From Behind

You're a jagged pill 

tearing apart my insides,

But I swallow you anyway because

I'm addicted to the way your shoulder blades feel

underneath my hands.

You're an iron mountain 

screwing with my compass,

But I climb you anyway because

I love to admire the back of your neck 

when you're not looking.

I'm supposed to fall for someone

who loves all the things about me that confuse you,

But the skin behind your ears

is so soft when I touch it.

I could say I never want to see you again
and you could walk away,

But then I'd be faced with 

the silhouette of you from behind.

So I'll climb that mountain 

and swallow that pill forever 

If it means I can keep running 

my hands down your back 

when you hug me.

Little Darling, Little Darling

Stand on your tiptoes 

Little darling

Crane your neck

Raise your hands over your head

     palms to the sky and

Wail at the moon until all the ash escapes

from your lungs

You are a spectacle-wearer

Little darling

Your world is tinted rose

Open your mouth wide and laugh

     so loud and so terrible and

Stare at the tip of your nose
through the cracks in your glasses

Mark off your calendar

Little darling

The days you find yourself hollow

And revel in the covered weeks

     Press the tip of the marker

Into the day you felt most happy

until it can never be used again

Shake out your rain-boots

Little darling

Go out onto the streets and

Stand in the rain until you feel clean

     Until the gutters are flooded

And you can no longer feel the dirt

from his hands on your body

Little darling, little darling

Flowers grow in your belly

     And every time you cry 

     they dry up

Swallowing bumblebees to pollinate 

Flowers that he has already killed

     is not a sacrifice of love

It's a way to get yourself stung

He is not sunshine

     Little darling

Do not let him kill your flowers

"They constantly told me

that my first love

would be a handsome boy

who'd save me

or a pretty girl

who'd hold me.

So I searched the world

for another,

never knowing that

my first love

should have been

me."

-k.v.

Bandages

I want to crawl into your wounds 

And make a home for myself 

in all that pain

Rearrange the furniture in your veins to make room for my old sofa

And stow my luggage 

in your heart

The tag on my suitcase still has your name on it

From the last time I flew home

I want to rip off your bandages and revel in the beauty 

of all those scars

Shine a light into your mouth 

so they glow

As bright and beautiful 

as the stars

After all, the blinking bulbs of this lonely, glittering city

Have nothing on the sky seen from your bedroom window

Poetry

Take a pencil and slice open your own Stomach

Let someone poke and prod

your Intestines

Until they are satisfied

with the amount of Blood 

covering their hands

And you'll know how it feels to write Poetry

Anchored

She is a ship

A beautiful vessel

Anchored in a dock

Where storms can occur at any moment

"Hope" and "secure" were never synonyms

Until they were cargo sent across an ocean

Without the destination stamped on the crate

At times, she gets seasick 

She doesn't worry, she knows

A boat becalmed just means the wind has stopped blowing

Not that the journey 

is over

The entire purpose of an anchor is to "sink" 

But change that word to "ground" 

And you can keep your soul from floating away

Into the June clouds

She's always had a marine soul

A transporter of people and a carrier of beloved goods

She'll navigate this ocean until the entire boat goes under

Today, she looked out her curtain and could swear she saw a mermaid in the sky

I love you quietly

I love you in a prayer

From inside a hospital chapel

Where I can worship idols

With hands like yours

Surrounded by people

With cemeteries in their minds

I love you in a whisper

From inside a public library

Where I can read novels

With words that remind me of you

Surrounded by people

With better things to do than read

I love you quietly

but with conviction

Because I don't believe in love

But I believe in the way I love you 

An adoration so divine 

I see God

When I look at you 

Because the truth is

I could fill libraries 

Writing about how

I fell in love

With how I love you

Rare Girl

Look at you

You rare girl

You electric being

You wild thing

Look at you

With your too-big feet

And too-fragile soul

Stare into a mirror and

Repeat after me

"The fault is not in myself.

It is not in my crooked teeth

Or my frizzy hair.

It is not in my hunger for what

Or my need to be noticed. 

It is not in my dreamer mind

Or my selective memory.

The fault is not mine

And the fault is not my poetry."

Look at you

With your too-big feet

And too-fragile soul

You are the Universe

You rare girl

Big, Clumsy Hands

She sits on my bathroom floor,

the cold linoleum against her thighs, and she weeps.

Someone is in the shower, singing. I don't know the words. 

She's holding something in her arms. I can barely make it out through the steam that clouds the mirror and sticks to my skin. 

It's a package wrapped in black paper, boxed with bubble wrap, and stamped with the words 'Handle with Care.'

The box has a pulse. 

A rhythm that's familiar, but I get the feeling it isn't supposed to be heard this way - muffled inside a box. The sound is hollow and sad. 

I ask her why she can't open it. 

She holds the box out and I look.

It isn't addressed to her.

Her hands tremble. 

It isn't addressed to anyone. 

