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Losing
Words
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iwas
iwasgonna teach you how to cut fruit from the tree of yourself with swinging
machete, how to gently tear back the outside layer and suck on the tender
revealed flesh such that the sweet nectar slowly, starting from the most
achingly tentative dribble, begins gushing into your mouth like presents
from god himself to You…
iwasgonna
write a song about the way your nose wrinkles with every kiss… and
iwasgonna sing that song at the grammys with a full orchestra and a huge
choir in sparkling satin robes, bringing at least one listener to tears…
iwasgonna
learn your body, familiar as the back of hand, or better- as a favorite
museum strung with well-frequented art that i still look forward to seeing
[like the way Christmas lights seem to glow brighter on Christmas Eve],
my heart racing slightly as i turn the familiar corner to stand before
the familiar painting that never fails to amaze me, never ceases to be
new, to reveal itself more eloquently…
iwasgonna
learn how to make croissants in the nude for your breakfast…
iwasgonna
let you put your feet on the dash in my summer-sticky Buick-- you absentmindedly
wrapping my by-then ruddy lambswool curls around your suntanned fingers,
while i drove us to a vineyard on the Cape… iwasgonna sing every
song on every station the radio offered, you kissing me every so often-
sometimes to shut me up at least temporarily, but mostly for more delicately
visceral purposes…
iwasgonna
blush each time you learned of a new dimension of my being, opening up
to you like the tender inner petals of a rose reaching with purest trust
toward the sun…
iwasgonna
write fairy tales about you to tell children, maybe even our own…
iwasgonna
weave my life around yours like vines [but vines that don't choke, don't
cling, vines that support, vines that love and just enjoy life, are there
vines like that?]…
iwasgonna
make love to you, eventually, the way that a master might paint a canvas:
passionately but with great care, turning an observant eye toward the
subtleties created by my own hand, attacking, caressing, walking away,
only to return with renewed reverence, different colors, a pulsating new
philosophy on what you are, awakened by your reality…
iwasgonna
read you stories in bed, your head delicately tucked in my lap, so that
the last sound you might hear as your heavy lids slowly curtained your
sweet eyes would be my lilting, musical voice, echoing through your dreamlike
subconscious like hollow windchimes…
iwasgonna
look up to you as i have few men…
iwasgonna
feel like Audrey Hepburn every time, while at a dinner or cocktails, you
would come over to me while i was talking to some man who was looking
at me with eyes that made you place a firm hand on the small of my back,
and i would look at you in such a way that the man would avert his gaze,
disappointed and aware…
iwasgonna
kiss you in a certain way that can only happen under a starlit sky with
the feel of warm dewy grass beneath your bare feet, salt of the day curing
my kissed neck, my eyes and their emotions still visible in the moon's
glow, crickets singing that song i wrote about you and performed at the
grammys…
iwasgonna
love you with every moment there was to love a man…
iwasgonna
iwasgonna iwasgonna iwasgonna…
iwasiwasiwasiwas…
only
a fool robs a dreamer of such dreams.
*
Overreaction
I
guess I'm a little sensitive these days
My emotions raw and close to the surface
The innards of a gutted fish
Rotting in the aluminum sun,
Even
keeled and mildly schizophrenic
("You can take these mirrors for free"
She tells him, her fingernails digging into the flesh of his arm,
Covered only by a sparse thicket of light brown hair,
"You can have them all,
if you like.")
His
disabused sexuality
Worn coarse like unshaven cheeks
("These boats do not have glass
Bottoms. And these mirrors distort."
He replies,
Shaking his arm free.)
He wears me down like a wet fist
Calls me princess and baby
As if they just occurred to him
("Every naked woman is his baby," the audience
Whispers, "Every woman he's inside is a princess.")
And the applause comes in sexy slimy fists.
I guess I'm just sensitive these days.
*
Food
curdles
In sad mouth
*
Who do I talk to
When I need to talk to somebody
About talking to you?
How to say, when to say
What to say
Why?
Who do I turn to
To turn away from you
Aside from you?
Who?
Coyote
(or why I crossed the road)
I
ought to be used to this by now
The "might as well give up" suffocation
The finger pointing relay
The "well you're the one who's…"
Time bomb
The
tears
I
can listen to the same break up tape
And feel the same helplessness
Now with him, instead of him
And myself, mostly
I
should really have a routine by now
A little rehearsed skit about lost loves
About how it takes more love to let go
Than to hold on
About how much we learned
Thank you
And
goodbye
But
each time is like getting hit by a Mack truck
Like the Coyote in the cartoons
First by a red truck, then by a green one
Over and over
Looking one way and then, BAM!
