I Would Leave Me If I Could: A Collection of Poetry Read online

  I hope you cry at night

  and can’t call me after

  I don’t hope that you’d die;

  just live to 75

  And you spend every waking moment

  Wishing you felt alive.

  I hope that some girl takes a picture

  of your sleeping body.

  Wish you could go a single week

  and not hurt anybody.

  I hope your coffee every morning

  is bitter and cold.

  I hope you’re busy Christmas morning

  and you miss the snow.

  I hope your team loses the finals

  I mean they already lost the finals

  But the next one

  And I hope that you scratch up all of your vinyls.

  Hope you drive 80 miles

  In your expensive car,

  and run out of gas

  in the wild.

  I hope your knees ache

  and your back hurts,

  hope you lose your second phone

  or can’t remember the password.

  I hope every girl unites and they decide you’re a joke

  But if they are anything like you

  then I know that they won’t

  ’Cause their self-esteem levels are fatally low.

  So you bury your pain inside them

  after the show.

  I hope your brother turns out to be nothing like you.

  Hope another year passes

  and you hurt even more than I do.

  Used to live up the street from you

  but since then I moved.

  My new house is clean

  and the sky’s always blue.

  I sing in the shower

  and I walk around naked.

  I love my whole body

  though you once made me hate it.

  I eat lots of pancakes

  and drown them in honey.

  I’ve made lots of handshakes

  and made lots of money.

  I smile and sigh when I crawl into bed

  ’Cause there’s no more scar tissue

  inside my head.

  I heard what you’re up to

  I’m glad that I left.

  I feel like myself again deep in my chest.

  Signed:

  Sincerely,

  Ashley

  I wish you the best.

  THE QUESTION

  I stand before the mirror

  and examine my breasts.

  protruding forth from my chest

  and demanding kindness, free

  ice cream, and violence.

  my speckled face, freckled pale

  brown like organic eggs,

  flushes pink.

  my eyebrows unkempt

  and short hair untidy at the crown.

  I grip my buttocks.

  dissatisfied.

  I chase the paradox around my head.

  The filmy, sticky grain of

  femininity slides across my skin.

  It twinkles in every stare

  and as my weight shifts from hip

  to hip, I’m gliding as I walk.

  My clenched jaw,

  my small lips,

  my broad shoulders

  like an adolescent boy.

  I worship at the altar of

  femininity in the women who

  suckle the lavender from my breath.

  It poses nothing to me

  but a question

  to which I do not have the answer.

  I MET A MIND READER.

  I have not seen the Sun in 7 days.

  I have seen Frankfurt,

  Oslo,

  Copenhagen,

  Reykjavík,

  Helsinki.

  5 countries

  and 1 planet.

  Just Earth.

  No stars.

  Just clouds.

  And no Sun…

  Earth is bleaker in the dark.

  The gray hazy dark.

  The upside-down and sleepless dark.

  Not the romantic kind

  that fills the gaps in between city lights

  and candlelit dinners

  and moonlight bouncing off of crystal glasses

  filled with champagne, lipstick-stained.

  I sat on an old bus,

  packed in like crowded teeth in a young mouth,

  and I saw a little girl.

  She frowned at me.

  I began to panic.

  They say children can sense dread.

  This is the first child who hasn’t smiled

  when I cast a glance in their direction.

  Has my heart,

  once so full of love,

  finally drained itself like a yellow raisin?

  Will the children begin to notice?

  She looks at me quizzically and smiles.

  Kicks her feet

  and then shakes her head no.

  As if to answer my question.

  I met a mind reader. Aged 4 or 5.

  I have seen light burst forth from a magic eye.

  From a heart more wholesome than mine.

  Astronomic miracles, in an unfathomable form.

  But I still haven’t seen the Sun.

  THE TOURIST

  I quite like how these jeans

  Look hanging

  ’round your knees

  And I love your dirty sneakers

  When you kick them

  off your feet

  I’d really like to find

  The place

  between your eyes

  Where I kiss you on the forehead

  And make you smile

  every time

  I’m struggling to place

  My favorite

  freckled space

  Between your hair,

  hung

  like a telephone wire

  Swinging

  ’cross your face

  And right now you’re inside

  My favorite studio

  on Vine

  Complaining

  ’bout a violin’s

  Misrepresented whine

  And I can’t wait to take you home

  Where I can have you

  all alone

  And overanalyze each part of you

  I’ve written

  in my phone

  See,

  I’ve started taking down

  All of my favorite

  little sounds

  That waltz around you

  in 3 quarter notes

  With each word you pronounce

  It kills me that you’ll leave

  Off in a jet

  over the sea

  But I hope the air in California

  Will forever

  taste of me.

