Mia

I write to remember realizations I have when high or tired When I have something to say and no reason to say it I write 15 verses to get to one line As I’ve written my thoughts out night after night Hoping that one day I’ll stand up from my next Into a life before pain I think closure might be the process Of finding the right words

It’s an odd day for December With air as thick and wet as in DC But I don’t walk quickly Don’t stuff my headphones into my ears I stroll and watch the trees Feeling my hair rise like bread Surround me like a twisted halo I don’t know what day it is I don’t keep count anymore I want to hang in this moment Let the sheer space of this moment dip time Let me hold this beat Like the hard fought top of a rollercoaster I learned hedonism when higher pursuits dropped me Now I don’t know where I’ll go in my rich layered life I have three cakes in my fridge And each time we take out a box Sitting on the floor carving it with plastic forks It tastes the colder same

These past months have been the first time I felt like an adult It felt like a water park wave pool It felt like the end of the ribbon of a balloon It felt like ice cream melting down my fingers My weight rose As I sought to be less than air Become a vacuum My waist shrank As I sought to test my strength Knowing I was my only worthy opponent I called my body Cold War bunker Fully stocked I called my body odds against me Fully stacked I made my body fourth line of defense Preceded by creativity, charisma, and crying My grades fell As I spent every hour in class waiting to fall into bed They fell more As I forgot libraries existed Living from friend to lover High to high I only wrote in the margins of all my notebooks Perfected my hardwriting only in cursive And on the bathroom mirror Next to the perfect portrait of myself blurry in man made dew and soft colors I broke my favorite four color pen I made friends Cracked myself open in the corners of loud rooms and let others come inside to take a break I ruined my reputation Lost the temper I’d been watching since I took it home from elementary school Doubled my body count in a month and a half Washed down the last of the liquor with a complaint Treated others the way id been treated I told a boy I’ve learned that sometimes aggregating bad decisions makes them good He kissed me It wasn’t my intention for him to do that But I’m not the type of person anymore To pass up an opportunity to do something just to see how it ends I don’t think I’d ever loved myself until November Maybe liked myself Admired from afar We never had intimacy Not trust or forgiveness I couldn’t meet my own expectations I tore apart everything I respected about myself these months Let myself eat for my other cravings Killed my precious brain cells Let my feelings lead a bloodless coup I may not ever be exceptional I might live out my life with no one thinking I’m worth the effort But I will not beg for love I will not chant apologies with my forehead pressed to the floor I will not let my body be both carrot and stick I will not pray to be scared into submission I will not deny my grossest desires, even when I deny them to myself I will not code switch like a portable radio I will not use my many defensive tactics I will not struggle beneath my pain I will not regret not knowing everything when I needed it I pour nineteen fistfuls of California sand Into a trench I made Over little bubbles from crabs breathing underneath For nineteen years of wasted time For nineteen bodies I never touched with care For nineteen years of learning in so few disciplines For all my many loves I was too focused on getting to love me For all the thoughts I didn’t say out loud and thought were normal For all people I said sorry to instead of thank you These last few months have passed like summer days And I forgive myself for it all It’s been time worth wasting

Contemplation for the new year In each city I have to learn how to be alone again Hours in echoing museum galleries in DC In poetry books I’d never buy in London Embarrassing myself in French ordering cheese in Parisian cafes Eating vending machine soba at full counters of solo people in Tokyo But LA is easy I learned a long time ago which stores had shelves to wander in To not look odd while enjoying the AC Rooftops to watch teenagers skate from Empty shops with terrible three dollar sandwiches I learn astrology By which I mean I make new constellations from what can be seen through the smog I learn witchcraft By which I mean I make soup with what I find in the deepest darkest parts of my pantry and inhale the fumes I stare at clocks until they melt and do nothing but tick Only a few years ago I couldn’t walk here without seeing someone I wanted to ignore But they’re all different girls growing too fast out of clothes they spent their last $10 on There’s one storefront on the corner that rotates establishments like a rich guy does wives But today it’s empty and pale blue It’s hard to see this city change We hide beneath the shade of a plastic Christmas tree from the dry sun falling New punk bands graduate high school and replace the ones who “made it” in clubs beneath coffee shops The poles are covered with so many generations of stickers advertising mix tapes and YouTube channels You could take a knife to them and peel them like a banana Time doesn’t move forward here It comes in layers to press down on the old ones I listen to playlists that poke at past wounds and see how much they’ve healed Visit the hill we all used to watch the city darken from The grass has become straw, the slab of concrete we drew on in white out gone I reread the awful poetry and fan fiction I used to write I wonder when I’ll laugh at this one I’m filled with compassion for my former selves The insomnia returns puffing up as soon as I sit on my childhood mattress I watch the musicals I used to cry to and work on my resume I sit in the garden as the sun sets And accept I often have no one to watch it with and no way to get around I feel my lingering helplessness and swallow it in small doses I fall in and out of love with this place in a week Like I always do I grieve at the places I buried my desires in the backyard I buy bath salts and sit in the water until it turns cold I watch the wrinkles run up my fingers and prepare to wither And when the coyotes come out and whine I hold my tiny ugly dog close to my chest But I do not struggle for breath I do not beg for loyalty I do not regret my endless faults that run one after another like droplets hitting the sink from a leaky faucet I kneel in front of my brick walls and thank god for the changes I’ve missed while the days pack together I thank god for the love that now only lives in my intestines I kneel behind my sunken bed and pray: Time is the only miracle I’ve ever felt I do not love the things I miss I do not love the things I miss

