Lost and Found

This again,

Sitting in my room night after night.

I like to close my eyes and imagine another person

Someone to talk to me once the lights go out and the universe expands outside my window.

Someone in here. In the stillness. With me.

Someone in my chest

Inside my ribs

Holding me from the inside.

You know that’s how I am with love

I want you inside me. I want you with me. Closer.

It’s about all I damn think about

ever since I was 11.

I’ve prayed for freedom. Blown out the candles.

Picked dandelions and closed my eyes and wished to no longer wish for another.

Still it’s always felt like there’s a missing piece.

A little glass shard lost in the great impact of puberty.

I spent my nights wandering the streets looking

at the bottom of draft beer glasses and behind the tiny buttons

of the shirts of the boys who wanted to understand me.

Why I always wanted to be somewhere else.

Then I got tired.

Older.

And I sit in my tower looking out the window for the horse bound man.

I always wanted long hair.

Always.

Answer me this?

What does it take to peacefully spend a night in my room?

In my bed?

Without feeling this great vacancy?

Where’s the part of myself that knows I’m complete?
How can I convince my heart that I’m safe even outside of your arms?

Or will it never come to that?

Will I always find someone happy to fill my glass when I’m having a hard time with the silver lining?

Perhaps I’ll meet the man that holds my heavy love

Perhaps he’ll stay with me even when I cry at night and feel alone even though he’s right next to me

Perhaps I’ll wake up in 20 years and wonder why I stopped searching.

And just became comfortable with the feeling of incompleteness.

And he’ll look at me and say – “I’m tired”.

And I’ll say, “I know”

“I know, baby.”

Or maybe I’ll go to Goa. And I’ll live on a tent on the beach.

Hot hot days and cold cold nights.

Sand and dirt under my fingernails and in my hair.

Maybe I’ll swim deep into the ocean

With the coral and the algae

And I’ll go as deep as I can until the water is like ice.

I’ll swim to where I’m most afraid

And then I’ll swim back up and crawl onto the sand like a newborn.

Maybe I’ll take off all my protection.

Peel it back layer by layer.

Everything I know.

Everything I’ve built to protect myself.

The whole damn structure – I’ll tear it down.

And face the cold. The heat. The world.

Maybe I’ll find my missing shard in a café con leche in La Coruna, Spain.

I’ll smile into the porcelain cup and wonder why I hadn’t looked here in the first place.

Lessons

When I'm alone
all the losses pile up and sit on my chest heavy and cold.
When I'm lonely all the grief I pushed down,
all the loves lost mid coitus,
all of it circles and pervades me -
pummels me leaving no part untouched.

So long,
So much of my life spent cowering
at the first sign of grief - of discomfort
He slapped me in the face and
I poured whisky into my belly.
He left and I slept for weeks.
He replaced me and I replaced him.

No harm - No foul - No growth - No gain

I think about the natural ebb and flow of life.
The spider bites and we limp for a day.
We cross a snake
and escape a little more savvy.
But what about the little girl who never took her lessons?
What about the little
soma suckling self deserter
that never hung in?

I guess the answer is in the question, then.
It all piles up -
heavy like thousands of wet drops collected -
weighing down - and bowing the fragile framework.
All my collected lessons.
In my bed tonight my heart breaks for all of them.
All the moon shaped faces and all the almond eyes.
All the love all lost at once,
like when the anesthetic wears off and you feel the sting
but its subtler - like an echo.

Here they are,
echos of heartbreaks never felt,
lessons never learned.
I wont run away.
I'm strong now.
I can hold the weight.

Tomorrow I wake up wise.

Tiny Earthquakes

The big gay house across the street is having a party. 

Smooth Operator travels through spring air and 

into my window as 

I lay in bed picturing a sleep that just wont come. 

Lately I picture other peoples lives like they’re
Francesca Lia Block novels. 

Filled with bohemian smells and textures 

and adventures.

While I sit in my tower 

and work my day job 

and every sense just ends up tasting or smelling or feeling like styrofoam. 

I think about parties in my past, 

sour sticky wine 

and crippling crushes on boys who were terrified by my desire. 

I think about how the party is over and it’s been traded for 

holy basil tea and meditation. 

Mostly I’m calm about this change 

but some nights I lay awake 

missing the jagermeister and arguments with strangers about the meaning of life, 

and watching the sun rise, 

and pulling my bass out of its case in a dirty bar to get up on stage and have at it. 

So much love.

So much love in this new life that I never knew before, 

because I didn’t know how to love others. 

Surely that would make me want to stay and be grateful 

but it’s these flash reverberations from the past that take me back. 

Like tiny earthquakes inside me 

exploding beads of longing that pervade to my fingertips. 

Tonight I get out of bed and sit on my deck smoking cigarettes watching that house. 

Tiny ears perking up trying to catch bits of conversation. 

Tiny moments stollen vicariously and sucked into my lungs with smoke. 

Tiny earthquakes in my chest splitting and rearranging me.

Here’s the truth,

I’m afraid of this me I am becoming.

I’m afraid of all the things I’ve said that I can do or be.

I’m afraid of pressure, of love, afraid to lose.

I’m afraid of failure. 

Sometimes I drift into times when I didn’t have to be anybody. 

Times when I cast wishes into whisky bottles and hoped for the best. 

Times when I felt like I had time. 

