wordplayground

because of you
i noticed little things.
all the palm trees i had never really seen.
the way i ordered my words and letters.
i noticed your hands on me
or mine on you,
and still wanted them to be there.
you were patient, and
i started seeing my own impatience.
i noticed you, 
which seems silly -
but it was new.
most importantly -
i really noticed myself.

i was always in such a hurry
to get to the next place,
the next person...
i wanted so badly just to finish this life.
i've rushed to so many good-byes
because i needed to leave first,
because i wanted it to end on my terms.
i was always running,
realizing who i had been once i was miles down the road.
running afraid - racing to any end in sight...

i came back to visit
(they call it coming home)
but all you could see
were the fragments i left behind
tiny pieces of myself,
pieces i forgot, but to you,
they're all that i am.
in the thirty seconds of your time,
i realized you had forgotten most of me,
and clung to little moments.
the years we spent together,
worked together, lived together,
the music, the parties, the jokes,
the smiles, the tears,
how could you forget?
you remembered the blood on the kitchen floor,
and in order to forgive your mom 
you had to hate me.
you remembered that i left,
and in order to forgive your dad
you had to hate me.
but part of you must remember
that there was so much more.
(i miss you)

smile, look up to the stars
they know that you're lying

i want to ask you
who you are (and why)
but we have only 
forty-five hundred
seconds
in a room
with forty-three others
so i'll never get the chance
(only 104.65 seconds each, 
speak quickly)
i'll leave with with only a roomful
of forgotten
first impressions
that isn't what i came here for
i wanted to know
who you are

you were focused on
bigger things
and i was focused
on the desk
that wasn't behind me
so even when you spoke
(hurry, spit it out)
i wasn't paying attention
i never gave you a chance
i kept
all forty-five hundred
to myself

in my nightmares
the little girl is just standing there
playing in front of the window 
in her white dress
and i want to tell her to be anywhere
except in that building 
in that white dress
on that day.

i want her to be far away
where little children are safe
somewhere
not in this world.

i was so busy proving i 
could be whatever i wanted
i forgot
what i most wanted to be
i was so busy being big
that i was left feeling so
very small
i didn't know where i was going
but i so convincingly
sold you on my plan
of each minute each mile each me
the picture was so big
but i was so small and
i lost myself
in those dreams
when i try to shake myself awake
i find
i'm on the verge of tears
without words
to express 
just how little
i've become

herded herded herded
i need
to sit down and breathe
but i
am being herded
i followed your rules
i even walked
part way 
on the sidewalk
but you 
herd me still
i need to breathe
some time and space
to discover myself
my hands shake
because 
i have difficulty
saying my own name
but i 
can easily articulate
my assigned number.

i need to stop
and wash my hands
of you
before i catch
this disease.

somewhat
subconsciously,
i sit against the right wall,
so no one could
possibly
sit diagonally
behind me
to the right
so no one could
possibly
take advantage
of me
like that
again.

i won't take the blame.
i'll say the planetary configuration
was aligned just so,
causing me to act as i did.
when my heart breaks,
i'll blame the stars,
for opening myself,
letting you in.
i read my horoscope, daily.
and i can't be held accountable
for acting in accordance.
i'll blame the astrologist
who thought it was a good time 
in my life
to trust
and fall in love.
when i'm without,
i'll blame the astrologist,
who writes my life
at a desk
in an office
i've never seen.
but i won't take the blame for this.
it was all in the stars.

a life lived alone may not really be a life lived at all.

these are days gone by.
girl, just a few bucks left to our name
and we've got it all.
all we ever needed was a couple pots of coffee -
but you gave us life,
then drained us of it.
why sleep nights when we've got our corner table waiting?
we were empty, but we found god in the arms and cups of the third shift servers.
we found a reason to get through the day.
people spend their whole lives looking for that,
and we had it at IHOP, open twenty-four hours a day.
then just up the block to darryl's mike's jay's caesar's jada's angelina's, your brother's,
girl, we could make our world here.
but in the end we got more than we had bargained for,
trade in those last few bucks for some coffee, stories, cigarettes, the corner table, a boyfriend, a baby...
all we had asked for was coffee and god.

