September #29

They ask me about it,
my pregnancy,
like my life began
the day that strip showed me two lines.
"Oh -
is this inspired by ...?"
"How did you feel when...?"
"Is this really about...?"
Usually, no.
But to satisfy the curiosity,
here goes.

I was nineteen. In a relationship.
Skipped a period.
Got nervous. Peed on a stick. Then
Planned Parenthood, university health center,
real doctor. Each time I brought another friend
with me just to be safer.
I had to tell my mom.
She cried. So did I.
My dad's not around anymore.
I go to the doctor.
My friends keep me sane. My boyfriend
likes


This was written in September, but never finished or posted. Here goes.

September #28

I have this goal for this month
more poems than I've written for any other month
Guess what?
Here it is,
my page for September.
Like Langston.
I'm pretty sure I'm spelling that wrong.
Is that heretical?
Must I be perfect?
Can't I just know,
and trust that my spelling is usually right?
Or must I always prove myself?
Sometimes it seems that way,
as if simply because I choose the less popular view,
I devalue myself and my abilities,
when really I am better suited for other posts.
But enough human vanity.
Let me sleep, and dream.

September #27

I was going to write about
how I can't believe what day it is
when I realized
it was already a day later.

September #26

on failing goals

I am suppose to run
every single stinking day
for seven days in a row.
Today is day 4
and I have not run
and I think I can't.
It is a simple matter
of forcing myself out of bed
combined with getting out of the house
and not getting yelled at
by my loving parents.
I want to run
but I can't deal with their caring,
and so I may become angry at my own self
for failing my goal.
Which is worse?

September #25

okay
i'll admit, it's true
i've been snappy lately
or rather,
easily irritable.
i think i've held back rather well
and am only really lashing out
on the people that are annoying anyway.
of course
i did just spell lashing
"leasing"
so let's not let me drive tonight
shall we?

September #24

long distance runner
where are you going?
into the cold night,
swallowed in the dark,
white legs flashing
away from the world.
long distance runner
from what are you hiding?
into deep woods,
swallowed down paths,
face barred over
by the trees.
long distance runner,
what secrets do you know?
so strong, so silent,
like a marble statue,
thoughts hiding
behind your unmlinking eyes.
long distance runner,
who are you?
who are you?

September #23

i am lazy
a lump



need to get up
off my stomach
and actually do things




am i sick? or just bored?

September #22

sometimes
i forget what i've done
or
how much i have left to do.
i hate it
i get behind
lost
lose track of things
and fall so far behind.
i feel like i need
to always always do things
to always always do so well
and that i can never stop
to breathe.

September #21

Isn't it funny how we think
that time gives us wisdom and objectivity?
Somehow suddenly, since something
happened some time ago - six months,
a year, two weeks, a few hours -
we can see it all clearer,
or so we like to think.
Maybe we saw it clear then,
but ignored it
because it was uncomfortable.
It isn't the sight that improves,
it's the ability to say
that we are unlikable, too.

September #20

I remember her,
my freshman year roommate.
She was peppy,
friendly,
discontented with me -
I was never there,
worked too much,
had my boyfriend over
too frequently.
She liked to drink,
sometimes brought stange boys home,
and we readily,
quickly divided our rooms
one for each.
But she was no worse than I -
sometimes, I even think, better.
The point is we tried,
muddled along,
made what we could of it.

September #19

we sit in chambers,
as messy as we make them,
and do what little work
we can manage around each other.
we are strangers, friends,
lovers and would-be lovers,
students
crammed into sardine tin dorms,
weathering the year out.

September #18

the days begin to drag together
as I wait for sad-autumn-fall
leaves colored limply dripping
the cold prewinterrain has bludgeoned them
into patheric mobs.
oh fall!
how i love thee
with your biting cold,
bitter, pathertic emotions
and tenderly melancholy
trees, stripped of protection.
Oh fall -
I love thee.

September #17

what day is it?
i can't remember.
other people's verses
are echoing strangely in my mind,
pushing pounding out thoughts,
my thoughts.
i cannot think
i cannot write
i am consumed
by this other.
who knew poetry
could devour?

September #16

yet still
the frame eludes,
iambs refusing to form
despite their basis
in common tongues.
i can form no meter,
force no thoughts
to follow form
as tidily as they should,
as i would be glad to push them in.
instead perhaps i will have to carve away,
minimizing,
puling endstopped lines,
heroic couplets
out of my already present poetry,
or else
disregard past examples
and be considered
undisciplined.

September #15

so I guess this is what it's like
to be on time
not rushing towards doom dates
wasting cyberspace
with nonsense words
to fill a self-obligation.
finally i can feel my thought clicking,
though,
and poems arise
faster than i can put them down.
months of forced writing
and i am poet again,
seeing things differently -
strangely, yes,
but literarily, too,
and that is what i have strived
to return to.

September #14

bathrooms -
how like cells they are
doors locked
each girl sitting head down
hands clasped
legs thrown slut-careless
stifling untoward sounds
for fear of publicity.
we are abu-styled,
row of all the same,
humiliated.
oh
how we hide in bathrooms!
how we inspect,
and cower,
and embarrass.
we choose them
for cleanliness or convenience,
but we shit in them all just the same.

