Tattered, Secondhand Apologies

I heard something,
but not from
you–
never from you
in
all
this
time.

We’ve both
left
the state
where our love
boiled over
those
four long
years
ago.

We ended up
in different states
from there,
and, again,
different from
one another.

I know someone where you are,
and she somehow knows
someone
who knows you.

She said that the
girl who knows you
has heard of me.

That,
sometimes,
when you’re blind drunk,
you talk about me
and how
you fucked it all
up
to people
who have never
even
met me.

You.

You who left me
heartbroken
in a ditch
and kicked mud
over my legs
for a quick
grave while you
made off
with
the faceless
misters
and hims
while
whistling
the
“Dies Irae.”

So this
friend of a friend,
who’s also friends with
you,
knows
of
me without
knowing
me.

She’s heard my
name
and knows
our
story.

I can’t
escape
an irony
like that.

I wasn’t even sure
if
you
still remembered
my name.

I should feel
relief,
but
instead I’m
just
tired.

It wasn’t
me
all along.

It turns out
that I was
worth a damn,
after all.

It turns out
that
I was
sufficient
and it was
you
who was
_missing_
something.

I should feel
relief,
but
instead I’m
just
tired.

I was right in
thinking
that you’d need
my forgiveness
one day
when
you looked
___b____a_____c______k.

(Remember
that I gave
you
a
_____________
l_.sealed.___l
l___________l
letter
forgiving you
if that day
ever came.

I kept a
copy of it
sealed up
with Holden’s
innocence
inside “The Catcher in the Rye”
if you
need it.)

I should feel
relief,
but
instead I’m
just
tired.

I cried
when I heard
that you told her
that you were
an asshole
for what you did
to me.

I had learned
to live
without your
explanation
or apology and
didn’t realize
what it’d
mean
to have one–
even tattered
and
secondhand like
this one
was.

I should feel
relief,
but
instead I’m
just
tired.

I was
surprised by tears
when she said
you hadn’t been
able
to date anyone
since me.

I wanted to feel
good
that your
life had been fucked up
by it all
like
mine was,
but I couldn’t
maintain it.

I didn’t want
that
for you;
I don’t.

I should feel
relief,
but
instead I’m
just
tired.

You whistle
the opening to
the “Dies Irae,”
and I’ll
remind you
how
the ending
goes:

Lacrimosa dies illa,
qua resurget ex favilla
judicandus homo reus.
Huic ergo parce, Deus,
pie Jesu Domine,
dona eis requiem.

Amen.

on sharing a jail cell with a stranger

Seven hours
and
we never
even
looked at
each
other.

Through my
periphery,
I memorized
the waffle-fabriced
plaid
shirt
he was
wearing
with its
cream
being
interposed by
maroon and
mint green
streets.

I noticed
the way
he preferred to
hold or
stretch
his legs,
and I marked
only 3
sighs.

We each
stared ahead
at our
_blank_
stretches of
wall,
and our
cryptic
kaleid.osc.ope
(ey)(es)
projected
onto those
walls
{hazy} scenes of
stars
being framed by
nothing.

Cinder block
serenades
were vibrating
all around
us,
and keys
chimed and
bars whirred
and the cacophony
of
solitude
crept up my
neck
and pressed its
silvered
speech up
against
my eardrums.

My once
cr.is.p
tongue
felt hollow
and unheeded,
and my heart felt
like
a hurricane.

There were
birds
outside
singing–there had
to be.

Heartbeat silence
pounded
on;

I just knew
there had
to be
singing
somewhere else
outside of
this
place.

Regret

Sometimes
I would like
to
smash the ocean
with my fists
until
it resembles
something
less
star-woven:
___flat___
like
I am.

The sky
is
bleeding
into
the sea
as wisps
of you
are
receding
from
me.

I’ve been here
before—
on nights
crack.ling;
crack.ed wide
like
bread crusts
or thunder.

Spread out
against
a backdrop
of skies
broken up
by leaves,
an ethereal
symphony
indeterminately
weaves.

___

(I recalled
the rhythms of
you
and the
sync.o.p.ations
of us
and how
silent smiles
popped
as your lips
parted—
until
they just
didn’t,
anymore.

I came
looking
for you,
once.

I thought that
in
your stardust
footfalls,
I
could discover
you,
again.

I wanted to find
the exact place
where
green
met
blue;
I had this
feeling
that
that’s
where I’d
find
you.)

Notebook Poet

I am
a college-ruled
notebook
poet,
and that
means
desperation.

There’s nothing
sexy about
it.

There are no
turtlenecks;
no click.ity.
cl.ack.
snap.s
in wine bars;
no exposed brick
cigarette-leashed
smokers;
no whoops and cheers
or laughs
or jeers;
no dressed up
double-breasted
suits;
in fact,
no breasts
at
all.

My audience is
a silent swirl
of bourbon,
the vapors
eminently sweet;
the cars outside
sighing
by;
the pipes
whispering
in the walls
as water–
even
against gravity–
leaves me
too.

I hate you
more than
I love you
tonight.

Blankets

I want to make
a distinction.

I have these
knit
sheets,
and they’re
woven out
of
the universe,
and they _stretch_
just as wide.

They’re as soft as you
like,
but they have
an
otherness
to them—
like maybe
if you start
to believe in them
they might
suffocate you.

Anyhow,
I don’t use them
for much
except
to try
and keep
undercover.

Then there’s this
quilted
heavy sonuvabitch
and it sits
on its haunches
as.
.ke.
w.
like your smile,
and that’s the
ocean,
this quilt of
mine;
it has that
weightiness
that even
the universe
can’t compete
with.

And I know,
you will say
well, the
universe
contains the ocean
after all,
but
maybe
I might
take issue
with
that.

