The Infinite Gladness

David. The first one.

2011-02-07T01:57:00.002-06:00

There are plenty of things I will ask you to remember
Like that first hello when you awkwardly
Sat behind me and patiently waited for me to notice
I did... Notice
But I waited for you to tap my shoulder blade
So I could feel something besides the guilt
Yes
Is the only thing I have to give you
A thousand tiny heads all nodding in agreement
And a million tiny hearts dotting all the i's
When I say I will always keep this promise.
Promise me that you will never lose your innocence
Promise that even after I'm gone you will still believe
That every dream you've ever dreamed can come true
And that nerf guns don't stop being a valid accessory
When you've outgrown your teens.
Promise me
That every kiss meant something and you'll never forget
No matter what you think of me
Now
I'm slowly becoming a memory
A year-long escape from everything you knew
And I know I haven't decided if that's a good thing
And you're probably still on the fence
But this is what I do know:
what I hope is that you're dreaming at this very moment
And I hope, so selfishly, that you're dreaming of me.

2011-02-07T01:12:00.001-06:00

if you see her
tell her there are dew drops
where she kissed me
Once.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Faisal

2011-02-07T00:09:00.000-06:00

I can still see the stitches,
little tiny marks that remind me
of the first time we met
and the last time I felt guilt.
This is something true:
I waited in a hospital room
staring at the yellow parts
of my thumb
and hated myself for not
being able to text you back quickly.
I found out two weeks later
that wounds to the tips of
your fingers, on the pad of your thumbs
heal rather quickly.
I found out one year later
that hearts left at trains stations didnt.
I swear I can still see the sutures
and the tiny little holes
that you once kissed and blessed whole
even though i couldn't feel it
and I pretended, just like I do now.
It's funny.
I never thought about the dangers
of loving me, never though about
words being stepping stones
and turning into boulders,
softening into slurs.
We are more than what we've become.
I swear it.
We are stars, picked from the tiniest flames
and molded into something beautiful.
We are little white flags, tattooed and
scarred and we are little tiny bumps on a page
so that even the blind can feel our shame
and our numbness.
We are tiny little stitches
on tiny little hands
with little white flags
waving surrender.

If you see her...

2011-02-05T20:47:00.002-06:00

We carried guilt, folded up
And buried in our closet,
in the shoebox where we kept
Our letters, which were never
Signed 'love' because we
Never wanted to be that vulnerable
Or that taken for granted.
I kept your pictures folded
Into tiny little squares,
Inside a seashell, held up
To my breath like a bullhorn
Calling for last hope.
I tried to bury you..
But I always double back to
Sketch your gravestone and
Pretend you're not lost,
and pretend I'm not lost too.
The things we carried
Are hyphenated and split into
Poised corners of mistrust and
Remembrance, daring our
rigid lips to open up and
say something true.
Truthfully, I never wanted to need you
I never wanted to breathe you in
and use you as my balance beam
when nothing felt like Justice
I didn't want you to hold my hand
and tell me I would never stop writing
There were so many nights when I
drew the letters they laid on top of you
and hoped that they would
reassemble into something more
beautiful. They never did.
So now I carry this rugged note
that only says your name
over and over again
like I'm holding my breath
and dying to wish it true.

Tell her, when she comes, to bring a remedy.

2011-02-05T20:31:00.000-06:00

Yes. I bet it stung.
like forcing those last words
to finally slip from your tongue
Don't worry, love
You are no more or less broken
or resilient
than you pretended to be
Before I met you, I was known
by some other girl's name.
You know, the one that made you
feel like you had to fix me
and that one that convinced you
that you could. Someday.
So you see I'm just the same sad song
on repeat and I know how it feels
Believe me. Or don't.
The endings never made sense to you anyway
so you stuffed my
book of poems inside your
book of questions and expected
me to give you all the answers
like they haven't been there all along..
But what you've been reading is
all half-hope and half-lies--
the white kind. They seemed
purer. Or simpler.
But I've never done simple,
never wanted the neatly trimmed
forgiveness and solid lines
I'm attracted to the complications
that formed the boulder sitting
on the tip of your tongue.
I wasn't the only one to sting you
wasn't the only one to leave you
in your dust of mourning
and I won't be the last
So when you ask me why I'm running
I will probably say I'm a fan of history
and I don't want to
break the pattern
'cause it hurts too much to
rip the stitches, love.