September #13

Bixby Canyon Inspiration

I was walking along the bridge
when on the bridge I saw
your feet pushing down the bridge's
red bricks, the bridge that shook
and sighed as you walked on, my bridge,
the bridge where we'd kissed and loved.
We'd met on this bridge before
though not that long before - this bridge
used to mean so much, a span, a bridge
between us, but you broke our bridge
before and as I see you on our bridge
I fall, because I'm walking on no bridge at all
after all - yet here we are bridged again
no longer meeting, walking both ways down our bridge,
our backs say goodbye as we've said goodbye on our bridge, to our bridge, my bridge,
the bridge you've said goodbye to before,
the bridge that has always only ever been mine.

September #12

I run to corners,
lick my wounds,
fill them with salt.

I bandage my wounds,
wait for scabs,
rip them off.

I let blood dry,
watch and wait,
and pull the skin open again,

This is how I heal,
slowly, painfully.
I cannot resist the horrible delight,
cannot stay away from my wounds,
know that I hurt myself and still
never stop.

September #11

Maybe it's time
to stop complicating life.
There are some things
I am not willing to let go of -
body concerns,
for the most part.
But at the same time
I will open up
and stop shielding myself
from honesty.
I will be who I am,
not who I think I should be
to protect myself
or impress others.
i have fought many times
to make other accept this skin,
this body,
this person.
Now it's time to fight myself.

September #10

she's tired
and wonders
what would happen if she just walked away
for a day
or a week
or a month,
just took up her personals
and wandered out of life.
where would she go?
and who would follow her?
she's tired,
endlessly tired,
and watches the rain thunder down,
wonders if something's wrong with her
or if she just needs a good night of sleep.

September #9

musings

upon a midnight
long ago
when daytime
was memory
and nighttime
oppressively
present. There was a
man
and a demon
a bird
and a fiend
and of course
a poet
in the middle
of it all.

September #8

I saw the star, I saw the tree,
and saw the wish which cursed me.
I saw the leaf, I saw the flow'r,
the one that sprung from night shower.
I saw the worm, I saw the ant,
who moved through me towards the plant,
the plant which had brought me high
and there released me, alone to cry
and sigh, cry and dream,
of secrets of the way of being.
I saw the earth, I saw it all,
and in that moment began to fall.

September #7

Doesn't a dystopian
sound like a drink,
a cocktail
that would taste
perhaps insidiously sweet
and then kick you
as it burned in your stomach?
Maybe it would have absinthe,
or some other exotic flavor,
chacaca perhaps,
something you would
have not heard of before
you asked for it
at the smoky bar.
A dystopian would kick you
after you swallowed,
after you greedily consumed
every last drop.
But then what
would an Anarchy Bomb do?

September #6

Right now
I need a good bra,
support,
holding me in place,
keeping me from falling.
I need a corset,
an iron backbone holding me in.
Be my backbone.
Be my support.
Hold me tight,
but let me breath.
Don't let me fall,
don't let me fall,
don't let me drown.

September #5

today
i learned about virginia woolf
and how i might be similar to her
and how she wrote
and stressed about her work
and wrote some more.
she wasn't beautiful
but was powerful,
elusive,
precise,
moving and careful.
she was strong.
and strength is what i need.

September #4

I was going to write this great poem
about how work changed me
and made me better,
this great experience
that rid me of my naivity
and yet fostered
my kindness.
I was going to
but then today
work made me cry,
perhaps with exhaustion,
or with hurt,
or from sheer exhaustion.
I remembered all those times last year
when management or boys or just
the workload
made me want to quit,
to run away,
to walk out tiredly,
unable to move my feet.
So I guess you could say work has taught me something
about perseverance.
But at what cost?

September #3

i would like to write
the one poem for you
the perfect one
that describes your skin
your smile
your body in bed
lit by moonlight.
It would have to talk about
your wow addiction
and your inability
to make me really angry
and then I would talk about
how wonderful you are
and have been,
about fall and spring,
festivals, presents, and yarn.
I would like to write a poem about you
that could tell everyone
what you really are,
all of it,
the good
and the bad -
for we both know that there has been bad.
but you are not bad,
no more than any other person,
just one human
moved by your heart
as well as your head.
I would write this poem,
but it would never stop,
continuing as you continue.
So I cannot write that poem,
or else I would become wrapped up
in my story oef you,
and lose you,
my time with you,
and my perceptions would fade,
losing accuracy,
and instead detail a dream.
And after all,
you are so much better
than any idle dream of mine.

http://www.meaningless.com/home.asp?poem=i_wrote_a_good_poem

Love,
Emily

September #2

they met at the movies
over fishnets and corsets,
shouting gang-bangs to the screen.

they kissed over dinner,
greasy burgers
eaten standing up at counters,
wrinkling their elbows
with leaning.

they loved in parking lots,
wild fields and public bathrooms,
beds and tables and chairs.

September #1

a new month begins
with new musings,
new mutterings,
new friends,
new pencils
sharpened with wit,
not blades.