#watbp

[name-de-plume]

I loved you before we ever met. And It wasn't just a case of loneliness seeking a cure, but how I have sought you. From afar, I admired. Across all space, one star held my unwavering gaze, one star amongst multitudes the soul of my yearning. The dust of me holds this memory long after the light went out. Imagine my surprise meeting you here, like this, in the flesh. You are still radiant.

[name-de-plume]

I do not believe

In love at first sight,

maybe not a second, third or tenth ;

I look in the mirror every day, after all.

If there’s even one person to want me,

Shouldn’t it at least be me?

[name-de-plume]

I was already a broken man when you found me; an empty vessel, unfit for any holding, somehow keeping it together despite cracks spiderwebbing across my body. Like a museum display, tagged "Fragile: Do Not Touch." I accepted my place until you ignored the sign, called it an accident.

Finally, I shattered. Yes, I was damaged before you But the blood is on your fingers

[name-de-plume]

Despite working overtime and coming home haggard yet still dragging myself to the gym

Despite therapy

Despite refusing to consume coffee, and soda, and chocolate, really anything that brings joy

Despite medications that are borderline tranqulizers

Despite meditation

Despite a deluxe new memory foam bed that feels like a cloud

Despite temperature settings, and weighted blankets, body pillows, soothing sounds, and no blue lights

Despite it all, I’m still awake

I’m still awake, I’m still awake

There is no learning to sleep next to your absence

[name-de-plume]

You may be reading my words But I’m no real writer. Real writers write. Real writers fuck the page. Real writers throb With the words pulsing in their blood. A steady pumping out Topic after topic, story after story. No enzyte can fix my lack of performance.

I just jot. Running when late doesn’t make me a runner. This poem, last months, any before that- They are aberrations. Ejaculation doesn’t mean I had sex. I can only do this when lighting strikes. And it don’t storm much in L.A.

[name-de-plume]

Sometimes, another might be at your table

And you make their satiety paramount

Forgetting in the moment, that you

Also need to be nourished.

Often I wonder

If she loved the food at my table

Or watching me go hungry

[name-de-plume]

I used to feel things

So I wrote out of compulsion;

Now I’m nothing but empty pages

[name-de-plume]

I have dodged a bullet but maybe regret saving myself because I fell in love with the gun-- admired it's deft amalgam of sensual curves and utilitarianism; the explosive mix of risk and protection; how it could say so much with so little

[name-de-plume]

A Little Less Constipation, A Little More Action

1. Elvis died on the toilet. Copious opioid usage led to daunting intestinal blockage. But it's the straining and holding your breath that kills you, even without 30 pounds of constipation.

How much does a memory weigh? I have to remind myself to exhale as I crap out memories of us. Maybe I've been holding my breath too long.

2. Toilet paper is on a roll... but only since its patent in 1883. Early Americans relied upon corn cobs. The Romans had communal sponges on sticks. And even earlier, sea shells weren't safe.

I wiped my ass with your pictures, left the mess aflame at your doorstep. Disgusting, I know; shame on me. But I was only ever your dirty joke.

[name-de-plume]

1.

She is not a curse; but

with increasing frequency you think of her

in terms like “wanting

to be free this burden.”

You were always taught

How wrong

To wish death on another living thing.

Are you a bad person?

2.

When you clip her nails and comb her hair,

You perform in a holy slowness

as if your task is a confessional curtain.

You laugh cry

With stories of how silly a younger you was, even just yesterday. As if tallied in Excel, you recount every time you feel like you’ve failed.

It comes out easiest when you’re not sure anyone is listening.

3.

You have to remind yourself

What she’s doing isn’t haunting.

4.

Sleep is scattered and sparse.

But when you dream, theres the steady beeping of an oxygen machine —

you’re an astronaut floating in space.

From up here you can’t see her.

How can our lives hold any significance

In this cold black backdrop?

5.

It’s quiet.

How long since you’ve heard beeping?

Some things, no matter how much preparation, you can not be ready for.

[name-de-plume]

I love you.

This is not an April fools joke.

But I wish it were

[name-de-plume]

I wish I could tell you that in this stage of healing I feel no more pain. That this scar on my heart is just a calloused over memory that elicits nothing more than an eye roll when poked. But I still hurt. She isn’t the “one that got away”. I don’t pine for her return, I don’t want to rekindle the finer moments of “us”. I’m not telling you if I had the chance to go back and fix something, I’d at least be a different person on my end. That’s simply not the case. I could even tell you that I’ve been happier alone. Isn’t that sometime the curse— the complexity of emotions that we can feel concurrently? I shared the deepest core of me with another person, I loved her in every way that my heart was capable. I am allowed to sometimes… often?… be filled with sorrow that the math didn’t work out. A positive plus a positive equals a positive— that’s math, right? It’s how the whole Universe is written. And yet one good person plus another good person equaled a negative thing.

