I bought a book of Pablo Neruda's poetry today...and I stood in the store between the towering shelves, clutching it to my breast just above my heart as though I could absorb it through osmosis, wondering: Am I alone in feeling this way? Both so sated and hungry for the words on these pages? For the things they do to me? Is there nobody else affected as I am, to where I feel this blazing supernova heart of mine sing for the stanzas he wrote?

Sometimes I'm sure I am alone in this but I hope I'm not, because if nobody else can feel this alive and fulfilled for even just a second...what the hell are we all surviving for then, anyway?

Next blog: what it's like to be part of a collaborative writing partnership.  I think this subject is vastly unexplored, as successful co-authoring is a rare find and is difficult to accomplish.

(Also, I know I should be more present on this site, as Jessica has been doing most of the networking, and I'm going to make a concerted effort to be a little more active.)

Signing off,
K.G.

 

 

1.)

her kiss is candied cherries and sweet liquers,
she's everywhere and nowhere all at once-
the breathless voice in your ear,
the hand around your heart, squeezing out the rhythm.
and you, oh, you've got those beautiful baby blues,
those endless pools of cerulean and stars,
and she'd come to see you on her very last dime,
she'd come to drown herself in you,
her chest open and her bleeding heart held out for you in her palms:
an offering, a gift, with eyes of emerald wide,
and the words shaking on her lips in a whisper:
"don't drop it, put it in your pocket."
a secret that only you and she will share.
because that tiny beating heart, it's so fragile,
spun glass and sugar,
sharp and saccharine all at once,
and if you're careless with it, oh, it could break,
it could shatter so easily,
and scatter her soul, a million formless pieces of
hope and pride and wounded butterflies into the wind.

2.)

i find the sweetest salvation in the texture of your lips,

that aching pressure they lay upon mine,

that sublime sensation when heat collides with time and

i swear,

god, i swear,

the clock ticks slower for you and i.

you have the gift to burn me alive or

shatter me,

or pull me all together,

as though all of the makings of heaven

and all the makings of hell lay in your fingertips.

with a single touch, you can save me or condemn me,

but i'd gladly accept either judgment.

and your eyes,

they captivate and bring to life in me a

certain dark radiance that i can feel in every cell,

every molecule of my being,

right down to the very essence of my soul.

how could you make me feel so bare and vulnerable?

how could you take this heart and make it dance,

make it beat out that frantic animal rhythm behind its

cage of bone,

by the power of nothing more than a single whispered word?

i stand amazed...

3.)

i do not regret those words i wasted
on all the boys my heart bled for or
the tears i shed
or the sweat i spent
as it poured from my body
onto theirs
in those soundless midnight hours
when the twilight broke like our voices did
and i do not regret the lives i shared
or the secrets i spilled
 
but their kisses
however nice and
a good substitute for a lonely night
could never compare to the words
the ones i had loved since i was a little girl
and the way they seduced me


i have always been enamored,
hopelessly romanced by the tongue
and the words it could say
and the way the fingers could
trace verbs and nouns

i am not done with the boys because this
blazing cavity in my chest needs something
physical and solid
to spend itself upon
but
my love
(oh, my love)
is being left with the words
and the poetry
once and for all

5.)

he sat me down
amongst the many
handed me a tube of yellow paint
as i sat there in my
little yellow raincoat
doe-eyed and adoring
enthralled in my seat.

he paced like a lion
all sculpted adonis, lean form built
for seduction
for wickedness
for sex
eyes blazing ivy
hair kissing jaw
as he asked his question in a voice
that kept me pinned
and begged me to obey

i raised my hand
my answer to his question
and he leaned in and whispered
"fear no art"

he ripped his clothing like a beast
exposing flesh that made me blush
muscles flexing like steel bands
and he proceeded to smear colors on his skin
red and blue
mixed to make the color of bruises
and he shouted
"fear no art"

i looked at the little tube of yellow in my hand
and i rose from my seat
mortal and tiny
trembling
anticipating
brave and needing
and i feared no art.

6.)

i've torn my lips up
sitting here
listening to
someone sing hallelujah
heartsick

my fingers are cold
down to
my bones
someone's singing hallelejah
somewhere

but you're not here tonight
oh, you're not here tonight
and me
i'm not feeling alright...

7.)

we sat in your dilapidated house
the one with the saggy roof across from the river
high up on the hill where the stars kissed like lovers do
and where the cicadas never sang their voices raw
and fireflies always danced in your front lawn
when the night fell like a heavy blanket around us

we should have felt so full of life
but instead there was an empty ache
we were lonely in our company

in the backyard, nature had overthrown civilization
dandelions and bluebonnets
firewheels and moss verbena splashed across
the landscape like it was a canvas
i said it was so gorgeous that way
you said you were too lazy to try to tame it

i see you meant more than just the grass
you never could stare directly at a wildflower
and i never noticed it until now

you smoked your cigarettes and contemplated things
i could not see and could never touch
polluting your lungs while i tried to save your heart
wordless even though you never stopped talking
you were such a charming conversationalist
but you couldn't hide the truth that lay behind
those mirrors i'd grown to love so much

you couldn't bring yourself to love me
because you could never bring yourself
to love yourself
with any conviction

so you let the wildflowers grow but you never sat
and stared at them
nor brushed your fingertips against their vibrant petals
nor felt the cool grass against your bare back
too lazy
too sick
too hurt
too bitter to even try

we sat in your dilapidated house
lonely in our company...

