Anyone Who Touches Me Breaks My Heart

Maybe it's because I can't handle being alone

And the men that I find just don't give enough

Or they are not there enough

It's either me or them who's never enough

But I know there's a word for me

And it is: Hopeless

Maybe it's because I've faked so many orgasms

I might have forgotten what a real one feels like

But I still leave them breathless,

And so tired they can barely move afterwards

But they still have enough energy

To get up and drive home, or just

Make me take them there

Or they sleep on the couch or the floor

Just never next to me.

Maybe it's because they all know

I'm an easy one to use

Every man knows that

The women who can't even

Look at themselves in the mirror

Must be good in bed

Because they only care about pleasing others

Not themselves.

Maybe it's because I've always hoped too much

To hear someone calling my name

Though none of them ever do.

Some can't even get their tongues around it,

I try to explain it but no one listens

So when I'm screaming and crying:

"I don't know what I'm doing

I don't know who I am"

They just say 'Baby, come here'

And before I know it

Their tongue is in my mouth

Shutting me up

As if that's what it will take

To make me whole.

Maybe it's because I know

I'll be used until I die

Used for my money or my car

Or my bed or my poems

Or for my tongue or for

What's between my legs.

They will take and take and keep taking

And when I try to say

"I deserve better than this"

They won't even know

What I'm talking about.

I guess I wrote this back in 2003 or 2004. Now that I am putting poems online, I am really wishing I had dated these, but maybe I thought they would be timeless, or I thought they would be kept secret in my notebook forever. 

When I decided to post a poem tonight, I was thinking of this one, and I swear when I opened my notebook the pages fell open on that particular page. 

When I read these words, I can remember the time I wrote this, I remember why and for who. I remember the exact way it felt to be used and taken for granted, and I wonder, deep inside, do I still feel this way about myself? Do I still think that I am hopeless, and not worth real love?

I guess it's just one of those things I have to figure out about myself, and I'm glad to have a creative outlet in which to do that, still.

Child.

Every day I choke back more poison
to keep from choking you,
to keep the taste of days past
lingering on my tongue.
It's not my fault you're fallen
at my feet now, my dear.
It seems you ask me questions
that you don't want the answers to
anyway, so why deny your suffering?
Why take away our cross?

Simple. Complicated.
You don't deserve it. You do.
Not as in you were ever
too much for me, or not enough
but you haven't seen enough
to want me this way,
child.

Every day you walk away I want
to put my fist through a window
but you'd never see me, you'd
never wash the blood from my hands,
too busy now with your hiding.

I'm not going to tell you how far I've come
while you won't let me take your hand
and bring you with me.
I will not reveal the list
of all the men I've killed to have you.
I will add you to it.
I will swallow all this time, and
I will raise my hands to the sky and apologize
for making the wrong kind
of difference in our lives.

Circa 2004

You're Gone

I decided months ago that I never wanted
to write another poem about you again,
but when I woke up this afternoon I realized
it was you I had been dreaming about
and I woke up recalling the exact caramel color
of your skin, each meticulously placed freckle,
the way you and gravity worked so hard to
make your hair fall just so over your forehead -
I was dreaming of all these details
burned into my memory after all these years
when I woke up I knew you were the only thing familiar
and for an hour all I wanted was you.

I went outside, stood in two inches of snow,
tried to warm myself and melt away your image
But my mind held on, reached deeper, and
remembered one club night in New York
when I was dancing with you, and in once instant
you were gone. I turned around
expecting to fall into your open arms and
you were nowhere to be found.
For the next hour I searched for you -
Searched men in black shirts and pants,
searched hundreds of brown eyes that weren't yours,
reached for hands that didn't know mine -
I lost you.
But just as I was giving up, resigning to
go back to the dance floor and hope
that you'd find me, you did -
Wrapped silk arms around me, and led me home.

You will never lead me home again, what's more is
I will never wrap my eggshell skin around you again.
I will never get close enough to let you crush me.
I'll never again look into your eyes
and say 'I love you,'
I'll remind myself every day that
you don't deserve me anymore.
I'll remind myself every day that
It's over, and
you're gone.

_~ Circa 2004
_

In the Beginning With Love

The way I see it
You're the one haunting my mind.
You're just offstage
You're right outside the door.
I'm sure that any minute
I could run up to you
And end this waiting
But you're still such a mystery to me
I'm afraid sometimes that I
Dreamed you up
You aren't real
And I keep trying to forget the days
When you were here
Because I'd rather not feel
Like I'm lying to myself.

We still spend evenings warring
In the name of anticipation and passion
I tell myself we've never touched
I tell myself that all the time
And feign amnesia while
I still pretend to want you

I have a hundred kisses on my tongue
Waiting to greet you
Waiting to make up for
These last two months of lost time -
The first time you take me into your bed
I will keep you
I will not let you go again
Yours is the only name I'll ever speak

So having once been blessed
With your unforgiving Love
I will ask nothing but please:
Let me suck your bottom lip
Without tasting other women
And take every word from your lips
But my name, and whisper it often
And let me have you
Just let me have you for
A day or two
So I can know
What I'm getting into.

~ Circa 2003-2004ish

Sad But True

To everyone else I will insist
It's as if time did not exist before you
But now you've proven I mean nothing
And I've run myself into the ground
Trying to prove you wrong.

Where I am is underneath
li(n)es, poems, songs.
What this is
Is sad but true
To little too late
And a whole list of phrases
That will leave us in pieces
And find me paralyzed
Without another word to say.

You know, with you I could have
Walked a million miles
And it wouldn't have seemed very far
And let me tell you,
With you around
The skies never looked so blue,
And the night never looked so black.
Now I can't tell if the days
Come and go too slow, or too fast.

With you I was nothing
But without you I am even less.

~ circa 2003