Owner's Manual

The human body can only endure
a certain amount of stress.
It was not built for deep sea exploration,
it was not built for outer space.
The owner's manual clearly says
"contents under pressure"
and to use caution when handling.

Frankenstein

I am constantly frustrated with myself --
with my own inability to string words together
in the proper order, at the proper moment.

I am "shy". I am "introverted".
No, I am loud. I am screaming,
but at a frequency that it seems only I can hear.

I can't translate my thoughts into words.
It's like trying to speak a foreign language,
with all the slippery subtleties they never taught you in school.

I very rarely say the right thing,
and so I say nothing at all,
frightened by my failures into a submissive silence.

I feel like a monster, like Frankenstein
made me a perfectly passable shell of a man,
but could not perfect that which would make me human.

Insidious

It's the poison in my memories
that I can't seem to shake;
the venom that will kill me,
even though I've killed the snake.

Pockmarks

Three months later and I still hear your voice in my sleep.
Subconsciously, I still catalog the parts of my day
that might have made you smile.
My thoughts are wallpapered with images of us
and I can't bring myself to paint over it,
not even the parts that are peeling.

When I met you, I was not whole -
I was half-formed and new and still slick with slip.
You made finger prints in my sides and cast me into the fire,
and I emerged with those marks baked into my skin.
"No one will ever love you like I do," you said,
and I believed you.

When you left, I tried to fill them with other things,
other people. Nothing fit, but I kept at it.
They felt so empty, like tiny black holes.
I'd run my hands over them when I felt most alone,
and I'd hug my knees and think of you.

I still touch them often, I think to remind myself
that you held me once, and what your hands felt like.
My fingers don't fit very well, but they fill some
of the space you left.

I don't have to fill these holes -
they are as much a part of me as anything else.
They do not make me incomplete or any lesser.
I have loved and I have lost,
and I am whole, all the same.

lily-yellowed

your flowers left stains in my vase
because i did not care for them properly.

it was never intentional -
absent-mindedness, not cruelty.

now that lily-yellowed crystal
is all i have left of you.

Of Death & Denial

I went to go see you on Monday, the first
You didn't say much; nonetheless, we conversed
My visit was short, but it wasn't the worst
And I can't bring myself to regret it.

I sent you a letter on Wednesday, the third
I haven't heard back from you, still not a word
Is this what you meant when you said you preferred
To live with no strings attached?

It's Friday the twelfth and I called you today
I wanted to talk but had nothing to say
You didn't pick up, and I guess that's okay
It just rang and it rang and it rang.

Expect me tomorrow, some time around three
I'll even dress up for you, wait 'til you see
And I'm bringing flowers, how silly of me
But I like to think you enjoy them.

I can't help but hope that this time, you'll be there
I'll tell you I called, and you won't really care
You'll say that you love me, and I'll make you swear
And you'll smile and pull me in close.

I think it's a Thursday, but can't say for sure
My calendar's lying face down on the floor
The days count themselves now, I can't anymore
Though it's not like I've really been trying.

I came by again today; you weren't there
I waited all night at the foot of your stair
I almost believed it, but I didn't dare
Admit to myself that you're
Gone.

I've stopped writing.

I've stopped writing.
I've stopped banging my head against the wall
and pounding on computer keys late at night
and crumpling ink-filled pages in my fists.

I've stopped because
I can do that
and know that it will be
right here
waiting
when I come back.

Drafts sitting
half-finished
in a folder, or
the clumsy scrawl
of 4 AM and
handwritten notions -
I find them precisely where I left them.

There is no resentment here,
and no impatience.
They do not pester or prod me,
do not beg or plead.
They ask nothing,
they simply
repeat
back to me
the life I nearly gave them.

Sometimes, still unfit to touch,
I tiptoe in,
just to have a peek,
just to make sure I didn't dream it all.
I count their sleeping heads
and listen to them breathe
and know that they are mine
and tiptoe out again,
feeling quite
irresponsible,
and quite proud.

Make no mistake:
When I pick up my pen again -
and I will -
I will pluck up the courage
to ask it to dance, and
after a few cautious steps,
it will be
as if I never left.