Song of Myself (under construction)

Song of Myself

Once upon a time, I
was a child beneath beneath a forsythia bush. The flowers were small and yellow
and the branches thin. I crawled inside, the dirt was black
and sweet-smelling.
There was only me,
and the sky peeking watery blue through the branches and
the early spring forsythia all around.

I am a girl of many shades,
I am one of fiery temper and fierce joy, I am one of sleepy indifference.

Is a person defined by their possessions?
I am well read books and loved photographs, I am big plastic earrings and many, many shoes. I am bright dresses and sweet perfume, pillows and pens and a handful of thumbtacks.

Is a person defined by what they love most?
I am a far-flung family, a handful of beautiful girls, a tabby cat, I am a mother, a father, a brother, a boy or two, I am sunlight and chocolate and laughter and thick green grass.

Is a person defined by what moves them?
I am a pair of eyes, an open ocean, I am the 1812 overture and the word Hallelujah, I am an eclipse in a vast night sky, I am words and photographs and the smell of Paella and of fir trees.

Is a person defined by their religion?
I believe in my family gathered around a candlelit dinner table,
I believe in love and joy and in full self-expression.
I believe in the power of laughing and of crying, and of the smiles of children.
I believe that if we give freely of ourselves and keep open hearts we will change the world one day.
I believe in the possibility of peace, I believe that life is one great and endless possibility.

Is a person defined by their past?
I once cried over an episode of “Sex and the City”.
I once spent an entire day lying in the sun on my back porch.
I once baked a triple layer cake.
I used to believe that little men on swivel chairs lived in traffic lights
I once was knocked out of a sailboat by its boom,
I once smashed a coconut open on the street.

I fully intend to surprise you.

I aim to live big and with enthusiasm, love hard and fall fast,
to rise far and dive deep.
I want to speak ten languages,
I want to eat spicy strange foods in tropical places,
I want to fall in love in Italy and deep-sea dive in New Zealand,
I want to open a restaurant in Switzerland, I want to climb Kilimanjaro and parachute over the Himalayas.

I kick my feet out when I run, my nose is big and my ears asymmetrical.
My taste in music is broad and often not exactly cultured or mature.
There are stuffed animals in my room
I write poems, I am excited by airline food and automatic doors.
I am a sap, a gooey person, I fall head over heels for clichés.
I play sports badly and with great enthusiasm
I can quote Lord of the Rings and Star Wars,
I am fond of Jane Austen and Emily Dickinson,
I sing very loudly and very badly and with real emotion.

I can say “happiness comes in small packages” with a straight face because it is the truth.

I love my bed. I like comfort and warmth, I like to lie with another person at my back, I like arms around me.
I crave chocolate in any form.
I crave excitement and I crave sleepy sunlit mornings.
I like dancing, I like screaming song lyrics into the night,
I am happiest on summer nights swimming in the smooth water,
running wet down the dock, rolling in the sand,
warming my face by an open fire.
I am happiest stretched like a cat in the sun,
I am happiest in the quiet comfort of a friend

I like running fast, I like jell-o in individual cups,
I used to lie underneath the dining room table for hours
looking up at the grain of the wood.

How to live a life, how to define a life lived, how to explain the process of living?

Once upon a time I buried a garden snake in the back yard,
a full funeral with an inscribed headstone,
I cried over his broken green body
and placed earth and flowers over it.

i solemnly swear

the other day i
sat on the sidewalk with my boots in the gutter
and snowflakes in my eyelashes.

when i looked to the grey sky of Boston,
the snow seemed to fall upwards, all was tilted,
i shivered there on the street.

now my favorite jeans are a little dirty on the butt,
my boots are a little drier and i have a happy heart.

will you come with me?
the sandy streets are ready for us.

eclipse

Last night I
watched you through my father's telescope on the back porch,
the night was a deep ocean, icy cold,
and the stars were piercing in their brightness.
Red moon, what secrets do you hold?
I watch your craters,
I've examined every inch and still I cannot see,
Red moon, what is this promise you hold for me?

Be Mine

And do you remember that night,
when the frozen air screamed,
and you smoked a cigar watching the sun rise?

I told you I had just dropped by but the truth is
I spent the night on your doorstep,
just me and the doormat
waiting for your feet.

Love Song

So i was thinking
that we could switch places.
You could sing Beatles songs into the night
and I could try on every shoe in the store,
humming along.

Valentine

Inside, it was dark
and the cardboard smelled of age,
but she bore it, she was patient
and curled, and in the end

he opened the heart-shaped box
lifted the paper
and was disappointed.

Nike

You left a colorful sneaker at my house,
the right one, lonely in the tangles of my sheets.
I sat on the edge of my bed with a sharpie
and covered it all over, the day-glow yellow,
The stripes of blue and the white edges,
I blackened it all, down to the tips of the orange laces.
I thought of your lonely right foot,
I thought of your right leg entangled in mine,
and I scribbled harder until
all of the color was gone.

impossible to feign

339 (241)

I like a look of Agony,
Because I know it's true-
Men do not sham Convulsion,
Nor simulate, a Throe-

The eyes glaze once-and that is Death-
Impossible to feign
The Beads upon the Forehead
By homely Anguish strung.

-Emily Dickinson



i'll never trust you again.