Tag: poetry

Shrimp and Needles

by Lindsay, posted in poetry

For dinner you had shrimp and needles with a side of word salad,

After reaching for the cat that kept ringing because you couldn’t slice the light.

All the while your scissors aren’t keeping your foot warm because it’s not feel good.

And you use a clock for it’s 11:35.

And the time is good and it is today.

And you are here because you are not hungry right now.

And you are here because you are with me.

And you are here because your brain is bad.

And the boys drove cars over houses, so they jump over houses with their cars.

I don’t know.

I love you.

I’ll cook you later.

https://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/aphasia/

The Fall

by Lindsay, posted in poetry, writing

Golden flame leaves against piercing blue sky

Through the window I stare

From my bed.

I label colors, objects.

I label with language. Language which has no emotion.

I stare through my window for hours

As lifetimes pass me by.

157,680,000 seconds

or minutes?

Through my veiling shroud I cannot read the clock or feel the weather that would hit my face if I mustered strength enough to throw open the window as I would’ve done six months ago.

(Thrown open the window to feel the

joy of sunshine, the jubilation of wind

on cool skin, the serene content of

sapphire sky.)

I lay still.

I label.

tree

yellow

sun

sky

My language has no emotion. My language has no actions.

My words have shapes, but I cannot touch them.

They have textures that I cannot feel.

(I recall a time when yellow sun

took the form of arms wrapping

around skin. The texture is joy,

belonging, hope, content.)

My language is words is perception as seen through a screen

through a screen

through a screen

Muted distortion.

Though just yesterday my sorrowful thoughts jabbed a dozen dull needles into my stomach.

Jab is action.

Sorrowful is emotion.

Today

bed

blanket

window

branch

twig

roof

gutter

I don’t know if I ever experienced a day lived absently looking through my window like a few of the days I lived this fall. I am a couple months past these days now. I wrote this looking back on the most poignant day, the height of the worst you could say. If you have these days now, I feel you.

If Someone Asked If You Had Felt Loved by Me, Would You Say No?

by Lindsay, posted in poetry, writing 
The words they warmed me.
As they rolled off my tongue
I swallowed them whole.
A mug of hot tea in my belly.

My love for you was honesty.
To care enough to share what bothers,
Was to want you here
With me. You and me.

My love for you was time.
A day spent sewing a pillow.
Learning with careful practice,
Then setting with tender design.

My love for you was in the details of the stitches.
Holding the edges together,
Keeping the stuffing in place.
But maybe you didn’t need stitches.

Maybe you needed duct tape – fluorescent.
To be placed exactly where you told me.
And no last minute alterations.
But if altered by you…. It’s O-KAY. Okay?

Okay.

Maybe my love was as you said
My emotions were – kept to myself.
A secret book of poems that
I DON’T SHARE with anyone.

I shared just one with you.
I should’ve published a book of poems.
Maybe then you would’ve felt
My love for you.

My love for you was not a bomb.
Exploding in hot frenzy.
It wasn’t a cyclone, squall, or windstorm
With seconds-only notice.

My love is a warm
Drip
Drip
Drip Drip
D R I Z Z L E
SWOOOOSHHHH
That leaves you drenched in mid-July
Did I accidentally give you an umbrella?

Maybe you did feel loved by me
But denied it with contempt.
Masked guilt of having prematurely thrown me
Into your hurricane.

 

The bitterness I was feeling as I wrote this cannot be masked. It amazes me how when I sit down to write one thing, it feels as if it has a mind of its own. What started as melancholy began to ooze resentment. When I think of my last relationship, at times I feel my stomach turn. For a while I believed my ex lacked the self-awareness he needed to control himself and to recognize what was happening. As time passes, my view of him has yet to soften as it has with other ended relationships. Everything now feels intentional, vindictive, and dark. Other times I think I must be crazy for thinking this way, as if I am the one lacking the necessary level of self-awareness. There were times he was so full of kind gestures and actions, it’s hard to reconcile my opposing views of the same person. I’m still trying to work through it and make sense of it. Writing has been the most helpful form of therapy I have yet to find.