She continues to cry. 

The singing gets louder. 

The melody is foreign and the words are in a language I do not understand. 

I ask her why she won't mail the package to someone, anyone.  

She tells me that everyone she knows has big, clumsy hands. 

“It is necessary to find one's own way in New York. New York City is not hospitable. She is very big and she has no heart. She is not charming. She is not sympathetic. She is rushed and noisy and unkempt, a hard, ambitious, irresolute place, not very lively, and never gay. When she glitters she is very, very bright, and when she does not glitter she is dirty. New York does nothing for those of us who are inclined to love her except implant in our hearts a homesickness that baffles us until we go away from her, and then we realize why we are restless. At home or away, we are homesick for New York not because New York used to be better and not because she used to be worse but because the city holds us and we don't know why.” 

― Maeve Brennan

Fragile Instruments

There is a sadness

in my bones.

A dull ache

that appears 

and reappears,

like an old injury

when it rains.

It throbs

like my head does

when I hang upside down 

over the edge

of my grandmother's sofa.

I pour myself 

a cup of coffee

and read a love poem

to numb the hurt

I feel when I read

black headlines

in the morning sun.

When I smile,

I press my bottom lip

against the sharp edges 

of my teeth. 

Sometimes,

when I'm alone

and the air in the room 

is reserved only for

my paper lungs, 

I can hear the sadness 

rattle inside of me 

like the sound

of marbles

rolling against each other 

in a velvet bag,

and it's a sound so sweet, 

so achingly beautiful,

it hollows out

my bones

until they are nothing

but fragile instruments

of loneliness. 

I watched the news

this afternoon

and my collarbone 

snapped in half.

A Bleeding Heart

I fear my heart isn't as big as I thought it was

Everyday I fill its valves and arteries with stranger smiles and kind words and dazzling metaphors for what it means to love someone as much as I love myself

And I'm worried that my pulse is becoming faint as I bleed for people who have plenty of blood already
I'm worried that my heart beats too fast for too many people whose hearts beat for not enough people
And that by the time another heart beat finally echoes against my own
There won't be any room left for their name to run through my veins

I'm Driving

I'm driving
It's dark outside
And the street lamps glow orange
Illuminating the car
In measured flashes
As I write stories in my head
Using the sky as ink
And the road as my page
The shadows are my characters
They dance and fight and disappear
And they fascinate me to a point
That's almost scary
And I feel full and alone
All at the same time
But I can never think of an ending
To my story

If Chicago Could Think

Standing on a transparent ledge,
You'll see nothing but steel beauty
But look closer, squint both eyes
And my streets turn to rubble
Washed in White

Alien accents driving
Lipgloss-covered taxi cabs,
More entitled to my streets than
Wisconsin in the back, who says
God Bless

Jazz simmers from open windows
Tourists lose themselves in slices
I stare into a mirror made of coffee

And my reflected silouhette is crookedly

Beautiful

The hungry help the starving;
"Will tell joke for money."
There is nothing funny about it,
But pale faces crack into smiles
Anyway

Wind coming off the River
Sweeps violence through
My heavy doors with a whisper,
Evolution with each revolution,
I Promise

Note: edited version 

Chicago

Curb-side trash
Takes human form.
Visitors are awed,
"This city is so clean!"

Art Museum Patrons on a Sunday Afternoon

Old men,
With round, Whiskey bellies,
Tug on their serious lapels
and hum at Picasso.

Old women,
With glasses perched on pointed noses,
Jingle the bangles around their wasp wrists
and nod at Monet.

Young men,
With pants tucked into sneakers,
Scratch their 5 o' clock beards
and raise their eyebrows:
A Question.

Young women,
With their painted mouths and curled lashes,
Cock their wide, proud hips
and purse their lips:
A Critique.

They enter clutching the fare for priceless art - a reasonable, twenty-three dollar fee.

And leave with tired feet, puffed chests, and a deluded sense of understanding - the heavier cost by far.

You Better Not Cry

“Because he will grip you by 
the shoulders and wrench 
you around and he will bring 
his bristly mouth to yours and blow
stars 
down your throat
until
you are so full 
of
light.”

—	You Better Not Cry by Augusten Burroughs

Earthquake

She lives on a fault,
And exists only through a terrible balancing act of nature,
And thrives only through a precarious existence.

Unable to adapt,
Unfamiliar with continuity,
Unconcerned with boundaries,
And unafraid of displacement,
She has succeeded in cracking the very structure of her world
Into a clean, dangerous line,
An ethereal fracture.

But why?
Does she enjoy the commotion and insurrection only an earthquake can produce?
Are the screams like music to her ears and the hollow prayers like wicked pleasures to her heart?
Does she close her eyes and revel in the aftermath? In the cries and the chaos of a world shaken to its core?

Or does she simply abhor satisfaction?


She looks to San Andreas with the familiarity of an old friend and longs - impatiently and with a fervor that frightens even herself - for The Next Big One.

