we’re careening— well, that sounds dramatic. not careening— but sliding, holding you and myself in place— because my disposition leads (and has always led) to believing abandon reckless will kill if I let it as close as myself and yourself held only by bicycle rope or kayak rope or moving box rope side beside inside truckbed backseat forgone throats slicked with City of Roses forest gin and Artemis Moons I’m sober and you’re not I’m anxious and you’re not you’re carefree spit-balling about side parts and saying love and love as we pass long-haul truckers— eyesclosed Lyft drivers— that pinkie-promise coworker to fast friend elbow to elbow barefoot to clogs off in the cab shallow river dipping mask off cheek pinch I-tell-everyone-you’re-my-cousin kind of love that no mother could ever that no father could ever that kind of love that door we kicked down and threw into that mustard bonfire of before that old worthless hinge don’t work so won’t bother not ever not now not in this truckbed— I toss my thoughts to traffic fine me $900 for littering lock me up for language you say what a beautiful city my glasses are in my pocket those empty offices stacked apartments and windowbeam glitterblurs fall into the nightvoid I’ve seen beautiful and more unmatched in those words you weave so keep weaving them— I’ll be here listening long after we pull into the driveway. (& if u like it, I linked my poetry newsletter :)
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May 14, 2024

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--from my latest substack post-- ordering coffee, again. i’ll grab this one. of course; it’s no problem. oat? soy? neither? okay, no milk, right. it’s a thursday, you don’t put milk in your coffee on thursdays, i remember. you told me that last autumn for the first time. at the shop on the corner of streets running north and south and east and west the location as ambiguous as you were to me. i held onto your words like candlelight, which is to mean, i felt myself grasping at the wick of your thoughts as they released. hold onto it slowly, i did, each tendril of smoke had meaning, for you have never said things that did not matter. i’ve always held the space to gather up all your meaning, to keep attempting to collect the strands of everything that encapsulates you. the long strings of yarn strung together in loose cadence; but i can keep the rhythm, and i can keep the pace, and i can hold the room for all of it, i’ll hold the threads in my palm and i’ll grasp it with certainty. because it is without effort, there is no weight, or burden, or distraught, to be the one to hold that which you carry; it is not beyond my strength to hold all of you. for to love was to bear it all, or at least that’s what i read, but isn’t that how it feels? to be seen, to be understood, is to recognize that any quirk fear inability lack thereof is not a withholding nor weakness nor failing it is the space between us the location in the strings where we meet in the middle the threaded spiderweb of life has bound us this way no, not doomed; no, not ill-fated. for you are the red string connected to my wrist the one that has lead me to you the universal pull to unravel the thread so that i may reach you even though you exist outside of my grasp as i see it now all i ever needed was your hand pressed against mine i want to feel myself expanding and compressing underneath the weight of your eyes soft winding and slow crackling do we fall deeper the string twisting and tying and threading and then loosening unraveling the yarn crocheted and knitted do we find ourself loose ends and damaged strands have we come together to make whole the both of us i’ll order the same coffee every thursday i’ll walk you home from the station i’ll make the pasta that way you like it and i’ll keep writing these letters so that one day you’ll read them i’ll press them with the flowers of your tomorrow scented with the bloom of longing sealed with the certainty of promise the promise that i’ll keep collecting and saving the things you’d like the letters the movies the albums the trinkets the odds the ends the things yet to be discovered and the things you’ll have to show me i’m just a scrapbook of all the things i’ve loved before a capsule of intricacy i’ll keep the light on outside i’ll wait on the porch i’ll keep the fire warm i’ll know when you’re here and you’ll know it’s me for the strings will connect, the yarn unraveled, the lines no longer crossing but joining. and if it’s a thursday, a plain coffee, no milk just so there isn’t any lack of a sign. #poetry #letters #substack
Dec 5, 2024
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• • • • • • • • • • • • stoke the fire in the garden, soup simmers in the pot, twilight shade on faces, timbre that two years forgot. we survived a plague and the forgetting is the cost, I’ve learned to keep better friends than those I've lost. sharing smoke porch swing belonging escaped me long ago, time splits tannins on twisted tongue. feels wrong you don't know my dad’s name, or my street beneath the moon, you don’t know that in one year this ends by afternoon. so I leave the party early, the night is dark and gone— so I leave the party early, there is quiet in my lungs. • • • • • • • • • • • • thanks 4 reading :) /megan crayne/
