dontbemeantomepls

[dontbemeantomepls]

love, tonight

in my emerging from sleep cumbersome suburban fantasy

we’re in a world where it’s just you and me

in my dreams it feels like it’s usually just me—

just me and everybody else is a cardboard stand-in

for this uncanny feeling of never belonging or understanding

and sometimes that man who keeps chasing me down,

but i don’t worry about what that means

it’s just you and me,

he’s gone now, let me see your face,

there is no home,

the pavement’s a sea of concrete awash with aquamarine

the sky is a sinkhole, ever-grasping bellowing cry, cosmically lonely

in dreams there are no smells but i imagine i don’t stink,

i am a formless figure, only a representation of a me

and yet

you won’t look me in the eyes,

your body is a mist of thin vapours that my mind alone cannot calcify

between the you that i know and the empty spaces in between,

i am not wise enough to connect your dots and know

how to make your slow drum heartbeat sing just for me

the world could be ending,

i make it so (i can play god here)

the world is ending,

and you won’t look at me,

but frankly i’m tired of pursuing—

please, don’t make me wake up

i can’t mourn the comfort of knowing

you still want me

[dontbemeantomepls]

god,

god, forgive me for feeling that the hardest part is coming home

when i’m breaking down at my own door

you are ever-present

but i plaster an image with which i am never content

i’m sorry that i can find you in her eyes

but not underneath store fluorescent bulbs mid-sunday night

i have fallen in love with your figure

and left behind your thermal shadow

i’ve looked for you in the curvature of their porcelain bodies,

in the barely-present lustful too-good-for-you gaze i copy

in the racing of my heart when i can’t control what you see

god, i hear your echo in my halls,

syllables distorted and stretched

i’ve learned to fall asleep to the quiet hum

but i can’t forget

i can’t forget

[dontbemeantomepls]

the grassy sweet smell of summer rains on budding dandelions

thumping feet, moving on

surrounded by the story i want to tell;

can i make you smell these rains

the way they pound

at the door of my sensibilities?

drops playfully fall upon my finger

as i tap these words

away to you

[dontbemeantomepls]

messy muddled feelings for may 19

the leaves are moving

in mysterious shapes

it might thunder

and storm and rain

i sit uneasy,

like something i ate

tension drip drip drips

down the grate

i want to feel your footsteps

in my sleepy haze

i want to break free

from this cage

i want to get out of these clothes

i want to change

i want to break free of my mold

i want to change

i want to change

[dontbemeantomepls]

rain song 💧

the thunder echoes;

i take it as a sign,

you should know

there is something deeply wrong with me

hidden behind clouds of my design

the rain starts and stops—

a rhythmic pattern of speaking

in the moments of silence

i discern new shapes on the pavement

looking for some secret meaning

there is a story i tell myself,

that lightning strikes just for me

it is easy to believe

the world is only

a minuscule-made-massive

projection of my melancholy

meanwhile,

deep in the forest

birds flirt and sing,

even the trees

sway, groan, and swing,

another season,

another growth ring

unnoticed in the weeds,

i begin to tap my feet

[dontbemeantomepls]

imploring my cat to pursue a career in STEM

my sweet girl,

your eyes, wide

with wonderment

are the gentle, grassy glass lenses

through which i wish to live life.

you stare at the way the light glimmers—

suspiciously bright!

you try to grasp it

every single time

in all your 9 years of life

never once

have you been able to catch it

though, believe me,

i’ve seen you try

you reason with it,

and you plead,

“what are you,

mysterious thing?”

in another life,

i know you’d be a scientist—

a physicist,

understanding the inner-workings

of the waves that make up

this reverie we call life,

you’d live with this enduring spirit

i see burning

(a flame, too bright!)

