i never thought it would happen

someday I'll move to the forest

noreply@blogger.com (marit) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:58:00 +0000

cities are like family
in that you hate them
out of love
badly bruised.

we all say
the same shit:

we despise
the subway's jolt
of claustrophobia,
the airlessness, the subtle
violence pressed
between bodies.

we hate the dirt,
the rats,
over-priced beer.

but I cannot be the only one who loves
what I also fear,
or no one else would live here.

Is it love
we've come to hate
or hate we've come
to love?

5 AM

noreply@blogger.com (marit) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 11:53:00 +0000

I've stayed
awake
too long
trying to devise
a litmus test
for love
like any
great thinker
or madman might

cataloging
every impetus
counting
every sentence
like a mathematician
with only numbers
to live for
survives

I cannot see
the unseen --
I know this

yet,
how am I to believe
you love me
so easily?

the caged animals & I

noreply@blogger.com (marit) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 05:59:00 +0000

the anger
eventually
died

as a chained elephant
might

even I was not
on my side:
where is righteousness
in injustice
unrecognized?

like a circus
bear forgets
ferocity,

or a zoo monkey
forgets what it's like
to climb free

sometimes I forget
it's not my fault
I can't even
breathe

but despite
what has died
the caged animals & I
survived

amongst death there is life.

I didn't want to know

noreply@blogger.com (marit) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 04:01:00 +0000

I want to go back
to that
liminal space
where I was
waiting
but did not yet know
what was.

Here, knowledge is certain
as death.

How can I find
a space to breathe
without the expanse
of possibility
before me? I no
longer have
the escape
of wonder. I know.
And in knowing,
have trapped myself
in the solidity
of truth.

Perhaps this is why
I missed the signs.

only god loves unconditionally, mother said

noreply@blogger.com (marit) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 17:55:00 +0000

I sleep outside the covers
this is why I pay for therapy
when I can't afford cigarettes

I peel
lies

like strips of paint
from the whitewash
of my family myth

and yes,
sometimes I cry,
refuse to speak,
or forget to trust
in happiness,
but it's what I've found
in spite of this:

my mother lied
love does exist

I have blamed myself

noreply@blogger.com (marit) — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 16:20:00 +0000

He is here. Now. At the cafe. I quiet
my chewing to not attract attention. He is
still there. Still creaking the table
as he rocks his chair back, back,
forth, forth. Familiar, that struggle,
like a halting breath forced through
tears.

then,
as I search for the exit
(or a place to hide)
I look back
to see a man
I no longer recognize.

If sins are weighed
with silence
my guilt is certain
as time

for all the years
I've tried to leave him
behind, it is I
who has harbored him,
this nightmare,
as I stand shaking
while he's not even here.

I'm still here

noreply@blogger.com (marit) — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 01:49:00 +0000

I may never get beyond
the borders of poverty
or end up anywhere
other than where I am,

this hometown so far
from grace God can't hear
young girls pray.

but in this place
where I have grown
away from what
I have known

I have turned a hell
into a home. I have
reclaimed my own.

I left my dreams to die

noreply@blogger.com (marit) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 01:57:00 +0000

the first summer alone
I was just another
lonely teenager
looking for answers
in a bookstore
with a sense that
Wuthering Heights might
be the saddest book
I could find
in a summer of want
I needed something
parked behind the church
amongst long grasses and weed
with tragedy too real
to read and Brontë becoming
blurry quickly, I fill margins
with private yearnings
like I'm picking out burs
of pain with ink

I wish I knew better
than to wish

for what I've wanted
has, like Brontë, been left
to dust while I return to life,
the unpredictability of life,
with poetry like I never
would've guessed,
with happiness bigger
than I could have known
or even wished for

let dreams die
I have left
for life

mummy

noreply@blogger.com (marit) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 04:59:00 +0000

I thought I was through
losing you

I wrapped myself in loss
as if it were
bands of cloth
until I could not see

I had to admit
you were gone
to unbind
my own grief

how could you
come back
to me now
with talk
of the undead?

I have tried to move on

I have tried to improve myself

noreply@blogger.com (marit) — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 18:45:00 +0000

If all I perceive is the gap between
who I am and who I want to be

who, then, is left to see
me be me?