Egypt

2011-01-29T14:47:00.000-06:00

it's about absolute, random madness
it's about touching fire to fingertips
and trying to write it all down
before it catches your tongue
it's about a frenzy unfolding
molding panic into your lungs
and daring you to exhale

it's the well of doubt, creeping up
and choking out the secret you
never thought you'd have to keep
and the promises you never could

it's the knowing that you know nothing
and finally understanding that
it will always drive you crazy
it's the insanity of fearing the unraveling
even when you know the stitches by heart
and swear every time you know how
to put yourself back together again
it's the 30% chance that your inner self
is gonna seep through the seams
and make a mess of things. again.
it's the dream before the dreaming,
the versus in the verse
the hoarseness in a whisper
the absolute madness

before you realize how much of nothing just happened.

2011-01-19T15:11:00.000-06:00

we have always been shallow breaths of faith
and you've always had a habit of holding yours
while i fight to not lose mine

it's inevitable that i would think myself bigger
and not have moved any farther
in six years
i haven't seen or loved nearly as much
as i try to convince myself
but i have mastered the art of leaving
and i know the tricky part of saying goodbye
is knowing you always have to leave right before you have to

i have always been good at remembering
the good things
and cherishing the awful
we have been a memory worth fighting for

2011-01-19T14:59:00.002-06:00

Inevitably... there are things I miss
and things I regret
and promises I can't quite put my
finger on, but must surely be broken
There are spaces between
my clenched jaw and fists
that want to be held by
someone, anyone
who will sit and listen to my
unbearable silence
There are questions that won't give in
and answers that won't budge
There is heaviness, unavoidable weight
that sits and multiplies
the more I try to ignore it
There is so much pressure now
that you can see the buckling
under my pen and heavy fingers
There is no ending
There is only a continuation
when I least suspect its resurrection
Nothing ever dies
Nothing is ever finished
Nothing is ever new
So I see the same dream, always
the one where I'm chasing my selves
to get us all writing on the same page
to spread out the heaviness
((like nails to the back))

Same as it ever was..

2011-01-19T14:56:00.000-06:00

We are looping.
We are pulling at shoestrings
and pocketing our failures
We were once something
Some Spanish sitar
Some lyrical motivation
We were once moved.
But we have settled into this
side-to-side notion that
things can change with no
Progression
We are pulling at the strings
that bound us here
We are tugging at the hearts
We lost along the way
This was my plea,
my backward hope
But we have warped it into a
last testimony of broken-ness
We are resolved, intent
on becoming nothing.

Meet me on the Equinox

2009-12-10T11:35:00.000-06:00

Thank god for re adjusting
Thank goodness I am wiser for having done this
Thank walmart for cheap wine glasses
And the prospect of obliterating
Everything
With one swell, a tip of the stem
While I tell myself that I'm not an addict
I just like the feeling of being more than I am
And I am bigger because I know the differences
Between me and my selves

Granted

2009-12-09T21:23:00.001-06:00

I've been a follower

For longer than I've been a lover of you

And if you think it's not long enough

to shake me

then you don't know me yet

I fall. Fast

That's the easy part

But I have trouble getting back up

And dusting off the sick feeling

that I get every time I think about

leaving here.

It's what I do best.

It's the one thing that drew us

together with picket fence dreams

and it's my one flaw

that you take for granted.

I take a lot of things for granted.

Loving, for example.

This is not the easy part

It takes so much more to stay

than to go

And I've been going for years now,

wandering and waiting

and calmly expecting change to happen

It always comes

rushing in like a bullhorn on full speed.

I'm always ready for the blow

I wish that I could say that this is it for me

I wish that I could keep my composure

when future plans come into play

I wish that I didn't think that everything

comes so easily

That I deserve everything that I want

I wish I didn't want so much

And that my bones didn't ache for sea sand

I'm jealous of the fixtures we've inherited

Mostly because

I want to feel the same salinity on my cheeks

and something other than snow on my eyelids

I still love. I still wish. I still dream.

