Connotation

do you look at me and think butterflies


do you look at me and think rosy cheeks


do you look at me and think maybe


do you look at me and think comfort


do you look at me and think hands


do you look at me and think understanding


do you look at me and think tea


do you look at me and think future


do you look at me and think love

do you look at me and think possibility

do you look at me and think nausea


do you look at me and think sinking hearts


do you look at me and think no


do you look at me and think awkward


do you look at me and think secret


do you look at me and think silence


do you look at me and think metaphor


do you look at me and think past


do you look at me and think bitter


do you look at me and think mistake

you look at me and say nothing

you don’t look at me
at all.

Oh, but I know you can think.


2011

Through the Lens

I found a picture of you,


While she stood alone

At the Potomac,

And I adjusted my lens. 

I told a lighthearted

Sweetheart

Not to smile,

With dandelions

Encompassing

The outline of her figure.


Hands, arms, hair, shoes,

And all.

The air swung around

And waved her confused half-smile goodbye,

Before floating out

Over the water

And leaving her staring,

And laughing nervously.

The wind in her hair

And her hands

Was so beautiful

Amid a more vacant expression.

And isn’t that sad?

And isn’t that beautiful? 

A watched much thinner legs dangle


Over a wash that led


To a much more intimidating


Body of water.
Water that buoys


The boats that surround you


As you sail your way under the bridge,


And find your way home


Through my black and white lens.


2012

The Laemmle in Spring

The credits crawled up the screen at a constant pace.

Like bugs, scuttering across the lens of the camera that had been focused on the rushing river in the background.

We didn’t say anything. It was too soon.

There was something profound about the arial view of the rushing water between trees.

There was something profound about the trees that would create lace shadows on the shoulders of the family that had been picnicking during the final scene.

There was something profound about the unseen hat floating down the river.

We didn’t really move either. This was different than deliberate, though. Accidentally deliberate, maybe.

There’s the kind of being still that is associated with freezetag, where you actually utilize your muscles to keep still, and then there is simply not moving. There was tension in the arm that was underneath yours, but it took no effort to sit still there.

We didn’t even move our heads, or our eyes from the screen.

There was something profound about the silence that hung between us.

I couldn’t tell if it was the kind of comfortable silence you always hear about, because people forget that there are two sides to every interaction.

What may seem like comfortable silence to me could be awkward and tense and excruciatingly quiet to the person sitting beside me, especially because we were not communicating, even through body language.

Or were we? Since even stillness is communication? Since every twitch and movement, and every stillness in want of movement says something.

To me the silence was profound, though. I didn’t label it as comfortable or uncomfortable, but it stirred an unfamiliar feeling deep within me, and that, I think, is profound.

The mountains, obscured by running white words, and I were esoteric. I liked to believe the heartbeat in your fingers was in a way esoteric as well, but I could be idealizing again.

I could hear people shuffling out behind us when the words on the screen had transitioned from the names of the main actors to “Waiter Number One” and “Man on Bridge” to the titles of the songs that had played in the background of each scene.

The people behind us that had muttered a rude remark when I kissed you scuttled out, exchanging grumpy comments. I don’t think you heard them before, so I let it go. I think they provided another inappropriate remark as they were leaving, but this time I did not hear it.

The couple sitting to our left stood and left.

The man sitting alone a few rows in front of us put his headphones in his ears and walked out.

The credits ran on.

It got to the point where I thought they’d never end, but for some abstruse reason, I didn’t really mind.

And in my mind, they don’t end.

We just stay there, sitting with nothing but an armrest between our interlocked arms and fingers, as the credits roll up against the blue sky until all the blues turn to blacks and the words fade away.


2012

An Unfortunate Silence

My feet gather dust and specs of repressed stress and dread that have been left behind, but never fully forgotten. Sludge mixed from dissatisfaction and abandoned dreams decorates my shoes as I make my way along the incline.

Everything shines and sparkles red above me, as the sun painfully glitters over the expensive rooftops and into my eyes, searing my cheeks and extracting my worth. I can’t shake the image of a blinding blood-red light, swirling around atop an  ambulance. The assaulting spotlight spins away, like that of a light-house, before smacking me straight in the eye and straight in the chest again. And oh, it never fails.

There are no longer any shoes on my feet, even dusty or tarnished ones, for they have taken those from me. Not out of greed, but by nature. Sometimes I think they may not even realize they’ve taken anything, or maybe they convince themselves of anything opposing that preposterous idea. They’ve become accustomed to stripping me of my dignity and my free thought, and so it is a daily an uneventful process now. For me, though, it is always as devastating as the very first time in which I was told that no one would care for me, and the things I have to say were barely worthy of being called thoughts. Titles and names and misnomers and blame.

I’ve been told time and time again that words are just words, but I will never succumb to that kind of misanthropic belief, no matter how much I distrust anyone but myself.

I’ve been told time and time again that words are so much more than words, that they will move mountains and change tides, and even more, change minds. This belief I want very much to succumb to. To wade underneath the weepy waters of my contentment and believe that one day I will find the words I need and I will learn to craft them in such a way that I may even change mountains and move tides, and at least get someone out there to think.

This belief may be all I have to hold my fragments together while the shiners of the overwhelming and painful red light speak. Wrapping a decrepit hand around my throat, the filed nails at the end of bony gray fingers trace my pulse ceaselessly. It feels as if there is something much thicker than saliva lining my throat, as leaning my chin away from the anxious fingers forces me to stick my nose in the air. Words are woven yet again into sentences, and the dark words overpower both the amount of oxygen in the room, and me as I feel them snake around my neck. They strive to cover every inch of my throat that is not already repressed by a decrepit finger or nail.

My breathing is jagged, less from pressure, and more from the nerves associated with the possibility of pressure. It is for my own good, the owner of this hand tells me. It is for my future. It is for the children I will not have, and it is for the religion I do not practice.

Grime and soot gather in the ventricles of my heart, and any semblance of a coherent language has vanished. I have dyslexia of the brain, and my thoughts have become alphabet soup. Luckily the grime has confined itself to the single and all-important organ that is said to regulate me. Though I never feel regulated. Never regular. It is burdensome to have compassion clouded and blackened, to have hope concealed by hatred, but it is so much safer to keep my despondency there, in a guarded piece of me. At least it has not peeled itself away from the walls of my heart, at least it has not been pumped through my viens and spread, vessel by vessel, vein by vein, organ by organ. At least it refuses to metastisize. At least it has not been shared.

At least there can still be those in the world who have hearts free of soot, pupils liberated from blinding assault, and throats free of constricting hands. There are those who can love openly, see clearly, and breathe freely, and for that, I can and I shall endure a blackened body, a stifling assault, a racing conscious, and an unfortunate silence.


2012

Back to Bed

I’ll scream

And I’ll scream

But no one is

Coming,

Trudge to me

Through the snow,

But keep the car

Running,

I’ll do what I please

In the heat of the night,

Don’t be scared in waking hours

Of what you may find

After the chill of the morning

Has swept down the street

Take this as a warning,

The feeling won’t keep,

I hope you won’t mind

If I soak through my sorrows,

I’ll slip out of your bed

Bright and early tomorrow,

Don’t be surprised

When you wake up alone,

You don’t need to

Be scared

There's no need

To phone.

Everything is alright,

It’s the way things must be,

I will trudge to the car

While you are asleep,

If I keep running north

The snow will keep,

You’ll forget my perfume,

Put it out of your head,

I was all just a dream,

Please,

Go back to bed.


2012