The Poetry Marathon

I don’t want to perform love, happiness and grief, its too showtime

Its too cut and paste

Its easier to get started changing things around, to connect

Anger is kept reinforced in its secret hiding place

covered in dandelions and baby’s breath like a coffin

it is crying to be let go of instead of trapped tying my brain in knots

knowing that one day, my strength will run out

for now, I’m internally stingy, realizing now it never really matters how pretty you are

When you are younger everything is Me, Me, Me

Some choose you to pour all of their crazy into

Tainting your capabilities to grow up right

To please themselves and leave so

I don’t want to perform love, happiness and grief, its too showtime

Crying to be let go of instead of trapped, tying my brain in knots

I snap pictures
and spend my time on the sand
where the land greets the ocean
its mystery silences me

It has taught me it’s beauty in being unknown
there are few certain answers
nothing wrong should ever overstay a welcome
either way it is bound to leave debris behind
allow the waves to tell you a story of calm
the serene will transport you to a understanding

of you rarely being truly honest with yourself
The ocean whispers
permission for me to let others admire from afar
and tell themselves stories

It’s crashing waves send indirect reminders
that what you see in it, is a reflection of all the things you are.

Read this until you believe it. In my mind, I wanted to be the person to help you through, but my actions don’t know how to do that. Our relationship has always been complicated. You feel different to me. I carried the possibility that you “got” me. You had me opening my eyes to new experiences. It seems I never saw you clearly. I idealized the person that you were, and that left me confused about my lack of boundaries.

I provoke you, mostly because I’m unsure about my own self. You take me too personally. I told you that I was not going to fight for you to be my friend, and I felt you mask yourself. You started distancing yourself, then you attack me. I decided to fall back because I felt you trying to control the way I moved. I owe you nothing. You tried to discuss your depression with me, it makes me uncomfortable and I don’t even owe you a conversation. I know it comes off unfair but I don’t care because I have already shown you I was selfish. You chose to overlook it, and now you hold me to the fire. I only want to talk to you about positivity, be with you in your high moments. I know its shitty but I can’t be that for you. Even though you have always been there for me.

You have to learn to live with the fact that I am not you. I can’t see you and you can’t hold it against me because I never did.

There is space
in my born family of origin

Entitlement overshadows
the importance of generational heirlooms
knitted in one long thread
are stories
so old if shared we could use them as a knitting tool
to count back to generations
forgotten

To nail something down

I would not be able
to see or know
otherwise

In my family
there are no sunflowers
no pavement markings
just the presence of well drained soils

100 years from now
I will be somewhere in the trees
Remnants of this present body
Will live in the soil
Providing minerals to the earth
We are all
Self portraits
Foreign to someone
Something
Or Somewhere

The light is always there
We just can’t always see it
The sky is always blue
somewhere
There was no urgency
to be
to go
no place for wheels to turn
no noise
no declarative
ending
just time
to shake loose
to let go without the gaze of others
to lie awake in colors
that command my attention
inviting solitude and silence

The end is ugly
Often predictable and heartbreaking
Everything can be done in a different way and still fail
My heart creates space by building a room
Offering him a place to stay for a little while
I need to think about my choices
So I wander
“He will not see me stopping here”
I don’t even know why my mind even cares
I lost many meaningful photographs before
That held sweet reminders of a time before now
I realize the earth will still revolve
Without my interaction
This mind keeps replaying all the times I overtalked
Shared my almosts
Gave him signs that something was wrong within me
Now I’ve returned to this place of reference
That points to more death
Recasting myself
As someone bigger than these feelings

Relationships are not always forever

Around here
I stuff
When the feelings pour out
I’m usually all alone
In the shower
Sometimes I plug the tub
So my body can be
surrounded by the earth’s intelligence

I turn the head
for the most pressure
to feel something
it beats violently
on my chest
It reminds me of a heart that is there
I have established an intimate relationship
with staying afloat

Water has a different slant on therapy
I stuff deep
It cradles
Expresses care

Going beyond the surface
It prys my unclean loose
Sending reminders to save a little grace
For the decisions you have made
This body deserves love despite it’s past

Water keeps me from falling off the deep end
Anchoring the bias I hold against myself

I moved from home
not thinking I would miss it

34 years, and as long as I remained close to Mama
I knew I was home
Now, nothing feels like it
Why did I move away again?

Any place that had Mama there
was home
Living within her before
I ever lived anywhere else

Growing up and memories
the step count
home structure

eating mama’s cooking
celebrating holidays

Mama’s presence
will always a requirement for home

everything is connected
even castles are
from an idea

tall and majestic
full of round rock, and lava
its mighty
and full

radiant in all its glory