Love the Distance

Your chest smells like distance,
your hair curls like disagreement,
and still-
I want you closer than a human body allows.

Each time you exhale here
My face presses into your shoulder;
and i understand suddenly
why this is called and embrace.

And maybe it's your heartbeat,
but i can feel you're so worried about,
you're so jazzed about,
so ready to take on-
the topics i only touch-slide by,
when i am looking for the weather on my phone.

you want to take on the world,
and boy;
i just want to take on you.

I want to put you on like a blanket
and wear you like armor.
I want to become so familiar with your smell,
that i can't tell it from my own.
I want to put you on as my best friend
and wear you as my boyfriend.

We could run away together,
or we could just stop for coffee.
We could ride, run, love,
we could teach each other.

Boy i will teach you to hold on
and you can teach me to let go.

You may try and teach me all your theories,
and they can dance above my head.
And in return i'll trey and tell you
how much i love you-
because that's a concept,
that proves equally difficult for me to grasp.

You will smile like sunrise,
when i compare you to a summer's day.
and then the butterflies in my stomach,
will take off again.
You can hush them up for me,
with carbs and caffeine
and in eating, breathing, and living there with you,
i'll be comfortable in the most exciting way.

I'll learn to love and leave it all,
and it will all end do simultaneously.

I'll watch you spin out onto the street-
waving goodbye, for the next however-long.
and i'll smile to the sunrise-
because your passenger's seat smells like me,
but it's become so engraved
that you don't even notice.

Kitchen Princess.

Once upon a time, in a land nothing like the ones in fairy tales, there was a kitchen cook. She was no princess, she was not wealthy, and there was nothing that made her particularly likable. What she lacked in paper and status she made up for in lies and ridicule.She was no boss, she was no authority; she was just growing old, and growing bitter. 

And in that kitchen where she worked, there were many younger women. Younger women with dreams deeper than the biggest soup pots they'd seen and broader than the longest sheet pans. A nurse, a teacher, a lawyer, anything. 

The woman was not nice to these girls. she ridiculed their aspirations, and belittled their desires. Perhaps it was envy, perhaps she wanted them to be weary of what reality can feel like, and perhaps that kitchen cook just needed them. She swore at her girls, she called them names, she critiqued their work and she wrote complaints. She threatened to leave them, swore she'd find better. 

Truth is, she's teaching these girls that they're just as far from a palace as she always has been. And those girls, are working hard as they can to get on the long road out. 

ehh.

A cynic is just a romantic who got one too many rejection letters.

morning classes.

Her eyes were bloodshot

 Her esophagus was warm.

Her breath was potent

Her consciousness diluted.

She still felt like she was being hugged from the inside.

Unbreakable, she felt protected enough to be vulnerable.

She felt strong enough

To stumble to a Saab in a broken heel,

And to start- and accelerate

And accelerate

And accelerate.

She loses em-pee-ayche count,

As quickly as she lost count of cuervo.

***

Brakes slide on guard rails and squeak-

But they don’t stop.

***

Control was harder for her-

Than the calculus she never got done. 

***

And someone, will turn in her book today. 

Extension and Secrets

                She knows no more of you than that disgusting secret.

                She didn’t need to. She is that type of a girl, you give her a little bit and she ends up with a lot. She is professional at expansion. She can write an essay on a book if she reads just the prologue. She also gains twenty pounds every winter. She could spend an hour telling someone about the two sentences her father would write her from jail every couple of months.  She can feed herself, her mama, and her sister on one chicken for two weeks with the right sides. She managed to extend every one of her week vacation to ten days. She comes home sometimes with a whole outfit she paid three dollars for. Her high school beau was never crazy about her, but she somehow managed to prolong that relationship for three years and nineteen days. And when they broke up, the tears she shed about it weren’t quick or direct either. That just wouldn’t have been her style. She knows what she wants, and she gets analytical as quick as a toddler gets dirty. You give her a little bit and she ends up with a lot.

                Secrets are your thing. You’re that type of guy, It means a lot for you to give someone a little bit. You are the king of all that is clandestine. You once hid a fourth grade report card from your parents for years because you had an “x” in division skills. To this day you let your brother think that his gerbil was run over by a car and he let it outside, when you know very well your cat ate it. You managed to shrug off the six cavities you had the year you were twelve, you never told anyone you didn’t brush your teeth but twice that whole year. You never told the hockey team about your mom’s drunker rages. You never told your best friend in high school that you were in love with her, and you still regret that one, but it sure does prove you can keep your secrets. You know how to cheat and you know how to lie if self-preservation is in question. And to you, giving a little bit means a lot.

                For some reason though, last night on your first date you decided to tell her that secret. You opened up like beer bottle and she shattered you like a glass. You sat across from her there, in that Italian resteraunt, the one that cost you your whole check, and you tried something new. You were open, you let someone in. She tried something new that night too, she shut someone out. She blew out the candle in the center of the table, stared at you like she had known you all her life and in the last minute concluded you weren’t worth it.  She thanked you for your time, and left with a much too illuminated idea of your darkest secret on her analytical mind.

                I would call her for a second date if I were you. 

this picture is free from my phone, for some reason i thought it fit. 

Love Watching Me Love.

I saw a symphony with a boy last week.
second dates are hard.

