The Poetry Marathon

marriage is a sacrament

of love and pleasure

and aching and pain;

when you hit the windowsill

and the sky fills your brain

–  hush, my love –

become soft and stay this way

like kafka

walk the house, and do it quiet,

like a mouse – i knew once

of a tiny mouse who ran until he couldnt

and they trapped him with peanut butter and sweetness

(keep running; you will escape it one day)

WHEN U TAKE

WHAT THEY TOOK FROM U

IT WILL MAKE THEM ANGRY

THEY WILL CALL U UNFAIR FOR TAKING

THAT WHICH HAS ALWAYS BELONGED TO U

THEY WILL CALL U VIOLENT

THEY WILL CALL U UNGRATEFUL

THEY WILL CALL U A HYPOCRITE

THEY WILL CALL U AN OPPRESSOR

THEY WILL SAY

DO NOT FIGHT HATE WITH HATE

REVOLUTION MUST BE QUIET

CHANGE MUST HAPPEN IN SILENCE

DO NOT KICK OR SCREAM

PROTEST PEACEFULLY

REHEARSE YOUR DEMANDS BUT DO NOT VOICE THEM

PRAY TO YOUR GOD

MAYBE HE WILL GRANT YOUR WISH

OVER THE COURSE OF THE NIGHT

BUT DO NOT EVER

RAISE YOUR VOICE

OR HAVE THE GUTS TO FIGHT BACK

THEY IGNORE THE HISTORY OF THEIR POWER

BUT REVOLUTION DOES NOT HAPPEN IN QUIET

U MUST RAGE AGAINST THE HATE THEY GIVE U

IF U CANNOT MAKE IT OUT ALIVE

MAKE SURE U GO OUT IN FLAMES

summer always makes me nostalgic; i find myself sitting on a bench on a dock somewhere wishing it was last year already (last year you and i were still a thing, even if it was pathetic). i remember touching you, i touched your golden soul and your smiling face and when we went to paris i truly thought i would marry you. i miss the way you poured your coffee. i miss your hushed voice in the morning and the way the hair curled in the back of your neck, the way i would run my fingers through it as i told you about my day and never listened to yours. i think i knew something was up quite a while ago; some things you know before you do, like how you know it’ll rain even though the weather forecast told you it wouldn’t, or the feeling in your tummy when you see someone for the last time. nevertheless, it still felt like i had fallen 100ft and slammed into a concrete floor when you told me: i can’t do this anymore. what couldn’t you do anymore? the poem sucks but so does your leaving, and sometimes you can’t seem to hand over the roses without passing some of the thorns as well. i wish i could hate you for saying goodbye. i wish i didn’t understand exactly what you meant when  you said you couldn’t do it anymore. if we had met each other later in our lives, would it have worked? would it matter? i’m stuck writing like it’s 2014 again because the fog in my head never seems to clear up enough to compose anything decent, but those are the consequences of the things we do. i wish i could’ve loved you just a little bit less. i wish you would’ve loved me just a little bit better. i wish you weren’t so goddamn right when you turned around and grabbed your coat, and i wish i didn’t agree with you when you finally locked the door.

i would have loved to grown up a better person. this is not

a personal offense. merely an observation of the fact that

girlhood never seemed to suit me well. i was always too

loud too out there too much too needy too much want

i have been hard to handle and harder still to keep. i

do not believe this was my fault. girlhood struck me

right beneath the jaw. taught me to wear pretty dresses

and think pretty thoughts. i spent my formative years

consuming numerous vampire novels – i cannot help

myself; i have always been a lover of the flesh

and a sucker for all things rancid. girlhood says

this is symbolic: girlhood says it is no wonder

a girl as self-absorbed as i am would love

tales of violence and horror, of taking

all you believe to be yours. we become that which we consume;

and i, by god, consumed a lot of it.

pretty girls do not spend their teenage years

squirming in the basement, but i did it anyway.

girlhood tries to keep me skinny and well-mannered:

i tell girlhood to go suck it

one day, a sexy vampire lady will take me to her

castle, and i will get what is mine.

