i need more time

i am young, or so they tell me

young and able, wild and free

my bones do not creak in the wind.

i am foolish, that's what they say

foolish to believe your broken words

but you were young once too.

i am alone and they never fail to notice

alone, yes, but never too lonely

the cup was half-full when we met.

i am what i tell myself

joyful today, envious tomorrow

and in this moment, just a girl caught in-between.

bonne chance

who am i to feel such sorrow,

when others have gone a lifetime

without knowing these joys that i have known?

who am i to feel this remorse,

when you are encompassed in endless song

and your future becomes the present

that you forever dreamed it would?

who am i to want your love

when it is given freely to all others

and i am the exception, only because

i have already known the splendors?

it is i who fell at your feet and wept

for the beauty we once created,

and it is i who now must smile

at the person i shall watch you become.

for translation

we lived in a city where roses were cheap;

they were humiliated, their thorns stripped away,

and yet you placed them at my feet.

"silence," you told me, "is not a promise."

i did not understand; now, i think that i might.

the air is too thick for the lungs to capture.

we need the noise to distract ourselves.

what have i become?

you'd think by now i would have learned

that love is not a carousel

that love does not spin infinitely

and love does not mean well.

over and over and over, i thought

but look how wrong i was.

you'd think by now i would have learned

that words don't tie us up tight

we are not bound to what we say

and it's not always worth the fight.

bleed and break, do it all again

but look how wrong i was.

just to take up space

"one cannot make that assumption"

but i chose to do it just the same.

it was the first time, what did you really expect?

i've got one moving away and one

right up close.

so do you think you could cut me some slack?

"i should have been more explicit"

and you're only realizing this now?

if he would speak up, at least try

i could forget these ambiguities.

you are the lesser of two (and a half) evils.

you drove away today.

i cannot breathe.

it hurts to think, to speak.

it hurts even to blink.

what is food?

i have forgotten how to eat.

there is nothing that does not remind me of you.

four walls no longer provide comfort.

how can it be that we didn't even kiss goodbye properly?

above all things, this haunts me the most.

and the way you looked at me through your back windshield.

as if you could memorize our parting scene in that one glance.

abandoned

how can you ask me not to cry

when these tears are all i have left for you?

time has grown us twisted together in love, now

we collapse in a tangled heap.

i lose my breath for a moment longer than you do.

did i not promise to love you more?

i intended to tattoo my name in the darkest

corner of your heart like a ray of sun.

now it is my own soul that bleeds, torn

from the warmth of its long embrace with yours.

where is the cushion to soften my fall?

once, i would have called you if i felt the

wrench of every nucleus.

all you've left for me is an empty dial tone.

for mother

this love is a curse

a ship lost in unruly waters

this love is cruel as steel

we both taste of metal.

i broke no bones in this body

when our rope snapped, taut

yet the quake of bitter reason

shocked both you and i to truth.

we cannot survive as one

nor as one outside the other

this love is a charging bull

the scarlet flare of sorrow.

bending on two pairs of knees

even the sky smells of earth

this love is wretched, numbing

without it we would not feel at all.

it's raining, it's absolutely pouring

nine days have passed since we lied together on your crackly mattress.

nine days since you kissed me like the present was already past.

nine days since you told me you loved me like sunshine.

nine days since i touched your smiling face like that.

nine days since we talked about nothing at all.

nine days since your voice calmed me down.

nine days since since our fingers twined.

nine days since i sat at your table.

nine days since our last embrace.

nine days since i felt like i was

truly myself and truly a part

of something bigger than

just a tiny life full of

cracks and dim

ideas, nine

days since

we were

one.

university sidewalk

the lion pack traveling side

by side, though not evenly;

colliding shoulder to shoulder

territorial and instinctual.

trying to tame the manes

beneath logo-baring headgear,

hoping to hide soulful eyes

behind dark shades of plastic.

clothing loose to make up

for skin too tight, laughter

bouncing off cement and

rubber sneaker soles.

that musky scent of male

mingling with each individual

mixture of hopes and dreams

hits me in full force, leaving me

at a standstill long after the last

of you has passed me by.

for an old friend

i thought you saved my life that summer. it was the first time

for both of us. i was expecting fireworks and stars like the fourth of july.

instead, you showed me a new kind of peace, a calm not unlike

the stones at the bottom of a river. when i was afraid, you spoke softly,

reassuring me. when i cried out, you held me tighter, rocked me

as if my fragile living was everything to you. it took forever and afterwards

i cried like i was five years old again and you just kept me close to you.

