call me Henry when i die.

I keep saying I want to put together a book of poems, and that's why I haven't been posting any online recently. While the want for a book is still very much present, let's be honest: the time is not, and definitely won't be before wedding season kicks in. So in the interest of not being a total pansy who's too scared to let anyone read what she writes (i seriously struggle with that), here are various poems I have written at some point from all the way back about nine months ago to today (in complete random order).

to the one with books.

there are times
you feel far
and i am clouded.
but it is
my heart
that is too soft:
preconditioned to
empathize with isolation
instead of love.
those days i yearn stillness
for the rest of the world,
as the words flow
like sucking poison from a snake bite.
till again i am blessed
with familiarity,
the warmth of when the boy
writes down your name—
and in your eyes,
then,
i am quiet.

stacks.

the best poems she wrote in her sleep,
hazed over
in red wine and Christmas lights
while trying to shed
the misplaced guilt of a lingering ghost.
but the room stays barren,
stoic,
and she is jealous:
of certainty,
of stills,
of absolution.
just once, when she was too young to know it,
love was the night spent awake in words
till the sun ruined the illusion
and it was work again,
conversation pitted against
the part of herself stained by Cohen, Creeley and such.
we are left to find comfort
in the way a stairway smells of old paint,
of distressed wood finishes,
a suburban cabin with
gates guarded of old romance and olive trees.
but there is no sea here to sail,
no myths to boast of back home,
just the end of a poem
buried somewhere
in September.

lately.

lately my driveway smells of Georgia
so if i close my eyes at night
and imagine empty roads,
it's drives at decibels
so even the tone-deaf
can sing along unabashed.
they should have warned us
to keep our toes buried
in the red summer mud,
to dance naked on porches
and smoke till the sky bleeds gray.
it is self-loathing,
but more honest
than the faces we show the sun.

the reconciliation of love and defeat.

the sun is for others;
those above holding onto
the way you taste,
as if we could spoon
next to hours-old saliva and sweat.
here's to last night,
when insomnia was preferred,
the dreams too rich and warm
to make the morning
anything but envious.
in them was the bed of an olive tree,
and words,
your proclamations molding us
Thoreaus against the world,
instead of a leftover heroine
searching lyrics for the meaning of love.
you can't disappoint the moon,
but every second it's not
is selfish.

the grapevine.

if a note could last longer than the moon
it would tell our Southern hopes
to drive the 152 in the fall
and roll the windows down thru Gilroy.