Ok - maybe not a poem and I’m stretching the boundaries of this prompt, but it’s an excerpt I always come back to.
“I am sitting at my kitchen table waiting for my lover to arrive with lettuce and tomatoes and rum and sherry wine and a big floury loaf of bread in the fading sunlight. Coffee is percolating gently, and my mood is mellow. I have been very happy lately, just wallowing in it selfishly, knowing it will not last very long, which is all the more reason to enjoy it now. I suppose life always ends badly for almost everybody. We must have long fingers and catch at whatever we can while it is passing near us.”
Jul 1, 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
📖
You do not always know what I am feeling.
Last night in the warm spring air while I was
blazing my tirade against someone who doesn't
interest
me, it was love for you that set me
afire,
and isn't it odd? for in rooms full of
strangers my most tender feelings
writhe and
bear the fruit of screaming. Put out your hand,
isn't there
an ashtray, suddenly, there? beside
the bed? And someone you love enters the room
and says wouldn't
you like the eggs a little
different today?
And when they arrive they are
just plain scrambled eggs and the warm weather
is holding.
Jan 13, 2025
😃
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters on the bookshelf
the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own images from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life.
Jul 1, 2024
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🚿
The concept was totally foreign to me until I started dating my new england bf who grew up with these outhouse-like showers during the summer. Treating it like a regular shower vs rinse-after-swim shower changes the game - it feels soooo invigorating to take a steamy shower and look up to see the trees and sky above and rocks below. 😌 just get used to being naked in a box outside and you won’t regret it.
Jun 22, 2024
👃
small perfume house with oil based fragrances - the sample set is affordable and so diverse! I ended up getting Rital Date and Sea, Sud, & Sun (fig perfume🚨) as full sizes
Apr 9, 2024
🎶
I’m in two leagues rn and it’s so fun to connect with your long distance friends over songs and a little competition
Apr 9, 2024