i do

i saw a slam poet the other night. she captivated me.

i do — andrea gibson

I do , I do , i do
I do, I do i do
i do
but the motherfuckers say we can’t
cuz you’re a girl
and i’m a girl
or at least something close
so the most we can hope for is
the nuns of reunion in vermont
but i want churchbells
i want rosary beads
i want jesus on his knees
i want to walk down the aisle
and see the patriarches smile
that’s not true
but i do want to spend my life with you
and i wanna know 50 years from now
when you’re in a hospital room
getting ready to die
when visiting hours are for family members only
i wanna know they let me in
to say goodbye
cuz i’ve been 50 years memorizing
the way the lines beneath your eyes
form rivers when you cry
and i’ve held my hand like an ocean at your cheek
saying baby, flow to me
cuz fifty years i’ve watched you grow with me
fifty years of you never letting go of me
through nightmares and dreams
and everything in between
from the day i said buy me a ring
buy me a ring that will turn my finger green
so i can imagine our love is a forest
i wanna get lost in you
and i swear i’d root
like a wildflower
every hour for fifty years i was with you
and that’s not to say we didn’t have bad days
like the day you said that check-out clerk is so sweet
and i said i’d like to eat that check-out clerk
and you said honey that’s not funny
and i said baby and maybe you can take a fucking joke
every now and then
so i slept on the couch that night
but when morning came you were laughing
yeah there were times we were both half in
and half out the door
but i never needed more than
the stars on your grin
to lead me home
for fifty years you were my favorite poem
and i’d read you every night
knowing i might never understand
every word but that was ok
cuz the lines of you were
the closest thing to hold me i’d ever heard
you’d say
this kind of love
has to be a verb
we are paint on a slick canvas
it’s gonna take a whole lot to stick
and if we do, we’d be a masterpiece
and we were
from the beginning
living in towns that frowned at our hand-holding
folding their stares like hate-notes into our pockets
so we could pretend they weren’t there
you said fear is only a verb if you let it be
don’t you dare let go of my hand
that was my favorite line
that and the time when we saw two boys
kissing on the street in Kansas
and we both broke down crying
cuz it was Kansas and
what are the chances of seeing
anything but corn in Kansas?
we were born again that day
i cut your cord
and you cut mine
and the cords of time played
like a…. hope
like we could feel the rope unwind
the noose of fear loosening
loosening from years of
people like you aren’t welcome here
people like you cannot work here
people like you cannot adopt
so we had lots of cats and dogs
and once even a couple of monkeys
who we’d taught to sing
hey, hey, we’re the monkeys
you were crazy like that
and i was so crazy about you
that at nights you couldn’t sleep
i’d lay awake for hours
counting sheep for you
and you would rewrite the rythm
of my heart-beat
with the way you held me in the morning
resting your head at my chest
i swear my breath turned silver
the day your hair did
like i swore marigolds grew
in the fold of my eye-lids
the first time i saw you
and they bloomed the first time
i watched you dancing to the tune
of the kitchen kettle in the living room
in a world that could’ve left us
hard as metal
we were soft as nostalgic together
for 50 years we feathered wings
to white to be prayed
and we flew through days strong
and days as fragile as sandcastles
in high tide
you would fold your love into
an origami firefly
and throw it through my passage-ways
to all my hidden chambers
where it would..
every trapped door
my heart is open
because of you
because of us
i do, i do, i do
wanna be in that room with you
when visiting hours are for family members only
i wanna know they let me in
i wanna know they let me hold you
when i sing
i’m so in love with you
baby i’m so in love with you
goodbye

samskeyti

i know i just posted. but i need another one.

it’s easter. i’m listening to sigur ros.

my manager told me that i have the opportunity to work my way up the ladder at [company]. whenever someone tells me this i always shrug it off. i’m in college. i go to a prestigious college. i get good grades. and i have a righteous resume.

but that comment made me scared shitless. i am going to be the barista with a masters. i’m going to be the dead poet who lived paycheck to paycheck her whole life until someone finds her shoebox of words hidden in her closet . . . and that’s even being optimistic.

i could be the barista with a masters. and that’s it. i could die and not leave a mark. in six months from my death, everyone will have forgotten i was here.

its comforting sometimes to remind myself that if i screw up, it doesn’t matter because i’m going to die anyway and everyone is going to forget me. and at the same time it is the most terrifying thought.

i guess that is rather narcassistic. but why go through all the hard work and trouble in life to be forgotten.

this is a very strange thought. but i’ve been thinking about it a lot and it’s time it has a place to rest.

lately i’ve been thinking about the future. i’ve always said i don’t want to get married or have children. but knowing that the person i could potentially spend the rest of my life with and i cannot get married kills me.

i then think, well you must just want to get married. you can always marry a man. and then i go back to saying, i never want to get married or have children.

