iwas
iwasgonna teach you how to cut fruit from the tree of yourself with swinging machete, how to gently tear back the outside layer and suck on the tender revealed flesh such that the sweet nectar slowly, starting from the most achingly tentative dribble, begins gushing into your mouth like presents from god himself to You…
iwasgonna write a song about the way your nose wrinkles with every kiss… and iwasgonna sing that song at the grammys with a full orchestra and a huge choir in sparkling satin robes, bringing at least one listener to tears…
iwasgonna learn your body, familiar as the back of hand, or better- as a favorite museum strung with well-frequented art that i still look forward to seeing [like the way Christmas lights seem to glow brighter on Christmas Eve], my heart racing slightly as i turn the familiar corner to stand before the familiar painting that never fails to amaze me, never ceases to be new, to reveal itself more eloquently…
iwasgonna learn how to make croissants in the nude for your breakfast…
iwasgonna let you put your feet on the dash in my summer-sticky Buick-- you absentmindedly wrapping my by-then ruddy lambswool curls around your suntanned fingers, while i drove us to a vineyard on the Cape… iwasgonna sing every song on every station the radio offered, you kissing me every so often- sometimes to shut me up at least temporarily, but mostly for more delicately visceral purposes…
iwasgonna blush each time you learned of a new dimension of my being, opening up to you like the tender inner petals of a rose reaching with purest trust toward the sun…
iwasgonna write fairy tales about you to tell children, maybe even our own…
iwasgonna weave my life around yours like vines [but vines that don't choke, don't cling, vines that support, vines that love and just enjoy life, are there vines like that?]…
iwasgonna make love to you, eventually, the way that a master might paint a canvas: passionately but with great care, turning an observant eye toward the subtleties created by my own hand, attacking, caressing, walking away, only to return with renewed reverence, different colors, a pulsating new philosophy on what you are, awakened by your reality…
iwasgonna read you stories in bed, your head delicately tucked in my lap, so that the last sound you might hear as your heavy lids slowly curtained your sweet eyes would be my lilting, musical voice, echoing through your dreamlike subconscious like hollow windchimes…
iwasgonna look up to you as i have few men…
iwasgonna feel like Audrey Hepburn every time, while at a dinner or cocktails, you would come over to me while i was talking to some man who was looking at me with eyes that made you place a firm hand on the small of my back, and i would look at you in such a way that the man would avert his gaze, disappointed and aware…
iwasgonna kiss you in a certain way that can only happen under a starlit sky with the feel of warm dewy grass beneath your bare feet, salt of the day curing my kissed neck, my eyes and their emotions still visible in the moon's glow, crickets singing that song i wrote about you and performed at the grammys…
iwasgonna love you with every moment there was to love a man…
iwasgonna iwasgonna iwasgonna iwasgonna…
iwasiwasiwasiwas…
only a fool robs a dreamer of such dreams.
*
Overreaction
I guess I'm a little sensitive these days
My emotions raw and close to the surface
The innards of a gutted fish
Rotting in the aluminum sun,
Even keeled and mildly schizophrenic
("You can take these mirrors for free"
She tells him, her fingernails digging into the flesh of his arm,
Covered only by a sparse thicket of light brown hair,
"You can have them all,
if you like.")
His disabused sexuality
Worn coarse like unshaven cheeks
("These boats do not have glass
Bottoms. And these mirrors distort."
He replies,
Shaking his arm free.)
He wears me down like a wet fist
Calls me princess and baby
As if they just occurred to him
("Every naked woman is his baby," the audience
Whispers, "Every woman he's inside is a princess.")
And the applause comes in sexy slimy fists.
I guess I'm just sensitive these days.
*
Coyote
(or why I crossed the road)
I ought to be used to this by now
The "might as well give up" suffocation
The finger pointing relay
The "well you're the one who's…"
Time bomb
The tears
I can listen to the same break up tape
And feel the same helplessness
Now with him, instead of him
And myself, mostly
I should really have a routine by now
A little rehearsed skit about lost loves
About how it takes more love to let go
Than to hold on
About how much we learned
Thank you
And goodbye
But each time is like getting hit by a Mack truck
Like the Coyote in the cartoons
First by a red truck, then by a green one
Over and over
Looking one way and then, BAM!
Fucked
By another one
Over and over again
Until it's kind of funny
Like the cartoons
Comic.
*
lemonade
Life keeps handing me lemons
& I want to make lemonade
But life won't give me
Any fucking sugar or water.
*
Apology
I'm sorry I asked too much
I'm sorry I held so fast
And for so long
To you &
Our love, anachronism
Anomaly of sorts
And out of sorts as I am
I can't help but wonder
About this loneliness
Disquieted
Yet still quiet
And tranquil
Like cut flowers
Your scars are not like mine
Your scars are not mine
Sorry for the inconvenience.
*
lost
loves lost
like words escaping meaning.
So color becomes primrose-scented
And shadows crowd the recesses
Like when a great band plays a dive by the beach.
Lousy beer on draft and sandy oysters.
You gave me a few clandestine kisses
On the bloating wooden dance floor
A few more in the backlit grit of the dunes.
So this is what I have left.
Love's lost
Or perhaps just misplaced
In that "I know I just saw it, but where?" way.
Mutually kissed goodnight,
Goodbye,
On calm, collegiate porch.
