Time Capsule
I used to whisper all my secrets into
his keyhole, letting them pile up
inside him like a chest of treasures.
That was back before I made myself
forget forget forget;
he’s become a time capsule of my adolescence
and recently he buried himself somewhere
where I won’t be able to reach him.
Sometimes I wonder where he is,
what he is carrying,
and when I will be allowed to look inside.
Who was I(/Is the monster getting better at hiding)?
I spend hours forgetting who I am.
Sometimes I wake up in the middle of it,
bob up to the surface only to find myself
drowning in blood and dripping,
before I slip beneath the surface again.
When it all drains I’m just left
slowly remembering myself on the countertop,
staring at the mirror,
waiting for recollections of the past afternoon
and only finding a map of open wounds.
(Who do I become when
I’m not me and why
do they leave behind so many tracks?)
Twitter Poem
I want to carve a new childhood in fresh snow
Hold your hand
make sure I laugh this time.
We’ll play hide&seek and this time you’ll find me.
Untitled
I used to try to weave my hands into everyone else's
but thy would just keep unravelling.
I couldn't tie anyone down.
So I started weaving my own fingers together.
Wove them into nooses.
But one day I extended my hands to yours
and they knotted into mine so tightly
I doubt they'll ever come apart.
I feel the pressure, the weight, and
The crippling pain every single moment of every single day.
It comes in the form of fear.
I fear smokers because you smoke, I fear coughs because you cough,
I fear hallways because one time you walked down a hallway.
I fear beer cans because they make you angry,
Because they don’t make you stumble but they litter the hallways and trip me as I try to run away from you
As you walk down hallways.
.
There are some days where you dance on my toes,
Crushing them and delighting as you hear the cracking of my bones,
Letting the percussive rhythm become the base of your war cries, your song, your dance.
You dance on my toes,
But by sunrise I know you’ll apologize.
You’ll call me to the table and watch me limp, watch me crawl
And roll over the beer cans in the hallway,
You’ll put out your cigarette and cough and say that you know you hurt me,
And you feel bad about that,
good.
But the thing is, you have no idea what you are supposed to be apologizing for.
.
You apologize for hurting me.
You don’t realize that even after you apologize you’re still hurting me;
You aren’t done apologizing yet.
But recognizing that would mean that you would have to get off my feet,
And if you aren’t stepping on my toes then how else will you make yourself taller?
.
The only times you remember that what you’re standing on is me are the times when you hear the bones crack and you watch me drag myself across the hallway afterwards.
You don’t realize that after you apologize you place your feet right back on my broken ones,
I have never been able to fix myself,
My toes have healed in twisted diagonals and after years of you re-breaking them I doubt I’ll ever walk right,
You don’t realize the extent of the damage you’ve caused and that’s why you don’t understand when I’m still angry even after you’ve apologized.
My future is built on my dreams
floating above me, as if suspended in air,
a city on a cloud
but my present is built upon
my childhood,
a shaky foundation that shifts and sways
so full of holes, it is,
and blurred and not-quite-solid
my early days a puzzle of sun-damaged pieces,
colour drained
days I can only really remember
by opening old notebooks
and seeing the crayons cry through their circles.
(No wonder I made myself forget)
Now I do everything I can to just remember the present,
pressing it into every page, pencil, and poem I can
singing the memories into songs
hoping that it will stabilize the my dream-cloud’s future.
2.
Just past the early years I forget forgetting
I remember my family relocating to Crystal Lake, Illinois
(a suburb of Chicago which, like all before it,
I strategically wiped from my mind)
and the only thing I can remember of it
is that when my family left Chicago to move to the Pits of Hell
it was a slight improvement
and when we entered the den of Hate and Fire
my knees were so against it that they couldn’t stop
shaking side to side
but everyone else told me it looked just like a house
and nothing like the Pits of the Netherworld
so I went against my misgivings and followed them
(which I wish I hadn’t)
and I was locked within for eight long years
that irreparably changed me
(but I made sure to forget
most of this as well
ask me what Hell looked like and
I will only shudder in reply
with my legs still nodding no)
3.
There is one vague recollection I have
of trying to tell my mother that we were actually
within the fiery depths of Hell
and not a nice, happy, banana-yellow house in
a quiet suburb of Minnesota
and she called Satan himself
to scorch the idea out of me
and I still fear fire, you know,
except for that one time I pretended I didn’t
4.
and maybe I was just trying to blend in
and act like I felt as at home there as everyone else.
I started burning complacency into my skin
until it hissed (like it did after that run in with the Devil)
and I tried to burn any way I could;
but then I got possessed by another damned demon
(that happened a lot to me back in the day–
there’s a lot of them hanging out in Hell and they knew
I was pretty weak to their kind)
and now I can’t stand by a lighter without fearing
my body will act on its own.