...what happened to our nights, our coffee, our corner table?
we had found god.
those are days gone by.

running running running
now that something's gone wrong
i sat and did nothing this whole time
i stayed on the sidelines by choice
i listened, i wrote, i occasionally called,
i was never really there
but now, now that it's too late,
i'll fight for you, i'll stand, i'll cry
i'll come running running running
but i was never really there
of course, now i'd gladly let you
nag me, slap me, tell me lies
now i'll listen, i could even really be there
but you won't have the energy
to pick at our imperfections
to lift your hand to slap my leg
to even keep track of the lies you told
i'll come running running running
to find i don't recognize your face
but i was warned of that
i'll have nothing to say

throughout our conversation,
i could hear the ticking of my watch,
each second -
reminding me that time was slipping through our fingers,
our minds, our lives.
nobody wants to watch their best friend die,
but with each tick tick tick
i knew that i was.
how can i live with that?
i’ve been trained to save lives - 
i get paid to prevent death,
so how can i,
how can i
sit here
and watch her die,
to the ticking of my watch?

i find my own words cycling through my head:
ridiculous,
disgusting,
pathetic.
yes, this time those were my words.
what can i do with them?
echo those words,
so i can shove them down someone else's throat,
live vicariously through how they feel about my words.
but those were my words,
what will be left of me when i've so easily given them away?

you'll ask me these questions,
i know,
i try to come up with my answers.
what it really comes down to,
is this idea:
your god was holding me down.
see for a while,
i really needed something to hold me,
so i not only accepted it,
i fought for it.

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

it's a beautiful day,
yes, and im a beautiful girl.
tell me something i havent heard.
tell me you were wrong, 
and you really care.
oh, but ive heard that too.
tell me something that will make a difference in my life,
or in my day at least.
tell me what its like to be you.
tell me something passionate.
tell me you still want to kiss me
or hold me or take me away.
its a beautiful day,
i could see that for myself.

i can't sleep at night.
i'm terrified of sleeping at night.
so i drink endless amounts of coca-cola and coffee,
then i won't sleep at night.
instead i'll stay awake with my anxious ridden, caffeine high shaking hands.
because things happen at night,
bad things.
or if you sleep at night,
you might wake to something awful,
or at least once you did.
so it's easier to stay awake
until the sun rises at least.

what i really think:
using time as 
excuse reason explanation,
avoiding relationships for 
work school stress (time),
is 
(for lack of better words)
a chicken shit way to avoid feeling anything real.
something we maybe could have had,
maybe not,
maybe well never know.
but its a great way to never let down your guard,
never let someone it.
could you hear me knocking?
and then again,
i could be wrong.
i could be knocking on the wrong door.

this moment
is one of the most beautiful:
just after sunrise,
a light rain
splashing a thousand little circles 
on a pond,
and a thousand more ripples.
a family of geese:
mother, father,
two babies, still fuzzy and new to the world
and everything
is incredibly peaceful.

if you wanted to find god,
you should start looking here.
because if i were god,
i would be a place
as beautiful and peaceful as this.
and it says something - 
that god is always a place for me -
a place you could come to,
and a place to eventually leave.

if i fall asleep
will you watch over me,
keep me safe?
i'm scared of the dark,
so i'll sleep in the morning,
but if i close my eyes,
will you watch over me?
will you hold me?
(so i can rest peacefully)
will you wake me from my nightmares?
will you tell me it's okay?
(that's what i need to hear)
just hold me now,
whisper "it's okay"
because
i really
need
to 
drift
asleep.

i was alone.
"alone with god in this immense
shooting ground they call world.
alone with god,
so not really alone at all."
that's what i used to say -
"alone with god."
how i held onto that -
and it really got me through.
because now, 
i am really just alone.

if i danced,
(literally speaking)
i might dance like a dervish.
i would just possibly fall, 
madly.