then you told me you'd be leaving on the next train out. barely

said a word of goodbye. i suspect you wanted to keep things simple,

though god knows we'd gone too far for that. and still i admire your strength

to walk away without salvaging anything. you took things without knowing:

a girl's half-innocent heart, a night worth remembering that you would forget

in time. i held onto the hope that i would once again see your smile, kiss

your mouth full-on. twine my fingers with yours in an endless ring of truth.

but years and years of nothing wore me down until i could fall no further.

dirt from the bottom of my misery pit lodged itself beneath my

fingernails.

a man i'd never met asked me out for coffee. he had the kindest face.

he was nothing like you. slowly, he began to draw me out of myself and

my pain. i did not forget about you. i merely let you slip away, just as you

had released me so long ago. i told him everything and he listened in a way

i knew you never would. we made love as though the world would end in

the morning. you were the last thing on my mind. now i see you on tv,

in the magazines. front cover. centerfold. you made your mark on me

and the world, but neither of us belong to you. the words i wanted so badly

to say have faded with time, and only a select few remain. now is the time

to say these words, the words that were never properly spoken. the words

that haunted me every day since you left me standing on the platform

in the storm. goodbye, my former love. goodbye, the one who took so

much but not all of me. goodbye.

on a whim

we packed up what little was

left of this three-year relationship and

rattled out of town in your

junky old automobile.

i thought for sure those noises

meant we'd be stuck on the side

of the road in no time but you

smiled serenely and kept on driving.

this is why i love you, you

know, because you're calm even

when i'm freaking out beyond

belief and my hair starts to frizz.

even though the rope is

frayed and burns the palms

of our hands, we've got such

a good thing going and we're

not gonna stop for anyone.

when you go

when you walk out the door

this is who i will be:

the petal fallen from the once

powerful grip of the flower's

center.

bits of pollen still clinging

to you.

once you've brushed me off

and wept with me, just once

you will go forth in glory

(this is the you i know).

the seed of you that was

created with me

has slipped into something

of its own.

now it will be pushed

below the fresh dirt

(dirt i've never seen)

and it will flourish

as it did in my heart.

and when the sun

shines upon the trembling

earth you will rise up

and bloom and bloom and

become whatever you are

and have been

all along.

he smells of summer

and he tastes like fall,

washes his hands in winter's chill.

spring is his beauty; a robe draped

over the back of a naked chair.

his hands on my body:

soft as rain and powerful as thunder.

his voice chimes in my ear;

the sweetest sound! his gift, my curse.

darling sunshine baby,

gumdrop of my lovestruck eyes!

hold me like the sky

clings to each and every star.

julianna

she calls me quirky

sunshine lady

daydream princess.

we're best friends

but julianna is beautiful.

boys tell her

girls tell her

i tell her every day.

julianna, you are

the most beautiful girl

in the world.

she just laughs

shakes her head

puts her arm around me.

we're all beautiful

julianna tells me.

i almost believe her.

today

three lovely things happened

one after the other

to little old me

in my teacup room

on my pea green carpet.

first, the phone rang

you know, that old old phone

that antique from gram

it's pale pink and jangly.

hello chirped kara

(always the bird)

but turned to me:

it's for you.

it was him

and his voice was smiling

and so was mine.

second, he asked me

to meet him tomorrow

5 pm at the bravery

and i said yes yes yes!

third (best of all),

he lowered his voice

his sweet sweet voice

and whispered

"i love you."

and i swear,

i melted right there

on my pea green carpet

in my teacup room

with my pale pink jangly phone

held tight to my ear.

May 15 at 6:59am

if

it

rains

we'll

just

sit

in the car

which is what might have happened anyway, but

i agree, rain is just ridiculous

(and not in a good

way).

i feel really bad that you were so upset!

are you sure you're alright?

when did you end up falling asleep?

i miss you.

the first on the fifteenth:

there is an elderly man who often passes by my building with a yellow umbrella. i have noticed that he always has the umbrella even when there is not a cloud in the sky. one day i was terribly lonely and decided to stop him and ask about this.

"why do you carry an umbrella in the sun?" i inquired politely as i could.

the man smiled with crooked teeth.

"because," he said softly, "this world is so big and i am so small."

and then he slowly walked away, leaving me with my mouth agape and my heart lightened somehow.