Tag: American Poetry

UNTITLED II

~ graciej311

Sometimes,
even when the story is my own,
I don’t know where it began.

Perhaps with a fly’s
incessant buzz around my head
or back to that time
you told me I didn’t matter anymore.

It could have started strong,
and eventually petered out
like an inexperienced runner.
Or the inverse could be true —
the beginning was a weak thing,
the neck of a newborn,
that evolved into a Led Zeppelin
guitar lick.

I often sit and wonder
where and why it ever started at all.
How my perfect visage
eventually cramped
and broke into all these shards —
a broom isn’t determined enough
to sweep them up completely.

People will talk.
They will say,
“She always was small.
She always looked tepid.”
I will lick my fingers,
and ask for a third helping.

Life.

Keep dishing it out,
and like the court’s fool,
I keep taking it.

COMPANIONSHIP

~ graciej311

I.
This pile of dread builds
like macular degeneration
or my husband’s snore.

II.
These knives
cannot even cut strings,
little lone the shards of yesterday’s defeat.

III.
“May I speak frankly
for a moment,”
said the professor to his students.

Their thoughts trailed off
as their faint heads bobbed
in the rhythmic motion of “yes.”

IV.
I have this heap
of blue and yellow fabrics
but no idea how to quilt them together.

V.
When I turned to the shadow,
Fear was there, smiling.
A toothy, pleased-with-himself grin.

The train runs every 40 minutes,
but it’s 2,000 miles away.
My only escape.

LIKE CLOCKWORK

~ graciej311

My mind
is a riot,
never quiet.
With wheels
that turn,
spin and burn.

I have this silhouette —
a shadow of myself
I carry around
in my pocket.
The other half
of a best friend locket.

Somewhere along the path,
self pity and disdain
gave way to blissful organization,
and a release of pent up pain.

No more crying in the closet!
No more aimless shame!
Only the realness of what is real,
And a shoulder for the blame.

TOPOGRAPHY

~ graciej311

When I was 17,
we met at the local coffee shop,
before Starbucks was a thing.
You side-long glanced at me,
over your book.
I noticed instantly
and was unable to be coy.

You were jaded —
freshly burned.
Her name was Noelle.
A few months later,
you showed me a strip of black-and-white
photo booth pictures —
smiling, tongues sticking out,
Noelle nestled comfortably in the frame.
You were looking for a rebound.
I didn’t know how to be someone’s rebound.

I was sharing a condo with roommates.
You moved into the tiny nook
near the stairs.
Rent was cheap.
I was a pawn.
“This doesn’t mean there’s anything
between us,”
you made sure to state.
I brushed it off, like no big deal.
But it was a huge deal.
You ate at me
through the walls.

I had a dream about you recently.
You asked if I knew where Virginia
was on the map,
but you had it covered with your finger.
It seemed like you did it on purpose.
You never wanted me to find you
or discover who you were…
another white mark on my chalkboard.
I woke up chilled,
my teeth chattering uncontrollably.

ALWAYS RIGHT

~ graciej311

We are the flowers
of carnality
raised on Wonder Bread
and after thought.

We exist
only because
we’re forced to–
because dying
seems too messy.

We spray paint
prayers to God
on our walls of insanity
then drive back
to the lap of luxury.

We join rallies and unions
but won’t commit
with both feet inside the door.

We smell like perfume
and purchase Prada
and Porches in mass.

We work this
like it will all be gone tomorrow.

Breathing is optional.

MY DEEPEST SYMPATHIES

~ graciej311

I feel sorry for the non-writers.
Those who are unable
to let words flow easily
from pen to page,
from fingers to keyboard.
I can’t imagine that wasteland…
that inability to convey.
I was rarely told I talked too much,
for most of my time was spent
dreaming up poetry.

Sometimes,
I would sit in the comfort
of my best friend’s bedroom
and wait for her to get home
from a track meet or work.
I’d easily create a poem
about our latest happenings.
I’d drip our heartaches,
our good times,
the trials of life,
and our latest crushes
while sitting at the old, wooden desk
in the attic overlooking the mountains.

