me – Poétique

Rendering

Uncertainty didn’t disappear before
passion— it was
positioned outside of you.

Looking for it—
Somewhere here inside of me

Not because you held power,
but because you built
an illusion that buffered you
from seeing where power
actually wasn’t.

Authority stabilizes uncertainty.
The bedroom becomes safety—
Sheets, a place where wanting
doesn’t have to fracture.

Don’t judge me for choosing hope.

I wouldn’t invite you
if I didn’t trust you
to be close,
to stay close.

Méfiance
ne m’a jamais appartenu.

I want your passion—
not to take it,
but to hold it
with my hands opened,
slowly enough to stay.

J’ai tellement à donner.

Axis

I move within lines that
Aren’t drawn by this room
I stand at the axis
The noise circles me

Somatic placement is
Readiness staging
Intentional allocation
Of expressive energy

Me watching you forget me
I opted out of carrying
What was never mine alone.

Self-possession under pressure
Willingness to be disliked
Without retreat
Refusal to trade this position
For your approval

Telling the self:
You wanted that—
It creates room to act
Not just room to survive.

That’s the space
I’m stepping into now

Voice inside the head says:
Choose yourself
Instead of disappearing

Remain unavailable
For emotional processing

This inner life
My sanctum
Wasn’t part of the equation

Somehow
My humanity didn’t register
As something to protect

Like I dreamed it did
Imagined it would
Wanted it to…

I’m intense
I can’t help it
Is that ok?
Can I be intense now?

Translate indifference
Into generosity
Interpret avoidance
As misunderstanding

Silly me absorbing the cost
Of preserving a bond
That isn’t mutual

Grandma said not to do that

Severing feels violent
Dignity wounds cut deep
I found my dignity
Underneath you

Someone said
I was seen as useful
Not relational

Petting my head
My inner voice said:
You’re losing the version of reality
Where your care was reciprocated.

Stop disappearing for people
Who don’t notice
The cost of your loss

Gravity

A basis for true objectivity
Withstands not a shred of
Evidence to extort all intelligence
If I slept next to you in bed
Could I keep my hands off of you!?

Macrocosmes and microcosms
Cannot breathe without a
Universe to exchange their
Need to consist of pyre being
Past lives in a pavilion
Of our scientific hearts

There are many ones
We are building moment by moment upon
Just as there are ones of many
A multifaceted nature
Existing as a part within
One another

Freedom is theirs to decide
We don’t have to do or
Be anything

We don’t want to be
Or do anything
Unless what we don’t
Want to be is
What we end up becoming

In space and time
Unwinding the length between us
In the sheets I can feel
Your skin next to me
A scaled form of what
Humans have been known to do
Regardless of the parts
Mundane to be held back
Why should we exist otherwise
Adjusting to what it means
Superficially to others

Our bodies make up the same
Weight and volume in decisions
Measured next to the stratosphere
Our heaviness is the same
A lightness as well
Both densities can be
Measured separately and equally
By each hair on our
Individual bodies
What grandiose metrics

In an embodiment of passion
O what dreams to suck on your tongue
A consciousness that fulfills and
Defines our mutual gravities

Fanfaronnade

Unrequited feelings that
Couldn’t love me the way
I hoped to feel grasping
At my ears I’m a little dizzy

Cramoisi in a rush to my lips
Giving everything with no
Expectation for return
I would tell them all about
How incredible you are
Overly boasting even

A seance of emotion
Calling all the forces in
Mumbling everything there is
To say about the world you
Left me with to protect
Myself from the things that
Couldn’t possibly move me
And love me the way one can
Read about from the texts of
Ninth century poetry like the
Sequence of Saint Eulalia
Early medieval dreams
Lest one should plot to
Chop off my head and
Throw me into a fire
I would not stitch my mouth
Shut to own all of heaven
For the truth of a fantasy love
I could prove only to my own heart
That you meant to love me
What’s all the fanfare about anyway?

Gathering the twigs underneath
Twilight he had remembered how
Impossible it was to erase the
Memory of wanting to do better
And the impeding thoughts that
Came crashing in when he opened
His eyes; my eyes peering out only
From thin slits each morning
To keep the power of a serene still
Distance that could also be a lie

But shouting to my mind
Was a gorgeous hope for
What could never be and
Perhaps what he saved
Hisself from closing the
Cellar door a manifesto to
Paint in words what only
Few will understand why
He still begat a procession
Of choked up themes
Including tears that wet the
Soil of a tender distress

Quiddity

Nobody’s meant to
Walk this earth alone
Can I wrap my head
Around you?

