wordplayground

you disappeared too quickly and
there is a sea of unspoken words
stretched over these miles, and
this time it is your distance,
not mine.

i step forward and back, afraid
i might cross a line without knowing
where it lies, yet knowing it exists.
have i said too much? or maybe not
enough.

every part of me
wants to make this right
except one,
and this time around
i'm listening.

six years ago
i saw myself in these birds
scavenging
whining
moving on.

today i am this broken bird
damaged
silent
alone,
dragging a broken wing,
watching in disbelief
confusion
as the other birds move on.

you saw that broken wing
and i...
i never saw it coming.

i made my peace
with these breaks
i must carry,
and i will not be broken by you.

i drag my wing across the sand
moving on.

liberation so defined
in the end was equally 
damning. the grass is
always greener and i 
carelessly allowed one
door to close while
opening another.

constantly longing 
for a definition, i 
would anchor to
anything within reach,
then self-impose the
boundaries. in failure
i would return to the
darkness and frustration,
bottled up in the vain
attempt for success.

coming full circle now,
i realize the definition 
falls short, not myself.
there are no doors.
no windows. no walls.
i created this scenery
to mesh with one world
view or another, 
always thinking my own
insufficient.

desire would remain
unquantifiable and i 
would continue the search 
for a prime number.

wrapped in mesh,
a metaphor for how i tried to expose myself
selectively.
i used to hand out pieces
spread so thin so
no one could make a whole
from their collection.

sometimes things just happen
despite your meticulous planning of
the way things should be.
fists clenched against this formation
of time and events is futile,
and although you would search for 
the rational truth or explanation,
none would be found for years to come,
because truth needs a larger context in
which it can be nurtured and grow.
my hand in yours just happened
this way without respect of the purpose
you defined. i never intended these
moments lying next to you, and even 
though it would demand a reordering of principles,
to refuse would be to turn my back
on the radiance of the setting sun
for fear of the dark of night
which inevitably follows.

your fingers whisper
softly across my skin,
relishing each imprefection
until all in turn felt perfect,
bringing forth a wet river
of heavy breathing and a 
racing heart, which
in the interludes, hesitatingly
(and yet without hesitation)
opened itself to you
as never before.

my heart, which so often 
gave the perception of open-
ness, knows it has been shielded,
alone. it builds a window, but
your fingers, experienced in 
these things
do not want what's inside.
my heart wants recognition
of the window, because people
actually had to die
in its construction.
"look at me" it cries
(silently) and with pride, but
your fingers do not hear.

they are preoccupied 
with finding the answer to life, and
my heart could only 
answer for itself.

i squeezed a little harder, thinking i could choke you off in this anger, but found nothing remained. what had i been holding on to all this time? and how long had my hands been empty? i thought we had been alone but when i lifted my head you were nowhere to be found. just a sea of faces and i find i am only 17, consumed with a self-centered paranoia, and i think their whole ocean will come crashing in on me. just as quickly i close my eyes and forget even those faces which offered everything and would receive nothing in return. later i would say there was this girl. there was this boy. and everything they had offered would be reduced to a sex. all i had seen was that vast ocean and even in my best moments i could never bring a face into focus.

i'm sinking slowly into a pit that oozes a slimy, sticky version of self-pity,
thinking i'm alone and disjointed from all the clean dreams of what i want.
alone in the way that hits you when you're so constantly with someone else,
never able to discern your self in the void of self-inflicted doom.
like how on thursday and sunday i slept with a boy to my left, friday and saturday
with the girl to my right. (the use of indirect or directness has no meaning,
these are empty words that beat my insides until i gave them rest on the page).

let me go back to another time, 
another day, 
and start over.
there have been too many tears, 
at twenty-three
my well is running dry.
too many loves, 
too many introductions,
good-byes,
too much packing, unpacking,
too many memories in storage.
there are too many unread books,
unplayed c.d.s,
pictures in boxes,
too many faces i remember
only when reminded.
too many numbers:
714. 949. 805. 661. 219. 317.
she doesn't live here anymore.
change of address,
times sixteen.
and who could keep up?
maybe that was the point.
and while i may have been sincere,
i shorted every
one
along the way.
i was looking in so many directions,
my mind racing with so many thoughts, 
you could be two feet to my right,
or two thousand miles to my left,
and i would still be in a world of
make-believe, where

this
this piece of paper
is a piece of my best friend
it's ripped apart
she did that
ripped the paper apart
like how she rips apart her life
in the end,
all we're going to have
is pieces

i only stop on prime numbers
because i want something real
something that can't be 
divided or broken down or
overanalyzed
or even simplified
you probably never could give me that
(would you even want to?)
it's ridiculous
corny
even normally pathetic
but
i want to fall in love
madly, head-over-heels in love
and i'm tired of settling
because i'm scared i'll never have that
but i want a prime number,
why should i settle for less?

my favorite pajama pants have a hole between the legs
makes it so i could make love to any boy without taking them off
like sex without revealing who i actually am
but i don't want to make love to any boy
i don't want to feel old and out of breath as if i were sixty
i want the new flannel pajamas that were my closest thing to a father
i want youth and innocence and wide questioning eyes
what happened to those things?
i am not the same
i have a father now
but i also have a pair of dirty pajamas with a hole between the legs
that's what growing old is, dirty worn out clothing

my grandmother's medical tape is so old it is sticky on both sides
the poorly bandaged wound on my foot sticks to the ground when i walk,
the something that has held me down my whole life.

at the advice of her brother my desperate aunt bought a heavy duty garbage disposal
now she can throw everything in the sink and with the flick of a switch grind all the crap of life to nothing.
that's what life is, repression in the form of medical tape or a heavy duty garbage disposal.

when i was seven i crossed the entire pacific ocean on a piece of wood that i ripped from my grandfather's casket. i ended up in a land where i didn't recognize the people or understand the language. i survived on the kindness of strangers, who fed me food and lies. i was discovered by my family when i was fourteen and they spit the truth in my face. i couldn't handle it. i yearned for the foreign land where i was alone with my thoughts, the lies, and the memory of a grandfather. i tried to go back to the foreign land, but the strangers saw the truth in my eyes and would not feed me anymore. i returned to the family that despised me, they took me in out of obligation. i learned to fear and to hate and to love and to fend for myself. i learned that there really is no point, no meaning to it all. the best i could do was feed a needy stranger food and lies.