lettmetellyouaboutmyboat - Tumblr blog

[lettmetellyouaboutmyboat]

I wrote this sipping on a drink after work. Is it good? No. Is it a draft? Yes. I needed something to channel my emotions into on the week of the anniversary of my mom’s death.

There’s a canyon in the middle of my soul

With depths immeasurable,

Dark as the depths of an ocean, and as frigid

I feel it yawning, the shifting and rumbling deep in my chest,

It widens imperceptibly each day,

With each chip the world dings into me

Bit by bit

It is a vacuum,

sucking in everything around it hungrily.

It crowds my chest, leaving absolutely no room

For joy, passion, excitement, grace;

My actions grow hollow and perfunctory.

No motivation behind my being

Like a puppet performing in a play—guided by an unseen force with no comprehension shining in its eyes.

The canyon deepens with the familiar ache that circles my shoulders

In absence of a mother’s hug.

It grows cold with the pit in my stomach

Where a new life doesn’t grow within.

I scale the walls, mapping out each eerily familiar divot.

If I know every curve in the chasm,

Maybe I can understand it.

Maybe I can one day fill it with

The pieces that make a person whole again.

[lettmetellyouaboutmyboat]

From the Roots

I write poems about you now

So I can feel like I can still communicate with you.

I scribble down every message

Every feeling

I wish I could have told you,

So I can void the missed opportunity—

I can re-write our story

Into one of love

Instead of heated arguments

And slamming doors.

There are parts of me

I know came directly from you—

My stubborn and unwavering spirit

Like a dog who lays down in their path

Because they are finished with their walk,

Your long fingers

That should have been used for playing a piano,

Except the aforementioned unshakable determinedness

Caused me to quit lessons at age five.

Your laugh,

Your pale skin,

And your adoration of 70s rock bands

All transcend the grave

Through me.

You raised me to hold fast and strong

Against insurmountable challenges.

I am a house,

Sturdy and steadfast

Built from your tree,

Standing still

Thanks to your stubbornness and grit.

[lettmetellyouaboutmyboat]

As I doze in bed at night,

I dream not of my desires,

My past deficiencies,

Love lost,

Or awkward interactions with long forgotten friends in the cereal aisle in Kroger.

Instead,

I fight myself

In a tangled mess of sweaty bedsheets

Over my fears of future failures.

I feel the sands of time sifting over my skin,

Each grain eluding my desperate grasp; a bide for time, a panicked clutching at possibilities.

My skin sags with the gravity that pulls it towards the earth,

My knees cease to bend, instead creaking like the rusted tin man from The Wizard of Oz,

and I find new gray hairs every week.

Reckoning with my mortality

Brings me to worry obsessively that at 27

I have not accomplished anything worth celebrating.

I stare into the dark ceiling above me

Unblinkingly

And my heart pounds at the thought

That I’ll never know the satisfaction of

Brushing my fingertips across the embossed letters of my name

On the cover of a book

Or

That I’ll never cradle a crying child to my chest

After carrying her within my womb for nine months.

Or

That I will never clutch the scroll

Of a Master’s Degree

With my name on it,

Or

That I will never learn how to create music on an instrument

Rather than the screeching squeal across strings I am known to produce.

I want to show people something

They can be proud of.

I want to make something

That I know will outlive me.

I want to make an impact

That reaches far beyond my mortal coil,

That will leave people whispering my name

Long after it is splashed across a gravestone.

And as the clock ticks on,

I worry I am running out of time.

So for now

I will let the dreams of future failures

Flit before my eyes

Until I drift into an uneasy sleep;

Ready to begin the cycle of self-judgement

All over again in the morning.

[lettmetellyouaboutmyboat]

Your words constrict my throat like a noose

Tightening with each stream of expletives that

Tumble through your teeth.

You pound my confidence down

With your hammer of expectations

No human could live up to.

Your words are razor-sharp and critical,

Though delivered with a smug smile,

I explain myself, defend myself, offend myself

Put on a performance for you

Only to find no one is watching,

Effort played into emptiness.

It never changes anything between us

It is just a cry into the void

Of your expectations.

You cannot see past your own insecurities,

The leak in the sailboat of your soul too profound

For the sea of doubts and pain that swims around you.

You have frantically bailed out the water for so long,

That you’ve now handed me the pail

And watched scornfully from a distance.

