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Literature Text
You see it coming from the men.
You see the ways their eyes linger on you
When they're looking around the room
The way their bodies brush yours when you're walking through the hallways to class
The way they stutter and look away when apologizing for the accidental contact of skin to skin
You see it coming from the men.
You never see it coming from me.
God, was the world not complicated enough already
Without causing me to notice the interplay of textures in her hands
The calluses like mahogany mountains carving ridges of stone
Into her palms softer than Impressionistic sunlight?
I'm not supposed to feel this way about another woman. I'm not supposed to sit here
With a star around my neck and daydream about the way her tongue could taste like cinnamon,
Like my grandmother's home, like gingerbread cookies and the dawn of Christmas morning
These words are blasphemy, so I call upon God to give me a reason for my emotions.
Wasn't the world fucked up enough already without this?
Cut the coffin wood and cut it thick. Give my friendships a good grave tonight,
Ones marked by marble and memory, because
I'll tell you that I love you and somehow we'll move to antipodes of the world, where
I'll search every worm tunnel for a pathway
Through the center of the earth, I'll thread a thin string through
Hoping we can talk on two tin cans like we did when we were children
Patch up the squabbles over bubble gum wrappers and who broke that toy
But you won't answer on the other side of that line
Because you're wondering where my hands went during our sleepovers when we were six.
And yes, I have wanted you,
But I would never do something like that.
So let me tell you what it means when I love a woman,
Because I think the picture in your mind right now is two-bit motels and a vibrator
Waking up at five AM alone with head lice and a bill for $50, a 5-digit phone number
And nowhere to go.
To me, you are the laughter of God
Dancing into being on this green earth; the measure of your beauty cannot be contained
By the numbers of some meaningless set of scales. I am floored by the weight
Of the iron in your eyes, the strength in your smile, the kindness in your arms
When I say that I love you, I mean that if every other voice on the planet went silent except for yours
I might not notice for another thirty years, might not notice ever
But when your song breaks for a moment, I never forget.
To my girl like a star,
I want the privilege to wish in your glow
To walk on my way and know you are watching me
Like a constellation watches a child with leukemia
We are both praying to each other
That things will get better.
I would sanctify myself in the redemption of your hands.
If you would want me to.
Your favorite color is the blue of the new morning sky in Colorado in December.
Your favorite smell is evergreen and peppermint.
The first image you remember is the rabbit pattern on your moth-bitten baby blankie;
We have already had the conversations of lovers.
I told you that I love you and you changed the lock on your collarbone, but I remember a time
When I walked on the back of your retinas; I have seen the shadows in the corners of your irises
You have unbarred for me the cobwebbed door that stands creaking
In the back of your dreams like the memory of a suicide
We have already had the conversations of lovers.
I have already fallen asleep holding your hand.
So if love is really defined by the soul, let your lips meet mine, because we are cut
From the very same tattered green cloth; if you had never known I am a woman
Would you have fallen in love with me?
I believe you would have.
You see the ways their eyes linger on you
When they're looking around the room
The way their bodies brush yours when you're walking through the hallways to class
The way they stutter and look away when apologizing for the accidental contact of skin to skin
You see it coming from the men.
You never see it coming from me.
God, was the world not complicated enough already
Without causing me to notice the interplay of textures in her hands
The calluses like mahogany mountains carving ridges of stone
Into her palms softer than Impressionistic sunlight?
I'm not supposed to feel this way about another woman. I'm not supposed to sit here
With a star around my neck and daydream about the way her tongue could taste like cinnamon,
Like my grandmother's home, like gingerbread cookies and the dawn of Christmas morning
These words are blasphemy, so I call upon God to give me a reason for my emotions.
Wasn't the world fucked up enough already without this?
Cut the coffin wood and cut it thick. Give my friendships a good grave tonight,
Ones marked by marble and memory, because
I'll tell you that I love you and somehow we'll move to antipodes of the world, where
I'll search every worm tunnel for a pathway
Through the center of the earth, I'll thread a thin string through
Hoping we can talk on two tin cans like we did when we were children
Patch up the squabbles over bubble gum wrappers and who broke that toy
But you won't answer on the other side of that line
Because you're wondering where my hands went during our sleepovers when we were six.
And yes, I have wanted you,
But I would never do something like that.