I just do it in monotone these days.

And I don't mean to make you think

That it's all because I'm unhappy

Just know

That there is something in you that

Makes me say stay

That tells me I have no choice

But to root myself in you

And if you're here, so am I

big waves

2009-12-03T21:36:00.000-06:00

when something more than god has broken me
into something less than who i pretended to be
and i have no choice but to listen
to the brass hopes of everything i
hoped to someday own
or at least vote for
when fingers that used to clutch mine
in desperation of dreaming
now move not to hold me up
but sling me down
farther than i've ever let myself go
when laughter splits the faults
in my fine-lined face/facade
and momentarily makes it okay
to not pretend that i am always myself
when i have refused to be mine
for so long that i cannot remember
whether or not i belong to god
or to hate signs carried by
people who hate themselves
more than they could ever love me
when the mirror image reads back something
no longer redeemable as truth
and spews out words i never even got a chance
to smile toward in wanting
when i can no longer [lie] easily beside you
while your heart thump thumps to
rhythms i tell myself i must snap to
so i can carry you into something beautiful
when i can no longer be redeemed
and even god laughs at my efforts to purge myself
and tells me my bones are getting
as weak as my morale
when i have repented so many times
that my repeated attempts at finally telling the truth
and asking you to forget,
leave only the option to lay down myself
and offer whatever is left
when every thing i never believed in
and every negative thing i made you,
spoke into existence, delivered to your soul
then promptly pretended to weep,
points back at me, swears me to my knees
and kisses my tears back into my hurt
that i may never complain
that i am always alone
then, then i will let you go there without me
and i will not form no on my mouth
and i will see you throw back big waves

something to love for

2009-11-30T21:20:00.000-06:00

End of Seasons - Normal, IL

i don't often repeat myself
and when i do, i know that there is something
that you or i must have missed the first time
i have a knack for missing things
most of all, the shore
but when i stop dreaming about that,
i realize that i've been missing
everything.
myself.
you.
this lackluster memory isn't something
you can just wipe clean
i remember everything:
the first time i felt butterflies
on the second floor of a train
to the middle of nowhere.
the second time i told myself
i wouldn't fall
because surely no one would be there
to catch me this time
and even if they did
everything i touch has a tendency
to let go.
letting go is just the easy part
my heart takes it literally
and forgets to collect the pieces,
lets them make their way into my core
and break out to crack the surface,
the circus face i've been freak showing.

here,
i will show you my hands
and the marks i vowed to never
break into my skin again
it's the one promise i've kept.
it's the one line i've never
tried to cross again

because i don't want to repeat myself
i don't want to turn back dials
that i don't have to anymore
or open up chapters
that should have been finished before
i even left you..

some things should be more easily forgotten.

i choose not to love you

2009-11-30T17:00:00.002-06:00

i'm afraid of a lot of things:
the dark
my hands
my skin
your face
myself.
i'm afraid of the way a lie is always close
but i can never follow through,
the way my hands shake when i'm angry
and i start to feel like i'm alice
caught in a bottle
trying to shake myself free
i'm afraid of the way this tiny little town
is scooping me up and stripping me
of everything i've ever known
even the things i've always pretended
and telling me that i mean nothing.
i'm afraid of going near my suitcases
because i know i will try my hardest not to look back.
i'm afraid of my mother telling me
that i've failed at things
because i'm afraid of everything.
i'm afraid of sleeping alone now too
and of telling myself bedtime stories to fall under
i'm afraid of believing them too
i'm afraid that i've made a mess of things
and i'm afraid of my uncertainty
and inability to give more.
I'm afraid of making little things
seem like giants

i'm also afraid that everything i touch
dies.

