journal-poems by ray

I choose paths that bring me close to that which I want to move beyond

At the cusp of three decades I haven’t yet decided

What age I really am

Isn’t that always the problem these days

I spurn your talk therapy—I know what ails me

I know I should drink less, stretch, eat kale, all that

But something tells me it’s different for me

I was raised with the trees

My cure is catalpa

My panic when I worry the poison spread from the box elder

But the big leaves and comical bean seeds are still green

I didn’t mess this one thing up—all the way—just yet

Do you remember your daughter?

You planted a tulip poplar the day I was born

I used to measure it with my child’s hands

Before I knew what DBH stood for

You cut it down-callously-when I was 18

Couldn’t fathom why I was crying that day

At the blank, sun-baked front yard

Not long after, you forgot my name entirely

But I still remember — Liriodendron tulipifera

Why do I have to remember everything while everyone else gets to forget

I’ve beaten the magnolia metaphor into the mesic ground

But the bleeding hearts still get to me

You let me pick one plant from the nursery for your garden

What thirteen year old wouldn’t choose bleeding hearts?

Now I see them at work and feel it in my chest

Did you rip out that one, too, by the roots?

Do you even remember it was mine?

It would be okay if you were angry, too—

But instead I am nothing, forgettable, an unscientific thirty-year-old undergrad scientist chasing a hero who named me but forgets my name

I hate you for giving me things to love, for laughing with me at catalpa trees

For cutting down my tulip poplar

About things you said in passing

In years passed

The videos archived

That you never imagined watching

At 3 am—at almost thirty

When—then— you were eighteen

And funny-filtered with friends

Or holding back your singing volume

So some neighbor—long forgotten—wouldn’t know

Your heartbreak

For some boy, a stranger now

But god damn— did you sing — about him

And some part of your cells

Despite the seven-year turnover

Still feel a kind of heaviness

That reminds you of being eighteen

Without him

And so much thinner—but heavier still

It’s something like quicksand

You feel compelled to go to the bathroom mirror

(Where you finally pay rent, but do not sing)

Stare at the wrinkles on your forehead

Suck in your stomach

Find an angle that makes your collar bones

Exist—like then—but instead:

You can’t stop clicking next

At somewhere near thirty

Watching your eighteen-year-old face

In pixelated shadow

You are decades-old technology

Before background noise suppression existed

So you sound like machinated nonsense

And you only got thirty views

And yet—there’s something to be said—about then

God damnit, you existed

How did you ever even walk?

So frail and tired with barely breath to sing

But you walked everywhere then

Somewhere near eighteen

In someone else’s basement, their living room floor

In some dorm room

Wrapped in blankets, cold, starving, terrified

Those hesitant ukulele chords

That plucked you from addiction—

The tempo so wrong but you were singing

When you still had something

There may not be another chance To feel happy (For a long time, or for ever) And that feels pretty sad

When the heaviest sorrow was the girl with more magnetism than me And wondering of the nature of “girls” Before I was just a woman With bills and debt and a broken knee

When words would stir and people listened Because of the potential energy

I remember writing poems about  The strangest part of video games --Turning in quests --Running long distances When it was still cute and coarse and not quite True

They call it over the hill but really I’m at the bottom Always looking up

There is a certain thrill in throwing things away --the paperwork, the proof, the poor excuses (Yourself)

A relief, a reconciliation, in forgiving your fingers Relaxing their grip On that last bit

There exists a certain splendid suicide note That sounds like a poem Affected like an apology To all the poor versions of me who have died So that I Could try, try again.

I don’t think there is any more depth to drain out of me I can’t wring out another drop of writing To express how finished I am With trying

An ending so complete but not so complex I refuse and reject any more jargon About timelines or pathways or never-giving-up And present--instead--an empty shell And ask How much more until I can be done?

(If at first, and second, and third...)

My genuine pleasure.

Even though most days I cried And I wasn’t able to answer the survey with “good” a single time And I’ve watched myself slipping out of intellect, steadily, bit by bit, all year Heavier and heavier, abstractly and literally I can only consume so much before I am full

But damn if I don’t keep taking more.

Even though I should have known better And this wasn’t the first time, or the second or even the third And I poured out all I had in time to realize I didn’t have nearly as much as I thought I thought, I thought, I thought Abstractly and literally, more and more abstractly

Until nothing makes any sense at all. 

I can’t remember anything ever hurting as badly As all these premature congratulations As hearing that it’s been a pleasure  As trying to return the pride I stole As everyone seeing my glass half full When there isn’t even a glass at all

I am in the unique position To watch my own ending in slow motion To be able to appreciate what most people see only in hindsight “It was the last time, and I didn’t even know” But I do know, it is the only thing that I do know It is the last time, because I will not do this again.

I will admit to having expected miracles Even though I’ve done nothing to deserve them And it didn’t work the first time, or the second or even the third But it’s still all I ever wanted It’s still all over (Wanting does not make it so) My genuine pleasure--

Black coffee Chopped orange peppers Socks that match in form but not color

Fear and friends A gripping need to need less The relaxation each time someone enters

When have I last felt calm Without some substance?

