deaf songbird sing

she only sings when nobody else can hear her,
like the lone tree that falls in a forest with no one
around to notice the sound,
and sometimes she wonders if she is really making
something worthwhile emerge from her lips, something
that maybe someone will call beautiful.

her whole world is a sound-proof box
that keeps the sound out and silence in as she
motions with her hands to speak and watches with
her eyes to listen, but sometimes she will
open her mouth like a songbird and sing without
knowing what her song sounds like, without knowing
if it is beautiful.

sound has never been heard by her ears
and sometimes she wonders if it exists, wonders
if the words she thinks she is humming
are even leaving her lips because she is too afraid
of disappointment to ask with her hands
if she can make a beautiful sound with her lips.

lasts

there are so many lasts;

last songs

last kisses

last steps

last smiles

last gifts

last words

last breaths

last heartbeats

 

and i don't think i really noticed until you and i had our lasts;

last gift

last hug

last kiss

last words

in the last moments of the last time that i saw you until you took your

last breath and your heart beat one last time and you died with your last smile

still shining on your face.

 

you see, i miss you more everyday and i thought that it might

not hurt so much a year later, but it does

and i can't help but cry at night as i hold the last gift you gave me;

a bright yellow stuffed animal duck named ducky because i thought that

your pool cleaner was a duck when really it was a turtle

and that was the last time we laughed together.

 

when we had our last laugh together and our last words

i didn't know they were going to be our last

and when i said goodbye to you that night i meant it as

"goodbye i'll see you next summer when i turn 16"

not

"goodbye forever i'll see you in heaven"

and when you said goodbye to me it was the same, but i think

that you might have known that our hugs and kisses would be

our last and that those words would be the last we spoke together

and that stuffed animal duck named ducky would be the last gift you gave me.

 

its a little over a year later and i keep thinking about our lasts

and think about how everyone has their lasts and wonder

what my lasts are going to be.

_____________________________________________

 

this is dedicated to my aunt who passed away a little over a year ago. i miss her so much.

paper-thin

she has this obsession, this unwavering desire
to become so paper-thin that her skin is just a thin layer stretched
across her brittle bones
because she wants to be as breakable on the outside
as she is on the inside
and she wants to be beautifully paper-thin like the girls that
seem to have everything tucked into the small back pocket
on their size 00 jean shorts.

she wants to be like the girls in their bikinis
that stretch out their beautifully thin bodies across
warm sand on california beaches with eyes closed, pretending
that they don't notice the gaze of the teenaged boys walking by
because she isn't noticed by anyone but her best friend who isn't even real,
just a figment of her imagination that never faded away
when she reached high school and realized that nobody wanted
to be friends with the fat girl.

and look at her now, look at her brittle bones and skin stretched
paper-thin across them as she starves herself for that perfect image
in her mind that, to her, is
perfection.

love drunk

i'm so lovesick i'm wasted,

with a pounding headache and an uneasy stomach

and i think that i might have just drank a little too much

last night when i was with you, you are my

alcohol.

[and i know that isn't really a compliment, but i can't help it

because that is what you are and always will be you see, you and me

are something that doesn't fit together like teenagers

and alcohol, you make me sick like beer on a friday night at a frat party

without even trying and i think that i just might be addicted.]

 

and i'm hungover from all of the love

that i was drinking last night when i was with you and you

didn't even look at me once, didn't even bother to say a simple "hello"

and i went home and cried myself to sleep because it hurt so much,

my eyes were bloodshot and empty and when i woke up i thought that maybe

you really are my alcohol because, damn, i looked

drunk.

[i acted drunk too, my speach was slurred and my legs unsteady

and everyone thought that maybe i did drink, maybe the good little christian girl

actually did go to a party and get drunk,

i wouldn't tell them that they were wrong.]

 

its funny because when i got home that night, smelling like beer

and pot smoke my mother didn't even notice and i think it might have been

because i didn't smell like beer or pot smoke,

i smelt like you,

my drink of choice and i spent another night with a headache and a stomach

that decided it didn't want anything in it anymore

while my mother joined my father in front of the tv and they cuddled,

nestled their bodies together and i knew that one time

she got drunk off him too and i wonder if he knows and i think he just might

because, damn, their marriage is like a wall of unbreakable diamond.

[i'm afraid that i am always going to be stuck in a life where i go out

to friday night frat parties and get drunk on you,

feel so lovesick that i'm wasted and make everyone think that maybe, just maybe

i am actually drunk.]

 

and its funny how i think about us in metaphors because

they are unreal and we are unreal and this world keeps telling me

to go get drunk, but i don't know how much real alcohol my body can handle

if it can barely handle

you.

first love [late summer nights, or was it early morning?]

it's late at night

[or is it early morning?]

and i can't sleep and i don't know why and i think that

maybe it is because it is summer and during the summer i always think of

you

and how we used to talk to each other

until two and then my dad caught me and we couldn't

talk anymore except for during the day, but we still

stayed up until the morning thinking about each other and dreaming

about each other if we did slip into a short nap that turned into

a three hour nap that made us late for swim practice at six and we would

laugh if we missed it and call each other and bike to that old playground

and sit next to each other on the swings and hold hands and you tried to

kiss me and i turned away that one time because i was scared, but then

my parents put their foot down and forbade me from dating you

and i broke up with you and then i couldn't kiss you but i did anyway

when we both were taken, but we didn't care because i know i never

really got over you and i think you might have never really gotten over me

and now i'm still awake in the early morning in the summer;

subconsciously waiting for you to text me or chat me on facebook

[but i know you won't]

and thinking about how i don't think i ever really got over you.

level 9 earthquake on the richter scale

i hate the idea of forever

 

and i may be the only person who trembles when someone mentions

eternity or infinity or forever and when those christian ministers

mention heaven,

but i do tremble, well actually

i quake;

like my body is the earth

and has just been struck by a level 9 earthquake on the richter scale

with houses collapsing in and mountains imploding while oceans are

exploading and people are screaming, screaming so loud that i can

hear it in my ears, ringing

like a million church bells on sunday morning while my heart

skips like a little girl and her friends playing double dutch on a saturday

afternoon and her mom is watching with a smile, but i'm not smiling

because my body is quaking like it has just been struck

by a level 9 earthquake on the richter scale.

 

i don't know why my body trembles

[quakes]

so much at the mention of forever, but i much prefer

to be stuck here in today and not give a damn

about what will happen tomorrow.

slipping through her fingers

her hair used to fall around her shoulders in little waves like

fiery water and now it is slipping through her fingers

like air as it falls to the ground, she can't

stop it, she can only watch as her once precious hair

becomes a pile of nothing on the carpet

and she can't help but

cry.