Fucked
By another one
Over and over again
Until it's kind of funny
Like the cartoons
Comic.
*
Apology
I'm
sorry I asked too much
I'm sorry I held so fast
And for so long
To you &
Our
love, anachronism
Anomaly of sorts
And out of sorts as I am
I can't help but wonder
About this loneliness
Disquieted
Yet still quiet
And tranquil
Like cut flowers
Your
scars are not like mine
Your scars are not mine
Sorry
for the inconvenience.
*
lost
loves
lost
like words escaping meaning.
So color becomes primrose-scented
And shadows crowd the recesses
Like when a great band plays a dive by the beach.
Lousy beer on draft and sandy oysters.
You
gave me a few clandestine kisses
On the bloating wooden dance floor
A few more in the backlit grit of the dunes.
So
this is what I have left.
Love's
lost
Or perhaps just misplaced
In that "I know I just saw it, but where?" way.
Mutually kissed goodnight,
Goodbye,
On calm, collegiate porch.
Your shoes made sharp clicks
On the paved way to your car.
My
slippered feet were still, frozen.
Love's
loss, really
I know that, of the two of us
I was the bigger man
Even though I was supposed to be
The girl.
*
echoes
It's
funny how we take steps
Away from the ones we love,
Nudging them quietly toward our periphery.
We use time and space to create distance, unbridgeable gaps
As if to say "See? You don't know me so well
After all."
Yet we sadden when no one
Understands, makes us feel alone
Which is what I thought we wanted-
Enough space to swing our arms
And not hit anyone else.
We give and love, briefly,
Long enough to notice our lover
Is not worthy of such giving and loving.
We use words and their absence
To create distance, taking untraceable steps
Farther and farther away.
Still, we miss hands to hold, knowing glances
And a protective, possessive arm around us.
We shake it free and dance, frenzied faeries,
Spinning and wheeling like light itself, without an audience looking on,
Compromising us.
So
the question arises:
What to do with all this space?
A space this big could seat several comfortably,
Leave room for entertaining guests, hell,
We could fit a king in a bed of this size.
But there is no king, no guests, no several sitting,
Talking amongst themselves. Nobody
But us, making high-heeled echoes in our empty space
Hollow-heeled echoes that bother no one
But us.
*
fish
I
don't know how to share my toys.
I guess being an only child has spoiled me,
Soiled me. But I don't know how to share my boy
With the other girls who claim to claim you.
The impetus for my self destruction is you.
The justification, if you will
(And if you won't I don't know what I'll do)-
I'm used to getting everything I want, so
How come alls I want is you?
I exhibit great patience. I play by myself.
Game called due to lack of interest.
Tilt.
Somebody has to give me more quarters,
Because I was close to winning.
The other kids want to try
But there are other games,
Other arcades, and other
Fish in the sea.
I don't want those other kids to play with you
And me.
*
Perhaps
it was scientific, your rejection
A combination of chemistry and biology
Inhibiting a reaction
From so simple a catalyst as me.
I doodle regret in the margins
With heavy hand and onion skin.
*
And
you ask why I put myself down
Like two bones rubbing together
You and me and our crummy love,
The one I treasure.
Sitting
here, wishing
You
Would get the fuck out of my winter
Of discontent.
You
don't know how I lay awake nights
Envying you,
You and your effortless existence.
And
you ask why I put myself down.
*
IYou
know, the sad part of life
Being a continuum
Is that we can't stop it
When we are finally happy.
*
Watching
the lonely
Snuggle closer to their pints
In a bar lit by candles
And afternoon.
Gently, though without reason,
Do I think of myself
Stricken with choices
Though life continues unfolding
Itself, as a new sail would
Being pulled up a mast.
My own pullies bully me.
And bore me too, sometimes.
So I sit, watching the lonely.
*
lemonade
Life
keeps handing me lemons
& I want to make lemonade
But life won't give me
Any fucking sugar or water.
*
Seasons
change, enraptured
By their own idiosyncrasies.
Cool spring breezes pay no notice
To the shifting stifle of summer,
The wistful, lonely breath of autumn.
