poetry by kc yrbutchgf
ironically these are listed in a sort of reverse chronology. the oldest one in here is from a full year ago.
background is darlingside's "look up and fly away" album cover.
i do not want to see my death coming.
i want it to be as surprising as it is sweet.
fruit goes sour under a watchful eye.
i'd rather it sneak up behind me.
it is so easy to exist this way. listing about in nervous absence. i do not know if i am what i am. i lay awake, counting spots on my ceiling. i keep thinking one of these days i'll open my eyes and they'll be stars instead.
i miss him. i miss him. i miss him. the sad part is, i don't know if we were close enough for him to miss me back. all i know is my dreams keep circling back to him like a roundabout with no off-lets. on a schoolbus. in a bedroom. sometimes nowhere but the space between our voices. it isn't constant, but it is consistent. it doesn't take long before i'm back there again, trying to map his fingertips well enough to find a way out of this longing.
i continue to dream of you,
my subconscious running into your arms
like a bird against a kitchen window,
knowing no better.
i dream of rotten eggs and hummingbees in the living room
dream of a bed with a lover i do not know how to embrace
plead myself to dream of golden things
(pastries in gift boxes and bubbles blowing down the street)
find myself in the middle of an endless rope bridge
clinging as the wind blows
i would take my eyes off the road to look at you every chance i got. i don't care what happens to the car. i already knew i'd crash. staring into the sun tends to blind you, as a rule.
so take it all away
every last trace of it
it will stay with you regardless
memory is not a messy lapdog
eager to perform tricks
and earn affection
it knows what parts you would tear away
with the chipped edges of your teeth
it clings to these the tightest.
love is when i make my mother her favorite tea when she's tired. love is when she buys me ice cream at the store when i start my period. it's when my dog goes nuts seeing her walk through the door, and when my cat lays down, gentle and secret, beside my dog during a thunderstorm. it's when my flowers bloom, like an omen, in the middle of my stressing over finals. it's when my best friend does everything he can to make me laugh and i do everything i can to make him laugh. it's when i fall asleep under the apple tree and wake up to a golden delicious in my lap. it's when the universe says, you get this sweet thing now, so bite into it, savor it, and remember to water the plant it came from, because it remembered to feed you.
i do not know why you must always be running from something. why do her hands terrify you? she is made of clay. she has no sharp edges. she wants nothing more than to press a thumb of color to your cheek. and yet you run.
when i was younger i was very inhibited. i never did anything wrong. then the one time that i went against my instinct to hold back, it backfired. i hurt people in the process. i regret that constantly. sometimes my conscience hurts me by keeping me back but sometimes it hurts me by falling silent. im like a fish on a hook of its own making. and i never know if i'll bleed out in the water trying to pull it out or if ill starve to death, waiting motionless for it to come out on its own.
do you still wish you had that high school romance you always dreamed about? the one with the girl with the short hair and the fuzzy dice hanging from her rearview. she would meet you at the carnival and win you something at a rigged game and then you'd see her everywhere. you'd think, my god, she's the most handsome woman i've ever met; you'd think, i wonder if she sees me. and she would. do you still wish you had her as your date to the prom you almost didn't go to? in real life you go with your ex and you feel amazing and awful and alive and dead. you think, is this what it's supposed to feel like? am i supposed to feel this dejected? you have no right to be sad about it. about this romantic subplot your movie left on the cutting room floor. that perfect girl you handcrafted in the studio curling into a perfect spiral of blown out film that nobody ever develops. you didn't get the ending you wanted. nobody ever does. but you still think about it, don't you? you still long for someone to see you and smile across a crowd of people, to do corny things and make you smile. you still want to slow dance with someone you love. to share a milkshake at the diner. to swap jackets. touch hands.
the crashing waves pull at the shore, drawing the sand into itself as if to say, we were always meant to be together; without you i am not myself. as a child i would wade out into the ocean with my father. he would grab me by the waist and steady me as we got into the deeper water, the salty liquid prickling my nose and my eyes. then he would hold me. that far out, the waves are only pulses in the water, not the arc and the crash so common nearer to the shore. i would duck under the water when an arc came, but other than that, i closed my eyes and let it go over me. when i finally came back onto the shore i could still feel the waves in my nervous system, pulsing like a second heartbeat. i would dream about it. the feeling of the salt on my skin. the unique baked feeling of the heat and the brightness of the beach. the hair, unruly and haywire from the salt and the force of the water, splayed about with reckless garishness. in those days I wasn't a girl or a boy. i was a kid running along the shore with the sand stuck to my toes. the memory preserved like a chunk of amber now, tucked and sewn into the repeatedly opened vessel of my heart. deep down, that is what we all are: that joy, that brightness, that heat and exhaustion.
you don’t giggle. it’s one of the things i like about you. neither do you tip toe, or smile demurely. you lean me over the counter and grin down at me. you place your hand on my knee, you guffaw, you chortle, you laugh, you are indulgent and gorgeous, with calloused hands, with thick fingers. hither and touch the smooth of my breast; hither, and scrape your blunt nails on the small of my neck. touch my vulnerability, cradle it and i will cradle you. oh, how i should have leaned forward and accepted your smirkling lips. how i should’ve let my hammering heart hammer forth and through. give me a second chance, golden girl, golden smile, you’ve captured me, and i, a hummingbird in your hands, am at your fullest mercy.