It takes a lifetime
to fall in love
and
no
time
at all.

A Man’s Garden

A man’s moral code
is like his garden.

He tends it and
cares
for it
at his leisure
and for his
pleasure,
and
he treats it
with insecticides
and churns in
rich soils—
little preventative
elixirs and nourishing
potentialities—and he guards it
against
decay.

There is always some small corner,
however,
which he leaves
in just the soil
available and in which
he does not
co-mingle
any superficial
delineation
or
order; he may
acknowledge it
or not; he may
be aware of it
or let it
prick
his subconscious
(usually suppressed
by a late-night glass
of water).

His garden may be marked by color,
by outgrowth,
by scent,
by chaos,
or by flow;
it matters not–
so long
as he may
breathe
deeply
in it
and of it.

And,
every
now and then,
someone may wander
close enough
to his
garden
and feel free
themselves
to comment upon it.

“What a lovely
sanctuary,”
they’ll say,
and he will
thank them with
a strange mixture
of pride
and
self-deprecation,
pointing out
some
aesthetic flaw
or other
(no doubt his inner eye
may then
.fl.ash. upon
the exquisitely
unmanicured
small corner
of wildness);
but,
when they have gone,
he will wonder
if any of this
is really
worth
any of
his trouble
at
all.

3 BRITA Water Pitchers

You used to live
in an apartment
with three other
girls
and I had to laugh
at the
multiple
BRITA
water pitchers
in your fridge.

Once, I did the dishes
while I waited for you to return from
an errand
and your roommate
was embarrassed
and you
were
mortified,
but I just enjoyed
using my elbows
and the way
the warm,
soapy water
slipped and
tumbled over
my
hands.

That was years ago,
now.

I wonder
how
that can be.

I have to say,
ya know,
guys I know—
they wonder
what a
girl
smells like;
what she does to make
herself
smile;
what color
panties
she’s wearing;
or, maybe
just what shade
of amber
her bedside
lamp
burns
before she
sighs,
turns it off,
and hums
herself
to sleep
(me, I know
that even you
drool on your pillow,
sometimes).

But I
wonder what your fridge looks
like
when it’s almost
empty—
what skeleton,
nearly empty
sauces and salad dressings
cling to the
frigid air—
then there’s that juice
you bought
that you’d thought
you would
like,
but
hadn’t.

I don’t know
why
I wonder
about
any of
that.

Maybe it’s
because
I’m getting
used
to
the quiet—
and
that
scares hell
out of
me.

Root Beer Float

I wrote you
a letter,
and I think it’s
long past
time
that I write
a different letter
that I can
actually
send.

So here it is:
your letter
letting
you
go.

Once,
I was in
a gas station
and my mom
and I
were having
Root Beer Floats
when,
just outside,
there was
a car crash.

It was so near where I
grew up—
where I
went to
school—
that it remained
a part of my life
for longer
afterward
than usual.

Stories about
the firemen
cutting the
tangled
seat belt
and
how young
the boy
had been.

D.O.A.

They used it as
an early warning
for us:
middle school
students;
children,
really.

They hadn’t heard
the screeching tires
like I had.

Or looked up so fast
from their
Root Beer Float
that
they’d pulled muscles
in their
necks.

They thought his life
was good
for a warning,
but
they hadn’t seen smoke
and plastic,
smelled burnt rubber,
heard
shearing metal,
or seen
the red
mist.

I lost
my innocence
at the A&W
just in front of
the fire station
and at the
site
of an auto
collision.

Things hurt
me;
always have.

It’s not fair,
but
being with you
was the only time
for me
when
nothing
hurt;

That’s not
your
fault.

I know
that the answer
can’t be
to hurt you
by trying to hang on
to you
after you’ve
let go
in order
to save
myself
some
hurt.

I
love you,
and I’m
sorry
that
the spark
didn’t catch.

I don’t think
I should be telling
you
all of this,
maybe I should just
smile
kind of sadly
as I always have
and say:

Someday,
life will be
less of a
heart-breaking
mystery
to me,
and I hope
one day
to hear from you
again,
and I hope
your
children
never leave
behind
a half-finished
Root Beer Float.

The Unsent Letter

I wrote you a letter
and in it
I said
the noble things.

I said that I had
always
loved you
and that
I always
would.

I said that I
forgave you
and that
I was still
learning
what that
meant.

I said that
I understood
what you meant
and that
I wished you well.

I said
I would only
ever
think of you
fondly
and that
J.S. Bach’s
Sarabandes
would forever
make me
smile.

I said
you would be
okay
without me.

I said
I would let you
walk away
and that I
would
walk away
too
since that
was what
you wanted.

I said
I would not
look
b
a
c
k.

I walked until
you could no longer
hear
my footsteps
and then
I turned around.

But, for every
__t
_r
__u
___d
__g
___i
__n
___g
footstep
I had
taken,
you had
lightly
taken
three,

and you were
so far
g
o
n
e
that I
did not
have the
chance
to say:

I wrote you two letters,
and this
is the
second
one;

I will never
be
what I could have been
with you,
and far from
blaming you
for that,
I simply
hate
myself.

I do not
understand
what you meant.

I cannot
say
“Goodbye”
without also
saying
“but why?”

And,
as for Bach,
the
sarabande
from Cello Suite No. 2
will always
sound like
what could have been;
what should have been.

Black cat, green eyes;

Black cat, green eyes;

Steady like a streetlamp.

Curled in my direction.

Cypress trees

And Lillies.

Cats are so quiet
you can hear
your breaths
evaporate.

Black eyes, green world;

Stardust footsteps and
grass bending.

Flickering streetlight;

Steady rain.

Irises
and Lotus flowers.

One day
there will be no more
walls
drenched in
beige.

Black world, green dies.