acewritingpoetry - Tumblr blog

[acewritingpoetry]

this night i became emotional thinking about when, in their youth, my mother and her cousin who was like a sister would wait together by the door or window to see when the handsome boy next door was about to leave for a party in the evening, and then they would hurriedly take the rollers out of their hair and run to the public square nearby. they'd act like they just happened to be chatting there, and the boy would pass by them on his way - they wouldn't dream of going out at night with no chaperone, carefree like he was when passing by offering a smile and a wave. and they would hold that smile and that wave like the dearest treasures they could conquer, and walk back home with their brief absence hopefully unnoticed. and they'd continue to treasure that casual gesture for days, and live off the memory of the previous one while they hopefully awaited the next. i don't know what adventures he was embarking on, and i don't know of the girls with whom he surely did more than smile and wave, but i do know the rush these two girls felt at what was truly nothing - even if the smile was genuine. i do know that a kiss on a cheek would've been the memory they breathed in every night, blushing wonderstruck and dreamy. i do know the beauty of marvelling at crumbs and taking every little thing as serious and true and grand.

this night, out of nowhere, the memory of that story sneaks up on me - to my surprise, in a second it leaves me crying. is there anything more beautiful than utter passion for things so small? is there anything sadder than being so full of love, even for an idea of a boy after a childhood of novels and soap operas, even for an aqcuaintance with not a care for you, even for a pretty mirage? is there anything more lovely?

i think of this story and i cry, and i feel as ridiculous as mom's cousin knows they were, and i feel as glorious as her lively, bewitching storytelling. in this moment i know nothing more beautiful than frantic dedication to beauty one sees in the world and in others. in this moment i am not alone in the months i spent foolishly pouring over the romantic words of a reckless boy who said things to me the characters i knew would never dare stain with light dishonesty. in this moment i wish i could express all the love that fills me, overflows from me. and it overflows from me. again i catch myself dreaming of the type of friendship where we pour love into tiny acts of dedication all around our intertwined lives. the type of love where, of course i came as soon as possible, of course i'll drive hours to see you, of course i remembered your favourite, of course i'll find a way for you, of course i want to stay with you. i want, i need, i have needed, domesticity that drowns me in tenderness. i realize everything i feel is desperate - even happiness - especially happiness. i feel, i am, a love that is committed. and i find no match for it. and again i am scared. and the fear, and the sadness, and the love and the happiness are all desperate.

[acewritingpoetry]

I think everyone should be home

watching their rommates’ dogs sunbathe in the yard,

able to be alone for a portion of the day.

I think everyone’s girlfriends should convince them

that they do deserve a day off -

they are in pain

and look at all the stress they’ve been through lately.

Life is hard, and what’s the point

of Holding Anger towards the people who can’t understand me

when I could be Holding Grace?

-

That includes me, by the way.

I deserve Grace, and I deserve to demand it.

[acewritingpoetry]

To be, to be a seabird The mercy of the skies The frothing, salty mistress Only witness to my cries

To dive into her open arms, Free fall for dark fulfillment Leave my body sinking Tumult in the stillness

Take me mother take me Fly me home beneath Take me mother take me Although I’ll never know how deep

To be a wretched gull-chick, My feathers all but grown I’ll seek naught else but loneliness And dive in on my own.

The lifting winds of evening Pull all my thoughts from home It seems I’m ever standing still In silence on my own.

Take me mother take me Fill my mind with roaring waves Take me mother take me Crawl inward with me always

Written 10/4/23

[acewritingpoetry]

I'm sorry I'm not in First Love love with you -

I'm sorry I can never give you that.

I'm sorry I gave my First Love love to someone else…

Who didn't have my First first love either.

I'm sorry I can never love you the way I loved my First Love (stay with me).

Never cautious and doubting;

never giddy learning I could be Loved;

never wholly and fully open, in a language only he could understand;

never confident in the years - not now.

I'm sorry I never waited months to change "I like you" to "I love you,"

or years to change "I love you" to "I'm in love."

I'm sorry I can never love you the way I loved learning his softness or helping him feed it.

I'm sorry I learned him at the same time I was learning so many aspects of myself.

To him, I'm sorry that I know him.

I'm sorry at times that I ever Knew him the way I did.

I'm sorry I know how he needs a love like a wildfire...

He shattered me so quickly when we were through.

I'm sorry that he knows me.

That when he Noticed me over a beer the next year, he had to laugh and say,

"some things never change."

I'm sorry to him, that he has to know me.

I'm sorry he has to devote a place in his history

to the things that are true about me -

to the things that were true about Us.

~

I'm sorry I'm not in Forever Love love with you.

I'm sorry: I could love you until the end of days but

I'm sorry, I cannot love you the way I love my brother.

Never so uncertain from year to year

and yet so core; so kindred; so vital.

I'm sorry I could never love you careful,

wishing I had more sway over the way you read our father’s lips.

I'm sorry I could never absorb you into my sense of self

or mark our histories on my skin.

I'm sorry I could never love you the way I love my mom. My dad.

Never angry, secure, undaunting, guaranteed.

Never vile and never pitch perfect beautiful.

I'm sorry I’ll never fight with you until we both feel insane,

only to quietly come back to the same room after some time

and clear the air with a story

told slow and long.

I'm sorry I could never trust you so deeply,

and break down, time after time when I realize you’ve been there forever.

~

I'm sorry I could have never loved my First Love the way I love you.

Never hot and disbelieving and totally overwhelmed,

Never open in a way I didn't know before,

Never so near to the comfortable discomfort of home.