My boyfriend stopped wanting to see me,
the summer before my senior year in high school.
He was headed to the onion fields of Walla Walla.
He never officially ended it,
but instead of the promised puppy,
he gave me a t-shirt for my birthday in July.
The t-shirt was indescript,
a cotton blend, mauve color with a pocket.
I wrote about it.
I read my poems about him
for most of the next year
in our creative writing class.
None of the words were his name,
but everyone knew,
everyone knew my writing was about him.

I feel sympathy for the non-writers.
Those who live in the wordless wasteland.
Those who lock up the pain, joy, and fear
of a yesterday from which they cannot escape.

SHOULDS

~ graciej311

We started off
the wrong way.
You were dating
the homely-looking brunette
who worked at the Chevron station.
She often handed me
my 49 cent, 64 ounce Diet Coke
at the drive-thru in the mornings.
With Utah’s bitter winters,
many of the gas stations
have drive-thru windows.
Something I always found odd,
just one more awkward encounter.

After the first time
your stony eyes squinted at me
in Mike’s front yard,
you wouldn’t give up
at the thought of us.
I made the mistake
of borrowing my roommate’s
too-tight, purple, velvet top
to wear to a party at your brother’s house.
It was all over after that.

Her chapstick and hair ties
were on your nightstand
the first time I visited  —
a reminder that I was an intruder.

The Chevron girl
would cruise the streets,
looking for your truck,
and stop if she saw it parked out front,
demanding to be let in —
her heavy feet descending the basement stairs
as we pretended there was no impropriety.

I should have known
it wasn’t a sustainable relationship
when you threatened
to take a bat
to a car window,
because someone had supposedly spoken ill
of your soon to be ex-sister-in-law.
(She was a wretched human!)

Sometimes,
when you’re in too deep,
you have to think just to breathe,
and even when leaving would be best,
it’s envisioned as limb severance.

The day we drove to Vegas,
you told me if we had kids together,
and they ever thought about doing drugs,
you would just explain the various effects
so they would know what they were getting into.
You never learned how to be a parent.
No one ever read Dr. Seuss to you.

As we walked to the chapel that night,
an old man tripped on a crack
in the sidewalk near the hotel,
and I heard his kneecaps shatter
against the pavement.
I was horrified at his pain,
and even more so when you laughed
at his cries.

I should have run then,
taken off my blister-rendering Mary Janes
and acted like it was a barefoot marathon.
I could have jogged through the night,
into the sunrise,
and back to a life less soul-sucking.

ENDLESS SUMMERS

~ graciej311

I recall a summer evening,
when I was much younger.
I’d gone to bed
before the darkness had settled;
a hazy shaft of yellow
seeping through the Strawberry Shortcake curtains
in my bedroom.
The cozy of medium time
between sunset and crickets chirping
their chorus into the black
of Utah sky.

During my adolescent years,
I would sit fingers-crossed
waiting for the phone to ring,
“Game on!”
Frequently, weekends especially,
we would play kick-the-can
at the end of VanBuren Street.
There was a stress-mixed-excitement
darting amongst backyards
and peering through bushes.
A tingly fear of being caught.
My lungs filled with crisp air
as I dashed towards the aluminum cylinder
and struck it so it would cling along the pavement.

About age 14,
we would often roll out sleeping bags
on Nancy’s east facing deck
overlooking the expansive green yard,
and just above the “no dump” hill.
After the giggling and chatter
about latest crushes ceased,
the warmth of gray
would lull us to sleep.

Now the bright lights
drown out starry skies
and I rarely hear crickets,
but recollections
bring back a compilation
of my best memories.

MOTIONED TO QUIVER

~ graciej311

Originally published in Weber State University’s “Metaphor” 1999

Someone I’ve heard
say things before
is looking for me
somewhere.
I see him in a bluish dark,
smoking a joint
doing a French inhale,
looking like the Lone Ranger
but wanting to be more than alone.

He is spontaneity
and long nights under
foreign covers.
He is the element
of surprise
with a serious face
when he wants to be
hidden.

I am longing for him
and
disguising
myself as his princess
that floated out of a dog’s life,
up from reality
to cloud nine.

It all sounds cliche;
princesses and endless love,
yet he squeezes
my hand so firmly
all these words
come pouring out,
and drop on the petals
of an unwatered flower.