It’s 1:24 am She feels me stirring She sits up She’s has a 9 am class tomorrow morning That night was the first I cried in front of her Before the lights went off She got me talking Coaxed out my feelings without tugging She watched me without voyeurism There are two occasions I’ve been told someone loves me One during a breakup And one during sex in a one night stand She doesn’t sleep when she knows I’m not She shows me a game “I’m going to a picnic, I’m bringing velvet, a violin, and a vest” “Can I bring a vine?” “No” “Can I bring merlot?” “Yes” The first time I remember seeing my parents kiss I was thirteen After 8 years of my moms wedding ring living in the depths of her sock drawer My father took off his crucifix And became someone I had to pretend I knew at all I feel nauseous She rubs my stomach in slow circles We fall asleep in uncinematic romance I’m used to laying with my eyes open and one arm suffocating beneath warmth Im used to being lulled to sleep watching another girl breathing Wanting her to turn around to look at me in blue eyes Wanting her to want to stay awake It’s February again But warm enough that rain comes down as thin as snow And this Sunday has been longer than the time since the new year Every sidewalk leads me to the commuter rail But I stay in bed in piles of white I’ve never written a good love poem in my life I discover as I read through old ones for inspiration I turn on my happy lamp and put on my counterfeit ray bans I treat boredom worse than pain I discovered while wandering DC in the heat wave Down the sides of highways and into apartment doors Waiting to feel wanted in short bursts that came duller every time Watching the air rise from the concrete in waves as the city bakes at 103 degrees I wrote her a shitty poem in vocabulary I don’t have To tie to a stuffed raccoon that stares at me in glass eyes I proofread more than I need to Though I know she’ll kiss me either way I hope the first book of poetry I ever made left Massachusetts a long time ago Thrown away in anger or forgetfulness It seems likely It’s contents were terrible and written in pen I’m taking a day to throw my addictive tendencies a funeral Covered in a white sheet A pile of unpretty things I found in and on my body Blue raspberry svedka and children’s laxatives and belts that held my wrists in close intimacy But the best part of any drug is the relief of withdrawal lifted And the best thing I felt from love was being begged for forgiveness So I stuff into the pile almost a year of feedback loops Of relief I earned in struggling I had my first breakup at 15 The anticlimactic climax of a chaste and uneventful relationship Every now and then she’d return She texted me on my birthday and included “you’re the only person that’s never fucked me over” I write a list of the things I have left to give Leave my past love a thousand apologies I still found hidden in my pillowcases I let myself go numb under many bodies in the last six months Tried boys again and the first one vaped in my room Bled on someone’s pillow My best moments were walking back home Trying not to slip on ice With the security of leaving someone so neatly in my past I mourn myself a year ago Walking to the train station in the snow, crying into the phone, into my sisters ear I grieve the words I’ll never hear again Wept into my shoulder While a party murmurs on without me I miss the scenic shots Make a scrapbook of dorm room beds and library basements and train stations All the places we felt better for a little while I let myself fall back to the London bed where I let her undress me one last time Because I wanted to kiss her like I knew it was all she’d remember And finally in the last night we slept together asked her to face me A request she expressly protested before conceding I regret learning love in extreme conditions My heart won’t beat faster when my second love comes tonight We’ll fall asleep with my head in her bent rib cage I know we will I know she’ll come