blankstartingone

[blankstartingone]

the people I love and the reasons I love them (2/?)

I love him because he always starts a question by saying

“question—”

which is like the verbal equivalent of the thing I most enjoy about his mother tongue

because really, ¿why doesn’t everyone do this?

it’s so much clearer that way.

•

I love him because he watches people,

knows the ticks and mannerisms of my own family

more keenly than I do, can speak and laugh as them,

uncanny:

a whole essence in the nod of a head or a wave of a hand.

•

I love him because despite this,

despite the detail he can grasp from the briefest of meetings,

he is still every inch himself

and yet reduced to stereotype at every turn.

I love him because somehow he doesn’t retaliate,

even when I’d have to shout them down.

Well, I have, on occasion.

(I love him because he doesn’t want me to, but that makes me want to more.)

•

I love him because their taunts do not diminish him:

I love him because he is kind,

love from the heart outwards, all through.

his mimicry is affectionate, never cruel,

but you’d forgive him if he thought that imitation was for mockery

if you heard how many times in one conversation

his own words are parroted back at him,

accent heightened, eyes wide.

they’re so ignorant they can’t even tell that his grammar is better than their own.

•

I love him because when we were in a collision

and he was the only one close to injured,

he kept on asking if everyone else was alright,

even after the first round of checks.

I love him because he fell for the girl nobody was looking at

and she ground his heart into the dirt but he didn’t hold it against her,

spoke my favourite sentence to date when she was crying,

question:

¿shouldn’t someone go and consolate her?

•

I love him because he writes songs. I love him because he doesn’t hide what they’re about.

I love him because when people mistake us for brother and sister

he doesn’t say no, he says “adopted”

And basically, I love him ’cause it’s true.

#tpilatrilt

[blankstartingone]

leaving party~

the party was about you leaving

so you left it,

slipped off into the night to continue the countdown alone.

i stayed, tucked into the corner, listened to my mother and her childhood friends

as they spoke of the past, of old haunts and bygones not yet gone by.

firelit, they sent up their memories with the smoke,

laughing through anecdotes I’d heard before,

but never from so many tellers at once.

theirs, I found, is a folk history,

patchworked by seven voices,

they know themselves most truly by each other’s testimony. they are each other’s lives, all through.

I will never have this, I thought into the flames.

your chair, next to mine, was still empty.

the only one who knows me this way is going, going, gone.

#g

[blankstartingone]

you tell me “nothing’s changed”

and I really want that to be true. I do.

but two days ago we were not so different

(I thought)

and now my entire heart is broken for you

and I cannot pretend that doesn’t change things.

•

you tell me “nothing’s changed”

because you’ve always known

and it’s your life after all.

I’m not trying to say it’s my right to be shaken by this

when it’s not my battle

but you’ve never loved me as I do you:

you have the capacity for something else, so you don’t know what it’s like

to be at maximum investment,

absolute peak complete and utter ride or die

for someone you’ve never had what they call

“feelings for”.

this is the furthest I go. this is the only way, and the most I ever love anyone.

this is not something I stop thinking about just because it’s your life not mine.

•

you tell me “nothing’s changed”

and in the ways that matter

it hasn’t, it won’t, I’m here for the long haul

(and you have to know that, or I think you wouldn’t have said anything)

but I cannot honestly tell you that today is just another day.

you are the same to me. I love that you told me.

I love that I am somebody enough to you, to merit that.

but you have always been more to me than what people mean when they say “just” friends.

there is no “just” about this.

•

you tell me “nothing’s changed”

but it has! because everything is different now!

so you might have to grin and bear it for a while.

it’ll die down.

for now, let me love you a little more evidently.

you might not need it now.

but you might need it later, and I won’t know,

so let me give you something to reread

or just remember:

•

nothing’s changed.

you are all that you ever were to me

and I wouldn’t change you for the world.

that’s change-proof, I promise.

#empathy is a bitch actually #g

[blankstartingone]

the people I love and the reasons I love them (1/?)

