Tag: poetry

the listener

I am always the listener.

And I do listen.

I try to help by staying quiet,

So they can feel felt, and be seen.

Even miles away, I am listening.

I am listening to everyone.

I am listening

To everyone but me.

And no one else is listening either.

I open my mouth

And another voice drowns mine out.

And I am forgotten.

When they are done being heard,

They are done using me

Using my extraordinary ears.

Done sitting on my heart

And pushing the air from my lungs,

Making me feel small.

They leave me.

They go back to whatever it was

They were thinking about that wasn’t me.

It is never me.

And when they go back,

They do not think about how much I listened,

Or how their throats are dry from speaking so much.

They cannot remember my responses,

Because I barely spoke.

Because I cannot be allowed to speak.

It must be a crime, you see

Punishable by law

For someone to listen to me.

And so, I forget

What it feels like to be heard.

I forget that people are supposed

To want to do that, too.

I forget.

And I forget.

I forget what it feels like

To be the one who is loved,

And not the one doing all the loving.

And my well is dry.

I thought the tap was endless,

But there is no more water

To give.

I think a butterfly just flew out of my mouth

I can’t stop thinking about the butterfly thing, where he really said I think a butterfly just flew out of my mouth. And it doesn’t make me feel how it did at all any more, but it is so easy to remember how it used to make me feel. Like I’m watching myself act it out in a little movie.

I remember how much I reread that text over and over and over and over and I could have survived off of just knowing that someone felt that way about anyone. I only need three hours of sleep and a daydream when I feel like that.

Where you keep starting to do something and just forget right in the middle of it because he said he got butterflies from thinking about you so you drop everything and lay on the floor to ground yourself before you go flying into the Milky Way. And every time you pass by a mirror you go !!!! She Knows Something I’m Afraid To Think and you give yourself that little smile and can’t even let your own eyes meet or you’ll lose your grip on gravity yet again.

How strange it is that we can even get to that point. Where all you feel is !!!! and the butterflies in your tummy fly up to your heart and out of your throat and out of your mouth right in the middle of the airport and everyone’s wondering how did a monarch butterfly land right here in Terminal 3? But you hardly even notice because of all the butterflies still trying to make your feet lift right off of the ground so you swallow a thousand times until you feel about 60% certain that everybody can’t tell you’re in Big L.

He sent it from the airport. We weren’t texting before and I didn’t know how to reply. I probably read it a hundred times before I even thought about how to answer and the funny thing is I can’t remember how I answered at all. Some memories are like that. I remember exactly how I felt and how I pictured him sending the message and how it made me feel for the longest time, but I don’t know what I said back. Probably something mediocre because how can you beat a lyricist at the word game and in general I never know what to say just that I feel too much of it.

The picture is from Jude Guench, from a short story called The Butterfly Eater. I feel it is much more appropriate to how I feel now and in a way I feel like our stories parallel each other’s.

sudden repulsion syndrome

Sudden Repulsion Syndrome is what happens when a small decision or behavior puts an abrupt end to a budding relationship.

I get fight or flight but for relationships.

Like I loveloveloveloved maybe one or two people in my life, and out of nowhere I’d wake up one day and be so disgusted by them. The day before I was writing them in my diary and daydreaming about their cologne, and then suddenly I would gag at the thought of one guy’s laugh, at another guy’s little moles.

I think my least favorite part about myself is how I can never decide on anything but I always know how I feel about someone because my brain sends some strong chemicals 3000% too quick. I don’t know I’m over a relationship until I’m physically repelled by the person I thought I was happy about.

Or I’m 3000% the other way, and the norepinephrine, dopamine, serotonin are like little butterflies trying to make their way out of my throat while I profess some kind of undying love.

I’ll fight so hard or I’ll run so fast, and neither of us is ever ready for that.

¿Qué más?

There are people, like me, that succeed out of spite.

Nonsense has been released post-partum to our intense liking of one another. I am not convinced that I have ever felt love, but I am certain that I have felt a strong need to attach myself to someone that loves me.

I think of you and I laugh.

Who could have predicted that I knew how to work this hard and this fast, and you knew how to run away so quickly? Your mother is my second mother and she still sends me her favorite Netflix recommendations.

Sometimes I hear music and it doesn’t remind me of you.

I only think about the one year and a couple awful months that happened when I think about how young I was and how bad everything is when you’re 20 years old. I think about how you said you never make it to seven months and I think it’s because you’re a cheater and a liar, a phony and a narcissist.

I am getting more.

My best friends and I are going on a trip this year to see something new. I am tired of seeing the same things and hearing how people fall prey to the same mistakes. I want to hear new stories and see new environments.

I always hated your singing,

Everyone is good except you. Your slight lisp is not affectionate in the slightest and you should quit immediately. It’s hard to be the bearer of bad news except when it isn’t hard at all because you belong on another continent, far away from me.

Anybody can run, but it takes guts to stay.

pretty. hard.

I worked pretty hard these past two years.

Read it as “pretty” and “hard.” Separately, but at the same time. I worked beautifully and I worked mightily. I worked pleasingly, lovingly, and dearly and I worked unbreakably, diligently, and powerfully.

I do anything I care about pretty hard. I write pretty hard, I love pretty hard, and I sleep pretty hard.

I love words and love and dreaming. Most of the time all at once, and it’s pretty hard to keep up with.

I crashed pretty hard when my family moved across the country, I burned prettier and harder when I fought for a crush (because it wasn’t love, not really) that was never worth my time and was never supposed to happen. I picked myself up pretty hard and got some pretty hard internships and got a pretty hard job with pretty hard decisions to make.

What I am saying is that I can be breathtakingly resilient and my resilience can be breathtaking.

What I am saying is that after two years I am pretty hard to break.

Imagine me after two more.