Sour Puss

I mean, I get it. I should have seen you from a hundred miles away. "Opportunist" is what you are. I carefully curated a section of this city and it is what it is not because or in spite of me but it's fucking mine because I set that flag pole into the dirt and proclaimed it to be so and it was. I let you in. I showed you things, told you how it was, shared the history and the mystery and the soundtrack that went with it and you backstabbed me in the most obvious and painful way. The women in my world are real with eachother and we don't hold back. I tell you the truth and you balk. I agree with you and you wonder why. I try to pantomime the five years I have on you and you turn your head. You make poor decisions and maybe your father is right, maybe you are selfish. Not maybe, you are. It's not enough for you, you crave bad decisions and you bask in the limelight that really is just a flickering bar light hovering over your phony halo. I'm mad, it's true but you knew you knew this would hurt me and you went boldly ahead in your plans. Did you want him to fuck you? Is that what this is about? You can't feel like you know a place until you fuck everyone in it? Why do you have to do that? What is the story here? What am I missing? Because all I see as far as Idaho is a girl with no solid footing in a place she hardly knows and men that hardly care to give her the tour outside of their bedroom. 

Why Can't I?

The secret that everyone knows is that we probably will end up together. I'm scared of your kindness and unsure of your motives. You're free and untethered and I guess I am too. We fall away and then fall back in. What am I to do with you? I think you know me better than I like to admit and maybe that's what scares me.

Running On

I want to know

What you thought 

Of our encounter.

You paced clutching

Your coffee like

Pearls.

I felt like time was slowing

And our student audience

Was waiting 

For the climax.

Yes, you moved back and forth

Nervous laugh

Side smile

Signature. 

And I leaned 

And spoke clearly 

For I knew you'd 

Appreciate that. 

Back and forth 

My eyes followed yours

While we sort of flirted 

And kind of conversed

About classes 

And badges 

And you not sleeping. 

Why can't you sleep Zack? 

Do you pace in your dreams?

Stepping like a peacock 

Untucked button down 

In place of bold feathers 

Unsteady gaze and breath caught

In your throat like smoke. 

Keeping you awake.

Not to want

I can't love anything.

I can't hold my hand steady

Keep my face 

I lose it all 

Buckling in the crush

Your wit you listen 

I think at least 

And wrong isn't the word

Desperate isn't the feeling 

Maybe more like in the way

Scarlett O'Hara Green gown staring down 

Wanting something getting nothing.

All that time wasted 

What did you say? Could you come again? Finding fuel to take us back 

In time

And that what passes us 

Is all the time

And when I asked you to drive me to California and you said to rent a car and then I knew. 

You don't have the time for me and I guess I don't either

I can barely afford moments with myself 

And why do I feel like shit and why do I go there 

Trying to be somewhere with you but 

We never even left we never were even 

Walking side by side but you take off 

Motorbike just right 

And I get it wrong every single time.

The moral or the parable 

Is that always, forever, until the end of time. If someone wants to be in your life they'll be in it. No hard feelings, no forced hands...they'll be there or at least try and then you'll know. 

Howl

It's irregular, this air. 55 degrees on an early July night...or morning. Ever anxious am I to find the reasoning for this drop in temperature. Broiling heat rids us of our senses. We sleep naked open tight fleshed glistening with fevered summer dreams. I lay here now smelling like spring, wishing you'll come to me like dew in the morning. Your face rises over me and makes everything grow brighter. Hello to your pretty mouth, hello to your body stretched oak high and just as strong. I lay here in the night and run your fingers through my hair, baking in the moonlight while Juno orbits Jupiter. Can't I just ask? Couldn't I just know what it felt like to be unraveled by you? Grace of your fingers and stars in your eyes. A Lone Wolf can still love, if only from afar. 

Nervous

My heart races when someone knocks on the door. My fingers tremble when I sit in front of everyone ready to tell them to reach into their pockets. I can't stop the shake, the breathing that isn't normal, the fear creeping up and rattling me to the core. I'm nervous and anxious, more so than ever before. Summer brought boredom and boredom brings anxiety. The $18,600, The she-devil that pays me, Europe, the world and ISIS are all I think about, all I stay awake and then dream about. It's heavy, this fear, this pain that comes for me. I expect my plane to be hijacked. I expect my insurance company to deny me. I expect something bad to happen now because something bad did happen already. Grandad getting cut up by his boat motor has set off a series of alarms that I liken to events that will turn out badly. My heart isn't broken and my body is as fine as ever. I breath and walk and work and try to cope and still I just want to cry. The cause of the pain is the only thing that can heal my hurt but where's the root when the whole thing feels like a throbbing, frightening mass? Breath into a paper bag, burn sage, do the fucking things you need to do in order to feel better but I'm still scared inside, I'm still wanting to cry and can't find the tears to do so. I'm scared, I'm scared, I'm scared. 

Work work work work work

I cut myself to close. My relationships with lovers are non existent because I am in love with someone else, myself. In order to keep this relationship going I never slow down. Over booking days to trade in as texts apologizing for skipping that drink or lunch or walk. When I'm in school I'm 100% in school, there's no half in for me...it's all or absolutely nothing and it never existed because I wouldn't have done it in the first place. This Summer was supposed to be different. It was supposed to be two classes, diversity in literature and painting. It was supposed to be library work and trying to volunteer again. It was supposed to be nothing like how it is right now...predictable, stable and controlled. I hadn't planned on Grandad dying. I hadn't planned on a fishing accident being the cause of his demise, someone so careful doesn't have accidents. I hadn't planned on the divers recovering his body from 36 feet deep at the bottom of the lake. I hadn't planned on Oklahoma and that almost week with my cousin and the vulnerable drunkeness of the entire experience. I hadn't counted on coming home to a writing job, one that actually paid something meaningful. I didn't realize the extent of what I would have to put up with though...the childish nature of working for someone who treats their business like a weekend hobby meant to garner friends and connections more than it was meant to actually assist someone. I hadn't counted on that other girl quitting and me having to pick up additional shifts, about 9, in order to fill in the gaps left by her. But in the midst of all of this I find myself outside more. I want to hike, even if I can't make it all the way. I want to walk around the park, even if it's so hot I can't breath. I want to run sometimes and that's even crazier. In the midst of all of this and despite everything this summer has already been I'm somehow finding time to do the strangest things. My days are fortune full, open to interpretation even though they are still structured. A map has always been my friend but never a necessity. I'll use it to take notes to reference later when I want to remember this time. The x marks the spot on my heart where whatever I'm looking for will inetivebly be...as long as I can stand the possibility that it will change.