.:Lindsay Lennox:.

moving day

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Lennox) — Wed, 22 May 2013 20:35:00 +0000

how quickly you have become my home
how soon i have learned your scent
like a child or an abandoned puppy.

and how quickly i have begun to construct
a shelter around you
a shelter of you.

how often already i have wished
for a stronger arm, a stronger soul
to bring to bear on those stubborn pains
which i hope you are ready to leave behind
because they are taking up space in the rooms
of my new home, and i am a great thrower-away
of things no longer needed.

secretly enjoyed

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Lennox) — Fri, 03 May 2013 04:00:00 +0000

8. Being rejected. It gives me a chance to practice my generosity: my overtures weren’t accepted but maybe the very offering was a needed gift. And would I begrudge that, even to someone who doesn’t know how to decline gracefully, how to navigate the weird, tidally-complex waters between greed (for affection, for being wanted, for love) and self-denial (for the sake of the wished-for One who hasn’t yet arrived on-scene)? I wouldn’t: people are hungry; they sometimes can’t help but take the nourishment from your hands and then run. Give it, if you want to avoid having it stolen.

Read: Thought Catalog.

delivery

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Lennox) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 18:05:00 +0000

i had hoped to mail you something, some small token
in payment on the debt, some small proof that i was
what you were looking for, but in the end this was all
i could think of to send to you that meant neither more
nor less than i intended it to. in case you can't tell,
it is what it looks like. a small piece of cardiac muscle
no more, no less, sorry about the mess in the envelope
and the jagged cut, i'm unskilled at this kind of scalpelry.
the symbolism of words has failed me but at least
there is always recourse to the literal.
take it, another little piece
take it, it is my body
take it and eat it
as you would the heart of a fallen enemy
or that of a lion killed in a battle you never meant to happen.

daybreak

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Lennox) — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 17:32:00 +0000

[...]

i cannot help
but feel you’ve given me the chance to bury my dead
mass my last troops and gather my final strength
so that your victory may be absolute. but mine is
a guerilla war

[...]

Read: Underground Voices, September 2012 [direct link]

harvest weather

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Lennox) — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 17:01:00 +0000

i have eaten
six perfect peaches this season
this summer that i met you.

that's five more
than are possible in one summer
and it's august yet.

will you also bring
wild, lush grapevines in december
sweet corn in march?

stay
show me
and stay.

[ [ [ war ] ] ]

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Lennox) — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 21:15:00 +0000

I am

an operative

sent to live out this life with a minimum of disruption; to carry out its duties, accept its small rewards, all the while pursuing my real objective, the nature of which is so secret that even I

do not know it.

I am

set against myself

brother against brother; painstakingly thwarting myself, then celebrating my brilliant sabotage of the enemy; handing out punishments, then complaining bitterly of their unfairness.

I am

the charismatic despot

ruling with white fingers clenched tight; I am the leader of the revolution; I am the secret police; I am the spy turned double agent; I am the protestors

dying in the streets.

the first thing

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Lennox) — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 19:47:00 +0000

the first thing you will find out
is that they are all starving.
you will need all your mother instincts
to bear their ravenous appetites
their urgent, ungentle handling.
you will need to remember
that they are near to panic:
cool-casual but running on empty
for so long. feed them first,
then wait to see what men live
beneath those hunger pains
so constant that they go unnoticed
until you invite them to
a feast.

wonderland

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Lennox) — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 17:57:00 +0000

that photo of us: keep it
in your wallet or a box
or maybe a file; don't
look at it often. it's a talisman
of something that was always
too large and when you're older
and happen upon it you may have
a reeling alice moment
finally knowing the mismatch
between what i gave and what
you could accept. but if only
you'd bitten, if only you'd taken
a deep draught just once
how you'd have grown!

what happens

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Lennox) — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 23:46:00 +0000

You will be schizoid, in closer communion with your earlier selves than is considered usual. It will not make you less mature, but it will make you more compassionate toward your own teenage self, and everyone else’s too. You will practice forgiveness at an epic scale... [...]

You will be cured of any lingering adolescent ills, by the only person who can cure you, the one you’d have loved silently and passively when you were twenty, whom you’re somehow allowed to love now just as you would have wished to then. By some startling error in bookkeeping, you are permitted a do-over, one that erases (or at least detoxifies) the missed chances and regrets that we all carry over. [...]

