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 Nov 2014 Margrethe H K
Alyssa
God doesn't hear you unless you say things out loud.
So if you talk about how great the weather's been lately
and the next day it rains,
it's not called a jinx
its a joke.
Our God is known to punish
more than forgive
so it's no coincidence
that after I told you I loved you
that you left.

I never knew that God could be so ruthless
until I watched the days pile up without you here.
You are the clothes carelessly thrown on my floor,
the empty bottles on my night desk,
my wrinkled sheets that are never smoothed out.
You are a burden
but something i cannot bare to part with
in fear that i'll need you once you're gone.

If i iron my sheets
i'll miss the indents they made on my body
but i'll miss your body more.
Your absence has created a void
that can never be filled,
an empty crate that's too small for books
but too big for my words,
a hollow sorry with enough tears to fill up a baby pool
but not enough to drown me in.

It's been 42 days since we've last spoken
and I can still hear your sigh in the back of my head.
But God only hears you when you speak
so when I whispered Hello,
He arranged for a Goodbye.
I've never been good at them,
I always stutter when the words start leaving my throat
like the letters are ripping their way out of my chest.
No wonder why it keeps throbbing
because it seems that I have a gaping hole inside of me.

I've tried to right myself with the wrong people,
the wrong ***,
the wrong drinks,
and usually i'm left feeling emptier than i started
which is hard to do
seeing as though i'm always vacant.
I've started to become concave,
allowing more room for others
and I can't help but continue to apologize for the space I occupy.
Someone once told me
that i make a better door than window
and I wonder if it's because when you look at me
you can see it's always raining on the other side.

God can only hear you if you speak
so that's why I breathe my words
in fear that if i say them too loudly
He might make them shatter.
The broken shards of syllables
and chipped letters of your name
falling gracefully around me;
raining down like a slow motion hurricane.
I thought about grabbing on to your vowels
but you vowed to never make me bleed
so i stuffed my hands back in my pockets
only find your broken ceramic promises
digging deep into my palms.
I felt crucified and wondered
if one day Jesus would tell everyone
that I died for their sins.

Give me your poor,
your weak,
your sick
and your ******
and i will find a way to make them live forever.
Scream their names into the sky,
fracture the clouds with their stories.
Make the lightning bolts crumble
before ever leaving their homes
to give God an accurate representation
of what it feels like to want to die every morning.
Because I have crumbled long before the lightning,
long before the fractures in the clouds,
long before the names being thrown into the sky.
I have known the days
before silence became almost as excruciating as the screams
because God only hears you when you speak.
 Nov 2014 Margrethe H K
Alyssa
Don't tell me about Long Distance.
I have known Long Distance
since the day I saw you waving out of the back window of that silver Prius.
The snow banks insulating my car
because i spent the last 47 hours with you
and held you while you cried
because you weren't ready to leave for the marines yet.
But your body said other wise,
your muscles sharp and deadly.
It's been a while since you've written,
and it's been 8 months since my blankets have stopped smelling like you.
I couldn't help but notice
the way my body drowns in these sheets
because you were my life vest
but you were not there when i jumped in.
I looked back at the dock before my head went under
and i saw you just sitting there,
watching me struggle.
I tore you apart in my head
every single strand of thread and love was separated
until every bit of silence that was woven in has been exposed.
But these strands don't hold any value when you're drowning,
what I have done is destroyed the only thing that could give me buoyancy.
Now I am left with extra weight on these shackles
i bear and water filling up my lungs
like a measuring cup to a recipe from Hell's kitchen.
In your last letter you asked
"Are we okay?"
but you don't just tell someone you love them then let them drown.
I have known Long Distance since you came back home today.
You are so close to me
but I still feel like you are not present.
There is something to be said
about missing someone who is right next to you.
Usually it is the person at home
who gives up on the one in the military,
but you found your home inside of those bunks and those guns.
You have only taught me to never make homes out of human beings.
I have to keep reminding myself
that you are a woman to never be slowed down
because you will leave everyone else behind
and I never wanted to come last to you
but i never wanted to beat you either.
I have known Long Distance
when I reach my hand out
and you've always been just slightly out of my grasp.
You were a goal to work towards,
a beautiful woman sitting on a pedestal waiting to be won
and I've always been too inadequate to be the one to have you.
You are the Epitome of Long Distance,
and I have known you for much longer than I would have liked.
 Nov 2014 Margrethe H K
Alyssa
You are the spectacle of love that I am trying to forget.
But somehow i can't get your image to be removed from my brain
like it was branded on the inside of my eyelids.
All I ever saw was you.
You made flowers grow in my lungs
and although they are beautiful
it's getting a little too hard to breathe.
I am asthmatic
so when I started to wheeze,
you lit a cigarette so I could become addicted to that too.
I never knew I could need nicotine
until it came from under your tongue,
a numberless cigarette lit twixt your fingers,
burning like the bridges
between your heart and mine.
You started to need the tobacco
a lot more than you needed me
and your body frame started to dwindle
because i was not enough to keep you stable.
I blame myself
because at first I didn't notice that you were shrinking
I just thought you needed some space.
Your skin became tighter,
your knuckles turning so white
I couldn't tell if it was your bones
but I could still count each fragment with clear definition.
That night i buried my heart in your backyard,
like a dog trying to save a treat for next spring,
but I never came back for it.
It's been three months
and i'm still picking shards of you out of my skin.
You dug yourself so deep into my flesh
that you almost became a part of my DNA.
But just like the wrong blood type
my body rejected you
no matter how much i thought i needed you to survive.
But my mother did not raise me
with a wolf in my chest
so i can howl every time i lost you.
You are not the moon,
you are not the sun.
And i am not a flower.
I need more than warmth to get me out of bed in the morning.
This world is not a garden
and you are not the rain.
You do not decide when i get to be loved.
You're looking down
please don't look down again.
We live in a culture of self-deprecation
and self-loathing
but we are not slaves to it.
Just because you feel like curling up like a hedgehog
doesn't mean you have to --
It's easy, and you're tired,
but you don't have to.

