miniature bridges

120.

2012-02-21T23:43:00.003-05:00

Of course I lied.
Or it would have been
about how all I wanted
was to make you happy,
and travel, and become
a great artist,
and marry you
on wagon hill farm.
A girl can not afford
to be so extravagant
with the truth.

119.

2012-02-20T00:27:00.003-05:00

We all read the stories in a different way.
Him on the ledge again, for the fourth year
in a row, him finding joy in the dull girls
that nod their head, him sleeping with everybody,
him sleeping with nobody, the light in the room
on, the light in the room off. The world in bloom,
the world not in bloom, what are you saying here,
it's only February, all of it should be frozen,
our hearts should not be running like rabbits,
we should not have to be told to calm down.

118.

2012-02-19T16:03:00.003-05:00

It's not roses.
Happiness has many names
that the body can recognize.
Forgiveness too,
but forgiveness
no longer has a place
here.

I have a temper
but I keep my hands busy
so they don't go
the wrong way.
After a while,
a person gets tired
of things going
the wrong way.

They say that instinct
as an explanation for human behavior
has become less common,
but I knew about her
before you did, so
there's that.

I cut my hair again.
My father has come back.
On Tuesday, I vomited
for the first time in over a year.
I am not supposed to tell you
about these things, and
I can't quite decide
if there's fairness in that.

117.

2012-02-18T22:23:00.003-05:00

I have been collecting
photographs of cream
as it is poured into coffee.
The moments after the dive,
before they are fully merged,
before they become inseparable
by silver spoons,
a phenomenon
you would take
great pleasure in.
      Your honor,
      I would like to present these images
      as evidence
      that I know you better than anybody.
In your kitchen,
at the bed and breakfast,
at Rosie's bakery, at the diner
on Holland
two blocks from my apartment.
Where do you begin
your mornings now?

116. A haiku debating the scientific chances of whether or not the sun will rise tomorrow.

2012-02-16T00:18:00.004-05:00

I see this birthday
as the start of a decade
without your bullshit.

115. Slower.

2012-02-13T23:42:00.002-05:00

The only thing I care about
these days, is how much light
can come from a person.
Give me a body that knows
how to tell the truth.
Give me something
that knows
how to be good.

114.

2012-02-12T00:15:00.002-05:00

It is difficult
to see the world bathed in
such ecstatic color,
and you, in grey.

113.

2012-02-07T22:54:00.001-05:00

I have this heart and
it is noisy and a little clumsy
and it can no longer speak
your name beyond the first letter,
sounding like a hum, sounding like
an admission,
sounding like the electricity
in the fence that I wish would keep me
from missing you.

112. A haiku on what it is to both miss and be the color red.

2012-02-04T23:28:00.002-05:00

Being without you
means that at any moment
I could turn to flame.

111.

2012-02-02T15:18:00.004-05:00

They say that human beings dream
when the mind is attempting
to solve a problem. This explanation
is problematic in itself,
as there is no mystery to this.
You are not here. I understand
why you are not here. You are not
coming back. I understand why
you are not coming back.
Equation complete, facts checked.
But last night,
dream-you missed dream-me,
and I'll take all the victories
I can get.

I heard that snowy owls
have reached the coast of Massachusetts.
These rare migrations
are apparently called "irruptions."

What I'm saying is, I've dreamt
about you each night since November.

There was this photo, outside of a dream,
where the sky was blue and you were
encased in glass. You were smiling,
but the light was against you
in such a way that I could not see
your eyes, and there was no way of telling
how far it extended, how genuine
it may have been, or if something in it
had been wanting for sleep.

110.

2012-01-22T20:25:00.003-05:00

It was easy to become this woman.
Who does not know how to color
the air, who does not remember the taste
of mint, before mint was
a liar. This woman who does not use cinnamon
on toast, who believes in nothing
but science.

109. January 19th.

2012-01-19T13:17:00.005-05:00

Tomorrow is your birthday.

Last year we traveled,
had a hotel room in Washington D.C.,
you let me have the window seat on the plane.
The year before, I woke up at 5am
and covered our apartment
in small notes. On the bathroom mirror,
in the shower, in the coffee jar.
Your car too, although it had snowed
the night before, and your windshield wipers
were frozen solid. The year before that
I had just realized that you were wonderful
and made you a CD of my favorite songs
(and you say that things
were never simple).

You will be twenty-eight. It's true, you know,
that you begin to come into yourself
as you approach thirty. You'll see.

Tomorrow is your birthday.
I will give you only my thoughts.

I no longer want to count the weeks
that I've been without you.
As each passes, cells in my body die off
and are replaced by ones that have never felt
your touch, your breath, the vibrations of your voice.
Eventually I will be brand new.
Perhaps clean.

Tomorrow is your birthday. I miss you very much.

108. The races versus the sawgrass.

2012-01-14T23:42:00.003-05:00

The same bottle of liquor
has sat patiently in my pantry
since Thanksgiving. I have chosen
against dulling this.