He is into it. He feels it. He inhales and exhales to it, keeping rhythm. He closes his eyes, and releases to it. It moves him, pulsates through him, builds up in him. He hums to it, bends to it, hears it with his heart.
And i just can't.
I listen to it. I only hear it. I try not to breath audibly, cause i dont want to give away my disinterest. My eyes are opened so i can watch him in awe. I realize im not moved at all sitting next to him. I'm bored, impatience pulsates through me, builds up. I persist through it, give into it, and i let him have this; thinking it was just as good for me as it was for him.
I love watching him love music.

I'll see a musical with a boy next week.I'll get into it. I will inhale on que, gasp and snap in rhythm. i'll close my eyes at the best parts, and release to it. I'll be moved, it will pulse through me, build up. I'll hum to it long after, feel it it in my heart.
he'll just listen to it.
And, hopefully, he'll love watching me love music.

AROUND THE KITCHEN TABLE

(Bacon and Chicken Nuggets)

Aunt Susan always smells like Bacon. But the yummy kind so I don’t know why Mommy hates it when I tell her. I really like Bacon, and I really like Aunt Susan. She never tells Mommy or Aunt Janice or Mrs. Becky when I watch them all talking at the table. She is the only one who sees me when I watch cause she sits in the biggest chair that faces into the kitchen and not out the big window. Sometimes she winks at me even!

                I saw them all talking this morning. I knew they must all be talking cause I heard their scary all together laugh and I smelled the bacon. Mommy was talking about daddy and aunt Janice and Mrs. Becky and Aunt Susan were all there drinking coffee and eating those muffins that are flat and come all the way from England. I don’t like them. I only like Chocolate chip muffins. I crawled into the room like an adventure girl would and hid behind the far side of the island. The silly dog kept thinking I was trying to play with him, so he was barking and licking me and I accidently giggled twice. No one except Aunt Susan heard though, so my adventure continued.

“He can be such an idiot of a man sometimes” I heard Mrs. Becky  say. Aunt Janice laughed. I got up on my knees behind the island and put my hands on the counter, I raised my eyes up so I could see all the ladies. There was a fruit bowl out  and I had to make sure my head was behind it enough so that I couldn’t see my own reflection in the big window behind Aunt Susan because everyone knows that if I can’t see myself then they can’t see me.

“Can’t all men?” They all laughed and the sound was like when Mommy puts too much clothes in the washing machine and the whole thing shakes really loudly. I kind of liked to hear it though.

“You can say that again sister,” That was Aunt Janice who said that to Aunt Susan, and I didn’t really understand because they aren’t sisters. “Last night, Jeff tried to tell me we couldn’t have taco salad for dinner because he’s allergic to ranch dressing.” The washing machine shook again.  “Not only do I know his allergies even better than he does, but since when does taco salad have ranch on it?”

“Taco Salad doesn’t have ranch on it?” Mrs. Becky asked. I didn’t know if it did either. Me and Mrs. Becky were a lot alike.

“You must not cook, honey” Mommy said to her. The other ladies made “mmhmmm noises.  “But Eddie’s been cooking a lot lately.”( Eddie’s real name is Daddy. )

“Wow”

“Really?”

“Is he any good?”

“What kind of stuff? Will the kids eat it?”

“hmm, I wish my husband would do that.”

“Well, he made me alfredo last night. Or at least that’s what he called it.” Mommy said. I didn’t know Daddy had cooked anything the night before; Mommy brought me and Gabe chicken nuggets. All the women laughed when she said that too, they were always laughing.

“Call me old fashioned, but I really don’t think men are supposed to be any good at cooking” Aunt Janice said.

“I hear you”

“Well- it all depends.”

“Whether they should be or not, they damn sure aren’t usually any good!” Aunt Susan said and then they all laughed. I didn’t really understand why they all laughed so much.

“Did you have to eat in anyways Stacey?” Aunt Janice asked. Stacey’s real name was Mommy.

“ I took a couple bites, and then-“

“What? The suspense is killing me did you just throw it out?”

“No, of course not. Tell us what you did Stace!”

I”I told him it was delicious, but I was hungry for some of his meat instead.” The other ladies screamed and giggled and hit the table. Mommy must have meant chicken nuggets, and the other women must have liked chicken nuggets as much as I did.

“Well, it sounds like you had quite the night then. Did you get your fill?”

“Course I did. Then he did some eating too. He’s a terrible cook but he is great in bed.”  I knew Daddy was great in bed too, he slept really late on Saturdays. The washing machine laughter broke out again.

                Mommy was smiling the way she did when Gabe and his friend’s broke a window in Old Meanyhead Mr. Dobie’s house. Gabe told her he couldn’t  apologize because then all the boys would have to miss playtime letting Old Meanyhead Mr. Dobie teach them a thing of two about being brats. Gabe didn’t want to learn about being a brat and neither did his friends, they were boys not brats. If they were brats, they would only play at night and they would all be dark and have wings and vampire teeth. I didn’t blame them, and Gabe’s brilliant reasoning made her smile the same way she was smiling at her friends. That was the way Mommy always smiled when someone did something bad and then did something real good, the only thing I was confused about- was why were chicken nuggets bad, and what did Daddy have for dinner last night?

***Not my best execution or my favorite story line, but, conceptually i like the idea. I'm trying to get better at humor, though this is arguably in bad taste. It's kind of stream of consciousness and i am trying to take on a little kid narration like James Joyce mastered. Sachi and Lilly should get it, e had a free write like this once.