So let me tell you what it means when I love a woman,
Because I think the picture in your mind right now is two-bit motels and a vibrator
Waking up at five AM alone with head lice and a bill for $50, a 5-digit phone number
And nowhere to go.
To me, you are the laughter of God
Dancing into being on this green earth; the measure of your beauty cannot be contained
By the numbers of some meaningless set of scales. I am floored by the weight
Of the iron in your eyes, the strength in your smile, the kindness in your arms
When I say that I love you, I mean that if every other voice on the planet went silent except for yours
I might not notice for another thirty years, might not notice ever
But when your song breaks for a moment, I never forget.
To my girl like a star,
I want the privilege to wish in your glow
To walk on my way and know you are watching me
Like a constellation watches a child with leukemia
We are both praying to each other
That things will get better.
I would sanctify myself in the redemption of your hands.
If you would want me to.
Your favorite color is the blue of the new morning sky in Colorado in December.
Your favorite smell is evergreen and peppermint.
The first image you remember is the rabbit pattern on your moth-bitten baby blankie;
We have already had the conversations of lovers.
I told you that I love you and you changed the lock on your collarbone, but I remember a time
When I walked on the back of your retinas; I have seen the shadows in the corners of your irises
You have unbarred for me the cobwebbed door that stands creaking
In the back of your dreams like the memory of a suicide
We have already had the conversations of lovers.
I have already fallen asleep holding your hand.
So if love is really defined by the soul, let your lips meet mine, because we are cut
From the very same tattered green cloth; if you had never known I am a woman
Would you have fallen in love with me?
I believe you would have.
Literature
i want to tell you
imagine a world without gender
a world where we are not confined
to the arbitrary interpretations of
an inexact biology. imagine we could
rise above the places
below our waists, reside instead in
graceful hands, in angled cheekbones
in some deeper conception than this
skewed perception of you.
I strip myself bare of unforgiving flesh,
squinting behind dim caverns of girl parts--
what are girl parts? all we have are beating
hearts.
I sit inside this trembling body, shoulder
to hunched shoulder,
stacks of bones too unsure
to be brave enough to tell you that
my gender will never fit on the plastic sign
above a bathroom door.
a
Literature
Girl, Fifteen, To A Lover She'll Never Meet
Thursday nights are silver screened.
At nine, it's time once again to air
the prelude to a dream.
I wait, eyes square, for the immaculate
contours of your face to appear:
the features of a lover I'll never meet.
It seems strange to say
(a kind of admission of defeat),
but to be honest I'm OK
with the pause, rewind, replay
that makes up our relationship.
You have to admit,
knowing I'd never flip
channels or walk out when
you're in a scene
is a devotion, of sorts.
I expect nothing in return.
I know you know nothing of me.
But I can't help but love you;
your close-ups, your scripted smile,
the way you lean towards the screen
Literature
the less i know
something new: my breath hitched but the words meant nothing.
i owed the light peserverent flattery in the form of prose,
stories of what could have been.
the gloom in which i slept was a system altogether unable to measure up to the new universe;
to exist together in perfect cognition is first to understand that i never wish to be better.
how pitiable this impure form to which we all succumb
littered with stars. i am temporary like them, almost, always and never.
I have forgotten how to live. it is late mornings during which i upturn my lazy eyes to the sky
against it's will. there, like you, live millions- and my mind is reborn.
t
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In case nobody's figured it out yet, I like girls too. I like boys, but I also like girls. Bi. By the way. Anyways, I wasn't going to upload this - it's more personal, and I actually use it in slams - but I think a friend might want to use it in her school.
Comments118
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Overall Vision
Originality Technique Impact"to a woman"- I find that this title is funny, somewhat of a misnomer considering that you seem to be directing your focus to one in particular. Just a thought, not a criticism.
Your poetry is incandescent, with great use of imagery and metaphors. Seriously. I have never read a piece where I so thoroughly enjoyed all of the metaphors and similes.
There's a different kind of emotion behind your love poetry shown here, something rich and unhappy-go-lucky that is easily detected and gives this whole new dimension to your writing. I've read flat love poetry and written some of it, too, and this is nowhere close to any of that.
Punctuation for this piece isn't necessary (your period placement kind of throws the reader off of the beat). Maybe it sounds more well-construed when you read it at slams, but on paper it's off-beat. Pay a little bit more attention to details with the rhythm, and it will improve your poetry greatly.
Keep writing.