The ground begins to shake beneath her feet. She smiles.
A whisper,
"Are you satisfied yet?"

When your mother sends you pictures like this

with the message, "This is so you."

High School

Today was like any other school day. It was the last period and I was running a pass to pull a member of my newspaper staff from class so I could discuss her latest article edits. I was the only person in the commons of the school, and the wide, empty space seemed so much larger than it normally did. And quieter. So much quieter. The only sound was my own footsteps. The sunlight was streaming through the skylights in the high ceilings and it made the place look beautiful. Almost ethereal. I looked around at the hand drawn posters announcing yearbook sales and Homecoming dances and an overwhelming sense of contentment washed over me. It was almost startling how happy I felt in that moment. I love this place. I love the friends I've met here, the teachers I've learned from, and the experiences I've had. I love this place and I'm about to leave.

There isn't a day goes by that I don't complain about some aspect of high school. No day where I'm not "completely over it" or "so ready to get out of this place." At least not until today.

As I slowed my steps, wanting to savor the moment for as long as possible, I realized how I hadn't said any of those things today.

Not during my Statistics class, not when I had to take a pop quiz I knew no answers for in my Econ class, not when half of my debate team forgot their t-shirt money, not even when I stayed two extra hours after school to help the yearbook meet their deadlines.

I had a really good day. And it won't be long before those kind of days - where I am so accustomed to being busy it's not even considered "busy" anymore, where I'm needed to answer a million different questions from my staff and my team, where I'm asked to do things that are in no way my responsibility - are nonexistent. It won't be long before the easy, practiced days of being a student at CHS are over.

And today I realized just how much I'm going to miss it. Boy, am I going to miss this place.

Single Nice Guys

“In pop culture, girls who crush hopelessly on guys they can’t have are painted as just that – hopeless. Over and over again, we’re taught that girls who openly express sexual or romantic interest in guys who don’t want them are pitiable, stalkerish, desperate, crazy bitches. More often than not, they’re also portrayed as ugly – whether physically, emotionally or both – in order to further establish their undesirability as an objective fact. Both narratively and, as a consequence, in real life, men are given free reign to snub, abuse, mislead and talk down to such women: we’re raised to believe that female desire is unseemly, so that any consequent shaming is therefore deserved. There is no female-equivalent Friend Zone terminology because, in the language of our culture, a man’s romantic choices are considered sacrosanct and inviolable. If a girl has been told no, then she has only herself to blame for anything that happens next – but if a woman says no, then she must not really mean it. Or, if she does, she shouldn’t: the rejected man is a universally sympathetic figure, and everyone from moviegoers to platonic onlookers will scream at her to just give him a chance, as though her rejection must always be unfounded rather than based on the fact that he had a chance, and blew it. And even then, give him another one! The pathos of Single Nice Guys can only be eased by pity-sex with unwilling women that blossoms into romance!”

-Lamenting the Friendzone, or: The Nice Guy Approach to Perpetuating Sexist Bullshit

You have to be everything.

“We are the girls with anxiety disorders, filled appointment books, five-year plans. We take ourselves very, very seriously. We are the peacemakers, the do-gooders, the givers, the savers. We are on time, overly prepared, well read, and witty, intellectually curious, always moving… We pride ourselves on getting as little sleep as possible and thrive on self-deprivation. We drink coffee, a lot of it. We are on birth control, Prozac, and multivitamins… We are relentless, judgmental with ourselves, and forgiving to others. We never want to be as passive-aggressive as our mothers, never want to marry men as uninspired as our fathers… We are the daughters of the feminists who said, “You can be anything,” and we heard, “You have to be everything.” -Courtney Martin

(man)kind

1.
You want him to want you, don't you?
-You want him to love you?
Keep your skin smooth for him.
Keep your hair curled for him.
Keep your body lean for him.
Keep your voice quiet for him.
And most importantly, keep your mind empty for him.



2.
Look at those hips. What are they for if not to bear children?
Or at that mouth. What is it for if not to please a man?
That laugh - that's to boost his ego, right?
That voice is to sing his praises?
Those eyes to admire his silhouette?
Look at those hands - made to care for a man in sickness and in health.
And that magnificent soul. What is that for?



3.
As girls we sit in front of the television and we flip through the magazines and we learn our place.
After all, you must start early or else she'll start developing thoughts, won't she?

As teenagers we go to parties with drunk boys and we learn our place.
After all, if she wears that skirt and she bats her eyes she's asking for it, isn't she?

As women we stand at the alter and we read our vows and we learn our place.
After all, isn't this what she's been preparing for her whole life?


4.
We are fashioned so early to understand that once a man decides he wants us, our bodies are not our own. That if a woman rejects a man's advances it must be because she's crazy. She's crazy not to want to be with this man - the one that's been giving her attention all night.

He chose you, girl. He chose you and if anything, you should be flattered.