misc 4my father
found me in the poetry aisle
at the bookstore
and he said
I couldn’t be a poet
because all female poets
kill themselves
and I just smiled
and walked away
because he doesn’t understand
that dying
can be a poem too
Everyone who terrifies you is sixty-five percent water.
And everyone you love is made of stardust, and I know sometimes
you cannot even breathe deeply, and
the night sky is no home, and
you have cried yourself to sleep enough times
that you are down to your last two percent, butnothing is infinite,
not even loss.You are made of the sea and the stars, and one day
you are going to find yourself again.
before you fall in love with me,
let me tell you that I smoke too
many cigarettes, and I would
rather watch the moon on a
Saturday night than go out and
get drunk at expensive bars with
people that don’t give a damn about me.
let me tell you that I am yesterday’s
paper throw in the garbage, unread.
I am not a romantic midnight walk
down by the park, or everlasting
roses that never wilt. I am not a
gracious ocean, but rather a humid,
filthy swamp. so before you fall in
love with me, run.
and I apologize for,
staying quiet when we should have talked,
running forward when we should have walked,
not trying any harder than giving up.
