Monday, December 22, 2014

Caitlyn

It's my first day at work and this young girl is an eager stranger
yet something unnerving clouds our introduction and all I can remember is her mouth.

Her mouth with the corners that turn down in a way that makes my stomach sour
even though she has a pretty smile.

A pretty smile, with full lips and straight, white teeth, unaware that its particular phenotype only reminds me of another mouth on another girl.

Another girl who used to be my friend with another mouth that used to laugh with me
and share wine and secrets and shadows.

Shadows now hang low over my brow as I try and focus on her questions
though all I hear is the blurred sound of air pushed through that mouth.

That mouth of a stranger that makes me want to slap her for being such a hypocrite
with the laughing and the wine and the secrets.

The secrets that she didn't tell with her mouth turned down were actually the most telling
...but this young girl is just an eager intern and it is only my first day at work.





Sunday, August 24, 2014

Mr. Sandman

but for a thin, deceitful fraction of time, in the disconcerting wake between the things you want and the things you have, I believed he was there, lying in bed with me



wake up

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Or Bust

The elephant in the room has walked out. 
_________________________________

I've been writing this blog for about a year and a half now. On quiet afternoons, I like to flip back through the pages and see how the manuscript changed. How my own vision has progressed. What stories are still buried in drafts (or, worse, in memories). If you've read closely, you may have guessed that my prose of past and present are wholly intertwined; nevertheless, these bits are absolutely true as lived except for chronology. When it comes to the ghosts of men haunting these walls, there was S.B. (who could not be encouraged to speak the truth), there were "the in-betweens" - including Mike (who now finds it best to leave my messages unanswered) and my beautiful French chef (for whom stories are few but cloaked in mystery), and there is Jack. Humble, sweet Jack (with whom my heart is currently entangled in an impossible situation).

So, if you happen to stumble upon this house routinely, then you might soon find stories of "the afters" too. (Those are yet to be made.) My only hope is that I am not stuck in a loop already lived.

I'm done with the Midwest, for now.
Heading back to Texas.


Please please please, just help me untangle.

Thursday, July 24, 2014

What might have been?

I guess that's what I wanted to say.
What?
That I thought we really had something here. That's all.
Me too.



So now it is I who should forgive the sweet liar (for no such optimism should go unpunished).

____________________________________________

He still tells me he loves me every morning
and as I emerge from a haze of restless dreams
I often wonder if, with each passing day, in these tragically sweet moments,
and before the commitment of dawn
if he means it a little less than the day before.

Overtones of disappointment punctuate our every move.
Our present is muted by our future and what might have been a great love recedes as quietly as it came. 

I study his face - 
his pores
the crinkles near his eyes
hints of silver at his temples.
He can stare at the ceiling, expressionless,
for so long
but when I ask him what he is thinking he says
nothing
and I'm afraid that I believe him.

Meanwhile

my brain is abuzz with sensation
constantly churning and negotiating and wondering
(overthinking)

and this is how I know he will do fine when I am gone for good.



Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Lies Our Mothers Told Us.


beauty, brains, and charm
you're a catch, they said
joke's on you, Gorgeous





Monday, June 2, 2014

we made no mistakes


Fingers crossed behind my back, I promised myself I believed in miracles

I made a choice.
And then spring came with a cool breeze and sunlight
(winter was gone)
and I wondered if I had made a mistake -
the kind of short-sighted blunder that romantic heroines pursue, only to come running back at the twelfth hour. 

No, he will never chase me. 
(I have to keep reminding myself of this simple and complicated fact.)

The humidity is almost unbearable now, but I'm holding out on the a/c for a while longer. He lets me lay close in the dark, even though he is too hot for covers.

He touches my spine, tracing the space between ribs. Rolling on my back, my leg draped over his - I pretend not to notice as his hands brush ever so slightly closer with each breathless, finger painted circle. He waits for me to invite him deeper and obliges when I cover his hand with mine, working softly to a place outside of my skin. He knows I cannot be saved but he pushes inside of me with a heart full of mercy so that I may at least forget long enough to drop off the edge of sleep.








Thank you. 