Read: Thought Catalog.

gospels

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Lennox) — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 19:43:00 +0000

sometimes i wish that only you knew my name
sometimes i know that only you know my name
or can pronounce it with the right accent
the one that sounds like the voices i heard in my cradle
and as a small child before i joined this other tribe
these people who cared for me, and fed me
but who do not know the right sounds
to speak my name.

sometimes i believe my eyes have become
more blue since you were here
and if what you told me is true, this must be a blessing
but i think you'll agree, or understand (which is the same)
that being loved by god is not
an unmixed one.

sometimes i wish to be found, claimed
by those who've come to others as gods or ghosts
or holy words. if they have spoken to me, it has always been
in my own voice, bringing gifts that were no more
than what i already had. are there to be no signs
except the ones written in my own hand, no teachers
except those i appoint for myself?

Years

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Lennox) — Fri, 25 May 2012 19:13:00 +0000

I recognized her instantly as one of his kind: golden and soft with unexpected fiery bits, inspiring erotic and motherly urges at once. They were the same: clothes seemed obscene, yet you naturally wanted to imagine them protected and well cared for, if only to avoid breaking your own heart on the possibility that they’d wilt under a less-than-gentle sun, or simply break somehow.

Read: thickjam.

directional

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Lennox) — Thu, 03 May 2012 21:35:00 +0000

dredging myself to look for desire, the only one i can find is the craving for sleep. but when i sleep i dream of writing, and when i write i dream of you.

i've so often accused you in (semi) jest of being a god, just because of the way my life arranges itself around you. it's a strange and tricky sort of path i'm walking, one that twists and turns and conspires to stay under my feet no matter where i step. i know where it leads, and that it is not possible to go faster or slower or differently.

hoarder

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Lennox) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 02:12:00 +0000

yes, i've been avoiding this, this putting words on pages, or letting them tumble too fluidly from my mouth: i am as possessive of you as ever, and as fearful of your evaporation.

that's wrong, of course: you yourself are as free as a feather (at least, i'm committed to that position) but i keep a tight grip on the ripples you make in me, a miser counting words and fingering memories, ordering and reordering emotions like an obsessive librarian.

wayward

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Lennox) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 22:00:00 +0000

1. i am lost today but do not try to find me; you will only delay me.

2. i have finally forgotten to notice what time it is in your part of the world: the calculation (still familiar and effortless) has ceased to be automatic. for good or ill i've decoupled my chronology from yours (watches are unsynchronized on my mark) and now for all i know you might be simply a few weeks further along in your work, while i've moved through years since the last time we were in alignment.

3. there is some kind of relativity at work here during which it would be unwise for us to touch, like trying to clasp hands with someone on a moving train while you're standing along the rail. our speeds are perilously different, our maps and timepieces useless to each other, or worse.

4. i am looking for one of those places that can only be discovered serendipitously, that can't be navigated towards. so your cartographer's instinct (all charts and compasses and bits of cloth to mark the path) only slows my progress, do you see?

****************************************

[see this in Commas & Colons Issue Zero, with illustration by Chris Thornley.]

****************************************

Cold Comfort

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Lennox) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 21:44:00 +0000

She walks, stiffness giving way to numbness that makes it hard to keep upright. After the first few stumbles, she loses interest in picking herself back up, more and more difficult because her muscles aren’t obeying her commands very quickly, if at all. The snowdrift that looms abruptly in front of her looks cozy. Settling in, she finds that it is: cozy, the snow underneath the sparkling crystalline layer deep and insulating. It keeps out the movement of the wind, so she pulls it around herself; it cooperates, wrapping around her like arms, comforting, nestling her in, closer.

Read: thickjam.

sundries

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Lennox) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 23:15:00 +0000

did you know
there is money from your country
in a bowl by my front door
the same place where
i deposit guitar picks, mystery
keys and orphaned earrings.

there is probably six pounds
and change, plus another one
or two of your too-thick,
too-heavy coins in my purse
mixed in with parking-meter quarters.

i am not sure if i was keeping them
just because they reminded me
of you, or against some future visit
when i would need them again. but
i am thinking now of mailing them
back to you, or of taping them inside
the covers of school-library copies
of children's travel books so that they might
bring some delight to someone.

i have thought of dropping them
into fountains one at a time
but i do not think they’re legal
tender here even for wishes
though i believe they might work
where you are.

Homemade

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Lennox) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:41:00 +0000

Her face, set into a polite lack of interest, might have discouraged a lesser man, but he wasn’t one to change his mind at such a late date – he’d loved her since the day in second grade when they’d been assigned to feed the class hamster together, and found it cold and stiff in its nest. Not that she’d said anything kind when he’d cried, second-graders don’t, but it was the kind of shared experience that bonded you, he thought. [...]