How strange, how rare How long has it been Since I drew in a breath of delight,

Surrounded by nothing But knitted socks Black coffee Friends that make me fearless Taking notes on water chemistry From my kitchen table

Irony Follows me

For years I watched ordinary man, out there From my tower Now the streets empty and the towers are full It’s a joke, it’s a disaster It follows--after--me

Did I wish this on the world? Bitterly begging they could understand To want so badly-- But boarded up within

I exhaled my demon as a virus And it grew, it spread, now free

(I’m sorry)

I wonder about circles.

A concept of time stretched to vibration where everyone is younger but I am still so small I know it is never just like the pictures, not even my own And I don’t miss sixteen, or even nineteen But I do miss yesterday, and the day before.

I am frozen at the moment of impact--unable to move even to save myself

There was comfort once in God, but mostly it just made me feel better than people having more fun than I was.   But I still panic when I sin.

I consider circles.  

Try to feel the visceral soil under my fingernails, touch ancient stones, call the wasp on my hand friend, bake myself in the sun in defiance of humanity’s picnic table umbrellas, believe that I will come back

But I’m still ghostly white and empty of ancestors and I’m told to believe these things is cultural appropriation

So I find myself missing God after all.  I am allowed that.

The sun sets earlier every day but I only want to sleep when everything feels golden, the swell of morning, the potential energy of the day; nothing makes me more tired

I try some circles.

The trails marked “loop” and never “out and back.”  I never plan to run but I always do.  And then I jump and step and dodge like there’s something to escape somewhere to be.

My knees are tired but my mind is still awake; but I think it’s too late for both.

Soon I’m moving away, again It’s what I do

I shouldn’t have told anyone I feel like I’m intruding now It’s like I’m already gone

I have had--so many--constructed homes So many families Each one gathered up, loved, broken, left One by one

I have never--once--left fondly I burn every bridge I cross

[[When I was sixteen I worked at a theater camp Teaching elementary kids to sit still and listen And to sing and dance And part way though the summer My agoraphobia poured over me like water in my lungs I called in sick a lot, or I was late The director, of course, was furious, fired me I thought the kids, at least, had liked me I came back the night of their performance Walked with shaking limbs to the school And--I remember so clearly--I had this daydream I pictured myself walking into the practice room during intermission And all the kids would smile and run to hug me Excited that I came--despite my anxiety I came to see my little family And that night, I walked into the practice room during intermission And nobody even looked up Not one of them even smiled at me I was a ghost, I was already forgotten I was nobody I went home.]]

(I think maybe that was when I decided To never have children Who would just learn to hate and forget me.)

I never told that story  Not to anybody, until now

Maybe because the story repeated itself In every other job, every other family, every other friend I have ever had since then It hardly matters It’s just one more

So maybe I do it on purpose Maybe I break things first so I don’t have to watch them break Maybe, in my mind, I will always be sixteen and afraid To walk across town by myself Trying to force strangers to be my family Just because we work together Just because they have no choice But I’m always late and never fully there And I don’t even know why I don’t know whats wrong with me, still

At nineteen I got a diagnosis, “panic disorder.” At twenty five a therapist finally told me I was a “child of narcissistic abusive parents.” But I don’t think that’s enough to know What’s wrong with me What’s really wrong with me, and everything, all of me is wrong Wrong for me, wrong for everyone around me

Wrongly, maybe

On a mountain someone told me an

Anecdote about the singer who threw himself

So fiercely outwards — outwards

He broke all apart inside.

Not too much screaming, just screaming wrong

Wrongly? Maybe.

He told me as he played a song

The same throat, lungs, chest, singing along

Like nothing had ever gone wrong.

Some people can lie without even a flutter

In their blood pressure.

Some people can.

Some are occupied drowning in truths

Escaping like a dusty swarm

Catching, scratching, the scream tearing out

I begin to feel awe at the effortlessness

I’ve always envied the gift.

Wrongly? Maybe.

For months now I’ve begged for some water

But I keep breathing fire

Lead gut, moth-swarmed lungs, the scream

Will no one else see it?

The objectivity in art after all.

Just give me silence facing the wall.

Every piece together--peace Each equilibrium across thresholds From one part to the next--whole An unexplainable echo Now suggests--chemicals Sometimes the proper explanation --is never to explain.

All these years trying to find myself

I just keep finding you

All these dreams and disappointments

I’m left with you

On and on to more and more

Until one quiet Thursday

I finally form the thought

When did I forget my only consistent dream?

I’ve already made it

I have you

I’ve already made it

Two days of unregulated hands means

Dragging polish over my nails

Color as an exercise in self control

How long can I keep my hands still

Can I just be still

Touch nothing

Long enough for the layers to solidify

Shiny and flawless and smooth

Glinting in the porch light

Or will I inevitably decide I must touch

Must move, grab, reposition

And inevitably

Chisel a dent into the pearly baby blue

Imperfect

Messy, dirty, quite unlike the pictures I save

From Pinterest and Instagram

Nails that have never worked

Never touched, moved, lived

Trying to write postulates but all that falls out is poetry Stuttering through Hemmingway small talk In an effort to hide my terror

--I have forgotten words

Some dichotomy between antihero and lion and menace Faltering between pride and shame in myself In my words (In my lack)

I forget my age, over and over, more and more I never imaged, a decade ago, it would feel this bad I’m terrified of the next decade and the next

--Now I realize I’m doomed to stay alive

I am a sticking pedal, lurching, pressed back Start stop I’ve learned exactly how far I can drift on empty I’ve learned so tediously how to make this work

--How to be myself

I don’t want to be known as a complex Of not Growing Up