Though the same blood flows through our veins,

And we are tied by familial bonds

That should be sacred,

You’ve torn my self-image in half,

You’ve forsaken all that could have been,

You’ve forced me to walk away from the meal

Still hungry.

Now that you’re gone, I often romanticize our relationship.

I dream of you holding my children’s hands

And looking at them

The way you never looked at me.

I ache to know you’ll never be a grandmother,

And lament that you never fulfilled the role

Of a mother.

It hurts when I see your eyes

Under the flowing blonde locks I inherited from you

looking back at me through my mirror.

Even though you are dead and gone,

I can’t escape your judgmental gaze

X-raying through my soul.

[lettmetellyouaboutmyboat]

Have the bullets not blasted through enough bodies,

Ripping apart their skin as well as their aspirations?

What will it take for America to cease to value the heat of hate filled lead

Over the breath in another humans body?

Who would have dreamed that even our sanctuaries are no longer safe?

The bullets ricochet through the halls of churches, offices, and schools all the same,

Our safe havens have been shattered like bullet-riddled glass.

Young adults today have become the generation of lockdowns, of active shooter drills, of iron gates and metal detectors.

I have watched so many cities become synonymous with tragedy—

Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland.

I have watched their communities shaken to their cores,

Only to offer ‘thoughts and prayers’ while still campaigning for the NRA and citizen ownership of automatic assault rifles.

Our National fruit is guns.

We cultivate them, we proudly place them in the hands of children

and reassure them that guns don’t kill people, people kill people.

Fingers pull the trigger,

Electric impulses in the brain spark the movement,

But the bullet shot from the barrel

Is what takes lives.

Guns are what inflict the irreparable damage

On bodies, dreams, and lives.

We tell children to take their rifles and to go play in the streets,

To take the lives of small animals for ‘sport’.

The inevitable senseless violence

Is succeeded by a stunning silence.

We cry out that it is an issue of ‘improper training’

We cry out ‘mental illness’

We cry out ‘restriction of rights’,

‘political division’

And

‘Hateful rhetoric’

But never stand for what should outrage us all— the destruction of homes and families, and we forget the tragedy mere days later.

How is the United States to heal

When our hastily sewn stitches are ripped open week after week?

The sores are still seeping when they are torn apart once again.

The wounds of our souls are raw and bleeding, the blood running in the streets with that of the victims.

I am sick of the lockdowns,

I am sick of the bickering of old, white, men over the rights I have to my own fucking body.

So for now I will lockdown my heart,

I don’t want to wait to hear the next gunshot ring out.

[lettmetellyouaboutmyboat]

The Tides of Disquietude

Some days I swim, and keep my head above the water—

I am able to breathe deeply,

To smile,

To expertly part the sea with my limbs,

And keep my body afloat

Above the frigid dark sea below.

Others, the tide rushes in

And the water swells all around me,

My stomach lurches

With the crashing of the waves,

Breaths come short, shallow, and quick,

And the dizzying swirl of thoughts

Pulls me under,

Tumbling my body about like

clothes in a dryer

Until I don’t know which way is up.

The one constant

Is the ocean itself—

It will always be present,

So I must learn to tread water

As the waves come crashing in.

[lettmetellyouaboutmyboat]

He brings me coffee in bed

On Saturday mornings

With just the right amount of creamer in it,

And the aroma lingers in the air

Like a promise to do the same thing again next weekend.

He listens when I sing,

And chimes right in with his own smooth baritone,

Even though I am half tone deaf.

He knows how to rub my back

Right where it hurts the most—

Like he can read the pain in the lines of my body,

Like my limbs speak a language only he can understand.

He knows how to bring laughter from deep within me,

Even when I’ve had a horrible day

And laughing is the last thing I feel like doing.

He pulls it from me

Like a clown drawing handkerchief’s from a bottomless bag,

Until there are tears running down my face

Like small salty rivers.

He knows how to quell my shaking

When I feel like my earth is quaking

And crumbling all around me.

His strong arms hold me together

When I feel like I’m falling apart.

He sees me as I am,

I wear no mask, build no facades before him,

He sees my naked soul bared before him

With his clear blue eyes—

Vulnerable, soft, timid, and loving.

There is no pretending with him,

He knows my very soul.