what was it i was looking for?
i said i was busy filling a role
(christian, straight, vegan, gay, non-christian)
a role someone else created.
yes, i remember,
"i keep thinking i have to be something,
i have to have a definition."
so was i looking for something in particular,
or just to eliminate those boundaries?
was it a sex i wanted?
did it even have to do with sex?

at my grandparent's house, 
my sister and i would sleep on twin beds pushed up against each other.
i was safe when she was in the room with me,
but i used to think about how safe i would be on the other side of that crack.
on my sister's half.
i would stick my toes in that crack,
and if i had been a little smaller, 
i could have fallen through that crack in the bed,
i could have disappeared to a place where he could never touch me.
but i never made it through the crack, or even to the other side.
but i could at least imagine a half of the world where it was safe.

how are you?
"okay" (afraid alone uncertain)
what did you do today?
"not much" (coped cried repressed)

i'm trying to reconstruct my past
from bits and pieces that resurface,
only to quickly be repressed once more.
i don't know the extent of what you did to me.
do i want to?
am i better to be eaten away by the lack of truth or the full force of it?
both try to destroy me.
but if i survived you, i can surely survive this.

if i told you how i really felt
you might see how scared i am
but i keep it to myself
(i don't want to scare you away)
i tell myself that no one
(no one) wants to hear these things.
they don't.
but i also know it's everywhere,
and someone has to listen.
i don't even want to hear it,
but it's in my head.
so i go away.
disassociate.
find safety in a glass box of my mind.
a box that someday will break,
(it's cracking already)

you stood
in front of everyone
and read me poetry
you held my hand
kissed me
took me on that midnight hike
and fell in love
with an image of me 
(images fade)

and you 
you romanced me with your honesty
and passion
ant the two thousand miles
i was dreaming of
you knew where to find me
when i disappeared (barefoot)
and even knowing me better than anyone
you fell in love
with an image of me
(images fade)

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?

with time,
these pages that would have been your life
fade.

i thought, 
if i could just find the right pattern,
it would all go away.
but i found those five
(more than once)
and nothing changed.
i thought i would escape,
but there you all were,
making it worse,
rubbing it in,
that i could never answer
with "just fine"
(how are you?)
clarifying for me once more,
that i would have too much to say
(too honest)
i was trying to escape
(to a locked stall).
i found those five, 
but i still had too much to say.
i'm never "just fine."
are you?

let's say that night
(you know which one)
didn't happen.
and let's say your priorities shifted
(something other than getting high),
where would we be then?

maybe (just maybe)
we could start back at that night
and do things a little differently...

i am
an accumulation of someone else's knowledge
their words, their power,
even their self-definition
and in my process of self-discovery
(so conveniently labeled by psychiatry, as if columbus discovered america
   i would so honestly discover myself)
i formulate these things
into my self

if you ask me how i got here
i'll offer a million and one theories
i can't tell you what i wanted at the time
but i know i found what i was looking for
i never really hated you
i hated my own uncertainty,
insecurity,
i hated being all grown up
accidentally locked
inside a little girl's body
then i hated being twenty
inside a body falling apart

i saw the world from the inside
looking out
and i thought
maybe that's how god sees it
upside.down and backwards
maybe he is (she is) locked inside
and maybe
from that perspective
things don't look so bad
maybe backwards
the world looks good
and maybe, locked inside
god doesn't know the mess we're in
but from the inside, looking out
the whole world was crystal clear
and all could be understood
so maybe he (she) knows
but doesn't care
maybe he (she) is just watching 
in perverted fascination
as we
in his own image
self.destruct

i found god in a rock once,
(quartz i think)
half pink, half white.
and there god was,
just staring back at me,
through the cracks and jags,
smooth and rough stone.
but the skeptic in me
knows time made those cracks, 
not god
it wasn't god at all
that was just what i needed to see.

i lay me teddy bear on my cat's back. then the bear looks alive as it rides up and down with each breath. my cat doesn't even try to escape. and i think, crazy cat - you don't even realize the bear is holding you down.