some things come true. god, for example

2009-11-24T16:07:00.003-06:00

My mother says she knew it was coming
This stagnant state of supposed comfort,
This knowing what I should do
Yet not being able to go through with it
This breaking and re-breaking of my heart
Until I have enough fragments
To ship to all the hearts I’ve collected
Over the years
I’ve become less loveable,
Less able to express myself
When I’m feeling boxed into a
Cubicle of adult loving
I am still my mother’s child
We don’t communicate
We sigh and haw and hem
Until the effort makes it seem as if
We have actually said something
She said to me
That all things can only be moved
Down
And from side to side
So when my heart jumps to the other side
Of my chest cavity
To avoid your kiss
I know that there is something deeper
When my cheeks float upward
To look down at you
I know that I am getting nowhere with this
And when I feel like I’m falling backward
Well then I tell myself that my mother was mistaken
There has to be more inside me
That can move in other directions
That the fluttering feeling I knew
Couldn’t be the ghost of all things
Broken
That it can come back and lift me higher
Than I feel I am in this life
At this moment
I am contemplating my movements
I’m shuffling and tiptoe-dancing
On top of memories from
Four months ago
When I said that the stars that shone down on me
Were only shining because I loved
I loved then
I don’t know what I am now
But I know that I am willing to bend more
I am willing to hold myself accountable
For not allowing myself to be lighter
Than the air I dreamed about
In the 12th grade on my apartment floor
When I was still certain
That I could make it to the mountains
And breathe in Heaven
I know we’ve felt it in the way we kissed
I know my body moved toward something
When we danced
I know that there has to be some echo
Of loving in me
And if I can find it then maybe I can save us.

some things come true. god, for example

2009-11-24T16:07:00.001-06:00

“Love held tight in a sonnet” – Moira

My hands don’t grasp things in
The same way they did when I was yours
I don’t stand awkwardly
And let things come to me
I just wade in nowadays
And hope that I don’t pass by
All the things I missed…
All the things I’m missing.
You
Don’t know the magnitude of
This opening and closing
This gulping of matter
This matter of feeling more than I’m used to
Doing more than I’ve ever done
To keep my head above loving
My head doesn’t shake no as hard
As it did when I was still
I have been moving now
For longer than I’ve loved you
I forget how my ancestors
Planted themselves
So they would not lose how they lived
So they would not miss one ripple in life....

some things come true. god, for example

2009-11-24T16:06:00.001-06:00

Sometimes I just want to leave this place
For some place
Where I can feel the sun
Creeping into my bones
To wake me up in the morning.
And sometimes
I just write to evoke sympathy
And maybe a little bit of
Hardness in you
Because there’s a lump in my throat
I cannot get rid of
No matter how much I cough,
No matter how much I tell you
That everything goes down easy.
Certain lines come easy
Like the ones I write on fast food napkins
So I don’t forget them while I’m
Trying to forget other things
Like the fact that I’m not good at most things
Including sympathy
No matter how much I hurt myself
So that I feel the way you feel
When I tell you that
Sometimes I just want to leave this place
Even though leaving doesn’t make things
Disappear
Disappearing is the only thing I’m good for
But there’s a hardness in you
That makes me forget that I am always fleeing
That comfort is always fleeting
And that laughter isn’t a banned foreign exchange
I have changed into someone I never imagined
But there is still a lot of letting go
Of all the soft comforts of being alone
And not being able to be selfish.

2009-11-24T15:52:00.001-06:00

I want a lover I don’t have to love

November 12, 2009
Normal, IL

I am nothing more than numbers and figures
A matrix-like replication
Of something less than charming
And I’ve been adding up my
Handsome little failures
And hanging them so I could see
The ink-blot stains of everything
I once thought I could believe in
And I’ve been counting… down.
I told you I would come home again for you…
I didn’t always mean to be
A robotic production of false hopes
And unreached high expectations
I’ve got secrets too
I never told you that summer
That I have always had a knack for letting go
I’ve gotten it down to a scientific
Progression of perfect lies and saved faces
And I never think ahead
Before impulse takes control
You know more than anyone that
If there could have been some form of redemption
There is only one person who could save me
Save me
Before I forget that motions and
Emotions are the same thing
And drip from my soul into my hands
Into every letter I’ve ever written you
Lies or not,
I meant every word I said.
But I treat hope like trust and
When it’s broken it’s irreparable
So you can call me pieces
If it makes you feel as though
You can finally have something of me
To hold onto
I’ve cut myself more times than you can imagine
To see if there’s something in there of you.

