Poems I Popped

as recoverable but difficult

as possibly the reason I keep going back to your instagram page to look at the photo of your family bringing you a birthday cake

its the best photo I have ever seen

I have tried to take this photo in so many ways

you have a gift

game was not one of them

I feel bad on the surface

and beneath that I feel a hundred thousand emotions I hadn't known before

I feel so comfortable and safe with you

Can you imagine? 

Can you imagine if all the things I had wanted as a child I got?

people like us don’t win the fight

and if I could change the way the stories go, babe

open spaces I can’t fill

alone where everyone comes to go

and I know for a bit I will be all good

and I know without question that it won’t last forever

but, honey, they all are. They are all longings for something and longing, as discussed, is the most potent part of love

you could write about all the amphibians in shades of Mary Oliver however faint and I could sniff out your love for the elusive kiss at the corner of Mrs. Darlings’ mouth or the genesis of the frog’s croak or whatever keeps your own heart beating

I hear your love because your poetry makes you human

as we,

yes we,

we are

gatorade bottle filled with movie titles and songs

persistent summer sun scorching pale shoulders

wet bathing suit not allowed in my grandmother’s house

and protection I still think I have against the bad things of the world that happen to others

the crease in your neck where the sun has not burned you up

the folds across your top lip

the weathered skin gathering in folds over the back of your hands

to collect your humanity from the part of you

the crack, the fold, where it seeps out

and hold it close to my own

And, I know, for a while I will be all good

And, I know, without question that it won't last forever

I have been going out of myself trying to meet you without pretense

I can guess where your hands are busy working without looking up at the time

Your distraction only making you more worthy of treasure

I know where in the world your left eyebrow is ticking up in suggestion

Suggest something to me alone

Meet me somewhere safe and private

So you can sit and tell me about your mum

How she tried to teach you piano

And then ask me about my day

Stay longer than you intended

I'll tell you about the time I broke my toe

Just one story more

Just one more shared meal

tis the longing and the leaving

Tis the frantic joining

and then the wretched cleaving

the sparkling hope

the burning lust too

and then the drama and pain

and tears of adieu

spun round by the fates

and won't pause to think why

forever kissing hello

I wish I could live there

that life could be messy and warm and full of love

but life is at some points pure misery and darkness and it feels like winter has come too soon and will stay too long

but there is a picture of you on my fridge and I see it every day and it is beautifully disguised

it hides amongst needless papers

stubborn and insistent to cut through the imaginary importance of everything else just to say

that loving each other is the only thing we are truly meant to do

My love for you is sacred

they slipped right out of their aching mother and knew immediately where to go to find what they needed

warmth and milk and after a few fumbling minutes they were able to secure both

and I walk around on this earth with the tiring act of searching for something I need

I remade the constellations to be dinosaurs and flowers

they were mostly flowers

and I sank into the soft snow and wondered if I have been fully myself at every moment that day

and if it mattered

I lied once

so I ate a pound of cashews

it didn’t make me feel better

it didn’t make me feel better

I told everyone my issues

it didn’t make me feel better

it didn’t make me feel better

and I worried and thought for much longer that the deed

it didn’t make me feel better

it didn’t make me feel better

I watched the stars and felt what I need

it didn’t make me feel better

it didn’t make me feel better

and I thought

I don’t need to feel better and I don’t need to feel worse

the end is not written there exists no such curse

and my job is not to feel better or master that domain

my job is to notice the happiness and pain

the good feelings that ebb as the weighty ones flow