The Moon It Follows Me

by Lindsay, posted in poetry

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The moon it follows me.

Peeking over clustered roofs,

Through branches and quivering leaves.

I saw it in my window last night, I swear !

It’s bald face staring down at me.

I ran down to the ocean

To beg the sea to take me away,

But there it was,

Its brilliance in light,

Scattered all around me.

I’ve been to the moon before (and unexpectedly stayed awhile).

Moon air filled my lungs,

Silver dust coated my skin.

Its scent soaked into my hair.

Of gunpowder, did you know?

I placed my two hands on his bald face to feel what makes him whole.

I laid my wrists across cratered scars so he may feel the beat of a pulse.

I let my tears fall onto chalk skin so he too could learn the texture of water.

He gave my pulsing blood a tide and presented a magnificent earthrise.

And now I cannot unsee the most beautiful sight my eyes have ever seen.

One day I happened upon his farther side,

The side you cannot see.

It is darker and colder than you could ever imagine a place to be.

My footprints on the moon, now forever far from me.

I left the moon, and still — the moon it follows me.

The Anchor Sinks

by Lindsay, posted in poetry

The anchor sinks
 
            deep
 
 
                                    deep
 
 
 
 
                                                                        d
 
 
 
                                                                        e
 
 
 
                                                                        e
 
 
 
 
 
                                                                        p
 
and settles into the muck. It is mired there when the chain eventually (and inevitably) breaks away. The anchor remains for seven hundred and thirty-nine years, collecting barnacles and exposing the curiosities of fish.

My Swelling Heart

by Lindsay, posted in poetry, writing

My Heart swells for you.

As a plant takes in water

and the leaves become full

turning lush green,

my cheeks grow pink

from blood pumped by

my swelling Heart.

I wrote this poem for my ex-boyfriend several months ago. He was away on vacation and I had a community acupuncture date with a friend. I had never tried acupuncture before and was excited to give it a whirl. Seated in the room with a dozen strangers, all in cozy chairs and blankets, I suddenly felt trapped and anxious. The weight of the cotton blanket feeling more like the lead aprons used at the dentist office when taking x-rays of your teeth. I was acutely aware that I couldn’t make noise as I would disturb all the quiet, meditative people around me. After what felt like 50 minutes, but was probably 15, my big eyes pleaded at the acupuncturist to come over. “Had enough?” he said (apparently aware of my discomfort). “Yes, I need to go.” He took out the needles, and then I went to shed a few tears in the bathroom. I was confused and did not understand why I felt this way. A woman who came in the bathroom as I was leaving expressed that sometimes acupuncture can feel unpleasant if we have a “block” since acupuncture can release those “blocks.”

I sat outside on a stone bench. Late winter. Heavy white somber clouds pressing down on my head. I took out the acupuncture flyer in my bag and wrote the above poem on the back of the flyer. It completely captured how I felt about my boyfriend and the effect he had on me. When I was done, I placed the flyer in a random page in a book of E.E. Cummings poetry that I had in my bag. Later that evening I took a look at the page that I had randomly selected and found that the E.E. Cummings poem so beautifully expressed what was happening in my relationship with my ex (conflict in love leading to a “blossoming” of two people)… or so I thought at the time.

My relationship with my ex ended over five months ago. It lasted seven months in total. During the first three months together, my experience with him completely changed the way I viewed romantic relationships in the most positive and beautiful way I could imagine. Then it dramatically changed. The second half of our relationship was punctuated by intensely loving moments often followed by anger, confusion, and volatile behavior. In the months since the break up, which is now almost equal the time we spent together, I have struggled immensely to let go.  I went into my relationship upbeat, happy, and active in my life. Weeks after I chose to leave the relationship, I felt like an empty, broken shell of myself.

This blog is a place for me to send my thoughts and emotions out into the world. I plan to share more than just thoughts on my ex, as he was only a blip in my life, but for now this is the starting point.