Whoever said you should fight fire with fire
obviously never tried it.
5.
But like I mentioned, I got out eventually
And it felt so good! Like Heaven, yanno?
(not like I’ve been there)
but looking at the outside of it, it was made even more obvious
that Mom had been parking her van in the
Gates of Hell all these years, and she still
didn’t know
and I told myself I wouldn’t try telling her again
(because my body still remembered last time
even after I made my brain forget–
you can’t really forget pain like that)
but maybe living free made something slip,
because I told her again
and you can imagine my surprise,
learning what my mother had picked up
from that Hell she called Home.
(My ears continue to fill with sizzling.
I’m still tender to the touch
and it’s been about a month)
6.
And while I regretted forgetting so much,
maybe more than anything
I regret making myself remember
this story again and again and again
(pressing it into every page, pencil, and poem I can
because the past is the foundation of the future).
I used to be afraid of growing callouses.
The way my guitar teacher described them, it sounded like
I would lose my sense of touch,
and I was so so scared
of being unable to feel anything.
ii.
One day a man walked into my house
and I felt so many things that
I wanted to stop breathing.
iii.
One day a man walked past my house
and I felt so many things that
I wanted to stop breathing.
iv.
One day I walked into a therapist’s office
and the way they talked about meditation, it sounded like
I would just relax.
But when I walked into myself
I felt so many things that
I wanted to stop breathing.
v.
One day I walked into a doctor’s office
and the way they talked about medication, it sounded like
I would lose all these feelings,
and I was so so scared
of losing myself.
vi.
One day I existed
and I felt so many things that
I almost stopped breathing.
vii.
I walked into the therapist’s office again
and we talked about how I quit guitar lessons
and we talked about that man
and we talked about men like that man
and we talked about meditation
and we talked about medication
and we talked about sensitivity
and we talked about callouses.
viii.
I left the home that man had walked into,
and I avoid people that remind me of him.
I’m still scared of meditation,
but I have the names of a few prescriptions.
I threw out my guitar a long time ago, but
I started learning how to play the ukulele
and I have never felt better about myself.
ix.
I am beginning to grow callouses on my fingers
and they feel spectacular.
Life is good.
I used to whisper all my secrets into
his keyhole, letting them pile up
inside him like a chest of treasures.
That was back before I made myself
forget forget forget;
he’s become a time capsule of my adolescence
and recently he buried himself somewhere
where I won’t be able to reach him.
Sometimes I wonder where he is,
what he is carrying,
and when I will be allowed to look inside.
Who was I(/Is the monster getting better at hiding)?
I spend hours forgetting who I am.
Sometimes I wake up in the middle of it,
bob up to the surface only to find myself
drowning in blood and dripping,
before I slip beneath the surface again.
When it all drains I’m just left
slowly remembering myself on the countertop,
staring at the mirror,
waiting for recollections of the past afternoon
and only finding a map of open wounds.
(Who do I become when
I’m not me and why
do they leave behind so many tracks?)
Twitter Poem
I want to carve a new childhood in fresh snow
Hold your hand
make sure I laugh this time.
We’ll play hide&seek and this time you’ll find me.
Untitled
I used to try to weave my hands into everyone else's
but thy would just keep unravelling.
I couldn't tie anyone down.
So I started weaving my own fingers together.
Wove them into nooses.
But one day I extended my hands to yours
and they knotted into mine so tightly
I doubt they'll ever come apart.
“Broken Toes”
Every day, you are standing on my toes.I feel the pressure, the weight, and
The crippling pain every single moment of every single day.
It comes in the form of fear.
I fear smokers because you smoke, I fear coughs because you cough,
I fear hallways because one time you walked down a hallway.
I fear beer cans because they make you angry,
Because they don’t make you stumble but they litter the hallways and trip me as I try to run away from you
As you walk down hallways.
.
There are some days where you dance on my toes,
Crushing them and delighting as you hear the cracking of my bones,
Letting the percussive rhythm become the base of your war cries, your song, your dance.
You dance on my toes,
But by sunrise I know you’ll apologize.
You’ll call me to the table and watch me limp, watch me crawl
And roll over the beer cans in the hallway,
You’ll put out your cigarette and cough and say that you know you hurt me,
And you feel bad about that,
good.
But the thing is, you have no idea what you are supposed to be apologizing for.
.
You apologize for hurting me.
You don’t realize that even after you apologize you’re still hurting me;
You aren’t done apologizing yet.
But recognizing that would mean that you would have to get off my feet,
And if you aren’t stepping on my toes then how else will you make yourself taller?