Remonstrate me
Take my birthday away
I’m fasting now
For your love

Hear the carnival sounds like
Their love that destroyed me in
Many ways I may have prevented
If I knew how much it would hurt
But so do many expectations and
Giving up the greatest love
To know what it looks like
To find it again is worth
Every second of the pain
Internal echoes of residual
Torture self inflicted
But only because letting go
Is impossible when the notes
Of the songs that you wrote
Are already an intrinsic
Part of these bones

Eat a sandwich
Blow your nose
Count your blessings
For those that let us go
We can always relive the memory
In our music and our poetry
In our letters and our photos
One two three
Do the next thing
Shake it off
Dig a hole in the beach
And bury that old part of me

Peevish

Too much makeup
And the current state of
Affairs that want to
Kill the peace

Fuck the system
You can hear them shouting
Outside loud and smug

Of course we want to
Join in grab a stake in the
Accusations that are
Tearing us apart
As the world does

Tuck it away
All the money they will take
Let it carry you away
From your passion
The things that make you happy
Never babe

That’s their way of
Hanging you upside down
And out to dry

Riding you hard
Sent to bury you alive
Live desperately
Crave absence

Only drowning and
Self suffocating

And barely breathing
We turn the corner
It makes perfect sense
To hang around

In case something
Better happens

Fighting for what you love
To stay alive

Insouciance

He asked me to open up,
So I unfolded like a rose —
A vibrant bloom in the corner of a loud café
Stories spilled like honey,
Slow and golden,
Meant to be shared
Feeling safe in his imaginary
Capable hands
I thought he could hold this

I wove him into every thread —
My laughter at the piano,
The way I pictured his lips
Pulling me closer on the couch
I was building a scene,
And he was in every frame

He said,
You only care about yourself.
Don’t you want to know anything…

…about me?
I said — Yes.
So much. So deeply.
Weren’t you listening?

Remember the list
Of questions I brought to you
On the first date —
Notes folded on the table
Like a small offering
Questions I tried to ask you
But he said that wasn’t real enough
He wanted organic spontaneity
Almost mourning being forgotten
In the light of his own shadow

I apologized.
Of course I did.
But he admitted —
He was baiting me
Setting traps of silence
Just to see if I’d fall in
Pass his test

He didn’t want to be known
He wanted to be missed.
Not understood —
Only pitied

And still,
I carry the one question
I meant to ask
Still wondering
What was the aria that played
In his proud blackened heart
While I was trying so hard
To sing what was only
A duet of darkness
Drowning in his insouciance

Temperate

You have your own life now
No time to hang out on the couch
When you have a cat waiting
For you at home a new life
That needs you

My body needs me to
Show up for it in a way
So I can relate

Like a transformer
Energy jolting through me
My brain is a conduit and
I can cause my pulse to go

Up and down up and down

There is a stretching in between
Giving in and giving up

Pulled apart in new ways
So that I can care not to be controlled
Even if I activate myself

Obsessed with the intensity
Causerie internal blah blah blah
Twilight calms it all
Down down down

If we push ourselves to feel
We can sense the self growing
Like my cat evolving

Is life a drug?
How can it be
Even when we’re sober

What is sober?

Senses

I can smell you
Even though you’re not here

I can taste the salt
At the edge of your neck
Even though I never have

Watch you grab the back
Of your head your fingers
Deep in your hair

Even this is art
To my eyes

The way you speak
Your ability to ask
For what you want

Like directing traffic
Unapologetically

There is a gap between
What we have and what is

But I can watch you from a
Different place and appreciate
You for all that you are

Whatever we think that is
Range of emotions

Watch the years grow by

Hold Me

Did I cross into this place
Here by mistake
I’m being careful
Not to wake you
With every step I take
It’s like paradise
To watch you sleep so sound
I tiptoe lightly on the ground
Like a feather where I’ve found
This remarkable creatures touch
That stings my heart
No one would believe me
If I told them what I saw

This moment is a soft bed
Made of love
And my face is close enough to feel
Your breath breathe
On my cheek
This warmth makes silence
Difficult to keep
I’m so still and yet so weak
Why am I so afraid to speak

So you can see
How deep my love can go
Would you answer me
If I let me feelings show you
Over and over again
Over and over again
I can’t pretend that I
Don’t want to know
What it would feel like
If you would hold me

I don’t want to risk the beauty
That we share
On the level we already have
The chance to be aware
But I also can’t deny
The way I feel
I’m like a bird inside your cage
Calmly waiting here until
Our fingers and our bodies
Can unite
It never has to happen
But I’ll take the risk it might

So you can see
How deep my love can go
Would you answer me
If I let my feelings show you
How deep my love
How deep my love can go
Would you answer me
If I let my feelings show you