Sitting in the same seat
Upholstery worn thin by use,
Watching the same tree
Blowing, swelling with ripeness, bowing
And coloring itself with plumage-
Fancy hospital bedclothes,
Ornaments for its deathly slumber.
Have
I changed with the seasons?
Evolved into a creature of morphed sensibilities?
I know some things- emotions,
The tremendous loneliness, quieted now-
Lay pickled in static jars,
Changing only the acuteness of their sourness.
But so many things have changed,
Aging with exquisite grace and serenity,
The yellowed pages of a book
Fanned by the breeze.
*
nails
You
make me bite my fingers
Examine the cuticles
To miss seeing the wonder in your gaze.
You sigh, I'm beautiful
With timbre both relieved and incredulous
So much so that it's believable,
I'm beautiful,
So much so that I bite my fingers some more
To ignore the impassive impasse of our intertwined legs,
Inverted wallflowers at a junior high dance.
But
I fear
This love like wrinkled sheets
Hung on a graying clothesline
Grass drained of shadows.
I
would always bite my nail beds
No matter how tightly you held my hand.
No, I could never wholly love you.
*
i.
You would have liked to give her something, a gift.
One gift,
That she did not expect anything small
From her life.
But you had nothing except cauli-
Flowers to give,
Which she was stealing from you
In any case.
And it was for this that you wept.
ii.
You captured a passion for her,
Felt that you knew her,
The unbreakable girl shaped like a tear
(fatter at the bottom and thinner at the top),
decorated with so many oily cans and rags.
But
you could not tell a story
Of a girl like this, a girl like this
You could only feel.
And it was for this that you wept.
The
girl was of a liquid nature,
Made by accident
Of weakness and strength,
This girl, this shivering
but seemingly unbreakable cipher
to be sold under gaslight.
Yet
you felt that you knew her.
You knew her and her weaknesses,
Hidden like so many Easter eggs,
Her and her weaknesses
Worn on her sleeve,
And though you wanted to love her,
Put
the girl before you and you were like a child,
Finding it almost impossible not to try to destroy her-
The girl, the gift,
A particularly beautiful specimen
Twisted red and milk-white.
If
she were here beside you in the room
You would find it almost impossible not to demonstrate it to me
And- in a second-
Kick out the foundations
And destroy her.
And it was for this that you wept.
Fireworks
made of the girl.
An explosion of the gift. Crescendo. Diminuendo.
Silence where, a moment before, you had the unbreakable girl.
And what is left of her,
You can crumble in your hands
Like sugar,
Or something almost as magical.
And
you felt
That you knew her.
*
Once upon a time there was a girl. And while she was bookish and ordinary
to the casual observer, there was something extraordinary about this girl.
This girl, it seems, was born with a Jewel deep inside her, off of which
sunlight, moonlight, or, from time to time, even ordinary fluorescent
bulbs would reflect. The refracted light was emitted through her pores,
through her smile, through her eyes. Although she was simple and plain,
she was brilliant with light.
She went unobserved by many, but those who did notice her were brutally
blinded. Yet, though she was noticed and remarked upon, she was never
truly studied. For though the rewards of knowing her far outweighed the
pain she caused, it seemed that no one had the threshold for pain necessary
to try. They gave up when their sight was lost, not realizing that the
more they looked and the more they probed the easier it was to see, not
just her, but everything. Their eyes would gradually adjust to her light.
But it took time.
She made caring for those blinded by her and nursing them back to health
her occupation. Her main goal was to help them to ignore her. She gave
them blinders, taught them to look at her but not really see her. She
fed them a diet of ignorance and selfishness, which she mistakenly thought
was good for them. Soon, most of her patients could spend sunrises, sunsets,
and all the hours in between the two with her, not even remarking on her
own dewy awakening or her internal twilight glitter.
She taught them not to care, but in doing so, she became so absorbed in
them that she herself couldn't stop caring. Sometimes her own light would
be reflected in their eyes and she would be blinded by what she assumed
was their internal gleam. She depended on them all. And she loved them
all.
It took her a long time to admit that what she had was special. It was
hard to admit that the jewel within her was precious, though flawed. Once
she did admit her gift, she cursed it for the pain it caused. Oh, she
was loved by those she cared for, but it was a casual love, an appreciative
love, not for what she was, but for what she did.
Then there were the brave souls who would try to endure, try and learn.
