comingback2earth

[comingback2earth]

Stockholm Syndrome, a Poem

stockholm syndrome 

i will always be the one that got away

and you will always be the one who tied me down

holding me hostage

in the secluded torture log cabin of your mind

the trees a thick canopy 

muffling my screams 

the thick woodlands a stark divide from home

so far away

no one could hear the tree falling

 

i wasn’t the first 

and i certainly won’t be the last

it wasn’t me 

that originated your homicidal disposition 

oh how i suffered at the hands of it

i choked and i screamed and i almost died

and now it is like i was never broken 

you even left the door ajar

and i refused to slip out

stockholm syndrome 

you’re holding me hostage 

in the dank basement closet of your mind

and i just wondered 

how i could make it easier for you

make you feel better about cutting me to pieces

the wool pulled over my eyes

how could you mean to do it

when you couldn’t see clearly through the tears?

[comingback2earth]

— Mary Oliver, Wild Geese

[comingback2earth]

Wild Geese, Mary Oliver

what ends of the earth do i have to crawl to, 

create, and save

to satiate my growing hunger for ease in perfection

hands and knees raw with exertion 

by the time i see the next civilian 

the wounds will be fleshy and scarred over 

you cannot see how hard i have been working 

if i cannot be great

i will not be remembered, i will not be missed 

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves. (Wild Geese, Mary Oliver)

but perhaps being great is not the purpose of my existence

i do not want to be remembered at the cost of my vitality 

love is not earned

it is my right 

being good is exhausting 

i will not try so hard anymore

[comingback2earth]

a note on terrible people

strike me once

twice 

three times 

shame on me 

i didn’t stop you

i should have known better

your anger bubbling over like a coke bottle shaken with peppermint 

the pressure within it unfathomable 

there’s nothing i can do

but listen and abide 

or else you’ll have me question my own sanity 

my primitive guide 

your words uninformed yet sharp 

oh, how they hurt

a bayonet of stupidity and cruelty 

it spears me between the eyes

crimson dripping down my philtrum 

it lands on my tongue 

it tastes of loss 

my lids lift high, eyes wide open

even with the weight of viscous liquid enveloping my eyelashes

i have never felt lighter

i have never been so happy to watch someone leave-

the anger left with you.

i offered you me,

but i shone too brightly-

all too generously,

while you have only known darkness 

and have been banished to it, eternally

branded by it.

light snuffed by soot

your leaving helped me become whole  

but mine left you emptier than you were before

which was quite empty 

how terrible it must be to be stuck with you

[comingback2earth]

ode to my love

a bird flies by

and i’ve lost my train of thought 

i’ve forgotten my responsibilities 

my obligations 

my to dos 

but you

i could never forget you

i know your heart sparkles like moissanite

it is a million colors 

ones i have never seen 

until i met you

shrimp could only dream of the opulent spectrum i behold

the soft pink curve of your cheek

the stronger curve of your smile

the turn of your lip, magically kind with a warm glow 

like the orange panes of an ice-capped house

with smoke billowing out its chimney

a light bright enough to chase away the darkness 

to make you forget it was ever there 

a beacon of peace

you run laps in my mind when i am feeling down

lifting my heart from life’s despair 

can you hear your name echo? 

it works its way into all my thoughts 

chest swelling with your every passing through my mind

others say their lover’s eyes are of the ocean

but they’ve never seen yours 

the pacific could never compare 

hope and eternity swim in there

i want to dive in

and butterfly-stroke through the pools of your mind

-my love for you

[comingback2earth]

Diagnosis

giving name to something allows complicity to it. 

name to face 

science finds a pattern

 now you are steadfast and unchanging 

just because that aching had a name 

you are forever chained to that word 

hindering your very movements forward

 a twisted simulacrum of you 

it doesn’t mirror you 

not your love

not your care

not your kindness 

clinging to each letter, vowel, consonant 

meaning, life, worth sprawling from the word

you must not name it

[comingback2earth]

Love Ethic

I have been reading in one of my classes about something called love ethic. Ruling and leading with love as the main force. I had never had a name for it, but this is absolutely my own approach to life as well. After much adversity I experienced in childhood, love being drained from me by those I called friends like a blood-hungry leech, I got it all back. I started talking to the trees, to the bushes, the flowers, to the earth. The dirt and the earth worms, the frogs tangled in the moss of the bird bath in my backyard, even the stink bugs that litter my room when the air gets thick and warm. And I learned it had so much to say back to me. It embraced me fully and wholly. I absorbed every bit of it, wondering how the world had so much love to give me. And that was just it- the love is limitless. It is everywhere, blooming from nectar wrapped in purple petals, winding through the vines that adoringly cling to trees and brick buildings. It flows heftily through the Assabet river, her cool surface kissing my fingertips and reminding me that I am whole. It is in the unassuming gaze of a rabbit mother chewing on dewy grass to feed her pregnant belly. It is in the pine tree in my front yard, which watched me grow up and told me I was exactly where I needed to be. It is the crackling of a wood fire as my father searches the yard for more dry trunks. It found me where I least expected it, and now I want to give it back. I want to tell you that you are limitless, like the love, that you are wonderful and the greatest gift that has blessed this orb of earth and sea. All you do is enough, you are whole with just you and your love sitting beside you. Make up for someone else’s deficiency of love, doting on everything and everyone around you. My glasses are not rose colored, my heart is filled with love up to my eyeballs, wide and green.