1st
11-01
1
You say that I am pretty
when I forget how to be angry
You touched my face just once
to show me that you felt what you said
well now that’s all well and good
but it can’t fix what I know
You try to take it back because you should
It’s nobody’s fault that you don’t love me
nobody’s fault that I don’t care
You thought you saw me down there in the water
but the truth is I was never really there
You say that I am pretty
that my beauty is a mystery
You looked into my eyes just once
to show me that you saw what you felt
Well now that’s all well and good
but it can’t fix what’s broken
I wouldn’t take it back now, even if I could
It’s nobody’s fault that you don’t love me
nobody’s fault that I don’t care
You thought you saw me down there in the water
but the truth is I was never really there
2
You are the kind of person
I want to tell things to
Big things and trivialities
I don’t know how you feel
but I know how it feels to be with you
Like a kid with a shiny new toy
fascinated by the shape of the thing
pushing every button to find out
how it moves, what it will do
It makes me smile to think of you
Feeling 13 instead of 31
it’s fun
wondering if maybe
you’ll tell me some things too
3
Time and distance
are unfair demons
twisting the past
to upset the present
4
That door has been closed
for too long now.
The hinges stick
and there is no distinction
between the frame and the rest.
No light, no air, the knob also refuses to turn
There is a reason
to keep it shut
there is solace in its solid bulk
Let it remain unyielding to the tug
stop the banging and walk away
That door has been closed
for too long now.
Closed is how it should stay.
5
Panic
now that what you never wanted
is what you can’t have
Chase
what you once ran from
tightly hold it in your hand
6
clean white sheets
lose their appeal,
she thinks,
when no one is around
to say goodnight
7
Voice hoarse from the shouting
body spent and aching from giving
she cries out silently
“This is not the life I had planned!”
After a brief respite
the cycle begins again
and as she cradles this new life
wondering how there can be so much joy
borne from so much pain
she fingers the scar on her belly
and fears that it will fade
that she might forget what she traded
for the choices she has made