in your eyes

even in your tiny frame,

too inconsequential to house

the reverent spirit that lies beneath;

somewhere in your system

lies some hidden wisdom

though when you try to speak

through my human ears,

all i hear are your squeaks

[dontbemeantomepls]

lonely, lonely, lonely

lonely, lonely, lonely

let the words drape around

your shoulders, tight with unease

you don’t have to fight the

lonely, lonely, lonely

you can try and think it away,

me, i become someone else

when i stare at the cars

on the free-flowing highway,

a career man,

a single mother

a bartender,

their lives— as little as mine,

trapped in a silver box, sealed tight

all barrelling one after another

into the

lonely, lonely, lonely

i see me in them and them in me

my own worlds and words woven,

they gain slack, tighten, deceive

i am friends

with the sweet honey-drop whispers

of a man i’ve created inside my own head

he says,

there’s no need to be so

lonely, lonely, lonely

you see— this is the thing

in a conversation about you,

i’ve somehow turned it

all about me;;

i’ve marched out of every room

in this house,

tangled up the thread

‘til it became the web you see now

i wish i could make things easy

but i’m sorry to say

that the loneliness, too

is a ghost imbued in these walls,

the scent i’ve gone blind to,

the underpainting beneath joy,

the weight of the flood

before the flowers bloom,

the thumping of my heart

as it goes

boom, boom, boom

[dontbemeantomepls]

april, where did you come from?

april is a pill

imperceptibly swallowed by me

bitter,

on the back of my tongue

april is a ribbon dancer

running past me,

but my eyes are glued

to the empty air behind her,

far too blind to see

april stands

on the scorched ground

march left behind

(when i lost the threads of time,

dressed in my absolute best,

waiting for your knock at my door)

love,

the sun has cast the shadow of grief

inseparable from my figure

please, let me touch your face

as if you are a feral stray

with trembling, dirt-covered hands

[dontbemeantomepls]

the many contradictions surrounding my ache

oh ache,

i cast you aside,

let the only thundering i hear

be the sound of your wounded footsteps

hastening away from

the pieces of people i’ve collected

tattered together by string—

let me stretch my fingertips

towards the summer sky

and will the clouds away

as though i have the right

i’ll speak

as though i’m not afraid

of the sound of my own voice

eating me alive

you know, i hear you—

you are the perpetual, unyielding

ringing in my ear

when i am alone at night—

your misshapen roots have

molded and bent into

each patter of my heart,

constricting the little oxygen

i have in my veins

i feel your pulse

like a needle in my arm,

the medicine flowing

where it does not belong—

in my weary, trusting haze

you made a hostage of my peace

though i

really thought i saw god before me;;

oh ache,

you stayed when the crowds went home

swiping your fingers

along the dirtied grooves of the bleachers

clutching the ends of your shirt

in hopes i’d finally see you—

see you as though you are a teenage girl,

wounded roadkill,

an unspoken thump in the forest,

seen by the one you most adored

the one you’d dare to hold this close

in your most tattered clothes

oh ache,

i scream at you when no one’s around

i’m convinced somewhere out there

there is an audience i’m performing for

you clutch my face,

“it’s just you and me,”

you, the absence

of a person,

waving,

and from down here

i sneer because

it looks like you’re mocking me,

there’s nothing in this world

i wouldn’t give

to hear the sound

of my phone buzzing,

and go on as if you never existed

but until that moment…

i’ll clutch my bitter form against yours

through the half-hearted execution of love

(the real thing— i cannot give)

i’ll laugh as if it’s a cry for help—

strangers turn to me and stare,

i’ll pat your bruises as a form of praise,

i’ll tell you,

“you’re stronger than this”

i’ll reward myself for being so brave,

for plastering a smile on your face,

i’ll kiss your cheek and lie;

“i promise i’ll stay”

[dontbemeantomepls]

me(you), stringing, yearning

i wake up gasping

my love, a salty ocean

frazzled, water in my lungs

mouth dry without

the taste of your name

i have been brazen,

head pounding,

muscles strained,

tension held together by

too loose a string;

collapsing under

the heat of

a burning summer,

bubbling, blistering

i dream of ascending

past the phantom-limbs of trees

where my

body

merges into your whole

effortlessly,

so inevitably

i dream further into my dreams

the wind restlessly cuts through

“me,” erased—

nowhere to be seen

i’ll naively wade towards your sun,

let it char me enough

that i may rest easy

once again,

as dust

i’m too scared to say it,

i’ve drunk too much fantasy,

i might just drift back to sleep,

with no place for dreams

in reality

[dontbemeantomepls]

questions for my mother

when did your writing come to find a home in mine?

do you hear cicadas like phantom pains before your head hits the pillow?

does your future live inside of you

like a shameful secret locked away by your mother?

do you still carry the burden of my youthful shame,

with a quiet understanding and not a whisper of reproach?

does it prick? and if it does—

does it bleed? and if it does—

can it heal? please, help me make it heal

sorry—

i know that’s too much.

