Sarah Kay's Poetry

Thank you so much to everyone that is so kindly offering to transcript Sarah's poems and send them to us.

We know that there are a lot of poets, immensely talented and brave poets that share their work online and through Tumblr, and we understand they want people to notice them, but unfortunately this blog is only dedicated to Sarah's poetry. We don't post or reblog works from anyone else.

The first love of my life never saw me naked: there was always a parent coming home in half an hour,

always a little brother in the next room.  Always too much body and not enough time for me to show it.  Instead, I gave him my shoulder, my elbow, the bend of my knee -I lent him my corners, my edges, the parts of me I could afford to offer - the parts I had long since given up trying to hide.  He never asked for more.  He gave me back his eyelashes, the back of his neck, his palms - we held each piece we were given like it was a nectarine that could bruise if we weren’t careful.  We collected them like we were trying to build an orchid.  And the spaces that he never saw, the ones my parents half labeled “private parts” when I was still small enough to fit all of myself and my worries inside a bathtub - I made up for that by handing over all the private parts of me.  There was no secret I didn’t tell him, there was no moment I didn’t share - and we didn’t grow up, we grew in, like ivy wrapping, moulding each other into perfect yings and yangs.  We kissed with mouths open, breathing his exhale into my inhale - we could have survived underwater or outer space.  Breathing only of the breathe we traded, we spelled love, g-i-v-e, I never wanted to hide my body from him - if I could have I would have given it all away with the rest of me - I did not know it was possible.  To save some thing for myself.  Some nights I wake up knowing he is anxious, he is across the world in another woman’s arms - the years have spread us like dandelion seeds - sanding down the edges of our jigsaw parts that used to only fit each other.  He drinks from the pitcher on the night stand, checks the digital clock, it is 5am - he tosses in sheets and tries to settle, I wait for him to sleep.  Before tucking myself into elbows and knees reach for things I have long since given up.

Once, in Puerto Rico, I held onto a rock ledge for 45 minutes, refusing to jump into the lagoon below. My friends shouted up encouragement and strangers offered kind advice, until finally, the man I loved climbed up the rock face and stood behind me, coaxing “This is not a metaphor.”

He said this because he knew that I had already found a way to equate this failure with all other failures; knew that my mind prison is a tangle of labyrinths with unwarranted symbolism around every stubborn corner. I laughed because it was so accurate, and because if I died going down, those would be the last words I heard. Instead, I jumped and survived, and that night in bed, he wrapped his arms around me and whispered, “It was a metaphor. Me, I am the metaphor. I climbed up because I believe in you, because I love you and I knew that you could do it. Because I will climb up when you need me.”

And he was already asleep before I could answer, leaving me to stalk my own hallways for the meanings of the clutched rock, the shaking legs, the racing heart, the fall, the smack, the coldest shock, and the man who climbed up to tell me to let go. Not even a year later, he has moved into someone else’s body, and I am alone on a beach in Washington. I have come here to hide from my sorrow, to try to write poems that do not lead back to him. Instead, I find myself watching a pack of young men throw stones into the air before swinging giant bats of driftwood, smashing them over the water. The thwat and plop and plunk echoing up and down the otherwise empty beach. And yes, the name of this beach is Useless Bay. And yes, the men are swinging as hard as they can, of course. And yes, it is twilight. And yes, I am all alone. And I do not want these metaphors. I would give them all back if I could, even if it meant a rainstorm would forever be just a rainstorm, a ladybug on my arm simply that. Still, I would trade it for this relentless weight of meaning. This unfair promise of always finding pattern where there need not be any. Let the young men be just young men, and not my heart, forever swinging. Let the water be just water, and not the vast loneliness. Let the driftwood be driftwood. Let the bay be unnamed. Let the sunset not be my time running out, but only the hour of the day. Only an indication that the bugs will soon be out. That the young men will pull on their sweatshirts. But I should be heading home.