You want a scapegoat in your grief. It was them. Or it was me. She is beautiful, after all, and what am I? But the blame is neither of ours; it was us. I mourn that we had moments of greatness that were just moments and not a lifetime. I loved her in a way that used terms like lifetime. And now there’s a scar that won’t quite heal.

I’m not counting, but it’s been years now. And every single night I’ve dreamt of her. And it’s always a scenario where she tells me she’s no longer in love. Every single night. I got teary eyed just writing that. And every morning I wake up, the scar on my heart throbs. And every morning I wake up fearing that I’ll never be good enough for anyone. Even after telling you it was neither of our faults.

It was neither of our faults, right? But that doesn’t make it any better. What if the math is always going to be wrong? The common denominator is always me.

[name-de-plume]

A positive plus a positive

Is positive. That’s just math.

The whole universe is written in math.

And yet ours was wrong.

a good person plus a good person

And we were just a negative thing.

[name-de-plume]

Is a poem a poem

If it doesn’t adhere

To popular perception?

Sometimes, trying to define a thing

Can ruin what makes it special.

Is a wild horse still free

If you limit how far it can roam?

We were a beautiful thing

Running wild and free.

But I had to know where the boundaries were.

So I opened my mouth

And like a magician revealing the trick

I ruined the magic.

[name-de-plume]

I'm going to be honest; it may come as a surprise but I fantasize about having you in my bed. In the dark, we are little more than silhouettes. Laying there, you are invading my space but a welcome visitor. My nervous trembling is overpowered by your heartbeat; your warmth becomes my warmth; you are at peace. We need no words--no need to molest the silence with emotions that are understood.

The simplicity of two bodies merely laying together may seem an anticlimactic lust. And that may be how I know I love you. Even without climax, you are my fantasy.

[name-de-plume]

One Random Thing to Be Thankful For Because It’s January and You Should Try to Start the Year Off With Some Positivity

1. When a pandemic affecting the whole world possibly could have been solved already if people just followed directions and stayed home and wore masks but they didn’t so it’s still not questioned when you don’t really want to be around people.

2. When your toast is fresh-out-of-the-toaster hot and your butter isn’t fresh-out-of-the-fridge cold so immediately melts and your toast becomes soggy-crunchy.

3. When you’re really lathered up, like so extra lathered you look like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and when you rinse off it makes that thick splashing sound when it crashed against the shower floor.

4. When you say you’re not feeling like yourself and no one suggests you just cheer up or go outside.

5. When tree shaped candy goes on sale just because it’s tree-shaped but otherwise tastes exactly the same as the not tree-shaped varieties.

6. When there’s an 11th in your 12 piece nugget.

7. When you randomly bump into someone you remember from high school who was a grade or two below you and so much more popular and now they have gray hair and you don’t, as improbable as that may seem.

8. When the instructions are unclear so you tie the knots incorrectly and when they’re tested with the full brunt of your weight, you flop heavy to the floor like lather in a shower and you have some rope burn around your neck but thankfully it’s just rope burn and you’re still here to feel it.

9. When there’s still bread to make more toast.

10. When you realize what you thought was a spider crawling on you was just a stray hair or thread because you actually like spiders--they take care of mosquitoes and other pests--but, also, your body is off limits and you would’ve hated to squish the poor thing for trespassing.

11. When the Jehovah’s Witnesses at your door don’t knock a second time even though you’re obviously home because you just yelled obscenities at the top of your lungs as you stubbed your toe against the bookcase trying to jump out of sight of the crack in the curtains.

12. When you jolt awake from a bad dream and realize it was only a silly dream but also it’s your day off and you don’t have to go work even though you weren’t going to anyway, just now you don’t have to take that financial hit.

13. When you’re watching a home renovation show and the freshly remodeled house isn’t decorated in inspiration word art.

14. When you step on the scale and it’s very evident that maybe you’ve purchased too much tree-shaped chocolate but your favorite pair of jeans still fit like you haven’t gained a single gram so why not celebrate with some chocolate.

15. When you lay your freshly shaved face against freshly washed pillow cases.

16. When you don’t really want to talk to anyone but someone calls to check in on you and it’s not your mother but also when it’s your mother because you thought everyone in the world forgot about you.

17. When you sit down in January to write just one single good thing, worried that will be difficult enough, but you made it this far. You made it this far.