good is rice
without a little spice
Muse
FORTUNA
10.8.19
losing you doesn’t scare me
this indifference scares me
our past, present, future is clumped up in some ball of hair i sweep off the floor
sticky on my feet
what once served a purpose now stands between me and the path i walk
the difference between you and i;
till death do us part doesn’t come with exceptions
may you find your happiness in your selfish
may your gluttony and greed always serve you
may you find someone who loves your double standards
wrap them in your convenience the way
you are wrapped in yourself
you’d think id be angry
but with your past in my in my future
i try to fit you somewhere in the present
like this poem
titled with your name
and becoming less and less about you everyday
no i didn’t forget about you
you carved your way out of me
DANCER
9.19.19
things you will never know;
i’ve seen a man loose an arm, and i cant unsee it.
it’s the kind of sight that turns pain into discomfort
illness into inconvenience
i’ve learned humility the way you’ve learned confidence
one day i think perhaps we’ll trade lessons
may yours be as soft as your pillow
i don’t want a key out of convenience
out of need
give me a key because you want me inside.
i don’t need a place to run away too –
i’ve become adept at running away.
give me instead, a place to stay.
falling in love with you has been
far less graceful in my universe than yours
at times i wonder where you saw the open in me
i don’t believe i had a choice in the matter.
even if i did, i wouldn’t choose otherwise.
it’s fitting i suppose.
a blindfold can freeze a body one second
you catch me off guard
there are times – i’ll admit
i want nothing to control
i have a knack for beings
intuitions for those i know mean something
conversations with cicadas
and the magic of those talks
guides my choices, my life more than any reasonable human would admit.
you’re right
if we told people how we fuck
how my body and your body have met heaven
how i’ve put yours through hell
how you’ve made me call out god’s name and pray for more more more
in one in-breath
no one would believe us
i’ve drafted more words for you that you can count
none of which have any meaning
without how deeply i’ve fallen for you.
FORTUNA
9.15.19
its a funny feeling
wanting so badly to stop loving somebody
and then the moment when you do –
can feel, at times, like the slaughter of nothing at all.
i don’t think the idea of loving you went away
it just got shoved under the bed
collecting cobwebs
forming into something that made a burning sensation in my chest go away.
you started a forest fire in my heart
and i thought the pain was worth the heat.
DANCER
9.11.19
im not sure what you are
too smooth to be cinnamon,
too social to be saffron,
too neat to be cardamom.
youre not quiet ginger or pepper either
im not sure exactly what kind of sunflower
you are
right now, however
you are perfect lavender dreams
splitting cake pieces with swords and calling them mercy
the way fawns lick the grass before they eat
like an apology to those around
not for their forgiveness
but within their own
you are right in one thing
its all worth it
if they ever ask me – if id do it again
in a heartbeat
for you, for her, for all of them.
i will not bitter and sour over spilt milk
FORTUNA
9.10.19
if there is one thing i know
you brought summer to my heart the way he brings me spring
just how you love your winter
no one will ever be the four seasons
eventually
we spend too much time falling in the idea of this fullness
delusion detests the focus romance provides the veil for
we grew to think of it as some kind of magical home away from home
some lush forest filled with pies and almonds and puppies
none of whom were getting laid
we were stepping on land mines to this fantasy
some sick seesaw
where you want me – im hormones chastity belt
calling in monsoon season
your mouth between my legs
re-kindlings of lust long gone we are oatmeal skins you and i
we were magical
until lightning strikes
see, stab the body and it heals
stab the heart and it’ll beat the way a guitar sings by ripping off the strings
no longer electric in ecstasy
but how a dentists strikes a nerve
or scratching silveware on china
holding my hands over the ears of my heart to silence broken promises
or slicing reality – it keeps coming out poorly
and here it comes with conviction, almost panic.
mentally exonerating anyone who has kicked a chair out from beneath
if killing someone was on your bucket list
you can check it off a hundred times
feeding me one more drop of poison with each excuse
skinning me alive – putting on shapes for you body to fit into
theres no me to this skin left
there was foreshadowing to this – wearing my skin on your body
and yes, it was cheating. conscious, sober, knowing cheating.
