I hate her I hate her I hate her
and why do I hate her? Because
she disagrees with me? Because
she doesn’t want to conform?
Because she wants to be
comfortable with her own body
and accept her femininity?
I don’t hate femininity, but I
do hate feminism. Maybe it’s
because I hate it when people try
to shove messages down my throat,
(I like it subtle), so when every
feminist page I read is female
daggers slicing open men for
mistakes and (imagined) misogyny,
sometimes even mercilessly
attacking other women,
(but not always because their
equality is not equal) it makes
me ferociously angry.

You have no right to ask me to
leave. I belong on the internet
as much as the next guy (or gal)
I would never limit/censor/take
away the right of someone to see
my work, my poems are equal
opportunity, I will not close my
door on the world even when the
world bites my hands for attempting
to reach it, to feed it, to make it
feel something, to share my
understanding even (and especially)
if it is different from someone else’s
and I hate that I stuck up for my
beliefs and you shut the door on my
head, but at least I can say that
I am brave enough to live the
freedom of expression that you
promote in word but not deed.

Do you want to know
why I hate you?
I can still remember
your voice in my ear
when you told me
hey
I’m coming
like a shaky transmission
from another dimension
I can still feel
my fingers in your hair
the moment before you
would turn your back
on me and if I hadn’t
have been big spoon
you wouldn’t even
have been touching
me at all.

Bravery

Your boots are large
black and warm
laces so tight
I know every rivet on top
and every divet on bottom;
I’ve studied them so hard
so long
each shape is intimately
etched into my seething
brain but my quivering
bravery cannot satisfy
my desire
to meet your eyes.

Who
am I?
My roots are shaken
because I sink them
into living breathing
earth and call it love
and when it’s gone
(and not just gone in
words but when he has
found himself in new
arms feeling what he
used to feel for me,
gone) I just don’t
know what to feel
and so it’s hard
to understand
myself and why I
always feel alone.
Maybe it’s because I
love so deep and I only
let him go because he
was hurting me,
hurting himself,
even though
my love, our love,
was still there. It’s
hard to let go of
love, harder than
it is to let go
of a person.
Because I loved you
I let you go.

college blues

Don’t knock on my door.
I’m having a hard life.
Come back next eternity.

I feel like a piece of
paper crumpled so small
I don’t want to breathe,
to expand, to be visible
I just want to take in
all of my wrinkles and
pull myself together
tiny tiny tiny
I feel so used
I am so hurt
it’s a small
sadness and
I am small
too.

You don’t want to think that
you sound like him when you
talk because you don’t want
to be associated with him in
my head; you think he was an
ass. But he held my hand
the whole way home and he
melted when he pulled into
my driveway and we said
goodbye wet-faced and broken
I tried to kiss him goodbye for
the last time and he couldn’t (I
just remembered standing up
to board the train and his eyes
I’ll see you soon I’ll see you soon
I’ll see you and he whispered
(I love you) and we kissed) I
wonder if he cried you know
he really wasn’t as bad as
you think he was for all the
times he held me as I let
all of the things the world
fucked me with be pulled
out my eyeballs racked with
sobs and he held me so tight
just for that I loved him
(but I loved his everything)
so I don’t think it’s so bad
that you sound a little like
him when you flirt with me.

My heart is as bipolar as I am
and I know that IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou
the same way I did in your bed but
I can’t fucking stand you after the way
you treated me back then and now and now
I just want to runwalkcrawl back into
your arms against my own will if I have to
I want to give in take it back take it all back
take me back I am worn and weary and for some
reason I still think we worked together it felt
right it felt right it felt so right and now
nothing is right even though everything is going so
well but if everything is going so well why do I feel
like my pants are at my ankles I am exposed I am
indecent and I am desperate filling my heart my
mind with anything that can give me a moment of
relief or release I’m getting A’s I’m running the
world while I’m running on a treadmill I’m
organizing everything but I am falling apart and
I just want to run away TAKE ME BACK I HATE YOU
fuck this fuck that fuck everything and fuck the
bitterness out of my soul I can’t take the silence
anything would be better than the total dead quiet
from you I know that’s how you want to move on but
it makes me feel so empty and used up and worthless
I don’t want you to move on I want you to be with
me.