9.)

he calls me the tempest because i'm just like that;
when the fury hits and the anger boils,
he swears i wasn't born of a woman but instead was
forged by nature herself
and in those frightening moments of ire
he sees me as though i was stripped down to the bone
naked of any humanity
not  a flesh and blood girl
but atoms and molecules colliding

i swear if i had the strength and
wasn't imprisoned by this mortal form
i'd tear the very trees from their roots
and send oceans spilling over coastal cities
i'd drive down bodies into the mud with needles of rain
and i'd deafen anyone within a thousand miles with my thunder
crack the sky open like a wound with my lightning

it's not like in the movies where the boy kisses the girl
and hushes her rage with his love
this is no silver screen
and i'm not an actress
i am a tempest
and i won't be touched

10.)

...some men just want to watch the world burn
and then there's me,
not a man but clearly the polar opposite,
the unsuspecting little fire-starter with
supernovas in my fingertips and the
apocalypse dancing on my tongue;
i never asked for the world,
i just wanted to watch you burn
and to be the flames that did you in.

11.)

i wish that i could say
i hear love songs and think of you
with any semblance of fondness
but if we're playing the truth game now
which i do believe we are
then you should know
that feeling inside my stomach
the one that used to be made of butterflies
with fire-edged wings and
lightning-charged antennae
is really only revolt
gentle, playful butterflies no longer but
black-bodied, shiny, hard cicadas
like the ones that sang outside your window
in the muggy darkness of the nights while you
held me and stroked my hair from my face
with care i didn't even know a simple
mortal boy could possess

i should have listened to them, those cicadas
they were all trying to warn me
leaping out in front of my feet
climbing up my arms as i wrapped them around you
screaming siren songs of alarms
"save yourself, save yourself"

but momma never taught me how to speak to bugs
and i couldn't read the feverish taps of their legs like morse code
or run my fingertips across their textured wings and decipher
their alerts like braille

how suiting was it that you always claimed
you'd be my killer
that you'd filet me and lay me out before you
because sometimes you must kill the things you love
that you would steal my soul
put your lips to my cold ones
touch every secret part of me
and make love to my dead body

and we laughed because it was sick
and morbid
and that's just how we were together
sick
and morbid
and us
how was i to know that i was the only one
in on the joke?
how was i to know that i was the only one
living the lie
because you were telling the truth
the entire time
cold blooded murderer
masochistic killer

and how appropriate that on the day i ran
no longer living but killed, a zombie by your hand
by your words and your actions and your heart
the sky cracked open and began to pour
like God was sharing in my sorrow and betrayal
like He knew my pain
and you told me it was a miracle
that i had brought the rain to a dry land
that i was your lucky charm because your
car couldn't miss a green light
with me by your side
and how about that time the train just barely missed us
and we whooped and screamed victory
thinking we had crossed Fate herself

i never saw you coming
and Fate always comes back around
because she is the queen of
"if at first you don't succeed,
destroy them all."

12.)

you once said
when it rains, it pours
don't it, sweetheart?
and it was at a time when
the downpour was so fierce
inside and outside me
it threatened to drown me alive
or shatter me
i wasn't sure which
and the smile you gave me
while it was sugary sweet and
sure to get you ****ed
was empty like a shark's eyes
and just as predatory
just as hungry when you circled me

you came at a time that
i thought i needed something the most
and you thought you were God
the God that could give it to me
in ways only you and i remember
when it rains, it pours
don't it, lover?


and i thought you sounded so
sweetly prophetic at the time
because you painted pictures of fate
for me
because you scripted the stars
because all that bullshit
somehow made sense
when it spilled from the lips
that i craved
and how quickly i forgot
my mother's common sense when
your hands touched my body
and made the rain go away
and brought the fire on

because you said
when it rains it pours
don't it, darlin'?
well, **** you too
i make my own storms now
and i don't need no false prophets
to paint my fate for me
or to script the stars for me
because i make it how i want it
because i am the storm now
and just because you brought the fire
doesn't make you God
you're just another neanderthal
who struck a spark in the dark.

13.)

you said i'm a wasteland
a baren muse for all your negativity and
that i swallowed your soul when
you swallowed my kiss and my lips
tasted like sweetness but
left poison behind like handprints.

well, if i'm a wasteland, good sir
you're certainly the devil
the one that swore i
wore your mark like a tattoo
the mark of the beast
embedded in the forest rings of my eyes
 that lingered on the plush curve of my lips.

we worked so well together
like photo negatives to create a single soul
brilliant and void all at once and there are times
quite inoften, let me remind you
i still think of you when the moon
hangs low
hangs low the way your gaze used to
and your cheeks would turn the brightest floral red
when i threw a harlot's wink your way.

you said you never understood me but
i still drew you like you were nothing more
than an orbiting satellite to my blazing sun
and you never wanted to touch me but
your hands just couldn't obey your head
and you'd find yourself wrapped up in me
all over again like you were lost at my sea.

i don't blame you for the things you said
or the way you tried your best to burn me
from your tainted memories
i don't blame you for the way you threw me to
your wolves and let their teeth and claws sink into
me in the vain hope that they'd finish me off.

it takes so much energy to hate,
and i'm a firm believer that to hate from the bottom of
your wounded heart you must care enough to do so
you must have loved them enough to even try
and you
My darling, my dearest, my sweetest
you aren't hardly even worth
the bare precious minutes it took to
breathe life into this poem.