I love her because

she never says 'I am (the thing)'

when she could say 'I am feeling...'

with chattered teeth

she says 'I'm feeling cold'

by weary tongue

she says 'I'm feeling tired'

through lumped throat

she says 'I'm feeling fine'

•

I love her because

other people might believe her

but she knows when I don't

and doesn't ask me to,

just accepts a picture of a chubby puppy

that I send in place of eloquence

•

I love her because

she is loud in everything

except her whispered beauty,

which she never shows to cameras

I love her because

sometimes I am fast enough

to catch her smiling

but I only post the ones that she approves

•

I love her because

she is confident to a fault

except when she's driving,

I love her because

she uses the nickname I made up

to reserve tables in restaurants

•

I love her because

when she is feeling sad

she doesn't expect anyone's world

to stop turning

but is grateful if mine slows down a little

•

I love her because

I am not her oldest friend

nor her closest or best

but I love her because

she has never made that matter

•

I love her because

she pluralises 'mine'

if she's talking about more than one thing

and I love her because

the world has not been kind

but she has never said,

'I'm feeling vengeful'

#k #tpilatrilt

[blankstartingone]

i am twenty-two years and eight months and six days old and i am twenty-two years and eight months and five days older than you and it should not be me who is writing you an elegy it should not be this way round at all.

almost three hours, but I'm rounding you up to a day

#rh

[blankstartingone]

sometimes I drive myself so fucking insane that I figure you must all need a break. so I give it to you. (I drop a plan halfway or don’t show or walk behind or in front or I turn off my phone. things like that.) the thing is, you only see it as standoffish so you isolate me even more when I next come back around. I wish I wasn’t like this. but I tell myself it’s an investment, that you’ll let me drift on the edges far longer than you’d want me in your midst.

I guess you think I’m stubborn and I wish that’s what it was

#poetry #g #k #c

[blankstartingone]

4.2.17

I want to be glad that it’s her, who I trust to be true who deserves you.

so I guess I will try to stop wishing  the other ‘just friends’ was the lie. 

#poetry #k #g

[blankstartingone]

3.2.17

oh, the irony is not lost on me - that after months, years of mournful melodrama about things that barely matter, i have spent these last months reeling, all but wordless.

there are a thousand verses lying dormant and unwritten- sometimes half a thought forces its way up and through my fingers, i am waiting for enough of them to come together

to break this silence. this is the only way i’ve ever known how to heal, so i know it will come. i splay my fingers over blank paper and dusty keyboards

and hope that they will dance again soon.

#poetry #spilled ink

[blankstartingone]

dear 12 year old me: one day, the two of you will sit under a canopy outside a bar and admit that neither of you still keep in contact with anyone else. he will introduce you to his friends as ‘my best friend from back home’ and you’ll wonder why you spent 10 years not believing it (and your heart will grow three sizes. this will impede running-after-train action - you’ll be delayed until 2 in the morning. you won’t care.)

#l

[blankstartingone]

23: a curse of pronouns

I write in second person

like a fever I can't break.

I splash a word like 'you' around,

as though a name won't take.

it's conversation, accusation,

things I ought to say,

things I'd never utter

things I'm scared I might, one day.

I ought to get away from it,

in fact I think I'll try -

and after "you" is gone

I'll think of getting rid of "I".

#poetry

[blankstartingone]

22. some months

some months are a city scape,

every day unique, hewn from different rock,

stretched out as a jumbled skyline

to look back on in wonder,

that life can take so many forms

in the space of thirty days.

some months are a desert plain,

the same, the same, the same,

and the jet-setting holiday-makers

can turn up their noses

just as much as they like:

I'm content with a walk to the village,

a picnic and book every day

for as long as the desert can stretch.

the city's a marvel, but things are at rest

in a landscape that doesn't protrude, at their best.

#poetry

[blankstartingone]

21. internet friend

I just think it’s funny, that’s all, that people who don’t have friends on the internet think that you can’t have friends on the internet - that you can’t know a person through a screen, that you can’t know what they’re hiding, that you can’t keep from hiding yourself. do they think we’re all projecting perfect versions of ourselves, without the flaws? because if you ask me, that’s the beauty of this kind of friendship: we could pretend to be anyone, and yet we reveal the darkest parts of our soul to a name in a box, and we choose to be flawed, to be known, understood we choose to unfold ourselves just as we are - if we’re lucky we learn we’re not quite so alone as we thought. while in daylight, offline, where the choice is not ours to exist as we are, we resent being seen, try our best to conceal what we freely admit to our friends on the screen. I just think it’s funny, that’s all, that you call that “real life.”

