It’s lonely at the top

I could give out lessons on how to
stitch together a life from the
forgotten bits of defense mechanisms
and leftover scraps of joy.

The trick is to be just scared enough
to know that you’re probably going to
fail at some point, but knowing that
point is far enough in the future that
you’ve got some time to kill.

Have a little fun, a little sorrow
on your way to the eternal.
Otherwise, what’s the point?

They say I’m brave and I can’t help
but laugh because I can’t get over
the fact that I’m being so cowardly.
And I can’t help but wonder when
it was that I got so good at this deception.

But the truth is, you need to be ready.
Because someday everything really is
going to be ok, and you need to know
how to deal with that.

I could give out lessons on how to
do everything wrong and yet
still end up on top, all the while
bemoaning the fact that it is,
as they say, quite lonely up there.

~12/14

one of my truths…

If I thought that they could hear me
I’d tell the stars how much I miss you

Lullaby

Every night before I go to bed,
I turn my eyes to the sky and say,

“This is not my failure.”

Rest in peace, Etta.

Snug as a bug in a rug

I’ve taken all the words
you gave me and I’ve
woven them together.

I wear them now,
to cope, to keep alive
the hope that someday
you’ll be willing to hear
the words I have for you.

That you’ll take them to heart,
that you will someday hold them
as close to you as I do now,
and that you will finally
understand being lonely
is not the same as being strong.

Optimism

Every once in awhile
I’m bowled over by the
remembrance of
some past happiness.

Luckily, I’m young enough
to hold them up as templates
for happiness yet to be,
and not yet old enough
to feel them pass through
my bones like the forgotten
ghost of your touch.

Sometimes, I am grateful
for the optimism of youth.
~1/13/12

Between the Lines (This song is haunting me lately)

Time to tell me the truth
To burden your mouth for what you say
No pieces of paper in the way
Cause i cant continue pretending to choose
These opposite sides on which we fall
The loving you laters if at all
No right minds could wrong be this many times

Stains

I tried to read other poems tonight
but they all sounded like you and
I can’t let them steal your voice tonight.

There’s a you-shaped hole in my gut
& the feeling doesn’t lend itself
to another pretty love poem.
It’s far from glamorous, or
lilting, or nestled in calm.

I didn’t want to love you.
I never wanted to hear you
in someone else’s love poem.

The tears are hot now, and heavy,
they come unbidden and I can’t
even remember where they’re from.

I find this oddly comforting.
~1/11/12

Housing Shortage

I tried to live small.
I took a narrow bed.
I held my elbows to my sides.
I tried to step carefully
And to think softly
And to breathe shallowly
In my portion of air
And to disturb no one.

Yet see how I spread out and I cannot help it.
I take to myself more and more, and I take nothing
That I do not need, but my needs grow like weeds,
All over and invading; I clutter this place
With all the apparatus of living.
You stumble over it daily.

And then my lungs take their fill.
And then you gasp for air.
Excuse me for living,
But, since I am living,
Given inches, I take yards,
Taking yards, dream of miles,
And a landscape, unbounded
And vast in abandon.

You too dreaming the same.

Naomi Replansky

Thoughts, and such

I’ve got pieces of words strung together that might make poetry someday, but at this point, aren’t quite there yet.

And my mind is swimming with things I think and will not say.

Sorry about that.

Gimme a bit.

Be right back.

Promise.