The Poetry Marathon

To the woman ahead of me at the store
Who can’t get off her damn cell phone
And puts the money on the counter
Instead of in the cashier’s hand

To the hummer cruising down the road
Taking up both lanes at 10 miles an hour
When I’m already in a hurry
And going to be late for work

To the hopeless girl at work
Who can’t get her shit together
And constantly needs me to help her
Even when I’m on break

Just know

I want to kill you

I don’t usually consider myself
To have a particularly violent streak

But sometimes

I just want to watch the world burn

I want to rip coupon books out of women’s hands
I want to shout profanities at slow talkers on the phone
I want smack mothers who let their kids run wild
I want to TELL YOU ALL
TO GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER
OR I WILL FUCKING CUT YOU

But I don’t

Cause I just don’t see how I could survive prison
When they ask me “what’re you in for?”
And all I can do is sniff in a macho sort of way
And say
“Coupon bitch had it comin’”

He had dark, rich skin
And hands with long fingers
His lips formed a perfect bow
And his hair was black as midnight

So sweet
So innocent
A man who had waited
For someone like me

I was his first kiss, as he pulled me close
In the midst of Time Square
With lights shining down
And Tourists parting around us

I was his first lover, as we dimmed the lights
In my tiny apartment
Well North of the “good” places
Well South of the “frightening” places
Carving out a tiny little haven
Between Harlem and Bronx
To find a moment of bliss

And to forget, for a moment,
that it was never going to work

His wife, I’m told, is lovely
His parents picked her out
She has skin as lovely as his
And prays when he prays
And believes what he believes

I am happy for them, truly

But I was happy for us, too

There’s a hole in the world

I feel like someone should have told me
Someone should have known

There’s a hole in the world
And it reaches so far down
Into me
Into you

We should have been warned,
When we were forced into this world
We should have been warned
that there was a hole burrowing deep
into the darkest places
the darkest spaces

There’s a hole in the world
That no light can penetrate
Where it doesn’t matter that justice is supposed to be blind
because the rest of us are too

But not by choice
Never by choice

There’s a hole in the world and we’re all falling into it
Where the silence is more terrifying than the noise
and the noise is more terrifying than the silence

Where the air is thick with a choking fog
and the children will cry
and the children will die

There’s a hole in the world
Its people are breaking
and broken

There’s a hole in the world
there’s a hole

Was he abusive?

No
Yes
Not exactly
It’s complicated

Did he ever hit you?

He threw me into a wall once
I was on his back, grappling for keys
To keep him from going back to the bar

He twisted my fingers so hard to get them out of my hand
That I felt the bones protest,
And feared they would break

Did you ever hit him?

Oh yes
Frequently

He would drink and I would cry
He would take my car
And I would walk to find him
Drag him from smoke filled rooms
Feel pitying eyes on me
Feel judging eyes on me
Feel annoyance at my presence

There she is again,
Dragging her drunk boyfriend home

I’d take him home and he would cry at me,
And scream at me
And I would slap him
Hard
For the simple pleasure of trying to hurt him
Hurt him like he hurt me

Only I couldn’t hurt him like he hurt me
Because the only hurt I could give was physical
And the hurt he gave was so deep
It left scars that are never going to heal
In places no one can see but me

There’s a chasm in the center of my chest
That opens up whenever he crosses my mind
And though it’s been years
I can still feel myself tumble into it
That sickening feeling of falling
Just for a moment or two

Why didn’t you leave?

I don’t know
I never knew
Every time was the last time
Every day was a chance to start fresh
Every promise, a chance to believe

He needed me
He would die without me
He wanted to be better
And I wanted to believe him when he told me so

And still don’t know why

And I had nowhere else to go

I hated him with the whole of my heart
Every ounce of my soul
I prayed for a car crash
Alcohol poisoning
Bar fight gone wrong

I wanted his death
And sometimes my own

Just to be free

How did you get out?

You know…
To this very day…
I’m still not sure that I did…

Who am I?
I’m Jean Valjean

No, wait, that’s not right

Who am I?
I am Inigo Montoya, you killed

No, stop that
This isn’t kitsch it’s a statement of being

Who am I?
I guess I don’t know

I am a writer
Who struggles to write
I am a photographer
With nothing to photograph
I am a lover
Without a person to love
I am a wanderer
Without the means to wander

Who am I?

I am a lost and frightened thing
Too old to be finding myself
And too young to be this bitter
I’m a woman of 33 with a college degree
And no career to show for it
With student loans that I have yet to pay off
For an education I cannot use
I’ve had fourteen jobs
And never made more than eleven an hour

I am depressed
I am crushed
I am afraid

But not all the time
No
Not all the time…