Tag: family

fox

December 10, 2021

What is it like for you
so far away
i hope you’re softer
let me believe a little

i looked you up
two years later
little bit of a stranger
I see your life
a thousand miles from mine

when i lay back down
you meet me in dreams
even when i’m mad
you always come back

a respite from being me
pre-filling the shell of me
you were pulling the death from me
don’t know why
I had to win it

a flare with no pilot light
a fox prepared to fight
a red piece of dynamite
she takes me by surprise

never run,
you need to be right
I see your ambition and raise you one
i hope that you’re softer
just to bleed a little
i hope you’re not lost there
a fox prepared to fight,
stay safe in the night

xx2

December 21, 2020

I am am a parody of me
dressed in your confetti,
I drink to being feeble and weak

Could I make you laugh, this time?
Would I be better this way,
a glass in hand and foot displaced,
would you laugh just to give me a break?

Slither of it up my sleeves,
my chest feels bare and I’m scared
could you just acknowledge me,
tell me I’m not a freak?

I leave prints
sliding down walls
craving doorknobs to another place
no rattles, no, no searching for me.

Could you just see the monkey and her cymbal,
the seal and her horn,
a solo-spectacular, set to silent,
for all the noise I think I’m making,
could you just hear me out?

xxx

December 20, 2020

I’m your holiday from thinking,
respite from the drinking,
just take a breath and say it,
I know it’s easy for you,
please just say it

no need to feel your pain
if you can hide it in me,
you can pull back, not narrate,
I’ll take your feelings
in absence of words.

I’ll be your reason to go,
not to sit by the fire and smoke,
the catalyst for your storm, but,
you’ll be held to your stories
when I’m heading back home.

xxx

December 20, 2020

Wrote emails instead of talking,
check me,
I know you don’t mean it but I do,
headphones but I’m cutting through
scream in streets while people sleep

We leave sanity and take it down
reverse the energy, take it back
like safety in slander
excuses to say it all
we walk further and further away

I’ll sit in rooms with you
apart from you,
feel the tension in you, but,
I want you to know,
you don’t know

I’m the better of us
the rise-above-your-words,
articulate you better
better than you can
I’m the wiser of us,
Tell you how to grow,
no, tell you that you won’t.

057

August 8, 2020

I can’t think anymore
you’ve finally taken me down
a cup tipped over,
stalled out on all roads,
full in all this space,
I cant,
there’s no room

I don’t bet on it, but
I bet you know this
I’m embroidered by this scar tissue,
the maps you left on me
leading me to empty streets

I know you left me first
I hear your plans from other people
bury you in my anger
I guess we ruined everything

I had my feet on the ground
so sure, had my arms to the wind
thought I was so free
but running brought no sheath
to the dagger that you leave

you’ve finally found your out
leave me responsible for myself
leave me cluttered and spent

I chase you in my dreams
a fractured sort of sleep
maybe we miss each other
even if we had to go,
maybe it’s never leaving
if I can’t let you go.

056

July 30, 2020

How do I always know
greed in your powerplay
always have to set it up
a certain way,
be the last one speaking,
have to light things up
in my face

I keep saying, “this is it,”
I keep saying
I can bury love into a rage
swear I’m done, slip away
I mean it this time,
but you’re a fire in my mind

I don’t trust my own eyes
in and out of love, surprise,
you take up space in me
hold your place in me

can’t take love beyond
the vibration of an eardrum,
silencing kindness, I know,
you remind me
I don’t deserve it

I’m still trying to be okay
when it comes to
unlearning what you say
always said you’d try again
force me to stay

Not sure how to be okay
when love feels this way
Not sure how to say
I still love you anyway.

Stories From Growing Up: like me despite your rage

July 17, 2020

Someone spilled Coke on the couch cushion. The wicker based, floral cushioned couch in the first rental we lived in. We had been left alone for a while.

I meant to be proactive and I was tired of the chaos of no one watching. I knocked on the door and it didn’t open. I mentioned the couch and went back to my things.

What the fuck.

Some for you,

Some for you,

He grabbed more Coke to pour over our heads, over toys on the floor, over everything.

Words, over and over. The way I started to laugh at first, thinking he was being funny. No.

I sat in the puddle, assessing the mess as he called us names. We damaged things, a tiny spill like the ocean I guess.

The puzzle in the floor was soaked, fraying picture from the wood, by the time he was done.

He said, clean it up.

So I tried to hide my shame and fault. I cleaned eagerly, trying for approval, coke still dripping out of my hair.

049

May 28, 2020

you taught me to swim
so I wouldn’t drown
just enough,
enough to keep my head up

I felt your hand on my stomach
holding me up
but you were king of letting go
so I hated you the most

I guess you were trying me out
just seeing if I could ride it out
and I did, but
you said I’d never be enough

I’ll always be skirting the edge
afraid you’ll stay away
afraid you wont come and stay

I’ll always be skirting the edge
just enough to keep my head up
skirting the edge,
trying to give you up.

048

May 25, 2020

I was swimming in your dreams
drop in my stomach,
for when we found the ground
didn’t see it coming,
couldn’t see you coming

I swallowed impermanence
when you fed it to me
closed my eyes to float free
but you tethered me

argued we meant nothing
not to each other
the earth was a small sigh
in an empty street

now the night is a chaser
washing down stars
she said no one can hear me
but her words hit like bombs.

Stories From Growing Up: Patchy Relationship

May 15, 2020

When I was young, I would pull my hair out until I had bald spots. It helped me feel in control when I was anxious during the day, but most aggressively it happened when I couldn’t sleep. I knew it wasn’t good, but I couldn’t stop.

She was willing to come with me to see the hairdresser in order to lie about what was going on. Usually, something to do with trying to get sand out of my hair from the beach and pulling too hard.

She spoke to me about it once, to capitalize on my shame and feign ignorance as to why it was happening. The rest of her words were for everyone else, to pacify their concern.

I wasn’t able to stop until I was an adult and moved away.