I’m still searching

For something for you to remember me by
When I finally forget that I am breathing
For a reason
And hold myself and my breath
So tightly
I’m tired of escaping
I’m tired of dreaming of places
I’m destined to never see again
Like the inside of your palms
And the palms in the west.
My hands are always face up
If you still need to take hold.
Or grasp something besides
Impossibilities.

Swallow-tailed Kite

2009-11-22T19:48:00.001-06:00

Swallow-tailed Kite, originally uploaded by Judd Patterson.

Hmmmm new ink!

it's what i do... i dream

2009-11-12T16:05:00.000-06:00

Everything eventually turns grey

November 12, 2009
Normal, IL

Some things cut deeper than we expect them to.
I knew my love was deeper than she ever knew
And I etched it into my skin to prove
That some things cannot be forgotten
No matter how much we want them to
There are trails and tracks of broken pieces
That I have sifted through to find myself
Here at this moment
I can honestly say that I am no more good
Than I was then or ever thought I could be
But I am more blessed because I know
That some things are more than holy
And those are the things worth clinging to
I catch myself now and again
Ebbing and flowing like the night
I told my mother I wanted nothing more
Than to see the sun bouncing up off the water
Like a billion tiny beads of silver
I’m still stretching westward
I’m following her path toward the sunset
And I’m hoping that she will remember
That I am still here
And I’m still dreaming
And my wishing was not idle when I said
I will go with you
Some things are going to be
Like the beginning of my forgetting
And the constant trembling of my hands,
It is inevitable that I will
Always be longing for something
And constantly seeking something
Bigger than you or myself

it's what i do... i dream

2009-11-12T16:00:00.000-06:00

November 12, 2009
Normal, IL

To my mother,
Who pretends she is not dying
to my heart,
my pieces of skin
to the child I left behind
and the one I always dreamed of
to the love I always thought I lost
and the ones who lost me
to the one who shares my story
and my gift for telling all
to the one whose promises I kept
and whose heart I broke
the girl who always looks at me
open-eyed and open-hearted
like she can see straight through
to everything I’ve been hiding
from the boy who still calls me his
and the ones who never got the chance
to my friends who never made it
to my period of self-acknowledgement
to my family who never doubted
the fact that I could make it
to my dreams
that never stop coming
no matter how much I tell myself
they can never come true
to the truths I left hidden
and the lies I wrote to you
to the songs I keep writing
even when they don’t make sense
to the girls I keep remembering
even when they couldn’t recall my name
to the one who promised me everything
and the one who took it away
to my aunt who waited sixty years
to finally admit what we already knew
to my uncle who lived 83 years
to show me how to live graciously
to the singers who always know my heart
and the poets who always know my tragedies

this life is for you.
This life is your proclamation
That you were here
And breathing
And living
And loving
And this life is yours for the making
This heart is yours for the beating
And yours for the taking
And ours for the molding
Because this life is all about the mold
About using our hands and our song to
Break out of our mediocrity and
Believe everything true
This is your gospel
And you can tell your story
Any way you want to believe it
Because I believe in you and us
And the thoughts you left unwritten and
The ones you gave me to write for you
And this life is especially for you
It is yours

it's what i do... i dream

2009-11-12T15:59:00.001-06:00

I’m all for believing if you can reveal the true colors within…

November 12, 2009
Normal, IL

My hands are always cold
And facing up
And pointing west

I haven’t done anything substantial
Or important
I haven’t sculpted a beautiful figure
Out of red, dirty clay
I haven’t shaken hands with POTUS
Or played thumb wars with Oprah
But I like to think that I’ve done more
Than let them sit there idle

These hands have made paper mache
World globes, complete with lumpy hills
And perfectly blue oceans
I’ve written on birthday and anniversary cakes
And made cards when my friends are having
Shitty days
I’ve written goodbye letters and
Held them safe
Until I felt I could smile and wave
For the last time
I have felt
I’m all for believing if you can reveal the true colors within…

November 12, 2009
Normal, IL

My hands are always cold
And facing up
And pointing west

I haven’t done anything substantial
Or important
I haven’t sculpted a beautiful figure
Out of red, dirty clay
I haven’t shaken hands with POTUS
Or played thumb wars with Oprah
But I like to think that I’ve done more
Than let them sit there idle

