A General Distaste For Humanity
"Humanity; The quality, or condition of being human"
Love, grief, heartache. These are the things that make us human.
That's what my debut collection is all about.
Getting down to the most exceptional parts of being human, the nitty gritty, the fundamentals of mankind.
Below, you can read a selection of my work, some of which will be featured in said collection.
HOUSE GUESTS
I live alone, most of the time.
This week, I had a housemate.
He smokes all my cigarettes and never changes the sheets.
He drinks too much, and stays out too late,
sleeps in too often.
He listens to far too much Billy Joel
and takes long, drawn-out showers.
He lingers at the kitchen table,
and hovers anxiously at the doorway,
uncertain of who I'll be without him.
He also combs my hair,
and holds me while I sleep.
He keeps me accountable,
pulling out my chair at the dinner table,
and reminding me to sit,
and feast on my life.
His name is grief, and he is the most peculiar of house guests.
THE VISITOR
I wanted a poem to come out of my sadness, but nothing ever came.
I wanted satisfaction from my anguish,
but satisfaction never came.
I wanted answers to my questions,
and answers never came.
How do I drink water when there's wine?
How to get close without going over?
How to resist? How to get a bird to fly through my window?
How to be a muse?
Last week a bird landed on my window and he was not a poem,
and he was not satisfaction
and he was not the answers.
He was small and periwinkle blue
and his name was contentment.
THE PURSUIT OF CONTENTEDNESS
Never listen to the radio. Do good, but don't talk about it. Talk about yourself. Be mysterious.
Let your laundry pile up. Look for him in strangers. Drink black coffee. Don't let yourself be influenced. Get inspired. Don't search for love. Don't search for your father.
Get out of the house. Have an orange. Have a martini. Have two. Eat your green. Refill your prescriptions. Don't take them. Buy a yoga mat. Speak in semicolons. Trace a poem on his back, and leave before he wakes.
Clip your wings. Be everything you see in everyone else, and everything they see in you.
REQUIEM FOR A BORDER-CITY GIRL
I’m talking to myself again. I have one foot in the future. do you think I’ll make it? college applications are annoying. my outfit looked nice yesterday. I wish you saw. I washed my sheets today, finally. my heart is so heavy, it’s turning over inside of me. I keep drinking coffee like it has the answers. I miss being touched. I feel nothing. I feel everything. I need new shoes. I need a car. I haven’t slept well in months.
My bed has become a cemetery of wishes I had to bury,
yet you have rendered me bed-ridden,
for every night
I sleep with the absence of you breathing down my left side,
And every morning i wake up choking on ashes.
The desire i have for you is burning a fence around my room.
ILL-FITTING COAT
Every partner I've ever had
Has been like an ill-fitting coat
Either too short
Or too long
Just a little bit too tactful
Or maybe too tight on the arms
But every lonely day I've ever endured alongside myself,
Has fit me just right.
ALL IT WILL BE
All it will be
Life is hard, but that’s not all it will be.
It will be a sunny sunday morning,
And your suede jacket in the rain,
On the walk home from the party.
It'll be a drink, and a dress,
And a song he used to play.
You have miles of melancholy ahead of you-
But that’s not all there will be.
Grief feels like a paved road where no flowers grow,
But i promise there are peeled oranges and love confessions in your future.
Laughter will replace the anguish that sits so heavily on your tongue,
And you will pick the person you used to be,
And carry her proudly,
With grace and forgiveness,
Because you will have learned
That a skewered heart is just one that was once held tightly.