but with b, i don’t think that way. it’s not that that is what i want with her. but i wouldn’t rule it out with her. she makes me feel complete. i’ve never wanted the stereotypical suburban life with a husband, a dog, two kids and a double car garage. i’ve never wanted the 9-5 job, dinner duty at 6, and having the perk of my week handing out capri suns at a soccer game. i want to travel the world as a journalist. live by my own rules. forget plans. freelance. enjoy the simple beauties in life as well as the ancient.

and i can see b fitting into my plan perfectly. i know she has a big shot 9-5 job, but i don’t think she is into the suburban lifestyle either. and she said she would relocate. i know she was drunk when she said it, but she was meant for the sun. i could bring her the sun.

then i also get sad sometimes when i think about myself being a lesbian in my old age. just a generic lesbian with a generic lesbian partner. and it doesn’t satisfy me. but then i think about myself in my old age with b. not a lesbian. just a person. with the person i love. and i smile.

b was bragging about her gaydar the other day (even though it was totally off on me). and then i said that my gaydar sucks. “i guess i look more at the person, not the gender” is what i said to her. and she smiled.

i’m a sexual person. i know that. but maybe i don’t have a defined sexuality.

i want the person.

not the gender.

why’d you have to go and let it die

i’ve been writing a lot in my notebooks during class. unfortunately, i have not been keeping up here. but i will fill that in . . . now. that way i can throw away the hard evidence and leave my thoughts in binary coding across the internet.

not sure what day this was . . . some monday in march . . .

“last night, i went over to b’s. had a couple drinks, watched some tv, made a collage. went to her bedroom and now i am no longer a lesbian virgin. and i liked it. i’m starting to have a hard time defining my sexuality. i know i find women attractive. very attractive. and i thought i found men attractive too but i rarely look at them. i feel like i’m stuck saying i’m bisexual because i’ve been raised and conditioned by society to find men attractive.

but then i also wonder if i’m so crazy about b that i want to be a lesbian.

afterward we looked at each other for awhile before b tells me she’s in love with me. she tells me this repeatedly throughout the night. and i am so in love with her. i want to spend all my time with her and i hate that school is getting in the way of that (wtf? when have i ever thought that?).”

a couple days later . . .

“i decided i wasn’t going to talk to mom about b, glbt, anything like that. but it slipped out on the phone today. she got quiet and i could tell she was pissed/angry/sad/whatever. apparently i miss talking to her if it fell out. she’s not going to accept me for awhile. i wish she would. i wish she wasn’t ashamed of me.

i guess i need to find a new best friend.”

april 8th:

“we had elections at gsa last night. i won [position]. i’m excited for it. b came to the meeting drunk.

i don’t know if it was because she was drunk, because she didn’t go to work this morning, because she was prying at things i don’t like to talk about, or since i didn’t want to have sex so she said ‘goodnight’, or even that she wouldn’t give me a ride this morning, but she made me angry. i don’t really think any of these reasons really constitute me getting upset with her, but i was. is it my period? is it that i am spending too much time with her? is it that i don’t trust her enough to tell her these things that i don’t feel comfortable telling anyone?

i don’t think i’m going to see her today. probably tomorrow before she leaves. but maybe this four-day break will be good. i am going to miss her. but it is a good idea.

i’m not ready for her to know a lot of these things about me. i don’t want to scare her off, but i also don’t want her to have information about me.

i guess i’m having some serious trust issues.”

a slow dance

i’m having some really tough times with mom right now. it seems like when i wake up in the morning i am uber depressed about the whole situation until i see b. then everything goes away.

i wrote this in my notebook during class the other day. i don’t want anyone else to find it, so i’m going to write it here and throw away the pieces.

“Sometimes I wish I had some huge problem so I could have a reason to block it out and focus on school work. You know, take my anger out on pieces of paper and books. I guess I could use my frustration about my mom to build ambition.

B told me she’s falling in love with me.

I wish I hadn’t drank so much, had purple lips, and puffy eyes when she told me.

I wish I didn’t drink.

I wish I didn’t drink.

I wish I had a filter on myself when I drink.

Why did I cry?! Why did mom tell me that over the phone? Why doesn’t she understand how unhappy I was and how happy I am now?

Fuck. I wish I could remember more about last night.

Bruised fruit in crooked arms, scattered gazes and phlegm filled coughs

I am so goddamn critical. If my sub-conscious was a person, I would hate her. Basically, my sub-conscious hates itself.”

I wish I could write like that more often. I wish I would break down this fucking wall I have built up so I could share more things with people, but I don’t want to. The things I do share are trivial and make me feel shallow, but I don’t want people to know what goes on inside I’m afraid of getting hurt if they know what is going on inside of me. I don’t want someone to be in my head when they could use it against me. I’m so afraid of becoming vulnerable.

I want to tell B that I love her, but I don’t want her to run away. And I don’t want to run away from her if she tells me.

I know that all my journal entries are about her, but she makes me happy. complete.

I wish my mom wouldn’t be like this. I wish I could talk to her. Tell her how much of a bia KK is being towards my relationship. Share what I want with her. Talk to her about anything like I used to. I feel like I lost my best friend.

