Marie James Alexander: Favorites

Jun 2017 Marie James Alexander

Jonathan Witte

The girl in the black
bathing suit swims
through my dreams;

her orange eyes warn
me that summer
is coming.

An inescapable
swelter of air
threads itself
through the slats
of picket fences,

crisping insects
and terrifying
an army of black birds
bivouacked in the trees.

I hear the soft explosion
of hibiscus, red petals as
bright as belly wounds,

and the heartbeat
of the dog panting,
stupefied by the heat
of a relentless star.

Up and down the street,
abandoned children call
out from the bottom of
empty swimming pools.

I slouch in an aluminum chair,
trying to get black-out drunk
on warm gin and tonics.

The tidy rectangle
of grass around me
ignites in a legion
of slender flames.

I remember the dark room
and my father’s deathbed,
his whispered, final words:
dying is thirsty work.

I strip to my underwear
and fantasize about ice.
I pray for the neighborhood
sprinklers to spring to life.

Jun 2017 Marie James Alexander

I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You

Jun 2017 Marie James Alexander

Pablo Neruda

I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You

I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.

I love you only because it's you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.

In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.

Jun 2017 Marie James Alexander

Lovesick Lover

Jun 2017 Marie James Alexander

Jordan St Angelo

Lovesick Lover

I have neither the time
nor the words
to actually write this poem.

My lunch break is almost over
and I have come in late
too many times already.

I'm too sick to write you this poem
or any of the others you would have
otherwise inspired.

I just liked the title.
Lovesick Lover

Isn't that fitting?

Jun 2017 Marie James Alexander

sadder

Jun 2017 Marie James Alexander

Jordan St Angelo

sadder

and i never felt much sadder
than the day that we first met
because i knew it didn't matter
that one day you would forget

all the nights we spent together
and the days we stayed in bed
and the words that i would whimper
oh so softly as you slept

no i never would have pictured
just how hard i'd fall for you
but the gold it turned to silver
and my heart turned back to blue

i should have seen it coming
you warned me you were cold
but the silence doesnt hurt less
just because it was foretold

and i never felt much sadder
than the day that i confessed
that i loved you more than life itself
even though i wished for death

Jun 2017 Marie James Alexander

Faux things

Jun 2017 Marie James Alexander

Pippi

Faux things

Faux Things

It was 3AM.
I had too many cups of *** and I wanted to hear your voice
before I fell into a drunken stupor.
You didn't answer my two FaceTime calls or texts so
it got my mind to racing, was our love ever real to you at all?

Your love was...
                            Press on nails
                            Eyelashes that I wore to junior prom
                            WWF (this broke my heart too)
                            Taco Bell's beef
                            Government cheese
                            Diamonds that bling but not worth
                            a thing at appraisal, gold chains
                            that turn your neck green, leather
                            boots that turn out to be polyester,
                            Louis Vuitton bags, bootleg movies....On the contrary my love was

Those blood diamonds that you go to war for, those
Ideologies you get ****** for, those truths you get burned for,
those faiths you get nailed to crosses for-staple my hands
to a cross and I bleed reasons why I believed in you over and over.
I was a martyr for love.

I was a *******,
the harder you hurt me, the more I craved you,
the more I needed you to love me how I loved you.
Maybe the love was never real and I clung onto
my own illusions...Or

                                  What about the way you called me baby rang from your lips, or
                                  the way our fingers would intertwine, merging like expressway
                                  lanes-I guess we were on the fastest route to heartbreak-
                                  Or what about the way our bodies would mesh, sort of like
                                  melting chocolate, your butterscotch and my mocha combining
                                  to make a new flavor.

Was any of that real? Because my love for you was deep,
I was never afraid to drown in your currents, come up for air, try again,
be engulfed in you. Every moment was precious like picking seashells at the
bottom of the ocean. You never even attempted to remove your floaties and move from
the shallow waters for me.

Nothing is a fake as the expectations you impose and the lies and the promises that
they can fulfill them...

                                and nothing is as real as that heart sinking feeling,
                                drunken with disappointment, kamikaze mission colliding
                                right into your chest-How can I feel my heart beating and
                                breaking at the same time? How can these emotions be
                                erupting inside of me while you either feel nothing or everything?
                                Does it even pain you?

Even fake flowers can appear real. I wouldn't know how to spot a counterfeit dollar if it was in my hands. When did I realize that I was walking around with a fake purse?

                               But do you know what else is real? The memories and moments,
                               the time that we can’t take back. I can’t remove your kisses from
                               my collarbone or the way you held my hand at the train station as
                               if you didn’t want to release me, the look in your eyes as if you
                               wanted to say something but something was repelling you not to.

Maybe your love for me was real in that glimpse of time, in that freeze frame moment,
just not in the way that I needed. We can’t get that back. Can we? Maybe?
Why would I want to? Why would you? Maybe?…
                                                                                   Wrote the text that I never sent.