You don't want to hurt me
So you do to make me go away,
        but you keep coming back
& I keep asking you to stay.

The theories of a procrastinator:

If I set out to do something,

I should trick myself into calling it something else;

If I say I'm going to study, 

I mean I'll clean the house.

If I say I'm going to clean, 

I'll write with other thoughts, 

& if I mean to write, 

I'll call up a friend.

Manipulation is key.

I can't commit to time;

I confess my love for it, 

yet I don't pay attention to it.

I'll hold it close to me,

I'll pull for it in the creeping hours of the night,

but I don't know how to make it mine,

to keep it balanced by my side, 

& it leaves me like a burnt out lover. 

I look at my writing

& parts of my soul sigh

or cry or cringe, 

but some remind me 

that most feelings are finite,

all this built up emotional tar

     can be exhaled out.

It's hard to let go

when words are fossils in my mind,
but life is orchestrated by heartbeats,
Yours & those around you,
so eventually I do,
     let go.
But I 

replay conversations,

wander through my museum of texts

or in rarer cases look at my handwriting.

I read my frozen thoughts,

I note the letters that dip & bow to my feelings.

I find childish misunderstanding 

written impatiently 
& my expectations torn in frustration.

I read of empty goals 

or simply who I was before,

caring about the no longer relevant.

I find sharp & rigid points I tried to make

to cut at my smoother,

sadder expressions; 

the moon lit & lonely letters 
       only spoken by my fingertips.

I find love curling around vowels,

adding flourishes to the flat,

       uprooting & cracking cemented pain

& growing up & out of my eyes again. 

These emotions  

affectionately pull me back 

& are tattooed by my memory;

I write them only 
hoping to connect
      for their messages are infinite as long as they do. 

I quietly listened to the rain
& my beating heart today.

I focused on cleaning my house,

clearing old energy out,

energy that doesn't suit me, 

doesn't feel right,

energy that grabs my throat

& lays me down in uncertainty 

so I don't know whether to leave.

I try to rid myself of the nostalgia of romance,

but there you are

ripping off our pants,

pulling everything aside, 

pushing at my walls

as they pull you in,

grabbing at my skin. 

So yes, it's hard not to think of you in a sexual way

because chemistry told us to behave that way.

I wish you well without touching you

because my feelings betray what I should do.

Random thoughts

     The other night I sat at a bar hoping to start a conversation. I'm always looking for someone. It seems like such a fantasy now, in this time, this generation to simply meet somewhere that you're not supposed to be by routine. A random conversation seems so romantic. I know so many people, but I am lonely. Appreciate what you have! I hear this in my head. Unhappy people don't appreciate. I am grateful, but I know there's more I'm stifling myself from. Maybe sitting at a bar isn't where I should be starting. Maybe I'm lonely knowing I have the answers all along I just don't know how to equip them.
      I've always just flown by the seat of my pants. It sounds so exciting that way. The adrenaline of barely making it and then resting in the knowledge that you kept it together just enough. Adding extra thrill by making accomplishments of the mundane seem that much more exhilarating because I can't do them normally like everyone else. Everything must be taken care of in a violent burst of energy, it's never gradual. I never wash the dishes everyday. It has to come after I've invited someone over and I say "Oh my god, sorry it smells." I've always been extreme in these kind of things because I'm too afraid to be extreme in any other avenue of my life. Why not take the extreme reistance to clean or handle boring adult responsibilities and apply it to investing myself in my writing or just deciding to leave the country and breathe fresh unfamiliar air. I stay in my house because I'm afraid. I'm afraid of my own potential, of being uncomfortable. I'm afraid of being on my own yet terrified to be so close to someone that my foundations sink to the ground without them. But I felt like connecting so I sat at a bar.
      The more unfortunate physical version of my ex landlord was sitting next to me. I didn't feel it was necessary to tell him he looked my landlord. He looked to be in his forties, balding, short, round, not winning of the evolutionary lottery. First he told me he was impressed by the dark beer I was drinking. This became an open door to discuss his kids, his divorce, and his succubus of an ex wife. He told me how he paid for her boob job, her Botox, fancy trips, getting her nails done, all the things to occupy her unemployed day. He told me she was a vampire and the divorce was bleeding him dry. At a certain point I looked over at him and said, "So then what was the appeal for you? Obviously you were attracted to her, and that's a direct reflection of you." He seemed a bit stunned and said "Oh god, will you just slap me right now?" I said "No, I think your divorce is hitting you enough right now." We talked for a long while and he told me how insightful and smart I was, how I'm not like other girls. Then he proceeded to hit on me. I mentioned that he was making the same mistake as he did before, hitting on a younger woman who's not interested. Despite all the compliments, free drinks (I tried to pay) and flattery...I just felt more lonely. Why can I not take my own advice? Easier said than done.