.
The only times you remember that what you’re standing on is me are the times when you hear the bones crack and you watch me drag myself across the hallway afterwards.
You don’t realize that after you apologize you place your feet right back on my broken ones,
I have never been able to fix myself,
My toes have healed in twisted diagonals and after years of you re-breaking them I doubt I’ll ever walk right,
You don’t realize the extent of the damage you’ve caused and that’s why you don’t understand when I’m still angry even after you’ve apologized.
The Past is the Foundation of the Future
1.My future is built on my dreams
floating above me, as if suspended in air,
a city on a cloud
but my present is built upon
my childhood,
a shaky foundation that shifts and sways
so full of holes, it is,
and blurred and not-quite-solid
my early days a puzzle of sun-damaged pieces,
colour drained
days I can only really remember
by opening old notebooks
and seeing the crayons cry through their circles.
(No wonder I made myself forget)
Now I do everything I can to just remember the present,
pressing it into every page, pencil, and poem I can
singing the memories into songs
hoping that it will stabilize the my dream-cloud’s future.
2.
Just past the early years I forget forgetting
I remember my family relocating to Crystal Lake, Illinois
(a suburb of Chicago which, like all before it,
I strategically wiped from my mind)
and the only thing I can remember of it
is that when my family left Chicago to move to the Pits of Hell
it was a slight improvement
and when we entered the den of Hate and Fire
my knees were so against it that they couldn’t stop
shaking side to side
but everyone else told me it looked just like a house
and nothing like the Pits of the Netherworld
so I went against my misgivings and followed them
(which I wish I hadn’t)
and I was locked within for eight long years
that irreparably changed me
(but I made sure to forget
most of this as well
ask me what Hell looked like and
I will only shudder in reply
with my legs still nodding no)
3.
There is one vague recollection I have
of trying to tell my mother that we were actually
within the fiery depths of Hell
and not a nice, happy, banana-yellow house in
a quiet suburb of Minnesota
and she called Satan himself
to scorch the idea out of me
and I still fear fire, you know,
except for that one time I pretended I didn’t
4.
and maybe I was just trying to blend in
and act like I felt as at home there as everyone else.
I started burning complacency into my skin
until it hissed (like it did after that run in with the Devil)
and I tried to burn any way I could;
but then I got possessed by another damned demon
(that happened a lot to me back in the day–
there’s a lot of them hanging out in Hell and they knew
I was pretty weak to their kind)
and now I can’t stand by a lighter without fearing
my body will act on its own.
Whoever said you should fight fire with fire
obviously never tried it.
5.
But like I mentioned, I got out eventually
And it felt so good! Like Heaven, yanno?
(not like I’ve been there)
but looking at the outside of it, it was made even more obvious
that Mom had been parking her van in the
Gates of Hell all these years, and she still
didn’t know
and I told myself I wouldn’t try telling her again
(because my body still remembered last time
even after I made my brain forget–
you can’t really forget pain like that)
but maybe living free made something slip,
because I told her again
and you can imagine my surprise,
learning what my mother had picked up
from that Hell she called Home.
(My ears continue to fill with sizzling.
I’m still tender to the touch
and it’s been about a month)
6.
And while I regretted forgetting so much,
maybe more than anything
I regret making myself remember
this story again and again and again
(pressing it into every page, pencil, and poem I can
because the past is the foundation of the future).
Calluses
i.I used to be afraid of growing callouses.
The way my guitar teacher described them, it sounded like
I would lose my sense of touch,
and I was so so scared
of being unable to feel anything.
ii.
One day a man walked into my house
and I felt so many things that
I wanted to stop breathing.
iii.
One day a man walked past my house
and I felt so many things that
I wanted to stop breathing.
iv.
One day I walked into a therapist’s office
and the way they talked about meditation, it sounded like
I would just relax.
But when I walked into myself
I felt so many things that
I wanted to stop breathing.
v.
One day I walked into a doctor’s office
and the way they talked about medication, it sounded like
I would lose all these feelings,
and I was so so scared
of losing myself.
vi.
One day I existed
and I felt so many things that
I almost stopped breathing.
vii.
I walked into the therapist’s office again
and we talked about how I quit guitar lessons
and we talked about that man
and we talked about men like that man
and we talked about meditation
and we talked about medication
and we talked about sensitivity
and we talked about callouses.
viii.
I left the home that man had walked into,
and I avoid people that remind me of him.
I’m still scared of meditation,
but I have the names of a few prescriptions.
I threw out my guitar a long time ago, but
I started learning how to play the ukulele
and I have never felt better about myself.
ix.
I am beginning to grow callouses on my fingers
and they feel spectacular.
Life is good.
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