I’d like him to wear boots [sometimes], thinking they are sexy
or, This is why people like me shouldn’t be alone
for my heart, which is lonely
If only for a moment, I should receive the happiness I’ve earned.
Winter is long and I seem to be one of the few who wouldn’t have it be any shorter. It gives me hopes of cuddling up with someone, losing myself in another person’s warmth.
Shake me, so I’ll realize you really are there and this has all been a dream. Wrap your arms around me and we’ll go back to sleep.
People seem happy when they are in love and I just go about my business pretending not to notice.
This will seem so distant someday soon. I’ll be astounded at how young I was and how naive. I’ll read this aloud, amusing someone else with how lonely I seemed and how desperate it all was. I’ll give him a hug — a peck on the cheek and tell him how lucky I am to have someone so wonderful in my life. He’ll make a sarcastic quip, as though the sentiment was lost, but he’ll have heard me. And he’ll silently agree.
I’m using “the Secret,” hoping for an attorney from Lubbock. Or maybe just more money. Or maybe some guy with no job, still living at home.
I want to feel taken [for granted].
Should it come up in conversation, make me sound easy without sounding too slutty. I want to assert my availability without attracting the wrong set of people. I think you know who to look out for. Make sure they aren’t wearing lavender… or chaps. No, wait, chaps can be hot.
I have secrets to whisper to you when we are alone.
3.13.2008
twenty-four
Will this winter chill lift from my heart and allow me to find love? In the ice covered and mad city I can’t see anyone worth knowing, worth loving. I need my knight. This curse is too much.
1.5.2001
one
I can feel the morning. The richness of new sun on glass skyscrapers and parks and children on their way to school. My coffee is company enough to enjoy the silence, the peace, broken for moments at a time as one person or another fumbles with keys and papers and children down the stairs. I am so lonely here.
1.21.2001
eighteen
It is time to bury the youth — the naivete; put away insecurity and fear and doubt. It is time to mature — really mature and see the joy of being me. But sleep is more within reach just now — and I can mature when I wake.
9.26.00
five
I am alone. I can’t think today, or work, or have a cup of coffee without
feeling like a fool — a lonely soul lost in the game, the life-waltz. Do my
parents understand — truly understand that to be me is to want, to
love, to long, to hate, to read, to grow, to cry, to laugh. Do they
realize that I haven’t changed since I first sprouted in this earth? I’ve been
tested and questioned. I am ready to turn in — to rest. There is a pile
of papers and twenty messages for me. I must do some work. Will I
ever be able to survive without the shade of my parents? Will I grow
in the full sun? And there in the sun, withering, will my parents be able
to see that I am as human as they are, and that I need them to help
shade the sun at times, but not to hide me from it completely. I long
for the danger I fear.
1.21.00
twelve
I remember holding back tears as G told me how soft I was, killing the small insect — green and perfect. Moments before I observed it, now crushed. I felt like that creature — crushed.
1.29.2000
zero
I am the one who flew you in here —
from other places, places I haven’t been —
it was me. I can’t make you look at me —
my eyes, my lips, my hair, my waist
Don’t look, there is nothing to see
and I don’t want you looking anyway.
I believed what I was told about beauty and love
Nothing is inside.
I tried to produce a reasonable excuse for you to still be here and I get nothing.
I feel terrible that I may want you
and will never know you because of this world.
I can’t sleep with confusion and doubt
fear regret pain mystery hatred.
Can you be near me and soothe me
I ache and can’t stop running now
I have tried to run from you — stop chasing me and leave me alone
it is so cold here by myself.
I can’t live knowing I’m not loved
be quiet mind and put out the raging fires.
Gray may be all I know.
6.12.2000
nine
The newness of morning would not yet have been cleared from my eyes as I would sit with my brothers on the floor in the living room to watch cartoons and eat cereal. We always drank the milk leftover from our overpouring. It was sweet and fruity, raspberry and cherry. I can’t forget the taste — the feeling of summer mornings. I can never feel that again. And my brothers with further complicated lives no longer sit by one another, but fight for the recliner — who can be most comfortable — and who will win…
1.29.2000
seventeen
in memory of Mike Henson
Once again a death made me numb. But this time I finally cried, and I never cry when people die — I just can’t. But Mike… she was strong, mentally, physically. She became consumed with cancer, which trickingly fled the body and suddenly returned without warning… One final blow. There are not others like Mike and I am cold at the thought that I will never know others like her. Some people seem to never get sick or hurt — they spend their lives carrying others, nursing, loving. If we stop riding on the backs of these people, who seem happy to have us there, we might see them cry or cringe in pain from the awful weight of so many in need. These deaths are tragic. When the strong have gone, the rest of us must learn how to walk… must help each other to fill the shoes of the one we lost. When it set in — when the hard fact set in, I cried. I cried knowing that I would never see her loving stride, her tender and honest smile, her patient eyes. I cried. Every inch of me trembled at the terrible revelation of her now permanent absence. And somehow, peace has followed. Rest well, dear friend.
9.26.2000
sixteen
in memory of Daisy Duncan
I like to think that people never die – that they are indestructible. God sees things differently, though. Each time I am convinced of a person’s immortality, they die. And tragic deaths might make my suffering easy (forgetting the pain of the dying ones). However, God caters to the needs of many and takes them silently and without pain. You can’t understand Him, you can’t see his plan, but it is there and it is everywhere and you breathe it and you eat it and and and and. I can’t not move on anymore. must run. If I stop to have a chat I get attached and that’s when you cry (or get so upset you just can’t cry). When you love someone with such a strong love… I am going to let God do it all… I don’t want to understand. I will watch and I will cry until it is my turn to prove mortality (or my soul’s immortality).
6.12.2000
two
If I break a cup or a bowl in the living room of this dusty apartment, it
will just lie there for months. I can’t bring myself to pretend that I am
expecting somebody.
1.21.2000
twenty-one
We are still here on the cusp of all that is to come. At 21, in the 21st century, I still know nothing but pain and separation. People die quickly, and I have surrounded myself with them. G passed one week and one day ago, and Mike in August (Daisy passed sooner). I am on the verge of all that seems real and right, but I am pulled back by childhood friends, the gods and goddesses I needed. I feel more and more as loved ones die that I am growing a little more into a real man. Perhaps my father experienced such a growth this month, and I feel blessed that I have not had to grow on his behalf. The world is a different place and the ideals I cherish (those of the fifties sitcoms and fantasies) are dead. I think we will be better because of it, but I somehow am not consoled by that fact. I fear becoming my parents and I know that it is important – no – imperative that I do. I can’t believe that I can no longer visit western Oklahoma without feeling a great deal of grief. I thought I liked it just for the simple things. I guess it was always G. Sadly, I doubt it was Grandma McGuire — always G. I watched an eclipse with her shortly after her mother died. Christmas Day there was an eclipse. It all comes back to her eventually.
1.26.2000