Your shoes made sharp clicks
On the paved way to your car.
My slippered feet were still, frozen.
Love's loss, really
I know that, of the two of us
I was the bigger man
Even though I was supposed to be
The girl.
*
echoes
It's funny how we take steps
Away from the ones we love,
Nudging them quietly toward our periphery.
We use time and space to create distance, unbridgeable gaps
As if to say "See? You don't know me so well
After all."
Yet we sadden when no one
Understands, makes us feel alone
Which is what I thought we wanted-
Enough space to swing our arms
And not hit anyone else.
We give and love, briefly,
Long enough to notice our lover
Is not worthy of such giving and loving.
We use words and their absence
To create distance, taking untraceable steps
Farther and farther away.
Still, we miss hands to hold, knowing glances
And a protective, possessive arm around us.
We shake it free and dance, frenzied faeries,
Spinning and wheeling like light itself, without an audience looking on,
Compromising us.
So the question arises:
What to do with all this space?
A space this big could seat several comfortably,
Leave room for entertaining guests, hell,
We could fit a king in a bed of this size.
But there is no king, no guests, no several sitting,
Talking amongst themselves. Nobody
But us, making high-heeled echoes in our empty space
Hollow-heeled echoes that bother no one
But us.
*
And you ask why I put myself down
Like two bones rubbing together
You and me and our crummy love.
Sitting here, wishing
You
Would get the fuck out of my winter
Of discontent.
You don't know how I lay awake nights
Envying you,
You and your effortless existence.
And you ask why I put myself down.
*
IYou know, the sad part of life
Being a continuum
Is that we can't stop it
When we are finally happy.
*
i.
You would have liked to give her something, a gift.
One gift,
That she did not expect anything small
From her life.
But you had nothing except cauli-
Flowers to give,
Which she was stealing from you
In any case.
And it was for this that you wept.
ii.
You captured a passion for her,
Felt that you knew her,
The unbreakable girl shaped like a tear
(fatter at the bottom and thinner at the top),
decorated with so many oily cans and rags.
But you could not tell a story
Of a girl like this, a girl like this
You could only feel.
And it was for this that you wept.
The girl was of a liquid nature,
Made by accident
Of weakness and strength,
This girl, this shivering
but seemingly unbreakable cipher
to be sold under gaslight.
Yet you felt that you knew her.
You knew her and her weaknesses,
Hidden like so many Easter eggs,
Her and her weaknesses
Worn on her sleeve,
And though you wanted to love her,
Put the girl before you and you were like a child,
Finding it almost impossible not to try to destroy her-
The girl, the gift,
A particularly beautiful specimen
Twisted red and milk-white.
If she were here beside you in the room
You would find it almost impossible not to demonstrate it to me
And- in a second-
Kick out the foundations
And destroy her.
And it was for this that you wept.
Fireworks made of the girl.
An explosion of the gift. Crescendo. Diminuendo
Silence where, a moment before, you had the unbreakable girl.
And what is left of her,
You can crumble in your hands
Like sugar,
Or something almost as magical.
And you felt
That you knew.
*
Dear Baby,
Hey u. I know you expected to wake up and c my beautiful though grimy morning sunshine face. I hope this letter will suffice.
I'm gone. I guess u noticed, but I wanted u 2 know y. See baby, I'm in love. I know, who would have thunk that a kid-of-a-bitch like me could fall, but I did. I really wish it could have been with u, baby. I really do. Cuz I dig you a lot and everything, but I'm about more than just making love. Cuz when there's no love, baby, you can't make nothing good.
I almost wish I were there to share your morning with u; taste your awakening mouth, the stuff from your sleepy eyes. Nobody tastes as good as u do 1st thing in the am.
This love thing really throws you for a curve, man. I man, my new baby is sexier than sex itself, but the body is nothing like yours. I never thought I would be able 2 leave that body of yours, but there u r and here I am, with only a few regrets and some scars to remember u.
Can I ask u something? Will you ever enjoy a rainy day again? Without me? I don't know if I can. The rain pounding on the hood of the car, you holding the windshield wiper, then me holding the side mirror. Then both of us holding each other. I take it back, baby. What we made was good. Was it good 4 u?
I would feel worse about leaving u if u didn't have that body of yours, baby. But I know u won't be alone for long, so I don't feel 2 bad. In fact, I feel alright. My momma always told me 2 share. I'm sharing u with the world again. I'm sure it missed u like I'm going 2, 1 of these days.
You know, I trip on how happy we could have been. I really did dig u baby, do dig u, but it's tough 2 chain a soul like mine. Not that I'm so special or anything, but sometimes my ego starts ghetto blastin' so loud that I think it would be foolish to waste all this badness on 1 cat, 'specially one like
U (don't take that the wrong way though, okay?)
So I guess that's all she wrote for us, huh? I'm sorry if we
Didn't have the same ending in mind, but the story still goes on, u
know? I mean, there'll be different bodies, there are always different
bodies, but it's all the same story. I guess that's y u have to make
moves, shake it up a little, u know?
Even though this letter is getting long and my hand is getting
Tired, I don't feel like I've said what I wanted 2 say. But I guess I don't
Have to explain myself 2 u. U know me better than I know myself.
Maybe that's why I'm leaving, huh?
Save a rainy day 4 me.
Keep smiling,
Nicole