Growth and rebirth again and again as I shed my skin emerge anew.

Tiny earthquakes repeating ad infinitum.

The Man in the Picture:

I used to look at this photo of you on our fridge,
and then I would look at you.
I would slide my hand down your soft wide hip and say,
"Baby, why don't you look like that picture anymore?"
"I'm not sure", you'd say,
and walk upstairs to sit infront of your computer with a tub of cold spaghetti sauce and a spoon.
(A behavior so idiosyncratically yours.)

At night I'd crawl into bed stinking of whisky, and sorrow, and disappointment,
and you'd wrap your arms around me
                                    Envelope me.
                                    Warm.
                                    Soft.

You loved me in a time when I couldn't love myself - and yet,
unconditional was not my love for you.
Again I would turn to that photo of you on the fridge.
"You look so handsome, and cool, and fun. When was that again?"
"Some years ago. Before I met you"
I'd take another hit from the bottle and both you and the picture would start to get blurry.
And I wouldn't care much for either of you anymore.

I would obliterate - and you
would calm, protect, take care of me and my ego.
I would disrespect - and you
would forgive, relieve, dry my tears with your sleeve.

The day you left me I stomped and cried,
I held your shirt collar and felt emptiness pervade me.
A week later I sat shivering in bed,
feeling like I had no skin, no heart
                                     No courage.

And today when I see you I see the man in the picture,
blossomed by the light of no longer standing in my shadow.
I watch you from afar,
Because I love you too much to get close.

I love you too much to get close.


-J

Ode to a Woman's Sensitivity:

Today I woke up and thought about fragility. Wondered when it became unattractive for women to be delicate. I thought about the story of the princess and the pea. How she was so sensitive that she felt the pea under 20 mattresses, and THIS was what set her above the other girls. This was what the prince had been waiting for. I imagine that at that time that was beautiful. Today, its because of this fragility that I don’t feel beautiful or desirable. I am the princess and the pea. Ultra and hyper sensitive. Noticing the smallest detail and feeling it with intensity. I said to you once over a salad at a restaurant “Things effect me”. You laughed and made fun of me for months about that. Many moons later I said to you “Do you think even a small part of you is attracted to my sensitivity?"  …you didn’t even flinch.  “No Honey" You said, "That’s a part of you that never ceases to turn me off”

And so there it is. The question being…Do the men I give my heart to look at sensitivity with callous disdain? Or do all men? Is this once cherished part of the female psyche been re appropriated to be a negative trait? Or am I just finding the people that feel that way and latching on to them? and if the latter is so…why? What is it I find attractive about a man that doesn’t accept a huge part of me. 

I have and will continue to accept my sensitivity and put it to good use. I understand there are careless and self harmful ways to use my sensitivity and I will not let that be or define me. I will find strength in being delicate. I will find self love in being sensitive. I will be the princess writhing in her bed wondering how the bowling ball got under her when it is merely a pea and I will see the gifts that this hyper psychic intuition gives me. And then I will find a man that thinks it’s beautiful, too.

Past transgressions: The Prince of Cups

I said the words and then it rained

Like a final release.

Booming thunder and lightning in the sky like veins.

I stood there on that city street

like I'd always imagined the two of us

on our deserted island

where we could really be together.

The water came down heavy like shells

exploding into tiny pieces as they hit the ground.

My sandpaper feet felt like silk on the asphalt

and my hair stuck to my face like

a thin layer of tissue paper.

For that moment just before the storm

That moment where you can feel the electricity in the air

The "if only"s came out of the tips of my fingers

and danced on the tree infront of me like little birds

mingling with the heat and the iris' below

ever to be forgotton?

I think not...

Ever to be remembered

Catapulted into the past like my grandfathers eyes and the way the smoke came out of his mouth as he sat on his warm brown chair.

The prince of cups.

He stairs into the wine and tells me what I'm thinking.
Lilacs and loss, a parallelled past

Cascading over the puddles

as I look and my reflection and see him instead.

Sometimes I wonder if once day I'll wake up

and he wont exist-

like he was inside me all along.

Or maybe I'll wake up and I'll be on that island

with him sitting in a palm tree

smiling that giant smile that takes up his whole face.

Today I woke up and the rain had stopped.

I woke up and couldn't remember what he looked like anymore.

A few short breaths.

This morning I woke up
And the air was still -
Electricity died down in my life for a
Few
Short
Breaths.
Today I woke up tired and fearful.
I woke up and began to break my own heart
- Before you got the chance.

Lips do what hands do
But hearts do the antithesis of what brains do.
I pray with my lips
-with you and inside you
And I feel for you with my mind
-without you and outside you.

This is the part where I break in two.
Dive headfirst into the shallow end
and feel my skull split.
This is where I realize that I boarded the train
- Simultaneously with the realization
that its moving to fast to get off.
And its taking me further
And further
And further away
From my body.

Still, Rather than taking in the scenery and the majesty - of you
I cover my eyes and impatiently wait for the sound of the crash.

The truth is this...
You may break me.
And there is nothing I can do
To protect myself from this.
You also may not.
And I'll have suffered for nothing.
The truth is,
I must go on standing
To keep my spine intact.
I must go on moving
So's not to forget who I am
Truth is,
The train is me
And if you hop off
It will keep going forever.

Eyes open, dear
You are love
I am you
And we are free most
Just after we've been caged.