You are better than this.
You are better than whatever version of yourself
you see in the mirror on those mornings  you don't want to leave the house
better than your father was
better than I am, honestly.
There is so much goodness in you --
stop pulling back
there is nothing to be afraid of.
Trust me.
It took me years to find that out for myself.
As I'm reading other authors poems I can't help but silently agree that poetry is a secret language.
Wondrous explosions of words
become magical and yet those reading may feel completely different feelings from those writing.
And yet, that mystery, the self-giving that poetry is becomes a release.
So we sit and we write.
About the day's fluorescence or a lovers escapade;
we turn our poetry into songs, into peace offerings, into dedications.
Wherever that person is sitting at that computer desk, or that cemented garden we are all here.
In love with something we ourselves cannot fully grasp.
In love with more than the idea of something,
in love with words.
I no longer drone about the beach.
Nor about your absence when the sand ran out or the loneliness I experienced when the waves enveloped my toes.
I see the water has evaporated.
I walk a new line with new horizons.
Unaccustomed to this unfamiliar  scenery I walk with one hand in my pocket and the other reaching for something I have yet to uncover.
I was more comfortable when you took off my shirt and unhooked my bra than I was when you innocently put your arms around me.
It made more sense to close my eyes and kiss your neck than it did for me to look at you with clear, sober eyes.
But of course, I only moved closer to you when the lights turned off.
I'm sorry I pierced a hole in my ear you think symbolizes defiance
I'm sorry my hair isn't the blonde I was born with and kept for 18 years
I'm sorry I cried when I first dyed my hair because I had never truly loved myself before that moment
I'm sorry I hid in my bathroom and turned on the shower so you wouldn't hear me gasping for breath, while trying to stay indestructible
I'm sorry I never forgave you for making me feel the need to hide.
I'm sorry for embarrassing you in front of your friends because the shirt on my back and the shorts on my waist were a shade too dark and my hair a shade too bright.
I'm sorry I made you late to important functions because I was busy adding another layer to my already hardened face
I'm sorry you think I don't understand and maybe never will.
I'm sorry you thought I'd get better when I turned 14, then 15, and 16.
And then came home at 18 and made you cry.
I'm sorry I didn't impress anyone with my ACT score and am unsuccessful at math.
I'm sorry for blaming you for my insecurities and my lack of emotion at the dinner table.
I'm sorry for becoming so accustomed to being told "to shut up" I stopped sharing my life with strangers.
I'm sorry I remember more good than bad sometimes and I got hurt.
I'm sorry I felt the need to hurt you back.
I won't ever be what I'm supposed to.
I won't be the most intelligent or charismatic person in the room.
I'll keep trying but
I'm sorry I'm me.
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