under the bridge lived a man named sam

he smelled like beer

and he slurred when he spoke

he had no home to return to

he had no job to hold

he had no money left to spend

just a fool who loved with every breath

one day you come home from school past the farmland past the road next to the swamp where the gators lie if you look long and hard enough and your mother stands outside waiting for you and you do not know what she found but you do know what you did when you tried to find God in another boy’s trousers but nothing unholy would ever taste this good, right? and your mother cries as she looks through the magazines you hid under your bed and she takes you apart and she says your father called and she says how can he live with a son like that and she says I’m sorry but

The caterpillar does not know good from evil,

Or life from death

The caterpillar simply lives;

Takes the day by its dawn

And keeps going until the setting sun lulls him to sleep

He knows that there is something else inside of him,

Something yet unbecome,

He knows this because he has spent all of his life so far

Building up to something greater; something

Some people would call destiny

(A caterpillar, of course, would never have considered destiny;

their vocabulary is too small, and not like ours to begin with)

He surrounds himself with gluttony

Eats and eats until the sound of a nearby robin scares him away

One day, when he would be too fat to move anyway,

He awakes with something different stuck in his tiny brain

So off he goes,

And he finds a lonesome branch

Surrounds himself with inch after inch of soft-woven silk

Like a flower closing for nightfall

Or a worm returning to the dirt

And when the last thread of silk blocks out the burning sun

The caterpillar finds himself in complete darkness

He relaxes all his muscles

And can feel himself sinking into a deep, deep sleep

He does not know much,

But he knows that he will see the sun again,

And that when he does,

All will be good

the softest spot in my heart is reserved for you

across the hall & past the shells you used to collect as a kid

stands a velvet sofa

and pictures of all the times i told you i love you (they clutter the room; do not blame me for being sentimental)

where we can sit, and just for a little while

the world goes quiet

and the only things still existing

are a little you

and a little me

I met Death when I was only a young girl

His hands were very cold and his eyes were a dark blue, speckled

Like a sky full of stars on a summer night

He was on his way to Maya’s house

Where he would take her brother, the funny one

Who taught us songs with words in them that we weren’t supposed to say

When they took him to the coroner – was it murder or suicide, your honor? –

They cut him open, so that his insides

Would become his outsides

They pulled the layers back, one by one,

And the coroner nodded, as he knew

He would be done for the rest of the day

Before him lay a boy, still and quiet like a bloody angel,

His hands cold, and his eyes wide open: they were a dark blue, speckled

Like a sky full of stars on a summer night

I am at a house party

It is in a suburb I’ve not been before; it is open

And I’m pretty sure everyone who lives there is rich

I smoke a cigarette that I have lit with a lighter

bummed from a punk girl with a mohawk

Some guy comes up to me

He wears Dickies pants and a Trasher sweatshirt

“You’re the first girl I’ve seen smoking Vogues,” he says

like it is some sort of accomplishment

“Do you know Quentin Tarantino?”

I bet he plays the ukulele and writes songs about how sad he is

And that when his mother finds his weed, he will tell her it’s medicinal

He’s so depressed, you see

The world does not understand his unique vision

“You would like Kill Bill, it is totally feminist.”

If I do not respond, will he get the hint that I’m not going to have sex with him?

I don’t want to end up as a voicemail on his new mixtape

or have him vaguepost about me on his finsta

“What about Jean Luc Godard?”

I have seen Le Chinoise and I hated it

Also, you’re pronouncing his name wrong

He offers me a joint and when I decline

He tells me I’m so cool for going against the norm

I’m not doing it to be cool, weed just gives me anxiety

You pretentious fucker

“Sometimes I feel like the world just doesn’t appreciate real art anymore”

Like the “tastefully nude” pictures he took of his ex-girlfriend

(Hint: just because it contains a nipple doesn’t mean it’s art)

He takes a long drag and then he sighs

“Authenticity is just so hard to find these days”

I brace myself for what is yet to come

The sirens start ringing in my head

And I feel an instant headache coming up

He opens his mouth,

and there it comes:

“You’re just not like other girls, you know?”