so, i’ll let the words hang over your head

like trees you used to climb

(like parallel lines, yours in the past, mine in my sight)

gently oblivious to how far you’ve come,

and how much farther you’ve yet to go;

i love you when you’re not looking,

i love you more than the stupid stars,

i used to trace my own constellations,

idle worship of your

words, eyes, and smile,

and the sunlight washing over your face,

tender, as the world should have been to you,

in our willfully crafted silence—

i won’t ask you to speak,

i no longer seek to appease me

[dontbemeantomepls]

do not perceive!

please, don’t look!

you may find me in here

a vague amalgamation of desires—

aspiring to be real

my words won’t flow,

they claw and scratch their way out of me

never not

nearly as beautiful

as i’d not intended to be—

what?

my words won’t cut you open,

the scalpel is facing me,

i am afraid when i look at people,

they actually look back at me

nice rhyme, ugh, whatever—

here, chew on some pretty imagery

imagine the sun, the sky, the breeze!

we can both go back to our lives,

and you can keep looking at me

we can both pretend like

i’m not a phony

dressed from head to toe

in basic similes

[dontbemeantomepls]

in my mind, it’s still march 27th

is what i told you today;

(i feel it in the glimmers of sun i see

wading through my lashes;

in the sweat on my brow

on my way home)

march is perpetual

i wake up and i am stuck

march is heavy

i try and reach out to someone

march is a never-ending horizon

where i lost the tether between me and myself

march is catastrophic

i look for pieces i’ve left in you

march is a dagger

blinded by pain

(i find myself, today,

on the muddy ground again)

march is nearing its end

i am not in control,

still, i pray,

perhaps,

tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow

march is everything to let go of

one sigh, one dry chuckle

one step closer

one day more

[dontbemeantomepls]

split

crafted to perfection

her glow marks the world anew

a glaring sun in my eyes,

her reverent beauty

stains

the touch of her graceful fingers

upon my heart,

which i wish to refrain

the more i try to look away

the faster i find myself

peering through, past my reflection

wobbly fingertips on the pane,

an idealized

picture perfect projection

i imagine our hearts beating in time,

our fingers intertwined

but when i look into her eyes,

all i see are mine

[dontbemeantomepls]

somewhere, still

travelling with you felt like traversing through the numb, solitary coolness of the cosmos

with our fingers intertwined, occasionally landing on some burning, white-hot star

when i said “i love you,” i affixed my being to the direction to where your footsteps might lead

(patiently waiting for the knock on my door in my best dress and too-high high-heels)

clenching your slipping grasp, my knuckles painted white,

falling backwards into gravity weighing down my sighs,

unravelled my sanity, with my vision flickering from bursts of colour to black-and-white

(silence)

i guess what i’ve been meaning to say, and fearing to say is: i might have lost you

when i say “i love you,” that truth still rings ever-true, though our fingers have now since long departed

i wave to you, from my quiet little home,

i hope to find you in some incandescent glow

i sit, alone, within that coolness i’ve come to know

and just for a moment, it feels so warm

[dontbemeantomepls]

that night underneath the lights

through the biting cold

of november winds,

i grasped your hand

there,

by the christmas trees

outside the lavish building

where twinkling lights glistened,

wine glasses clinked,

and there was no bitterness to be felt

under the glossy sheen

of love and luxury

my lips always found their way to yours

under those lights

my comfort—

that you saw me as your equal

eye to eye,

my home away from home,

my escape from the rusted cage

to one

with a golden haze

the plush winter snow

hardened to a cold truth—

sizzling and searing to the touch—

around our fragile

little red string,

around which i tightened my grasp

‘till i couldn’t feel the

growing,

gnawing

sting

winter has come and gone,

taking you with her,

gazing down at that place

with the trees stripped from their guise

in my threadbare seat

and i still see myself there

frozen in place

frozen in time

blissfully unaware

of that gentle winter’s end in sight

[dontbemeantomepls]

the death

the smell of blood

fills my lungs once more

a fish in water,

a cowering rabbit

outrunning the slaughter,

and me

i replay the carnage in my head

twenty-dozen-something dead

the first,

when i let myself into your mind

i saw the claw marks etched in the floors

and chose to stay blind

the second,

once you got a taste,

you couldn’t get enough

i childishly played along

to satisfy my need for love

i could tell you the third

but there’s no use

the stories all end the same

with eve

biting the fruit