These hands have made paper mache
World globes, complete with lumpy hills
And perfectly blue oceans
I’ve written on birthday and anniversary cakes
And made cards when my friends are having
Shitty days
I’ve written goodbye letters and
Held them safe
Until I felt I could smile and wave
For the last time
I have felt

it's what i do... i dream

2009-11-12T15:48:00.002-06:00

it's what i do... i dream

2009-11-12T15:48:00.000-06:00

November 12, 2009
Normal, IL

I’ve been a lot of things
I’ve pretended to do a lot too
I’ve taken notes
And maybe tried to be a leader
I’ve been a drunk
A swear word expert
A wannabe poet with
Little to no subject
Besides regret and love
And a little bit of peace
I’ve taken pieces of myself
And taped them onto dorm walls
And tried to make it home
Again
I’ve put on the face of caretaker
And tried nursing my roommate
Back to safe
I’ve been the stumble bum
Falling down stairs to
Make it seem like I was just as cool
As everyone else
I’ve saved face a few times too
By masking myself
To be someone else
Like the time I told everyone I was a swimmer
So many times that I believed it
Even though my pet snails could beat me
I’ve been a wanderer
I still am
I’ve seen more coast than I’ve seen home
I’ve made more nonfriends than real ones
But I always make it a point to tell them
I miss them
‘cause I’ve been unloved
And I know how important it makes me feel
To know that someone I don’t
Quite remember misses me
I haven’t unpacked since I came here
I’ve lived out of suitcases for so long
I can’t really remember what
Dresser drawers are for
I’ve changed my number so many times
My friends just know it’s easier
To leave a comment on my facebook page
Than to track me down to hear my voice
I haven’t spoken for myself
In so long I forgot what it is to be
And I haven’t been…
I haven’t been loving
Or genuinely kind
Or remembering to let you know
That I still see that beacon
And I still love the shore
And I still long to see your face
And let my face hit the sun
I’ve been so many things
And I’ve lived in so many homes
That I paid for, but they weren’t mine
I’m that recluse that you never hope for
I sit in my room and pretend that
I’m getting things done
When the only thing I’m doing
Is trying to teach myself how to speak
How to shout out
How to live on nothing
And believe in everything
I’m still hoping that I’ll meet someone
Who’ll tell me that it’s ok to feel lonely
When you’re surrounded by people
And that my search for poetics
Isn’t a vain attempt to announce myself
And that my quest for true art
Isn’t an excuse to close myself away
I’ve been a prayersayer
And I miss taking my thoughts to someone else
And leaving them there
And I miss that silence, that knowing silence
When the prayer is done
And it may not be delivered
But it’s no longer mine
I’ve been mine and no one else’s
And selfish

it's what i do... i dream

2009-11-11T15:47:00.000-06:00

November 11, 2009
Normal, IL

I know your parents’ anniversary
I know it unlocks your home
And I know that I’m not welcome
Oh I know that if I really waned to
I could still knock on your door
And your mom would tell me
That you’re not home
But the couch is new
And that Kobe didn’t make it
Through the winter.
She’d tell me that you’ve been
Looking for a new gardener
And your neighbor still says
I’m the bomb dot com
And her daughter is growing up
So fast
It was so fast, the way
Out futures turned.
The day I decided that I couldn’t stay,
I turned off my phone and
Wrote you a letter
On the floor of my
Not-yet-furnished bedroom
I was ashamed
Because everything about me
Was screaming poverty
And you were always rich
In everything
From your life to the way
You considered death
And love
It was so fast
The way my fingers flew across
Four pages of
Perfectly scripted lies
To tell you that I couldn’t love
Withot you
But I had to try to live
I let your memory slip
And tried to let you go
In the arms of a boy
But my mouth never stopped
Shaping your name
And I’m pretty sure he never
Got used to the idea of
Being called Victoria
So I let him go too
And I let you find me
I gave you the satisfaction
Of telling me I was wrong
I was most wrong in the act
Of letting you edge in
Of giving myself hope again
For something that never was
I don’t regret not knowing
If there could have been
Something more than skin.