😃
--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
Related Recs
The sharp scent of rain tumbles clumsily in as you tease window-hinges wider with the pads of your fingers. A siren trails close behind, uninvited, sears your eardrums, dies off down the block.
Your neighbors are arguing again. Laundry, loans, lack of commitment… like yesterday, like the day before.
You think it would be suffocating to wrap yourself up in someone else’s sheets.
It’s five o’clock. Leaning against the sill and flicking the radio dial with one recently manicured nail, you tune into the local news. Roaring wall of static, then calm conversation between two anchors bubbling up through an old set of Panasonic loudspeakers.
You are feeling incomplete today, like yesterday, like the day before.
Rigatoni boils in the kitchen. You check the leftmost cabinet and find strawberry jam, unopened. You check the cupboard and look over a tub of tahini, a collection of canned soup, and a stack of pie tins. You check the counter, behind the cutlery. Finally, you check the fridge, ducking down to see only your own brown-eyed reflection in one last — now empty — jar of Prego. Your shoulders dip.
You slip on white sneakers, not-so-white-as-they-once-were. Why did you try to paint the front door? It is peeling now, ugly like a fledgling losing young feathers. Flecks of buttery yellow dapple paisley carpeting.
The great outdoors wait for you at the bottom of a cramped stairwell with twin light fixtures, both broken.
A sky like an old sweater is draped above Brooklyn, ready to wring itself out again at any moment.
Once around the block, rubber soles brushing damp cement, you walk briskly. At first you fling yourself against the humidity, then become self-conscious and adopt a slower pace as you near the corner store.
Two dollars, sixty cents. Like last week, like the week before.
You and I, we are looking down at our phones and stumble into each other, halfway home.
It is no one’s fault.
You recognize me from somewhere, you say, and feel like a bad person for lying. You have never seen me before in your life. I ask for your number.
That night you eat too quickly, knowing you’ll wish you’d saved some leftovers.
I come over once, then again.
We go out for dinner at tacky restaurants, where art deco posters from the nineteen-thirties have pinned themselves up in scattered flocks across worn-out drywall and the menu is printed with strange font on laminated placemats. The appetizer sample photos are unnerving; the bruschetta cowers like a scared animal awash in excessive camera flash. I make a joke about it, and you laugh.
We order dishes to share. The food is always better than I expected, but not quite as good as you wanted it to be.
You don’t mind.
We talk for hours.
We agree, ballpoint pens are better.
I hold you, and the ten p.m. bus pulls you out of my arms and through the dusky streets, past crowds and utility poles.
I hold you, and we rhyme our steps. Burgundy is around us in the leaves and in the dirt. You wear a coat I gave you.
I hold you, and we swat flies out on your porch. The days are getting shorter.
I hold you, and we watch blu-ray CDs you found on sale. Soft light from the flatscreen plays across your face as you fall asleep. I keep the movie on a little longer.
I hold you. In December, we bring a blanket to Long Island and listen to the sound of snow falling on the dunes.
You call in sick for work too often.
I hold you, and you know my callouses well.
We share the same sheets; we are wrapped up in each other.
I hold you, and kiss your hair.
You smell like candied oranges.
The afternoons eat away at one another. Dishes pile like uneven layer-cakes in your kitchen sink, crested with suds.
You say you feel uninspired.
Now we argue about laundry, and the sounds of your unhappy apartment are heard through half-open windows.
You shout, eyebrows furrowed like the pages of a book. A white plate soars from the grip of a trembling hand, misses an upturned chin, and interrupts us with its shattering.
This time, it’s different.
Sleep escapes us ‘til the sun is already planted on the easternmost rooftop.
I hurt you the way I learned to, and stay awhile, but don’t know why I stay.
We sink into sweet, heavy things: the saxophone in “Charcoal Baby”, shared creamsicles on hot Saturday evenings.
I see you less and less, and remember less and less of you.
Will I see you next week?
Yes, if you text me.
You forget,
just like we’d both hoped.
Sep 17, 2024
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 :)
May 14, 2024
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
Top Recs from @bills
what the hell did they put in this movie?
I need it desperately.
I need it like an everything bagel with veggie cream cheese on a Sunday morning.
I need it like water in my lungs.
I need it like I need Age of Consent to play directly following Love Will Tear Us Apart on the dance floor.
I need it like two beers to overcome my social anxiety.
I need it like the woman I met at that house party last week to text back so we can go out and dance and talk about books again because I long to hear her opinion on literally anything.
Safe to say, I need this movie bad.
A day on this earth doesn’t pass where I don’t think about this piece of film. The longing. The tension. The colors. The music. The sea. It has it all.
I need to be at the sea. You know how they used to send women to the sea for treatment for “hysteria”, like in The Bell Jar or Ammonite or this film. I need that but less in the patriarchal and misogynistic way, but more in like a “I really need to just be close to a body of water for a prolonged period of time and ponder things”.
Every time I see the number 28 I think of this film. Every time I look at a classical painting. Every time I hear a French word spoken I am convinced I need to acquire the language so I can grasp this in its true essence.
My therapist told me that I am centered around longing, this has always been true, this movie has only amplified that.
The lovers path or the poets path which shall I take?
I don’t fucking know as long as I can experience a connection half as deep as this.
Go watch this movie.
Aug 2, 2024
🤠
what I’d give to experience listening to this song for the first time again, especially watching the music video. How does one escape modernity and live in the world of the harvest moon music video? Just at a bar, dancing with someone you’re fond of, while a live bands plays
Aug 2, 2024
been on my uncle iroh shit lately, london fog every morning, inquire below for my sage wisdom
Feb 12, 2025