concrete-metaphors

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I try to write with poetry

The pictures I wish I took

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[concrete-metaphors]

Powerlines that once connected us

You can't call my mainline anymore

Would your parents answer if I called yours?

Hear your mother's 20 year old greeting on the answering machine?

A series that would take me

longer to remember with my lips then my thumb

Dad stopped paying for ours

I'm counting the days I still type it in at the Kroger

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It made me wonder

If the chip in my brain had reset

Sent pings of good things before when we had talked

Made things that were neutral seem like friendship

When you abandoned me

Because I stood up for what was right

It made my chip set off like a

Smoke alarm

You light up under it

Over and over

Waft smoke from the oven towards it

When I finally move out

The chip in my brain says I'm alone now

I write a list of people I could make into friends

I was the happiest I had ever been in the orange house

Down the street

I walked to work

And biked to Tom thumb every week

High and hot in summer sun

With my car parked in front of my parents house

Two highways away

You ask me how I'll right the wrongs he did

How I'll mend the friendship he and I never had

You keep making bad excuses for men

Who wouldn't do the same for you

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I take the same photos over and over

Walking the same street over and over

Somedays I see nothing

But I press the shutter when I see "it"

And it's always the same corners

Over and over

I'll love you

Over and over

I tell myself I've changed

Gotten more sofisticated

More technical

But my eye is still the same

and I capture my favorite details

Over and over

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This year has been internal warfare

My birthday feels empty like it usually does

Sandwiched between huge holidays

Only sweetest out of town friends pull through regardless

The people I had been surrounded with a year, maybe a half ago

Fall away

And I'm left a cynic again

Negative Nelly again

I have love but

Will my weight be held up by one person?

It seems a lot to ask

Everytime old friend texts me

It sends me into depression

It feels like a breakup

Betrayal between us

But if she acknowledges it

she might have to reflect on something she did wrong

And if I acknowledge it

It looks like an effort to stay friends

And I don't want to

I'm too tired to

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I’ve been

Burning CDs for you

Holographic memories shatter through the stereo

I’ve been

Tied in knots for you

Making bracelets like middle school

It’s all so

Strangely vulnerable

Intimate in tiny ways

I never thought I'd

Love someone so

gently

Wasn't sure I

Still had it

In me

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Looking through my texts

Trying to find the friend that would comprehend

Why it hurt me when she said she had someone

When she was never mine

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I still look through my texts

Trying to find the friend that would comprehend

But he left on a Tuesday

And I havent seen him since.

[concrete-metaphors]

Ive filled my life with busy

Not a second to breathe

No time to remember

No time to stop and think

But on Father's day i feel empty

It's like you've died

An empty seat at the table

Missing presence in the room

Everyone agrees someone is missing

We look around to see who

Even my mother feels it.

Her face turns red with tears

It's like you've died

But you just choose not to be here

It's like you've died

But it's way more personal

I light candles in your memory

I dream that we're still talking

I miss (nothing) everything about you

I try to find people who are nothing like you

I try to find people who are exactly like you

I'm exhausted and numb

I don't really understand why you left

Even though I know why you left

These new people tell me

“I can't imagine someone telling you

‘You're not good enough for me’ ”

These people call me perfect

Like you once did

And all the ones before

I'm always perfect at first

What changes?

You begin to despise the ways you loved

You begin to realize this version of myself you've created

Isn't real

And I'm only human

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Am I not sweet enough

In my small floral print dress

For you to stay a moment longer?

...

The last time we fucked

I knew it was the last time

And like always, you didn't care to savor skin touch, tongues tied

Even though it used to be the only time you'd tell me you loved me.

I wish I could remember which day

Was the day you stopped loving me

But I know it was months before you left

Though all your shit sounded the same for

Much longer then that

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"I don't love you anymore"

The glint of glasses at red lights look like the burning ends of cigarettes in the night In the car in front of me at the streetlight And the chrome catch fire. These words, they are not hard to say But your feelings catch in your throat They are cotton balls rasping against And delay the passage to freedom. When they finally come up There are acidic-- Stomach bile And these words that stick to your teeth like caramel squares But not so sweet And a little more foul You don't even recall the words you spoke But on his face you know that he is feeling them Maybe in the same way you did when you almost choked But his heart is weighed down by brokeness And you have been set free.

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My only comfort Bleeds from light And burning nicotine

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Inbetween Kisses

I don't remember the way you kissed me Or the way you smelled You were a passing A healing A breath to keep from hurting Because you could only hurt yourself. I am not unmoved by you But you were a place of inbetweeness Of realization Of change And a test of self. I am much more giving than I ought to be I keep giving even when it hurts me Even when I receive meaningless words in return