Together we are a piece of cloth,

Woven together seamlessly,

Threads intertwined like our

Fingers laced together

Palm to palm.

We are held together tightly,

Each making the other stronger

And more complete.

[lettmetellyouaboutmyboat]

“young adult dystopian novels are so unrealistic lmao like they always have some random teenage girl rising up to inspire the world to make change.”

a hero emerges 

[lettmetellyouaboutmyboat]

meirl

[lettmetellyouaboutmyboat]

Sometimes

Fear freezes me in my tracks—

I am too terrified of

Not living up to the expectations others

Have of me in their minds

To live my life.

I am afraid of getting older,

Afraid that I will never achieve anything worthwhile,

Afraid that I will never write anything worth reading.

Afraid that I will fail to match up

With the image my father carries in his mind

Of a perfect daughter.

Afraid that I’ll never discover the key

To being happy.

Afraid that my illusion

I’ve created of a doting wife

Will collapse around my ankles,

And my husband will walk out the door forever.

I’m afraid of a life unlived,

All because of the insidious fear

That has wrapped its tendrils around my heart.

[lettmetellyouaboutmyboat]

They told me perfection is impossible,

Then handed me copies of Vogue with

Stunning creatures on the cover.

Flowing blonde hair, bronze-toned skin,

Curvaceous hips,

And flawless skin.

You cannot be fat,

But you cannot be flat.

We look in the mirror every day

And compare ourselves to those photoshopped amalgamations—

We suck in our tummies,

Lift high our chests,

And cake on cosmetics to hide the flaws that haunt our reflections.

We see teeth that aren’t white enough,

Skin that isn’t smooth enough,

Curves everywhere but where they should be.

We hang our heads in shame,

And hide our imperfect bodies in

Too-large sweaters.

They told me perfection is impossible,

Then listed the demands that academia places on effective students.

Grow your vocabulary,

Write flowery prose that adds fluff to your intro and conclusion paragraphs,

Always ask perceptive questions,

Sleep less, study more,

It shows devotion and allows promotion.

Attend every class,

Ace every test,

Work harder to transcend the average.

They told me perfection was impossible,

Yet I strive to run faster,

Play the violin better,

Write more eloquent poetry,

Bake fluffier cookies.

The mythical summit

Of all these endeavors

Is rarely glimpsed,

And too oft veiled behind

Clouds of self-loathing and self-doubt.

No matter what the subject,

I aim to perfect all that I do.

But if I achieve the impossible perfection,

Where, in life, do I go next?

Perfection is an unattainable goal,

But who, among us, has not striven

To reach the impossible?

[lettmetellyouaboutmyboat]

As one would kneel before a holy relic,

I sit before a dusty old shoebox

Full of memories of simpler times.

Some of the photographs are yellowed, faded, and some have creased edges

That mark the passage of time.

The childhood chronicles,

The Sleeping Beauty costumes, the too-tight hugs, the Christmas lights,

Are a parade of moments painted in shining rainbow colors,

An everlasting memory embedded in a scrap of paper.

These photographs provide a glimpse of who we once were.

I wonder, looking back, if the smiles frozen in these snapshots were genuine.

If we were truly happier then,

Or if we knew even then that we were slowly fading to gray.

These snapshots of a second are all

I have left of you now.

Your blonde curls, your rosy cheeks,

Still live in the shoebox in my closet.

When I clasp the photograph in my hands,

You feel a little less far away,

A little less gone.

My soul rejoices to dance

To the tune of the past, to forget what has been lost.

Sitting in the semidarkness,

A single phrase echoes through my mind, “This is what we were

Once upon a time.”

[lettmetellyouaboutmyboat]

I always thought I’d die young,

That I’d be in the ground by 25

After a fiery car crash off a cliff,

Body mangled within a heap of metal

Or after the smoke of one too many cigarettes

Finally gave me cancer

I always thought I’d die young

Briefly burning brightly

Like a firecracker

Here for a good time,

Just not a long time.

Getting too high,

Living too wild,

Running hard until I ran out of time.

I always thought I’d die young

While I was a starry-eyed girl

With her head in the clouds,

With her brain full of grand ideals.

But time has brought me crashing

To the cold, hard, ground,

And now I have to fight against

The aging blues.

