fifteen

heart aches unexpected and i cannot fix it
and somebody precious cares for me no more
there, the same old litany runs though my head
once again, oh again; i learn nothing from before

he asks me for letters; how will I write them? how?
when I've tried all this while not to manipulate him
how can I try to use those same words now
to try and apologize, to calm and placate him?

i can see only waiting, and hoping, and wishing
but i cannot see a sign that this will end well
too many times, too many people have i
put through this version of my mental hell

and again i will run to corners dark and cold
clutch myself to myself and weep and bawl
how could he think i meant it the way he thought i meant it?
oh, does the boy not know me at all?

about boys

Did you miss me? And would you tell?
And if told you didn't know me well
Would you contradict, demur?
And convince them, certain – sure
That all the time together we spend
Has made me now your new best friend?

Or then again, are you aware
Of just how much I really care?
And is all this flattering attention
Just some thoughtful condescension?
Designed to keep this annoying slave
Off your back, get her to behave
With something approaching decorum
By treating her she's just a chum?

Oh, can't you see it's a mistake to
Talk to me as you would talk to
Any of your masculine friends?
It misses the point that it intends

By making me feel like I'm someone
Smart and charming and witty and fun
You make me think of just exactly how
much your company means to me now
You have me thinking friendship isn't hard
You got me letting down my guard

You are my easiest conversation
Antidote to my isolation

When I'm with you I can be truly
Me, and I don't worry unduly,
I don't panic, don't lose my head
Over something someone did or said

When I'm with you, there's only you
And me, in all the world just two
The two of us, then all the rest
Hmmm. I fear that I'm obsessed

I know I cannot help the way
I feel about you; and if I say
You make my day, my month, my year
I know you'll leave me standing here
Choking in a cloud of dust
As you run away, oh unjust!
Is it that wrong to show affection
My appreciation of this connection

I can feel you falling away from me
Biti by bit, slow, inexorably
And all the things you could have said
I had to say instead because you didn't
Pick up the pieces and fix my head
Because this time you couldn't, or wouldn't

Because I thought, with all that pain
that I really would have preferred
A comforting lie, excuse inane
Than wait for explanations never heard?

So all those things I told myself
Reached up, put the pain away on a shelf

One last thing, and then I'll go
One final thing that needed to be said
I loved you; and if you didn't know
You must have been blind, and deaf, and dead.

thinking about tomorrow

you smile, my heart turns
over, falls over, flips, like
pancake flapjack flop
and giggles gurgle on lips that
dream of other things
i cannot say out loud
at least until i know
for sure

right or left?

Now you see
That with me
Best policy
Is the honesty

And the smartest, too.

venus undone

every signal I send is wrong
and i, i am afraid again, afraid,
and i cannot tell what will happen except
that i will be unhappy,
and that's surely no surprise?
i cannot bear it i cannot and i do it
with a regularity and dedication that
surprises, the pushing away;
i go about it as systematically as war, because
of course it is war only i am my only enemy
and i will drive them away every one
until I'm all alone again

if there were a single person who could
who could call me on it i would cry, i would try
i would die and not be so miserable, perhaps

and i will write here these stupid words crying
out for attention like little starving babies
with big bellies, and i will still tell no one
continue to go to bed with heart
heavy and weary and weeping

and the ones i want to have asking about me have
all gone, gone; gone away and forgotten and
i cannot understand why i have to still hang on
to them, why; except perhaps that they
cannot leave and will not and
my head is a cruel and cold place to be right now

i want a chest i can bury my face in
and never step away from
only i am not ready for love or anything approaching
why have you forsaken me?

all gone

Sometimes I say things out loud
and it's the first time I've heard them
I take whatever little is given
And have not the confidence of a worm
What does it mean
when twenty two screams too late?
Oh, somebody stop by
and give me a purpose


I feel suddenly the urge
to reach out and touch someone

should have seen it

And I pretend that I take
buses for intellectual stimulation
for adventure
and people and pictures and words
But we both know
I only take the bus alone
because no one will ask me
to ride in the car

And I persist in forgetting
that none of them ever called me friend.

because

of the truths they tell
when your head is swollen
and the lies they tell
when your heart is broken

what else are the friends for?

spotlight

I stand at the mirror
practising smiles
and I wait for inspiration
For I cannot pretend
I've never been able
Not unless they know
Not unless I tell
Not unless it is
a production promoted
with bells and whistles
and a warning