And she loved them so for risking themselves to know her and not just
see her. But it hurt her so deeply to see them deteriorating as they endured,
for she knew not that they had to get worse before they got better. She
saw the pain that she caused as potentially infinite, a bottomless chasm
that could never be bridged.
She was compelled to take action and protect her lovers from her luminescence.
She built internal walls and shields, strategically placed mirrors around
her soul so the light would be trapped on the inside. It could reflect
and refract, but it could never escape her physical encasement. She began
to beg the brave ones to give up, admit defeat, and submit to being loved
and cared for by her. It seemed reasonable compensation, as they were
unaware of what they were missing.
She didn't know what she had done. She didn't understand that bridling
her brilliance tore her up internally. It weakened her, for the light
rays seared through her insides like lasers and gradually did irreparable
damage to all her organs, including her heart. Parts of her heart began
to atrophy. But she didn't feel it because she never used those parts
anyway.
One day she met a boy. He was a special boy- he had mirrors in his arms.
She didn't notice it until he held her. And for the first time ever she
could actually see herself. She could see her brilliance, and even see
the damage she had inflicted on herself. She could see her fears and insecurities,
all as clear as day. It frightened her to see herself, so she struggled
to be let go. She didn't want to see herself; didn't want to see all the
empty places she knew were meant to be filled.
She fought and she fought, but he was strong and, though it hurt him too,
he persevered. He tried to use his mirrors to lessen his pain, but in
shifting them he only shed light on his own miseries. His pain was immeasurable,
but still he endured. She begged him to accept her love and not attempt
to love her in return. He only held tighter. He wanted the Jewel and the
girl for his own. It became unbearable for her. To hurt was something
she was accustomed to, but to see her own pain while continuing to inflict
pain on her lover was more than she could bear. And while she loved being
held, she hated being seen.
So she lashed out at her lover, the very one she hated to see hurt. She
broke all the mirrors in his arms and the shards of glass cut them both
to the quick. Still he endured. And though she loved him for enduring
and she knew that they would eventually both be healed, she also knew
that they would both feel better now if he would just let go.
*
Dear
Baby,
Hey
u. I know you expected to wake up and c my beautiful though grimy morning
sunshine face. I hope this letter will suffice.
I'm gone. I guess u noticed, but I wanted u 2 know y. See baby, I'm in
love. I know, who would have thunk that a kid-of-a-bitch like me could
fall, but I did. I really wish it could have been with u, baby. I really
do. Cuz I dig you a lot and everything, but I'm about more than just making
love. Cuz when there's no love, baby, you can't make nothing good.
I almost wish I were there to share your morning with u; taste your awakening
mouth, the stuff from your sleepy eyes. Nobody tastes as good as u do
1st thing in the am.
This love thing really throws you for a curve, man. I man, my new baby
is sexier than sex itself, but the body is nothing like yours. I never
thought I would be able 2 leave that body of yours, but there u r and
here I am, with only a few regrets and some scars to remember u.
Can I ask u something? Will you ever enjoy a rainy day again? Without
me? I don't know if I can. The rain pounding on the hood of the car, you
holding the windshield wiper, then me holding the side mirror. Then both
of us holding each other. I take it back, baby. What we made was good.
Was it good 4 u?
I would feel worse about leaving u if u didn't have that body of yours,
baby. But I know u won't be alone for long, so I don't feel 2 bad. In
fact, I feel alright. My momma always told me 2 share. I'm sharing u with
the world again. I'm sure it missed u like I'm going 2, 1 of these days.
You know, I trip on how happy we could have been. I really did dig u baby,
do dig u, but it's tough 2 chain a soul like mine. Not that I'm so special
or anything, but sometimes my ego starts ghetto blastin' so loud that
I think it would be foolish to waste all this badness on 1 cat, 'specially
one like
U (don't take that the wrong way though, okay?)
So I guess that's all she wrote for us, huh? I'm sorry if we
Didn't have the same ending in mind, but the story still goes on, u
know? I mean, there'll be different bodies, there are always different
bodies, but it's all the same story. I guess that's y u have to make
moves, shake it up a little, u know?
Even though this letter is getting long and my hand is getting
Tired, I don't feel like I've said what I wanted 2 say. But I guess I
don't
Have to explain myself 2 u. U know me better than I know myself.
Maybe that's why I'm leaving, huh?
Save a rainy day 4 me.
Keep
smiling,
Nicole
*
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