Read: thickjam.

kodachrome

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Lennox) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:00:00 +0000

we are drawn in by those for whom life is uncomplicated

attracted by their pure colors and clear light

their unlabored-for knowledge.

we are delighted when they delight in us

putting on for awhile our thoughts and opinions

glittering, glowing from our attentions.

we are forgetful that we are, at best, an electrifying phase

at worst just a diversion that may possibly have

long-lasting effects

which we will not be there to see.

we are a photo in their mental wallet

they'll take it out now and then to look at

with pride [ and a little wistfulness ]

wondering what strange lands we are mapping;

they will never [ ever ]

come with us.

Expat

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Lennox) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:01:00 +0000

Casting directors called her Mae West until she hired a vocal coach (paid for by waitressing, where her accent earned her major tips). Himself the owner of a rehabbed Texas drawl, he detwanged her vowels, taught her to rhyme pen with when instead of win. [...]

Read: thickjam.

wakening

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Lennox) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 00:26:00 +0000

the lawyer already had a copy of your will but i was searching for the original when i found a picture of you from college, stashed in a box that also contained old essays and a review of your first book. taken off my guard, i felt a younger, more lost version of myself rising up, raising its voice plaintively. like all ghosts she was unseeing, unreasoning: dangerous, like all ghosts, in her single-mindedness.

i urged her to be at peace, tried to tell her that i had grown (after all) into someone able to claim your affections; i tried to explain how in return, you reshaped the past for me, neutered whatever pain still remained in those old hurts.

all she could do was stretch out her arms to show me her wounds, open again and bleeding; all she could say was that she craved; she needed; she hungered.

morning

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Lennox) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 07:30:00 +0000

even though
you are the pain
rolling through me in waves
(like thunder or nausea)
i still look for you
like a child raising its arms
to be held after an injury
blind and trusting, reaching
for warmth to wrap myself in
until i am soothed and sleepy
and forgetful.

why

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Lennox) — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 21:27:00 +0000

Because I have seen you. I have seen you sleeping in the garden on a rare warm day, feet up on a chair and headphones in your ears; I’ve seen you laughing in a pub with a second beer in your hand, more relaxed than you’ll ever be again once a few more years have passed. I’ve seen you, a sweet boy at age 12 or so smiling squintingly into the camera, which I’ll bet was held by your mom. I’ve seen you as your father, somehow still gangling and awkward in middle age but aching with love for his children. (I watched him find an excuse to tousle your hair one day long after you were too old for that; you’ll do the same someday, exactly the same). [...]

Read: Thought Catalog.

old growth

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Lennox) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 22:42:00 +0000

(july)

too many words today poured out
and walked through like puddles.

they have enough stored energy
to make for impressive explosions

but even the most powerful fuel
needs to mix with other material

to ignite. and a spark; oh god, what i'd give
for a spark to set the whole pile ablaze

each one giving up a tiny flash of light
before turning to ash, still and inert.

i am a forest scraggly with gray timber,
half-dead, waiting for fire.

2.

(november)

i used to dream every night
of fires; now, of the sea. i waited

for everything trivial to be consumed;
now this has been done, leaving just

a small raft made of wood too ancient
and hardened to burn. now the main task

at hand is to find a direction
in this new oceanscape.

but there is no hurry,
no rush at all.

bite

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Lennox) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 06:45:00 +0000

[...] The perfect peach is shared, obviously, with someone who grasps its sensuality and symbolism. In the western world, biblical translators persistently render the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil as an apple, but it seems perfectly clear that it must have been the peach (native to China but introduced to the Mediterranean region long before the dawn of Christianity) that the original authors had in mind, with its seductive texture speaking to the joys of the flesh, its stubborn syrup acting as a clinging reminder of the past. [...]

Read: Flashquake, page 44.

ways of falling

noreply@blogger.com (Lindsay Lennox) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 21:41:00 +0000

1.
it pulled so painfully
while i could not move
every movement winding
the spring tighter. i am
wobbling now, arms held out
for steadiness and to push away
anything that threatens to upset
my equilibrium. in a moment
i'll have my feet under me
ready to attempt
the more difficult
two-person
balancing
act.

2.
now more than ever
it is critical to cast out doubt:
like all who work without a net
i know that total confidence
is the only way to bridge the gap
between my trapeze and your hand.
your uncertainty would kill me
as quickly as my own
so we must both trust
that you will catch me.

3.
when you fall in love
please (please please)
let it be a fall, not a leap
away from me; it's the only way
i'll survive it.