I always thought I’d die young,

I never thought I’d see the adults of my youth

Bent with the weight of age or

Wracked with disease.

I never thought I’d live

To see my mother dead and buried.

I always thought I’d go first,

But now I’m left with the agony

Of being the one left behind.

I always thought I’d die young,

While my hair was still blonde,

And before I found a single wrinkle on my face.

But each time I look in the mirror

It’s like watching sand drain into the bottom of an hourglass

And I’m faced with evidence of how time

Has altered my shape—

How gravity has pulled down my sagging skin.

I always thought I’d die young

I had it all planned out,

But somehow Time keeps accelerating,

Leaving my youth in the rear view mirror.

Somehow,

I’m still here—

Left behind and drowning in time.

[lettmetellyouaboutmyboat]

This year

It is more lifeless cloth flowers

Coated in plastic

(Like embalming fluid)

Than fresh poinsettias,

More dead leaves whisked across the pavement by a whispering wind

Than crackling fireplaces.

A remembrance that grief

Is not a season

But a daily ritual.

Sometimes it is the glow

Of Christmas lights from the living room window,

Or trashy celebrity gossip shows,

It is a slice of pumpkin pie,

Or her favorite Eric Clapton album

Blaring with all the windows open.

Grief does not always mean tears,

It is a tension of mourning and celebration

Of all that was.

It is a prayer whispered

For all that is to come.

[lettmetellyouaboutmyboat]

I am trying to learn how

To stop waiting,

To stop measuring the worth of my soul

In spans of time or tasks accomplished,

To stop measuring my waistline

(And comparing those measurements to others)

To stop treating each poem

Like a cemetery

Where ideas and words go to die.

I lie to myself every day—

No matter how many boxes I check,

People I please

Or times I shower,

I am not clean.

The day is not over.

I am a process

Not a product.

I’ve heard that star formation

Takes about a million years

From the time of the initial gas cloud collapses

Until stars are created and dispersed throughout the galaxy.

I’ve also heard that most stars do not form in isolation,

But instead are born into a cluster of others.

It is not about waiting.

It is about growing, expanding, and dispersing with the love and nurturing of others.

It is about connections,

Like the dot-to-dot constellations we draw in the sky.

The stars don’t have meaning until we connect them to each other.

If all celestial bodies are derived from the same elements,

We have already spent billions of years

As a single entity.

The divergence is what makes us unique,

Yet we never stray too far from our origins.

We already know in our hearts

That we are all a part of something greater.

We are a part of a cosmic quilt

Sewn together with the colorful thread of each of our consciousnesses—

Our unity is dazzling.

[lettmetellyouaboutmyboat]

To The Before-Times

The air smells like burning leaves,

It reminds me of cold Georgia nights

And crackling bonfires,

The sweet melted goop of marshmallows

Against chattering teeth.

It reminds me of our back porch,

Standing shoulder to shoulder for warmth,

Watching the smoke of a shared cigarette curl up delicately against the black velvet of the night sky.

It reminds me of sitting up until three in the morning,

Drinking honey whiskey,

Fingers sticky from the sloshing of a too-full shot glass.

It reminds me of the fog of our laughter

Rising like white clouds into the night sky.

We might as well have been howling at the moon

With the wild times we shared.

I miss those naked moments,

The shared intimacy of a whispered conversation in the wee hours of the morning,

The corny jokes made to break the tension

When things took a turn for the too-real.

I miss the fabric of our friendship weaving

Intricately together

To form a blanket that kept

Us all close

And warm.

[lettmetellyouaboutmyboat]

When you died, I started writing poetry about you.

This is always the way I process

My feelings.

I strip my emotions bare and lay them down in colorful language,

Like re-painting an old house.

You left me in such a sudden and permanent way,

That I begin using poetry to

Immortalize you on paper,

So that I didn’t forget your cackling laugh,

Your twinkling blue eyes,

Your sunshine-yellow hair,

Or your fighting spirit.

So that you didn’t dissappear completely.

In the crisp fall air,

In the specks of light that dance across the night sky,

In the back yard

Where the in-ground pool used to be,

In the icy blue of my irises

The eyes that I got from you,

I still find you sometimes.

It feels less like home without you

Sitting in the arm chair on the back porch.

So I made a home out of the person you raised.

I think part of you still lives in me.