I guess it is to be expected though. The slow, distancing apart.

take this sinking boat and point it home

worried.

when i get back on saturday (hopefully) i will have so much homework to do. i have a paper due wednesday, test thursday, test friday, and numberous reading assignments between those. not to mention i have newspaper shit at the same time. fuck.

i talked to s yesterday for over an hour. i really do feel bad and wish i could do something to help her. it seems as though drama just draws to her, even though she is never the cause of it. everything that could go wrong, will go wrong, and she will be there to catch it all.  it’s not fair to her and i wish there was someway i could take all the weight from her shoulders for even a day so she could take some time off. she’s started having panic attacks again and it scares me. i don’t know how she handles so much stress and i just wish i could do something!

i wish kmk was doing better too. it kills me to know she has feelings like that. she always seems so happy but you can tell something is bothering her deep down. i wish she could open up to me. i would love to be better friends with her, but i feel like she either doesn’t like me that much or i annoy her or there is just some unknown object between us that we can’t get passed. she is one of the coolest people i know and i want to help her so much but with this rock between us, i’m stuck. i don’t want her going back to her old “ways.” it’s scary and i wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

i wish s’s boy wasn’t such a drama magnet either. i think him and s would be great together if he wasn’t such a fucking drama queen. i know he’s depressed, but fuck. you’re making one of my best friends depressed and worried when she doesn’t need it. if he lived here, i would track him down and have a serious talking-to with him. then maybe he’d get his head out of his ass and realize how amazing this girl is and how he’s fucking it all up.

haven’t talked to keh at all during break. i feel like we’re kind of losing touch, even though when we get together we have the best time. miss her very much.

a keeps complaining about her grades and stuff when she has the best grades of all of us. it’s frustrating. i wish i had her motivation—but then again i’m glad i don’t have it. it’d be a death wish.

i miss kkm too. i wish i could talk to her freely because i feel like i could get some real insight from her, but i can’t talk to her about ANYTHING. like with the other one, there is a wall there. this one isn’t as bad, but there is still a wall that keeps me from getting too close to her.

and i’m still crazy about b.  i’ve come to find out that she’s rather kinky. which is overwhelming right now. but i’m still crazy about her.

i think my bisexuality is finally starting to sink into my mom. i feel like she’s kind of drawing herself away from me. maybe it’s just in my head, but it hurts.

wish i could be in omaha right now so i wouldn’t be having anxiety attacks about my homework. that’s what i hate the most–i worry myself about things i have no control over. it shouldn’t be that way.

i wish someone would read this. and then i really wish no one would.

son go find what you can

my biggest fear:
getting bored with my life

wise men will tell you a lie

can’t wait to get back to omaha to see her. i said about a month ago that i needed a change and i got it. i got it. i got it. i got exactly what i needed and what i wanted. i haven’t been so happy in such a long time.

it’s hard to think that a few months ago i was thinking that i would stay with n because i should just suck it up because he’s happy and i probably couldn’t get anyone who would treat me as great. it didn’t matter that i was miserable, had no urge to live, and drugged myself to sleep. i just wanted him to be happy.

i was so wrong. i am so perfectly happy with b. i am so happy with her. can’t even explain it. i’m just so, so afraid that i’m going to get my heart broken. so i need to only keep my toes in the water with her. nothing more. at least for now.

therefore i need to start building that wall up. she keeps tearing it down, and it scares me. i haven’t let anyone tear it down in awhile. but it should stay in tact until i’m sure.

on the drive to the conference she told us that she doesn’t have relationships that last more than two weeks. we’ve now been official for two weeks but interested in each other for three. i asked her about it at the bar the other night and she said that this time it’s different. she keeps reassuring me that this is different and that she’s in it for the long haul. i want to trust her. i really do. but its scary when she tells us straight up.

its also scary that she told me she’s already been with five people this year (me would make it six).

bringing up these cons makes me so scared/nervous/anxious about being with her. but if i can’t get her out of my mind, if she makes me this happy, if i get giddy everytime i get a text from her or see her, or if i constantly wear her sweatshirt because it smells like her, that has to say something, yeah?

or am i jumping in too quick? that is a definite possibility. but i’m . . . i don’t know. i don’t want to say in love, but about as close as you can get to that without being in love. in like? more than that. in lust? more than that. damn language barrier.

i want to head back to school on wednesday so i can start my job, get some homework done, and see her. but if i do, that means i need to come back on sunday to pick up joel which would suck. and i would also feel bad about leaving my mom. but what am i going to do if i’m here? eat. and sit. and that’s it.

tomorrow i have to limit my computer and phone use. i only get one more free day with my mom, and she should have my attention. fuck. now i feel horrible.

n facebooked me today. told me about a song. i said thanks. and that was the end of the conversation. i don’t know what to think or feel about it. i would lie if i said i didn’t get kind of a shock when he did that. but it wasn’t necessarily a good shock.

i think i might buy a camera tomorrow and take pictures. i miss that.

day #3 without a cigarette.