Sum-Sum-Summer

Standing on the edge

Of a cliff, I am

Confident.

Inches

From death, with

Thoughts only of life:

I have no need for

Jealousy, towards the

Hawk and eagle.

I have mastered

Their art: flying

From the edge of a cliff.

They stain my skin,

With their blood

Leaving delicate, purple bruises

On my fingertips.

But, they do me no harm

Their weapon is a mere

Kick in the mouth:

A tart bite,

Before the burst of sweet liquid

Is worth the fight.

The trees, flowers and weeds were ripe, ready and overwhelming.

            They smelt of sex:

                        Sweet,

                        Lustful,

                        Willing,

                        Desirous

            Was the only way to describe their potency.

I took a breath,

Drank their essence,

And fell victim to their wicked potion.

Chocolate Disillusionment

The German chocolate cake tempts me.

I crave it at those times of day when I desire distraction from work,
Or when alcohol has eased my inhibitions

The German chocolate cake sits in front of me,
Stacked high and covered with a smooth frosting
I must have it.

As I move to fulfill my want
I realize too late
that it is merely a hostess cupcake.
Even then- its individual packaging appears to be just for me.
The white icing draped on the top of the cake is familiar, and comforting.
I tear off the wrapper, and the crinkle of the plastic nearly excites me.

But before I can even take the first bite I am disillusioned:
I bring the cake towards my mouth but there is no deep chocolate smell,
I can feel no moist cake perfection.

The first bite confirms,
The brown colored bread merely alludes to the dark chocolate I desire
And the white cream is a distraction from what I really want.

I finish it nonetheless.  Unsatisfied,
I reach for the second cupcake and finish that one off too.

Although I am not satiated, I am full.
It is not until the sugar high has worn off that
I sit with the empty wrapper and once again look for the
German chocolate cake.

But it's not there.  It never was.

To those who won’t love

I want to kick you. Hard.  I want you to succumb to the physical pain.  And I want you to use it as a proxy for emotional pain. So imagine that pain, feel it tearing through your body and now make it a million times worse than that.  I want your whole body to be revolting against you. Then imagine the pain as though someone has stabbed you in the chest, not just with a knife but with a pair of scissors, and the weight of a grand piano is sitting on top of those scissors and your chest, and is pushing the scissors open and deeper into you and creating an intolerable pressure and pain that is debilitating. Sometimes all you can do is cry, and sometimes you can’t even cry, you can only sit there and wish that your body would disperse into nothingness. You wish that your body would just fall apart because without your body, the pain you’re feeling wouldn’t exist. So you wish for this, and hope that somehow you will just stop being. Imagine this, because this is what it feels like when someone you love rejects you.

This feeling is a combination of a whole shit ton of other feelings: it’s the realization that you won’t ever get to hold onto that person again, that you won’t ever be able to wake up next to them and feel at ease, and calm, and happy.  It’s knowing that you’ll never be able to share the things you once shared with one another. It’s reminiscing about the memories you created together, and it’s knowing that you will miss them. And then it’s a feeling of shame at the idea of having put yourself so deep into another person’s life and yet you meant nothing to them.  It’s a feeling of shame at the stupidity you exhibited at believing your relationship to mean something more than it was.  It’s the sense of humility at having to tell your friends and family that once again you somehow failed. No, it’s not just that you’ll miss the person; it’s that your individual ego suffers when rejected, or faced with a sense of failure. So it’s this combination, this mixture of overwhelming feelings that causes all of this pain, which at times seems unbearable.

Then, a friend reaches out to you, because they too know this pain.  It might not manifest itself as a pair of scissors and grand piano on the chest for them, but it’s a pain that is a common language to many.  They help make it better, for a while at least. And the weight of the piano no longer feels quite as heavy. Slowly this weight becomes lifted, but then one day it’s all back again, and you’re crying, and sitting, and wishing for nothingness.  Then it eases a bit more and other things in life start to look a little more beautiful and then it’s back.

You might fall into this pattern for a while, but each time you come out of it feeling a little better than before, until the day where you can actually look at someone else and think that there is potential there.  And you’re fine, in fact, you’re better than fine. You are you, and you’re happy because life is about living.  And yeah, it sucks sometimes, but other times it’s amazing, and crazy, and wonderful, and beautiful, and the ecstasy of being happy with the one you are with is just mind boggling giddiness.  It’s always best to feel, to experience, and to live the ups and the downs, because the alternative is to never love and to feel nothing at all. 

Welcome to Suburbia

The streets, they lie.

Their names: Rolling Brook, Mountain Laurel, Pepper Hollow and Longview.

These are only meaningful as labels. Not descriptions.

I can hear no talking stream, smell no poignant flowers, walk in no forested depression or see no far reaching scene.

Instead the plethora of split level, 2 car garage homes is only interrupted by the carefully manicured monoculture lawns and sculpted, stone lined gardens.

The rolling brook is channelized and coddled with galvanized steel, the pavement stifling the talkative nature of the moving water.

Transformed and hybridized flowers bloom too late or too early, defying their ordinary tendencies, escaping their stony habitat

Any contoured relief is filled and tapered, defeating the natural topography and boring my eyes.

The highway bisects the longview, stunts the landscape and aches my ears.

I complain

And yet this is home.

A reminder about the power of water

The river was:

Swollen,

Pushy,

Expecting.

It forced itself across roads, through trees

And made room for itself

            Where-

                        There-

                                    Was-

                                                None.

With its exertion it carried the

Birth of its toils,

Cars, Homes, Dreams, Death

And with a final thrust,

Released them to the ocean.

the object of your affection

It’s not power.

One might believe

Your words of love, praises of beauty and awe of my intellect

Might instill within me a certain

Power over you,

But it’s not power.

Rather your flattery instigates a search within me to

Disprove your words

Because I mistakenly think that your

Admiration implies that

I am perfect.

And I know I’m not perfect.

But I’m selfish, self-conscious, and blinded enough to think that you might believe I am

So for a moment

I think I have power,

Because you are here telling me that you love me.

I don’t think I feel the same and that scares me so

It’s not power

Because you have the ability to make me think twice;

To make me nervous and apprehensive about our interactions,

To make me question my motives,

And make me wonder if I am always using you

Which I might be. 

But it’s not power I have

Instead our relationship

Reveals my insecurities and weaknesses.

If I were honest with you and with myself

I would stop telling you how evil I am

(Thinking I’m doing you a favor by warning you)

I would stop pushing you away and then pulling you back,

I would just leave.

But I can’t, because it’s not power.