It is strange to think of her
touching the clothes I used to touch.
Dress shirts that you may have bought
only after asking me if the color
was friend or foe against your skin.
It is strange to think

that you were the one to move on
first, as we had always declared me
as the one with a magnetic personality.
Although, if I were to be cruelly honest,

it was not the lack of opportunities
that prevented me from breaking
across the taped line, but is was my ability,
or less humbly, my wisdom, that allowed
me to say no. To pretend I was a great blue heron,
pretend I was at peace in the marsh,

and, more honesty, sometimes not needing
to pretend these things at all.
Are great blue herons hunted? I know they are seen
as beautiful, without being particularly delicate.

You required too much of me,
at the expense of my body and my stillness.
I notice the irony, with you now gone,
that I cannot sleep at night, that I am able
to see the world in light, that I make more conversation
with strangers. Again, honesty:

Something important was suffocated.
I am beginning to understand what that was,
and despite the grief I have for you, amidst the grief
I have for you, how I will get it back.

107. A haiku on the bottom thoroughly dropping out (see also: the stomach doesn't lie).

2012-01-14T00:27:00.003-05:00

There is not a thing
That can brace for the moment
You see him with her.

106.

2012-01-12T21:14:00.002-05:00

In Massachusetts,
it has not yet snowed
this winter.
We have not fallen asleep
to the sound of steam
trying to escape
my bedroom radiator,
nor have we woken
to cinnamon coffee
and french toast.
There is nothing about this
January that I recognize.
But I'm trying
to make it home.

105. The second haiku I have ever written: For the measurements of rebirth.

2012-01-10T00:23:00.003-05:00

There are many things
I will move past with fervor.
But not this, not this.

104.

2012-01-08T23:40:00.004-05:00

At seven and a half weeks
I have accummulated a list of small
changes. I am telling more
of the truth. I stain my lips
the color of raspberries.
Talk to strangers on the train.
Do not return their calls.
I stay up too late, but nearly sleep
through the night.
It's all very trival.

It has been long enough now.
It has not been long enough now.

The views tilt slightly, and
I imagine that you are trying to see me
as the villain. I'm not.
I'm not the hero either.

I am not covered in feathers,
nor scales. Much of the time
I am grossly human,
pointing out planets and taking
great pleasure in discussing
the scientific theories of bees,
and the possible shapes of the universe.
Once, you loved these things
about me.

When you read my letter,
did you whisper back?
Was the room flooded in light?
Or was it late, nearly midnight,
was it dark and were you
sorry?

You always said you admired my ability
to forgive. Unfortunately, for lovers
who have left me and later sought
resurrection, it was this same forgiveness
that had me say
no.
I owe forgiveness my life, you see.

103. A haiku for the measurements of death.

2012-01-07T22:21:00.002-05:00

You may be the moon
But I have long extended
Far beyond my means

One-hundred and two.

2012-01-06T22:21:00.002-05:00

The body will tell you
when something is wrong.

Sacrifice itself to push
you back onto the correct
artery.

I have been healthy
since November.

Now, tell me what you think
about coincidence

and the geese
that fly south
in winter.

One-hundred and one.

2012-01-05T15:21:00.000-05:00

You find a picture
of your lover smoking a cigarette,
and the only appropriate thoughts
are, Who is this person, and,
What else do I not know about him.

Did you know that there is a form of grief
that actually makes a person vomit?

Say you can only have one
as your heart's companion. Lantern
or compass.

Choose. Wait
for it to be finished.

No. 14.

2011-12-25T23:38:00.004-05:00

It's all very strange. Sometimes I love you so hard that I want to throw up. Sometimes I love you so hard that it feels wonderful, tingles all over my body, happiness shot straight through each organ, and that's me loving you even though you're not here anymore. Imagine that. Imagine the joy I feel loving you now, when it doesn't matter, when you aren't around to feel it from me, and imagine how much greater that joy was when you were.

Yet. The absence takes something away. The ache is equal to the joy. Sometimes they exist simultaneously, sometimes one needs to sleep for a little while, and the other is the only one I hear. It is not easy. I am not waiting for anything. It is possible that I may love you for the rest of my life. It is up to me to make peace with that. In the same way one is forced to make peace with their front porch being set on fire each morning, at the same time they have some place to be. Leap, extinguish, take the back door, the window. The day cannot stop.

One-hundred. On Surprises:

2011-12-22T23:33:00.000-05:00

I planned too far ahead.
Christmas, your birthday.
However, I didn't make it
to February, and some
might call that a victory.

Every few weeks I would stand in the bathroom
before washing my face
and say I love you
into the mirror. I'm a human being
after all,
and occasionally need the reassurance.

I grew up and that's good,
there's something
about earning the lines beneath your eyes,
at the corners of your mouth,
even in the backs of your hands.
In a picture from when we first became
friends, you look younger too.
We earned a lot in those years
when we sometimes neglected
to treat us as we were separate bodies.

I'm dreaming about whales again.
I'm in the water
but I can't touch them.

No. 13.

2011-12-21T19:49:00.000-05:00

Just because the door is open, doesn't mean I have to stay waiting in the room.

Ninety-nine.

2011-12-17T00:30:00.002-05:00

If speaking
of things that I deserved:
More goodness
than
that.

Ninety-eight. For M, on Christmas.

2011-12-12T16:32:00.001-05:00

I wear the scarf
your mother gave me
this year.
It is bright blue
and doesn't match my eyes
but something about it
is comforting.
Why I am not going home
to you
I do not understand.