Have I masked
myself with dreams?

remember when we used to talk

noreply@blogger.com (marit) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 02:35:00 +0000

I am
too old
to waste

words on what
I know -- coffee, French
modernism, specific
Shakespeare sonnets --

let us speak instead
of feelings
unknown

like this knowledge,
I don't know what
to call it, this knowledge
we have to go back
to the beginnings of this,
this emotional illiteracy,
to communicate properly:

we can be
messy

every day
I love you solely

only
this silence
is draining me
slowly

I have always been lonely

noreply@blogger.com (marit) — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 15:51:00 +0000

I've never been
as perfect
as strangers
seem to be

if others are
made of water
I am made of sea

if I could just
convince myself
of belonging

no levee
could ever stop me

almost life

noreply@blogger.com (marit) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 23:39:00 +0000

my only she-finch lay
four eggs, sky blue,
pulsing with life
like eyes up close.

one slipped
from the nest
and broke
across the wire
cage floor. the tiny
embryo slid between
the slats underneath.
I made sure the birds
were still asleep
as I cleaned up
the pieces of what,
I wondered, was this, was
this what amounts to a life?

somehow I thought
she wouldn't notice,
but she spent all day
counting three eggs
where there should
have been four.

watching this,
I can't help but wonder if
loosing possibilities
is what makes it hardest --

how do I grieve
what I hardly knew?

the devil and andrew jackson

noreply@blogger.com (marit) — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 16:20:00 +0000

forgive me,
I am no closer
to understanding
than I was
as a small child
trying to learn
how to bead like
the Cherokee
but learning
the trail of tears
instead,
alone in my room
I read:

this Andrew Jackson,
this man behind it,
wore my skin
called himself
Presbyterian
like I did

how could it be
that the devil
could look just
like you and me?

my brother plays the piano

noreply@blogger.com (marit) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 15:24:00 +0000

my brother
used to sing

its been so long
since I heard him
it began to feel like
maybe I never had

like pregnancy
without
childbirth

the loss
consumes
the life

but maybe life itself
cannot be lost:

in my brother's voice
his piano sings

in the kitchen

noreply@blogger.com (marit) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 15:38:00 +0000

the old potato inside
my cupboard
has started
to sprout

as if it can sense
spring

better than those
who can see the sun

maybe the potato
should be the flower
of love

something stronger
than a rose

for while bouquets
grow old
potatoes simply
grow

never coming home

noreply@blogger.com (marit) — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 20:19:00 +0000

it is
raining outside
the booth

and my hands
(yes, both hands)
clutch
the wet plastic
receiver

and I'm
shaking

just
waiting

as if his voice
could be violent
(can voices
be violent?)
as if he could
reach me here

and it's still
ringing

and I'm still
shaking

but I might not
be able to
say it

even though
I earned
this

it's not worth
the worry
to even say
goodbye

I mustn't forget

noreply@blogger.com (marit) — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 12:06:00 +0000

scars remove pigment yes
yes they leave behind
holes.

but these empty spaces
are ours now
to fill
to over-water
to overflow.

we could be different

noreply@blogger.com (marit) — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 13:57:00 +0000

what if
I loved you
in spite
of everything

bore the weight
of feeling
like the canvas
of an artist might

could we rewrite
the ending

become something
we both
like

though chance
may seem
against
us

I can't help
but fight

slowly we mend

noreply@blogger.com (marit) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 11:51:00 +0000

the chipmunk
we call
Herman
has come
to trust me.

I spread seed
across the porch
every day &
every day he comes
closer,

as long as I don't
move much,
at least not
at first.

remember
the first
time I cried
in front of you?

you didn't move
except to lightly
touch my knee
like you were
somehow sorry.

this
is how
careful
I try
to be.

nothing comes from nothing

noreply@blogger.com (marit) — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 23:16:00 +0000

when I lived in the city
I left often
to walk to a church
where I did not belong.
cathedrals are marvelous
at conjuring the presence
of a fictitious god,
a college professor once said.
I would not know. my parents
are Calvinists.

but from the outside,
where I sat on stone steps
and did not pray,
I felt something. it was
almost enough
to make me cry.

I could never go
inside.

to the other girl

noreply@blogger.com (marit) — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 14:02:00 +0000

I.

My then-boyfriend told me
how you loved your father

although he hit
your mother
he never
touched
you

He told me that was beautiful and
I said, hey she’s my friend and all but
what about her mother?

II.

The morning after
it does not show on your face or
in your hands but
I hear it in the hallway and
your blonde head hangs high -

III.

When I believed in God I wrote you a letter in red ink
tore it apart and made a collage
because isn’t that what forgiveness is?
- the willingness to recreate even after?

IV.

There is a swan that lives
in the swamp in my backyard
I think she lost her sister

sometimes she bleats alone

a letter to burn

noreply@blogger.com (marit) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 01:34:00 +0000

you might not be
in prison

if you chose
to run to Mexico
I wouldn't know

if you live
or have died
either way
I'm fine

better
than fine,
never been
more alive

now that you won't
now that you don't
now that you can't

see me
shine

the lies were not enough

noreply@blogger.com (marit) — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 18:26:00 +0000

memory slips
and sheds like that
snake I found
by the begonias

again holding
the skin of what
once was

I am left
something
different:

I have seen the truth

The Kindle Blog Report: i never thought it would happen (poetry)

noreply@blogger.com (marit) — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 18:17:00 +0000

The Kindle Blog Report: i never thought it would happen (poetry)