Never surprised.

I'm sorry I could have never been so beautifully grateful as I am with you, for the ways

your differences from me make me breathe more tight,

but more easily.

I'm sorry I never cared that much to know him the way I care to know you -

Invested in your secrets,

Yearning for your mysteries,

Wishing I could share every gleaming facet of you with the whole world.

I love you, and I'm sorry how you hold me,

And I love you, and I'm sorry how you soothe me, 

And I love you, and I'm sorry how you want to know me too.

I'm sorry I kept thinking in the book you gave me -

The heart in your heart -

That the beautiful pieces of Forever laid down

And intoned,

"I've never loved before, Or if I have it was nothing, And I'll never love again Or if I do it's make believe, All for you, all for you!"

But, I'm sorry, I heard.

And I'm sorry, that’s not true for me.

I have loved

and loved and loved

and I hope I will love

again and again and in all different ways.

I hope I love you again and again

I hope I love you every day new

Every day different

Every day, a love song in a new key.

You deserve it and so do I.

You deserve me and so do I…

And you, and us.

I'm sorry, my love, I love you so well, and so wrong, and so stupid

with all the wrong words

and a fraction of the right reverence.

I'm sorry I apologize when really,

I love you,

I’m not sorry.

Written 5/1/23

[acewritingpoetry]

Let the most spectacularly beautiful creature you have ever met pick you up by the scruff of your heart and push you around like a ragdoll cat.

Live for them, the creature

Let them hold you and make you dinner, and let them fold your laundry.

Let them witness you when you wish no one could see you. When you feel disgusting.

Let them hear you cry if you can.

The next day that you are able, you must wash their dishes and rub their shoulders, and bring them all your food.

They are like you, a creature who lives among creatures who pretend they are more than what meets the eye.

But know them. Learn them. Understand them. Trust them.

Hear their dance when they do not want to sing.

Read their breath when they do not want to write.

Live inside the folds of their body, and break the folds in

Until your folds become comfortable too.

Written 6/14/23

[acewritingpoetry]

Moment by Moment

Written 6/13/23

It feels sometimes like everyone else learned to speak the language of the world earlier than me I have known the language of academia You will go here You will go there Here is your 5 year plan. There will be math.

Other people know and maybe i know now, Adulthood? Everything is yours. Everything - The world is your lens and you get to pick the color. You can live your whole life in colors shifted down the color wheel You can live in a moment that you cannot call a job Cannot call a hobby Cannot stick a good rationale onto like a label maker stuck to a Tupperware… I want to go to there.

What is the language of music? Give me that colored lens. The way it moves you The way it can change day to night and emptiness to completion. I want the music in my veins. Let me access it each day

That is what drives the language of the world. Not a plan but the way you color your world so that a day; a week spent in the fog is not a week lost to time But is a week spent in your blood.

Know where you are going but do not live your every moment into the future

Dance.

[acewritingpoetry]

The act of creation derives both an externalized and internalized view of one’s own mind. You cannot write poetry if you are not living and you cannot live if you are not writing poetry.

Your minds eye is the place that will bring things into focus when you idealize and detest the world. Feed the eye well and you will see things how they are angelically seen. Deprive the eye of appropriate nourishment and feel wrath and hatred multiplied upon you in the recollection of the universe.

You must create so that you do not destroy.

Create justice in your mind so that you will have to write it into the world. Sew each tale through the pattern of love or suffer the consequences of ultimate deprivation.

Written 5/28/23

[acewritingpoetry]

Learning Invisibility & Anticapitalism

Written 6/15/23

The whole "your brain chemistry's different way of thinking was probably useful and different in the past, just in a non capitalistic system" type of phrase is interesting because it is tough to imagine a scenario where it is helpful for one person to do things just- consistently slower and with an only mildly more consistently high quality of work than anybody else; and she will take care of things more timely than some others… But not if someone else is better at doing the thing consistently than she is because then she will just let the other person do it… And primarily the reason she is so slow and inconsistent is that she is busy thinking about various unrelated topics.

Am I a Tumblr user??? Am I musing on the fact that "I wish philosopher was still a job title"?

I feel like the main character in a movie right now. The barista is the only other one in the coffee shop, and we're both in our phones on opposite ends of the store. As I'm trying to decipher the nature of what she's doing on her phone based only on the gestures she's doing I wonder if she feels like she's being watched. In a strange way, I don't - despite sitting in the window at the center of this four corners intersection on the tip of campus. I don't think the sorority family felt like they were being watched when I was cleaning the counter drawers right beside them. The mom went on and on about how her daughter didn't know how to clean up her bathroom, and her son had to decide on the right fraternity for him in a few years, not just pick up his dad's letters. Wow, tell me again what you hear the SA(E) boys do? All I am is a fly on the wall.

Why did I even feel scared dumpster diving in broad daylight across the street at Kevin's advice? I'm the one who told him to start looking. I'm the one who knows nobody cares.

It's a lot of fun to be invisible. When you're invisible you can make somebody's day by flashing into being at the right moment. You can avoid difficult work very easily by knowing how to paint your camouflage once you hit the right monorail.

[acewritingpoetry]

I think everyone should be home

watching their rommates’ dogs sunbathe in the yard,

able to be alone for a portion of the day.

I think everyone’s girlfriends should convince them

that they do deserve a day off -

they are in pain

and look at all the stress they’ve been through lately.

Life is hard, and what’s the point

of Holding Anger towards the people who can’t understand me

when I could be Holding Grace?

-

That includes me, by the way.

I deserve Grace, and I deserve to demand it.