Friday, August 7, 2009

Today I Am an Emotional Wreck

I went for a run to calm my mind, but I was running to beat the sunset, to avoid getting blinded by high beams as drivers flipped their lights up to be sure they didn't hit me- not realizing they were making everything invisible and thus increasing the chance of me tripping on something/myself and falling into their path.

I was running faster than usual. It hurt. It felt good. I felt strong, my thighs taking in the hills at a steady pace, my legs stretching to stride out when the road turned flat, my mind going over the day's events and approaching life with a powerful yet somber state of realism.

With the air so thick and the sky so grey, the grass looked like gravel and the trees looked dead. My feet hit on the pavement like a drum. I was drenched from sweat and fog, listening to a scratchy NPR in my headphones. The news had been traded for some exhaustingly sappy string quartet. Pretty, really, but my mood and the matching atmosphere seemed to leak their dismal into song.

Breathe easy, I remembered, closing my eyes for a short moment on a carless stretch and opening my chest.

There are no streetlights for the next half mile or so, and it was getting darker. I ran harder, feeling tears behind my eyes and the scream that had been mounting in my stomach nearing my throat. I hit the final hill and let my thighs burn, running to beat my own breakdown, to avoid getting blinded as vivid memories of making love to you hit me like high beams in the dark.

I was home. I paced in my driveway, my hands on my head, breathing, sweating. I stretched my shoulders. My eyes were calm. My throat relaxed. A tiny bit of sun still prevented the black from taking over. I smiled, walking inside with a resolute composure and pride in my speed.

I won.
.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Still Naked


Sleepy eyed and still naked,
I stand on my tiptoes on my desk
pulling the blinds to blink sunlight into the room.
As I step an awkwardly long step down to the floor
you turn over in my bed, and I feel your eyes on my skin.
The warmth of your gaze releases my usual morning energy in the form of a soft sigh.
You smile.
You smile with those pretty lips of yours, and I'm dancing around the room
trying to be interested in something else
trying to get ready, to go to class, to do something responsible, but instead I find myself getting back into bed, wrapping my arms around your waist from behind, kissing your neck and shoulders, and enjoying what will surely be the best part of my day.

And why not? You don't seem to mind.
My professor doesn't mind, as I stroll in late to class. My tell-tale glow makes me invincible.

Or at least I think I am.
Maybe I'm despised, but the energy still coarsing through me makes it hard to care.

Eggs and Milk

She was a ginger thing. Weak wrists, I noted. And flighty eyes. The sort that could turn a fork about in a bowl of eggs while bringing herself to a fit of laughter over a tale in her head and somehow fail to break a single yolk.

You know the type.

She told me she was healing. She had healed, in fact, she said. And she would heal me.

Flip, flip.
Yolk twist.
Gentle wrist.
The yellow still in balls.

I'm a cynic, but I'll soak up her smile and drink her tea anyway. Especially if she'll pass the bowl and let me give those eggs a stab.



...Some day I'll write poetry without the weight of love or innuendo. But not today.