fuck you for reducing it to the word cheating.
as if this were a card game, and you sneaked a look at my hand.
who came up with the term cheating, anyway?
a cheater i imagine.
someone who thought liar was too harsh.
someone who thought devastator was too emotional.
the same person who thought, oops, she’d gotten caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
fuck you. this isnt about slipping yourself an extra twenty dollars of monopoly money.
these are our lives. our bodies. mine and yours and his.
you killed something
and you killed it when its back was turned
DANCER
9.3.19
and of course i could talk about
all the flight anxiety, the turbulence, how i didn’t drink the wine and only got vegetarian meals
i could write about chasing a robot down the airport terminal
finding wrist-less time on a dumpster
or lawyers, letters, immigration
my flute playing neighbor
portugal and lanzones
the size of the magnolias
how humid it is here
at the other side of the world
i could writre about about mercato
the kinship of another familiar place
posh breakfast with upper class yuppies
being called ma’am more time in one morning than in one year of my life
but all those words are tiresome compared to the sweetness
of your “good mornings!” your “how was your flight? ” – “and how about that flight?”
your questions both
a love note from home and
grounding me in the now
in the beauty of my luck
of my travels
how odd. to feel loved within your day – and not outside of it.
i think you’ll make the perfect travel partner after all.
DANCER
8.29.19
the clock ticking hours dipped in honey with you
the past increases
the future decreases
possibilities decreasing attempting to keep remorse at bay
whatever you are seeking wont come in the form you expect
your persistence gently breaking down mud walls
planting seeds taking root
creeping through stone walls they’re crumbling all barriers
when you speak to parts of myself so private
so secrete
they’re almost denied existence –
do you have any idea, how exposed you’ve made me?
dodging questions youre reading into me it’s terrifying
open my rib-cage an assault on the protected there’s nothing
hard cover left
my story is not a pleasant one; it is neither sweet nor harmonious,
as real stories are
it has the taste of nonsense and chaos, of madness and dreams-like the lives of all who stop deceiving themselves
im no writer, no dancer, no leader, nothing special
i dream
sometimes i feel that’s the one thing im good at
i live in my dreams maybe that’s what you sense
other people live in dreams, but not in their own
that’s the difference
so we struggle through laughter
you hold my hands above my head and i
melt into some new type of pleasure
no one likes change they didn’t elicit
im learning to be okay
to let go – let you, let life
take control
DANCER
8.19.19
“how do you not see physics, Blue?”
sweet naive, you ask the wrong questions
how do you not yet understand
nothing is ever what it seems
i told you before
i’ve been humbled
today i walk gracefully, intentionally, curiously
for someone with a knack
for always knowing more than they should
you are painfully blind
besides, that was fucking rude.
8.17.19
last night i burned alive
came back a little less lunar
a little more human
a little more sunshine now
what witchcraft it is
to sunrise every morning
and not ask if it is time
if the sky is ready
or if we have permission
to burn wildly
what a treacherous thing – knowing my power
that same night you asked
to be on top
i bit my tongue instead of yours
hammers disguised as questions
crushing my glass house ideas of what i think i want
tug of war
with a mind insulted by the thought
making my body shake with desire
8.16.19
Falling like the stars
when you asked why i was nervous
i didn’t realize there were doors still closed
in me
somewhere
i must have know
loving your dance would inevitably mean
one less padlock for me
one more key for you
FORTUNA
8.16.19
we summoned shadows of that night back and this time
you had no choice but to see the truth
and as i went to hell, the devil asked me if it was worth it
no knowing how to answer
i made myself of all the love you no longer wanted
making love was never about
you me and a bed
we made love whenever we held hands
so congratulations
you took me down
now you have made everything that is sad, relevant
maybe you re right
maybe i don’t know you
there is cruelty in you that is foreign
it visits drunkenly taking its place at my table
slapping me with coldness and apathy
puts me in a box with guilt ribbons and locks it with disregard
i have no room to be angry here
but what if i told you
cold eyes are burned into my memory
chasing me away
to a different room
a different home
a different lover
one day you realize there are people you will never see again
at least not in the same way.
it was your kindness that killed the beast inside
when i fell in love with you – once upon a time.