Unpublished and unfinished poetry
Sometimes 2022, undated
The truth is — my fingers have forgotten how to write poetry
The same way my eyes have forgotten to recognize my own reflection
Sometimes I used my fingertips to trace the lines of my body
The body that had loved me
Held me all these years
But sometimes feels foreign to me because I have practiced bending it around others
A mediocre contortionist
I have learned the acrobatic art of bending without breaking
Filling spaces that feel unnatural
Of shapeshifting
Of being all the things.
August 4, 2022 3:48 a.m.
In lieu of “I love you”
We were too late to be each other’s first loves
The way well fell into each other felt less like late and more like a casual stroll
The lull of time seemed to exist in the space in between
(Another attempt)
I wrote lines and lines of poetry
Speaking of time and distance, the speed of which one falls in love
Enamored with the way the moon loved and the sea
At 22,
I have never been good at leaving
I told him this as I sat on his kitchen floor willing myself to disappear
I have only ever known the act of remaining
My mother had mastered the art of leaving
She had fled from her home into the arms of my father
My grandmother made up the couch more times than she can remember
And although eventually my mother left my father
My grandmother still keeps spare sheets on hand
And my father left notes on her windshield and asked her to come home to her children
But by the time my mother had left my father all the leaving she had left had gone
Sometime 2023, undated
Reflecting on the man who breaks things
In my childhood home the door to my bedroom was covered in posters, taped haphazardly together.
Beneath it was the gaping hole punched into it.
I do not remember whether it was my step father or a rogue brother,
But as a child I learned to hide an angry man’s mistakes.
As a woman,
I have learned the skill of flexibility.
A woman in white — when he breaks things in my home, I bend.
I am gracious,
Quick with a dust pan and a smile.
Any mild insistence that he’ll pay to replace what’s been broken,
is brushed away with the wreckage.
But somehow, even then, I find myself indebted to him.
Dubbed a get rich quick scheme,
Rip away the mask to reveal not a woman in love, a woman in white,
But a Cleopatra of sorts.
A seductress with a pyramid.
An angry man cannot be satiated,
You can dress up his destruction but beneath it
Will always be
November 25, 2024 12:05 a.m.
Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results
I no longer can conceive a timeline or universe in which you don’t eventually hurt me
But we’re in his kitchen again
This time I’m the one leaning against the counter
And he kisses my chest, rubs his index and pointer finger against the invisible mark
Then does the same to my forehead.
The seeds of doubt have sprouted — vines clawing their way up my throat.
I clear it,
Thunder
And press my tongue against the roof of my mouth to suppress the rain.
We’re having a rendition of the same conversation.
I say that he is inconsistent
I say that he offers no stability
And he offers his apologies.
I wrap my arms around myself, tight.
I am going insane,
But in the driveway I make a joke to make him laugh
I ask myself again, “why do you do that?”
I cannot ask him —
He never has the answers.
September 8, 2025 10:39 p.m.
To overlook the bitterness I searched for the simple gestures he could muster
Coffee in the morning brought to my bedside
It never occurred until now that he never bothered to ask how I take it
To learn my preferences
That he made it the same as his, batched into two cups
Really the measure of the gesture was only in the 17 footsteps from the kitchen to the bed
Is it enough
When I would’ve walked the length of the world
Even in shoes that were gifted but never my size
But I wore anyway, despite the pain — if only to make the gesture
September 30, 2025 9:59 p.m.
Nowadays
It rained off and on throughout the evening into today but still I drove with the windows down
It is cool outside but still the humidity hangs in the air and wraps itself in my hair
I’ll have to get used to the touch of it here, how it lingers
The windshield was fogging but I still couldn’t quite figure out the controls even though I’ve had this car for years
I do not think of the way you taught me to replace my windshield wipers
The way the windows looked on that winding Oregon road
Or the way I cling to those things to make the rest more hazy
There is a man in my apartment for the first time and I’m drunk
He’s pushing through my books in the cabinet, stowed away from the move
I pull a slim book from the stack and lay across my bed, thumbing the pages
I sit up and fold my legs into one another when he joins me, careful to create distance but still I read him the passage
My voice tumbles over some words and I’m afraid that my recitation has spoiled it
He looks at me and says “I think that’s the most romantic thing anyone has done on a first date”
I chew and swallow the heavy protestation,
But still point out the punctuation — as if to prompt him to reconsider.
I do not say
You are wrong — let me read it again.
Not everyone deciphers everything,
Attempt to find meeting
And maybe it is not my position to point it out.
But still,
But still here I am — repeating the same phrase with secondhand intention, knowing what it means but not saying.
You are wrong, read it again.
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