  ONANISM

  The corner of my childhood bed.

  A stuffed bear, color: cherry red.

  A toothbrush motorized inside.

  A 15-mile dirt bike ride.

  A pair of socks, balled up real tight.

  A hot tub jet, alone at night.

  Your kneecap, cased in denim jeans.

  Victoria’s Secret magazine.

  16 years of bubble baths,

  a showerhead that can detach.

  A pointed toe,

  a cramping calf.

  Disgusted in the aftermath.

  THE PARTY

  Your tongue is in my mouth in the kitchen at the party.

  Why the fuck am I at the party?

  My dress is too tight for you to get your hands under,

  but I left my panties at home tonight

  and I’m dripping down my thighs.

  My lipstick is smeared and there are people

  probably staring

  but fuck them anyway.

  It’s been a year and a half

  of throwing glances in hallways,

  and my hair standing on every end when you appear

  and breathe down my neck


  (so tell me, how the fuck I’m supposed to keep my cool)

  So we leave for one night and it turns into five mornings.

  Waking up and staying in bed for a couple extra hours

  so I can see what color your eyes are

  in that special light we only see at 6 a.m.

  That silver peeking through the cracks

  around your blackout shades

  and bouncing off your brown eyes

  that send me into a fully caffeinated rush.

  Like they’re soaked in coffee grinds

  and I can see the steam rising off of their surface

  when your gaze sets me on fire.

  So we turn up the heat again.

  And your sweat is dripping off your chest

  and your open fist is around my neck

  and I’m grinding into your lap,

  rocking my hips against your weight

  to match the ins and outs of your breathing.

  (Can you tell that this is the pattern I’m following?

  Your breathing quickens…)

  Your teeth are in my skin

  and you’re pulling fibers of tissue from my lips and I wonder,

  If I bleed, will you like the taste?

  Now we’re driving down the highway

  and my head is in your lap.

  Tasting the salt of your skin

  and feeling you grow in my mouth

  and the hum of the engine

  is like a million fingertips between my legs.

  There are people passing by in their cars unaware

  and unassuming

  but I’m praying they’ll look over and watch me worship you.

  Watch me work

  to assure

  that there is not a single millimeter of space in my mouth

  that isn’t filled.

  Your hair falls out of place

  and you clutch the wheel

  and press your belt into my cheek.

  I hope it leaves a mark.

  And days later my tongue feels

  like it doesn’t fit in my mouth the same without you in it.

  It’s your laugh, and your calculating eyes.

  Your wrinkled brows and the static in your grin

  when you can’t think of the right words to say

  and I know it frustrates you

  because words are the only thing

  you’ve ever had total control over.

  It’s the feeling in my stomach

  like the moment

  you drop a scoop of ice cream

  into a root beer float

  and the entire thing threatens to bubble over.

  Carbonated

  and chaotic

  in my chest.

  It’s the sheer comfort.

  You’re as vibrant as a stranger,

  but as warm as a friend.

  Like every day

  I get reintroduced to someone I’ve known my whole life.

  Like meeting myself in a mirror.

  The way you take over my entire body

  and mind

  like you’re putting your own personal filter over the lens of my life

  so that I see it in your colors.

  And my hands shake

  and I swallow hard

  when I realize how much nicer life looks in your saturation.

  My brain buzzing

  like the rattle of a neon light

  at odd hours of the night

  when I’m pacing

  and wringing my hands,

  counting the days till I see your face again.

  And the irony in how fine life seemed before.

  How quickly you made it seem like

  nothing

  would ever suffice

  without you,

  a part of it.

  Why the fuck was I at the party?

  THE BREAKUP

  There is no combination of words in the English language,

  that slice right between your teeth

  with the perfect paradox of hate and love,

  the same way as

  “I love you,

  like a brother.”

  THE PROFESSIONAL

  I am currently seeking employment.

  I am a professional holiday girlfriend.

  I have great references

  and highly impressive past work experiences.

  I have been featured in 7 family holiday photos:

  —6 Christmases

  —and 1 Hanukkah.

  Specialties include

  my “famous brownies.”