#poetry #poets on tumblr

[blankstartingone]

20. bliss is ignorance

I don’t want to know when the date comes - I’d rather it trickle right by And see it much later in pictures When the same sun’s no more in the sky.

It’s not that I think that I’ll stop it By stuffing my head in the sand I know it will happen precisely The way it’s been carefully planned.

But my day will not be affected. I’ll live on as though it’s not true - And if it dawns sunny or raining I’ll have, either way, not a clue.

She’ll put on her old new and borrowed, She’ll graciously walk down the aisle Her daughter in front, or behind her, They’ll stop at the front with a smile.

You’ll promise to love her forever - I hope that it stabs at your heart, And you’ll know it’s all lies, like the last time This nonsense, ‘til death do us part’. 

Oh Father, you don’t know of promise. You don’t even know to pretend. The knots that you tie don’t stay knotted, You know how this circus will end.

The guests will file out, meet you later At some picturesque village hall, But I will know nothing about it No singular fact, none at all.

I don’t want to know ’til it’s over. Pure ignorance ’til it’s all done. Say I’m selfish, a child, whatever. It’s fine. Well, I hope you have fun.

But I’m keeping my distance. Forever. You’ve chosen a new life apart. So this time around, maybe keep it. Don’t give up as soon as you start.

#poetry

[blankstartingone]

you are my darkest secret: I deny you at every turn yet think of you always. they are all so sure that I will fall in love with you - like waiting for sunrise at full light of day

and I swear, I don’t mean to be such a cliché (19)

#poetry #poets on tumblr

[blankstartingone]

18. nuance

put down your phone, dear.

it's not polite to sit there staring at a screen.

talk to us.

people your age just can't communicate -

it's a crying shame.

in my day we had Conversations.

I don't suppose you've heard the word.

it fell into disuse, you see.

but once upon a time

two people could read nuance in each other, face to face.

we never wrote letters

or did anything comparable to what you're doing.

put it away.

you can't be saying anything important, can you.

you'd have phoned.

(joke's on you, grandma:

texting is nuanced as hell

and just as valid as me sitting here with you.

more, apparently,

because you seem not to notice

the nuance of me not wanting to speak to you -

meanwhile, I've worked out my friend's exact mood

by the length of a ha-ha-ha laugh.

now if you'll excuse me

- which, from nuance, I'm guessing you won't -

I'll find out what's wrong and I'll be on my way)

#poetry #poets on tumblr

[blankstartingone]

17. ribeira

just like Ela never left another Miro I repay the debt I owe you to whoever else I can. we have never spoken of it - I suspect you don’t remember, still, I’d crush the wall of silence retrospectively, with force. instead, I try with others, meting out what tiny comfort I can give them, but it’s yours in truth: too late, and not enough, and with an empathy that’s false but yours, in secret, like a dedication printed in faint ink upon a page that slips the binding and is lost to every reader - just the author knows the name it said, and only I remember how I left you in the cold. I try, when you fall short of what I want from you, to keep in mind that I was guilty first.

#poetry #poets on tumblr

[blankstartingone]

16. bragging rights

It was nothing more than beginner’s luck: I found a little group of tiny fish and cupped my hands in front of them, still as could be, until one of them swam right onto my fingers. I cupped around it, keeping enough water for the tiny hitch hiker while I strode across the river to show you. you were fascinated, and we made such a racket that the other children wobbled over too, until we were a gaggle of gogglers, gawping as the little creature swam round and round in my hands. then I let it go, and thought I’d easily catch another - well, I was wrong, but it was worth it to hear you talking with your new-found friends a little while later as the three of you dangled tiny nets in the water. did you see the one my cousin caught? she caught it in her hands. as though you were describing some kind of herculean task I’d had to train for all my life, and though the fish was a nice thing to happen and I loved when it tested my fingers for nibbling, the thing that I want to remember (the thing that I’m writing this poem for) is how the word ‘cousin’ just dripped from your lips as though natural, the way that I’ve used it for you since the day you were born though we’ve really no blood tie at all and our family trees share no branches. maybe it was just for bragging rights because I’m the legendary hand-fisher but I’ll take it. did you see the one my cousin caught? she got it in her friend’s net a few minutes after I caught mine and the river cheered.

#poetry