i'll let you in
on my obsessive little imperfections
like ashing
no ash at all
or a long unashed evidence
of my distraction
like rolling the cherry 
to a point
a sharp burning point
i'll let you in
on these things
like untied shoes
divider plates
and the last three uneaten bites

play my theme song.
and you did.
i really found myself in that,
but then i realized
that lately,
i've discovered myself in a lot of new places.
so i'm learning i don't really need a set self-definition.
cause being desiree could mean a lot of different things.

i didn't forget you
i still question your reasons daily
have to have an answer
need to point a finger
you could have really been something
someone
and i know
you must have had this same fighter in you
i understand
i want to give up daily
but i don't
you did
what kind of a fight was that?
___________ _______ (______)

se iría
i try to think of you as something more
i try not to think of you at all
but those stars of yours
how could i forget?

(¿recuerdas? te di una estrella)

if only the ants on the ground could walk straight. dear mother, that's where things actually went wrong.

words, thoughts, messages
running through
echoing in my head
were those my words?
searching searching
sources can't be found
but the words 
incomplete
always there on the tip
on the tip of my pen
of my tongue
stutter
i could stutter an entire lifetime
before i get those words
right 
out of my head
wrong
the time, the place, the words
always wrong
echoes 
of the past
yes, this time those words were mine
someone else's words
ordered, defined by me
giving my insanity a voice
those were my words

what to do, what to do,
what can i do?
i choose my friends as they come,
sweat, hair undone, imperfections.
she doesn't even own the make-up
to cover the raw wound of her reality,
you,
you on the other hand
own all the newest products.
age-minimizing, redefining, concealing,
anything to cover how you came.

here is my hand.
take my fucking hand girl.
it's okay.
i want you to hold on.
i can't save you.
i just want to help you breathe.
(did you notice you stopped?)
i just want to take some of it away.
some of the pain.
through my hand.
take it
already
please.
watching you die
kills me too.
(did you know that?)
so just take my hand.
and slowly,
we could walk away,
and slowly,
you could breathe again.

dear mother,
i have something to tell you,
something you don't want to hear.

i revert
to a seven-year-old
crying over spilled milk,
afraid to admit
that my grandfather was dead
or that 
i never believed 
i was eating the body and blood 
of your jesus christ.

it could be just the two of us,
together, alone in a crowd.
we could win this fight.
but which two, and where?
i lose myself in the details
which battle would we fight?
and why? because,
i'm tired of running from
front to front.
previous positions undefended
in the meantime.
i just can't be the poster girl
for every violation of rights.
i haven't the energy to hold up
this sign, write this letter, to
educate the ignorant majority.
i can't be that anymore.
i am just me.
but i am willing to hold your hand,
to be the two of us.
just as soon as i know who you are.

i don't even know :
who 
or what
or how
i am.
i've been so busy filling a role 
  someone else created.
i've been focused on being
 christian 
 or vegan
 or non-christian
 or gay
 or straight
 or undecided
here i am
and i don't even know who
  desiree is
being desiree is only
something long hoped for

i've been standing at this door for over three months now.
pushing myself up against it - trying to see a wider angle through the peephole.
trying to make sense of the images through 6" square textured glass windows.
turning the handle - waiting for a reaction - nothing.
terrified that if i did open this door, that i would change my mind.
that i might not like the weather, or forget my jacket.
what if i try to come back in and i have all the wrong keys?
what if i hate it out there - what if i miss the comfort indoors?
so i stay here, pushing against the door, savoring every glimpse of the life i'm afraid of.
textured glass is pretty but you never see the whole picture.

(doors were meant to be opened!)

every time your name appears
i get this anger i'll define as guilt
and i feel i should have explained to you
that i meant well
i should have warned you, that

i want to save the world
fly a kite
be your best friend
raise a chimpanzee
live in a library, 
a jungle, a boat and a tree

and i say each one so honestly, earnestly, realistically
not knowing that i will break every promise i make to myself
to prove every sparkling point
that i am not all i said i would be

i am		
	scared
	insecure
	lost in the clouds
	even beautiful on random detached days