Last night I curled up somewhere between the epigraph and epilogue 

Tucked myself in with Times New Roman

And dreamed of dialing Julia Caesar

Asking her if she’d like to et tu brew tea with me

Gossip about a friend who stabbed her in the back. 

I had Sylvia over, and we baked goods

Although I handled the oven myself

We sang “Who stole the cookies from the Bell Jar” while we ate.

I met with Thoreau to throw some book ideas his way

After thorough inspection he sent them through to his publisher.

E.E. Cummings invited me to his home

Wondered if I could fix his typewriter

Said it’d been giving him spacing issues

After an hour of tinkering he thanked me

Said at least i tried.

George Orwell called, told me to wake up

So I did.

When loneliness knocks on my door

I always let him in

Because at least it’s company.　

A psychic once told me I had her gift

So I rifled through my purse for it

But came out empty-handed.

She told me to close my eyes real tight and envision my future.

I told her that I couldn’t even find her present.

I always tried to read your palms but got too distracted

Holding your hand.

I volunteered to do the dishes so I could read your tea leaves

After you were through 

But I was afraid that I wouldn’t see myself in the dregs

So I turned on the faucet 

And rinsed the evidence down the drain.

Son of a gun, you sure are something

Which I hope you know means a lot since

I’m not a big fan of the Second Amendment

Although I’ll bear your arms around me any day.

I could write you a haiku

To help you understanza

That I think about you in run-on sentences,

Never-ending and breathy.

But my pen is too heavy 

Brimming with ink and doubt,

So I scribble the prose and cons 

With my index finger on my 

Sweaty psalms instead

You’re like the bubblegum ice cream I chose on a whim

When I already had my mind set on chocolate chip.

Mama said not to get it 

Because she didn’t want to hear me chomping the whole way home

But it was just so new, and I had to.

So I pretty-pretty-pleased her and soon

Pink streams were running down my arms

Chased by my tongue and my mother’s pleas not to drip

On her faux leather car interior.

And it was perfect, perfect, sweet

Really hit the spot the way that

You hit the spot on a long, warm day. 

Dear star-crossed lovers

Mend yourself, like untangling

An old necklace chain

And my cheeks turned a thousand hues of pink

Like a Western sky as the sun sinks low 

Behind the mountains or the bridge of my nose

For the more I thought about it

Who am I but a bag of bones and feelings

Asking you to sling me over your shoulder

And take me with you for a bit

But I’m sure I’m getting heavy by now

And I’m sorry if your shoulder’s sore.

I’m just a selfish heap of skin and secrets

So put me in the crawl space of the attic

Next to the Christmas decorations

I’ll be fine, I swear. 

I am the little engine that should

Stop making mountains where there are none.

Because it doesn’t matter how many times I tell myself

“I think I can, I think I can”

If I never leave the station.

itsinthestars:

I used to read dictionaries cover to cover searching for words to explain everything, but I only found words that made my elementary school teachers call me precocious. All I ever wanted to know was something. Everyone told me to read between the lines, so I striped the driveway with chalk and took a seat, but Shel Silverstein told the same stories between those lines as he did beneath my covers. My mom once told my dad to wake up and smell the coffee. It must not have smelled too great because he moved out soon after. He took the dictionary with him, so I never knew the word for a house full of girls with Humpyt Dumpty hearts that were always in the process of being put back together again.

I soon learned it was called home.

Forty-somethings with car seats covered in crumbs in place of a backseat always tell you with a gleam in their eye like they’re letting you in on some big secret:

“You’ll find love when you stop looking”

But everyone is always looking.

Even the cynics with their middle-fingers in the air have inklings of what they think to be indigestion but are actually leftover specks of hope that they will find someone along their travels with their middle-fingers in the air, too. 

You cannot break my heart.

You can break your promises, break your vows, break our plans

But you cannot break my heart.

How dare you betray your strongest organ

Who throbs tirelessly

Never knowing what it’s like to return from a hard day’s work

“Honey, I’m home.” 

You cannot break my heart.

I may mope in dead-eyed despondence

And even so, my heart roars onward.

I place my fingertips on my temples

And I feel the beating, hot and heavy

Which is more than I can say for you.

The ceramic seashell I gave you on summer solstice

May be lying in pieces on the floor

But my heart remains very much intact.

I may not know the dates of the Napoleonic Wars

But I know that after the carnage a widow curled up at the foot of her soldier’s grave

Tucking her feet into the roots of nearby trees

Pretending they were his calves. 

The capital of Indonesia eludes me

But I can say with certainty

That underneath an Indonesian sky

A young girl gasps as a handsome boy two years her elder

Places his hand on the small of her back.

I don’t trouble myself in learning the names of constellations

Because I’d rather remember the song that was playing while we looked at them.

Don’t treat this like a true/false test

When you know just as well as I

That the answer is always “all of the above”