Visions Of You

I love you silently, but i have the strongest voice. I use it sparingly, when once it was all i had. I'm in my own kitchen and your talking down to me. I smell feta cheese and watch your tears pierce your eyes. I speak calmly but with certainty. You are wrong.
The world has wronged us, but you have added your own insults to our injuries.
How can my mothers purse on my counter, evoke such pain? How does my grandmothers bowl of jewelry make me wince? Wasn't I made stronger? I feel the only combat to my weakness is high fat and sugar intake... because it binds me to my own selfish thoughts.
I want to reach you and touch you and hold you....
but I'm chained with my food and weighed down with this guilt.
I want to touch you and hold you and reach you...
But I'm in my kitchen, an hour before our conversation. And in this hour before our conversation, things seem important when really they are insignificant. I should let you walk out without crying, but i have to fight for my fathers dignity... because it seemed important.
But its not.
Honour falls thought the cracks.
Love blinds you and leaves you alone.
Sex makes you move to places you would never have gone to alone,
food fills you and leaves you with no room for anything else...
and time.... moves on throughout it all.

The hour passes and you call.
I read my mothers eyes, before I even have to hear her speak.
I feel so close to you and yet I can't touch you.
Because space has pulled us apart.
We are in different cities,
and when I talk to you, I fall silent.

And then after,
I see it in every ones eyes.
My mothers calm and certain stare.
My brothers bewildered eyes.
Mine are scared and wild,
and yours I can not see.

I love you silently, from afar.
Choking on my tears.
Unable to see far enough.

resentment stuffed in the bottom drawer

When I resent you I'm usually on my knees somewhere. Tonight I was unpacking groceries and trying to get my industrialize size bag of carrots to fit into my refrigerators bottom drawer. You were eating potato salad out of the jar. Rendering it a single serving. You have these ideas and they are so big and I don't even hear them. Your telling me what to buy and my purchases are scattered across the shelves. Now, what not to buy. I feel like a child. On my knees.
My mother is making her motions over your shoulder. Warning me to behave. I feel like asking to be tucked in for the night. But, that would make me different them my siblings. I don't want to be different. I want to be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with my brothers and feel similar.
But I'm spending myself away from them.
Elbow noodles. Can we really have a conversation about how they are the kosher pork of passover?
I remember how my mother speaks. Her words always catch up to me.
Tonight she said how she feels embarrassed. Or, she should feel embarrassed.
And that her rabbi said in astonishment, "embarrassed?" And he laughed.
"You know who should be embarrassed, people who sin! That's embarrassing!"
And then I'm on my knees again.
Your right.
And I am always moving in so many wrongs away from you.
I have found that if I stand up slowly I can stop my resentment from rushing to my head and blowing up all sorts of proportions.
I can see things clearly.
But sometimes resentment is better then clarity.
Because clarity feels a whole lot like guilt.
The carrots have somehow squeezed themselves into my bottom drawer,
and when I stand up slowly,
I see you seeing me.
And I'm ashamed.

Chicken Finger Cop

I look forward to looking back.
Not through rear view mirrors. Because, then you would have seen the cops lights flashing.
But with you in my mind.
I will look back and see your eyes smiling. Mine smiling back.
Laughing like teenagers who have just gotten caught speeding.
Yet, we drove too slow,
sat too still,
found the sauce sticking between our fingers-
and our laughter fogging the windows.
I will look back with longing. I will turn my entire body back- to catch the way we have started to grow old together.
Some people have memories. We will have living memories.
Because whatever we have done together- we will do together again.

Re:

V necks plunging.
Rules reiterated.
Things that are forbidden:
my sisters boyfriend.
Late nights at the park.
mixed swimming venues.

Hearts racing.
Reasons repeated.
Things that are forbidden:
Television.
Magazines.
and talking like you have doubts.

Foods crammed in.
Alcohol revisited.
Things that are forbidden:
Pants,
Short sleeves,
and dressing like you dont know better.

Fears unfolding.
One Lie retold.
Things that are forbidden.
Taste better,
feel faster.
and make you move.

Oven Ready

In Your absence I grow stronger.
I hear the words falling around me.
Nothing seems to touch me,
I touch them.
Beneath me their words crumble.
Like cake, yes... maybe.
But, so what if I have had my cake and eaten yours?
Food is my fault.
The rest is theirs.
Didn't you tell me once how "they" are "everywhere."
You are not here.
I stretch out on our king size bed.
I make my mornings without you.
I fold my afternoons into halves,
quarters and then minutes.
It's fifteen minutes to bedtime and I'm embaressed when I notice I'm counting down.
But also counting to you.
My love for you is even in your absence.
In the messages we do not send.
In the way I am better because you have held me.
And loved me,
even for nights spent away from you.

Thanks For Coming

Shame is free.
It's like a party favor in your house.
"Oh your leaving?" you ask me, "dont forget this."
And then before I know it, Im holding my insecurities in my hands.
My weight, my looks, the way "mine" is always "yours."
Is this some sort of loot bag?
Exploding in my face?

Predictions

You are predictable.
The sad drives I take can never get me far enough away from you.
But tonight,
amidst the noise,
the empty gas tank signal,
my phone battery going critical.
I had my own little prediction.
Fancy that.
It was the summer and we were apart.
And all your little declarations of love,
were nothing but just that.
Little.
And I said,
maybe not far enough away.
But, oh! so predictable.