  I will:

  —do the dishes

  —look through baby photos with your mother

  —have a long list of baby names to suggest

  for the child we will never have

  but your grandmother will pitifully dream about us having

  before she dies.

  I have:

  —plenty of clean, respectable dresses

  —drinking games to impress your cousins.

  World-class gift giver

  and wrapper

  (it’s easier to nail it

  when you only ever have to give one gift).

  In one particularly extraordinary history,

  I made a baby blanket from scratch

  for a relative who was expecting.

  I will never complain

  about missing my family’s festivities

  for your own,

  and I will accept contract termination by spring.

  I am 5’4”

  with a perfectly straight smile

  (dental records included,

  no history of braces)

  and I will fill any empty space

  in your family photo.

  Please respond before autumn.

  LULLABYE

  sweet thing,

  you hang like

  a chain

  around my neck

  like a beesting

  in August

  in your hollow pain

  I sweat

  hollowed

  we wed

  I’ve gone cross-eyed

  and tongue-tied

  at the prospect

  of your lips.

  like a plaid-skirt-fitted virgin

  with the devil on my hips

  I’d melt like a mint

  in the heat of your mouth.

  like a hurricane in a dress shirt

  headed angry

  down south

  I would give anything

  to be slipping

  down your throat.

  VIRUS

  I once had a fever so high,

  I was left to my bed for 7 days.

  There was a man,

  Standing on my mattress with a shovel

  Lifting chunks out of it angrily.

  He wiped his brow and his sweat

  Collected in the divots of my blanket

  And made a little pond.

  A scum pond,

  With talking frogs and lily pads.

  The pond grew deeper as the man dug harder and sweated.

  I was drowning.

  A goldfish swam up my throat and flopped around in my mouth.

  I clenched my jaw and tossed and turned in the scum pond.

  White and gray algae blinding me,

  And filling my nose with fuzzy mold.

  I tried to scream and retrieve the fish from the back of my mouth.

  I was choking.

  I tried to kick, but the man was standing on my legs.

  His weight was too much to bear

  And I feared that shovel would dismount onto my head

  And split my skull if I provoked him any more.

  I tried to yank the fish out again but it struggled.

  It attached its jaws to the opening of my throat and it would not budge.

  I yanked.

  And I screamed.

  And my mother came rushing into the room, tripping over her feet.<
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  I was trying to rip out my tongue.

  She fixed my blankets.

  She stroked my hair that stuck to me like cotton candy dissolving in water.

  I wanted to cry but feared I’d fill the pond again.

  When my fever broke, I realized the man and the fish were all a dream,

  And so was she.

  LIKELY AS THE RAIN

  I’ve always liked it

  when it’s sunny and warm.

  You like it cold

  ’cause you’re from the north.

  Now I’m sitting by a window

  watching rain fall down

  …in California.

  Looks like you always seem

  to get what you want.

  Even when it goes against

  the natural odds.

  ’Cause it’s 7 in the morning

  and my bathroom’s flooding

  hard…

  I never knew

  what made you do what you do.

  Tuck me into bed

  and then you sneak off to

  be somewhere with another

  who’s more like your mother

  and doesn’t expect as much of you.

  An anomaly.

  I’m not like you and you’re not like me,

  or how we used to be.

  You know what they say,

  the all-consuming rage

  and unbearable shame,

  of you losing me,

  was as likely as the rain.

  WATERMELON

  He loves to bring me watermelon.

  Spits in my mouth, seeds.

  To grow inside my stomach like

  A thing that begs to feed

  I lick his lips from watermelon,

  Spread across my cheeks.

  And that pink sugar Chelsea smile

  Is hiding underneath.

  Now I devour watermelon,

  Bouncing on his knee.

  I rock my body back and forth,

  So he can feel the heat.

  I’m dripping like a watermelon,

  Soaking through my seat.

  I bite my lip and suckle on

  The words between my teeth.

  And oh the taste of watermelon,

  Subtle but it’s sweet.

  I kneel down on the wooden floor

  And beg him to proceed.

  He fills my mouth with watermelon.

  No one hears me scream.

  To overdose on sugar is more

  Painful than it seems.

  My tummy hurts from watermelon.

  He can be so mean.

  But smiles like a gentleman

  And licks my body clean.

  And when there is no watermelon,

  Only vicious weeds,

  He puts his fingers in his mouth

  To taste the way I bleed.

  Now all I crave is watermelon,

  Every time I leave.