Being 28 feels like
the longest autumn of my life.
My colors are changing;
they have bolder,
complicated, refined names,
accent wall color names.
When I was greener,
before my sienna was burnt,
I imagined who I would be
& here I am,
still imagining,
pieces falling off & pieces growing,
recycling my thoughts,
reminding myself when it gets cold,
the bare & the vulnerable
are canvasses for blossoms.

I feel my heart softening
though I'd rather it'd be hard.
It feels right when there is a fire
to spit out words that burn
& unleash its' heat,
to rid of everything 
inside me.
All bridges behind me
leave trails of stubborn 
ash in my heart. 
It's easier to bait & hunt blame
than to digest my pain. 

I take the lump in my throat

       & throw it as a stone.

I let my pain hit you

       rather than holding it on my own.

The capacity of my care may not fit

the room I expected it to be in;

      & what hurts worse

than discovering your love

is considered too much 

       but not enough.

I had the thought 

that if you could see me in my private moments

that you may fall in love with my reactions;

how I feel 

when a smile cracks across the face of the squirmy boy

I'm helping read a book when I say

"I'm so impressed!"
If you could see

when I'm packed away in traffic

covering rap verses like I own the pain 

      or party they were inspired by, 

how my eyes stare off into a mental sea

     & come back to think of something funny, 

how I rest my head on top of a fat, familiar dog 

or even that long sigh before I step in the shower,

I had the thought that this could make you love me;

if you could see

how I want to share my love-

       but it's uncomfortable 

    for me too,

because I feel like it can't all fit,

     it's too much to carry,

it's too heavy for you;

     what was meant to hold you

chokes your definition of it.

But while it always felt like it was suffocating you,

I felt like I was speaking a different language, 

one you were never taught,

      one you avoided understanding,
& you don't want to read it,
       you don't want to see. 

I feel his hand

         loosening from my thoughts. 

I say goodbye to a kind of love 

I can't wear everyday. 

I leave behind my wounded pride 

& dreams of a changing mind. 

Now I feel a goodness

         I haven't grasped,

but slowly

         I am understanding the touch.

You let me be tangled in you

         & you don't fear getting caught.

You want to see me 

         from all angles,

You want 

         to breathe me in. 

I'm aware of my self destruction 

like Alice drowning in her tears,
    making everything bigger than it is. 

I'll wrestle a task,
               drink away the night,
scratch up my skin,
       call an ex.

I'll find a new problem

          to lose focus on my current one. 

I'll stir sleeping thoughts awake
          instead of waking my ambitions.

When there's no tv show muting my thoughts,

          no pair of eyes distracting me from my own,

I look anxiously for other noise

          instead of listening when it's quiet. 

I torment other scenarios 

that aren't this one.

My thoughts storm 

& everything I have left to sit outside 

          is soaked & heavy by my negligence.

Obstacles collect in the yard,

& I can only smile & trip over them for so long before

          everything is all at once, 

          & it all seems like a mess.

I could pretend it's fine & close the blinds,

but here they are 

haunting me 

with different faces in different ways. 

All the information you've told me,

The stories, 

the mumblings you half way intend me to hear, 

the looks I feel when we connect,

              all of these pages you've let me read 

are embedded in my heart;

& to pluck these out takes study and skill,

a special examination of not the shiny memory itself 

              but the heart it is embedded in,

how I choose to hold it there 

when starker moments are not brought to light. 

My memory plays tricks, 

seducing me with the echo of what was said.

Fantasy might creep in steadily 

the longer the time fades away,

it might make you look and taste a certain way. 

I found myself looking at pictures of you 

after refusing to for such a long time,

not wanting to remember how much emphasis 

I put on your life crossing mine.

I'm afraid of a dull protective pain 

dissolving into the cracks of your smile 

or bending with the dark curve of your eyelashes. 

I'm aware of a pain that has come & gone 

& slid thick inside again & again.

I'm afraid of an artificial light drawing me in, 

pulling me into assumptions and expectations.

               But if anything, 

& no matter how trapped or caught I feel or felt, 

I can appreciate something that pulls me out of myself,

something that points out a different shade of me that not all see.