May 7, 2024
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just found this track on spotify and i think it's just beautiful, speaks about extending yourself to someone and letting fear just be, not letting it control you but not suppressing it either. it really speaks to my life right now, trying to be genuine for someone without overwhelming myself. -- Your fingers laced in mine like five tourniquets, stopping empty words that flow from my empty nervous lips, your fingers like tourniquets. I'm enjoying the silence like this, i can hear the sound of your lips as you read me Robert Frost. And silence cross fades into a bliss that has stuck with me this week, the sound of Frost on your Lips, "Not Even The Rain" you say as you read me E.E. Cummings. I read Kevin Fitzpatrick yesterday, he talked about reading poems to his partner Tina, she was moving to a farm in Northern Minnesota. A tourniquet is that look that you give when you're right where you're supposed to be, and i know there's so many places to be. And i've never met someone who is at so many at once, even sometimes gracefully, even sometimes gracefully. Gracefully, you tell me about New York, gonna see Bruce Springsteen on broadway, i kiss you in some Portland driveway, you say sorry for being so many places at once, you wanna feel grounded with me, I say i don't wanna be your rock i want to be your sea legs If you move on will you at least give me a five star yelp review so i can be friends with your friends, my collar for your tears, my sleeve for your snot, a bout of crying as you tell me about fear of loss and giving which leads to loss which leads to fear making it hard to give your fingers laced in mine like five tourniquets, stopping words that we'd forget, i won't forget that look that you give, tie it above the wounds, i've had a rough month or two, you're like my sea legs. making out in some Portland Strangers driveway, gettin dizzy as we stumble the long way to my house, the feeling of motion as we lay still in my bed and you read me Frost and Cummings and Elliot, the feeling of motion as i lay still and you show me: how to put a moment on a page, i hang some pictures up at my new place you light the sage, your spirits lift the room higher and higher i let some dire feelings of loosing you burn with the sage i put you on pages and pages of moments and moments I got nothing to hide, you tell me about your friend Joseph who see's through peoples lies. Sometimes you hid behind your eyes making it much more potent when i see right through them, and i see right through them I let fear of you moving on burn with the sage, i put silent moments of your tourniquet fingers on the page, and i listen to your breathing and the sounds of kids playing at the school across the street as we lay through the afternoon. My collar for your tears my sleeve for your snot, some happy crying as we leave behind fear of loss, only giving, which led me here, in your arms, without fail, over moments and moments, and pages, and again only moments which lead me here in your
Dec 25, 2024

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touching grass, blades between toes, dappled shade beneath the trees, reading a book or quietly painting or people-watching or picnicking with a friend...babes, there is nothing like it
May 12, 2024
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This could change when I hit 40 (lmao), but the older I get, the more confident I know who I am. I feel more and more sure of myself, and less and less concerned with how others view me. My life is my own, and comparing it to other's is a disservice to myself and the path I'm now on. Do I still experience guilt, regrets, doubt? Of course I do. Do I know what I'm doing with my life? I might have less of a clue than I did in my twenties. Do I still feel like a weird little freak, like I did in my teens? Hell yeah, some stuff just never changes. I still enjoy things I loved as a child, like video games, Pokemon, stuffed animals, and giggling. I still enjoy things I loved as a teen, like pop punk music, being annoying, and singing whenever the mood strikes. I still enjoy things I loved in college, like dancing enthusiastically, writing amateurish poetry, and crushing on women who will never, ever be into me. But now I'm just...30. More health issues. More scars. More silvery hairs that sparkle in the sun like some vampiric trope made real. But also...more memories that sweeten with time. More time spent in awe and revelry. More reveling in the beauty of nature. More of my own innate nature revealed to me as I sit with myself more, alone. I feel thirty, flirty, and thriving. I also feel as a child, as a teen, as a drunken young adult, bumbling around without knowing if what I'm doing is right. I'm just doing my best. That's all you really can do; embrace how you are now, and how you are tomorrow, and again, and again, and again.
May 13, 2024