Thursday, May 29, 2014

bĂȘte noire

carefully cupping a tremulous heart with blood feathers
caging its writhing muscle inside angular confines of pink bone
slippery pieces, thick with asphyxiation, slump against one another
and every involuntary pulse threatens outright dismemberment

firmly callused fingertips freshen indolent wounds that will never heal
because they have sprouted deep between the root of survival and my solar plexus
a low-lidded third eye stoically observes from above while viscus drips across barren hips
and it is all I can do to just breathe

haplessly peel back layers hopelessly papered to someone else's walls
salvaging star-crossed hands to prevent purple offal from colliding with silk
plucked from beneath tenuously timid toes as this chest lurches forward
and stumbles along to a whimpering score of weakly gurgling flow





(on the bright side, there is no chance of falling if you never bore full weight)

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Constriction

slowly walking down the hall
faster than a cannonball...

standing forward
rushing upright
freezing cacophony
collimating light

deciding singular
generating forthright
focusing beam
shaping tonight

hushing whispers
loving slight
asking forgiveness

dysphoria despite



Sunday, March 30, 2014

time is tumbling towards us

Disquiet nights and thoughtless turbulence -
disturbulence -
- it leaves me blinking into the grainy darkness.
There are three boys in my bed (twelve legs between us).
If I am careful, no one will be the wiser.
It's 3AM and "trying" to sleep is a perfect example of futility.

Yesterday afternoon I hit a wall. Expecting to stumble heavy and dormant into sleep ends with nothing but disappointment . Energy reserves caked with torpor invite only vague disinterest in going the "extra mile."

I need my clock to reset.

-- One final job interview. Did you know these things take three days? THREE DAYS.
That's three days of being "on." Being "charming." Being "engaged." Being attentive, and thoughtful, interested
(and interesting).

But how can I be interested (and interesting) when all I want in the world is to know what in the world I want?

___________________

We are so glad to have you. 
He reaches for my hand. 
Welcome back. 




Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Push Replay

Do you wonder what might have been?

Eight years later.
Metal band. Ruddy beard (Van Dyke). Extra tattoos to make it legit.
His face is familiar, but together we are out of context.
He thinks he still knows me.
My wicked breath in his ear,
                               I like to be bitten.



Sunrise recession, an escape back to Atlanta:
Salty with sins and the smoking gun of mouth-sized bruises across my chest, down my legs.

I think he expected some sort of love story. He wanted to sweep me off my feet.
I didn't want to be saved.
It should have ended there.
(But it didn't.)

xx

Monday, March 3, 2014

This Is How

Absentminded musings of time
leak between life and shallow pools of
unfamiliar sex and twilight cocktails.


Mingling among casual context,
chance surreptitiously takes shape
in the serpentine ribbons of heat unwinding
from citrus and chamomile and ceramic.


Inaudible whispers of pause separate the instance of
one thousand twenty nights,
and thoughts heedlessly venture forward,
slipping past well paid wardens of weakness,
to a time when the green sprinkles we bought yesterday at the grocery store
are expected to expire.




I don't think he noticed. 


Friday, February 28, 2014

Loyalty and Logic

If I could just let go 
of the feeling that 
everything would be 
lost -


I do best with decision making between three options. No more, no less.

Pink, green, black.
Mild, moderate, severe.
Wine, beer, cocktail.
Comedy, drama, documentary.
Chocolate, fruit, mint.

It sounds so fucking selfish to say it, but it's true. I have too many alternatives. Too many opportunities. More than three things to choose from.

I've waited nearly two months for a hard offer from the hospital in Atlanta. I've called their bluff on offers for other positions within the company. I've played the game and interviewed with multiple other groups.  (I'm no longer one of those girls who doesn't know what she's worth.) In fact, I'd started to give serious consideration to places I never intended on living. To job titles I never intended on pursuing.

Minneapolis.
West Lafayette?
San Antonio.
Las Vegas?
Australia.
(Tenure?)

Then it came. Then they called my bluff. With a deadline.
The clock ticks in Atlanta.
And now I am back to square one.

Fucking loyalty. Fucking logic. 

Also, I have missed you. 

..