((a love song for those who don't have a choice))
I know that silence is as heavy as my least compelling secrets
and that you only say you love me
because you need to hear it.
And when I am falling face-forward off the high dive
you’re already drowning in the pool beneath me.
I guess I like strangers more than anybody.
When my parents ask, I lie,
and I say I think tattoos look dirty,
but in truth, I have your name tattooed all inside my body.
I have the things you said that hurt me
inside my stomach lining.
I have your stories like scars on my mind.
And these are the jaws of life.
These are the things I didn’t say when I could have
and probably should have.
“I am not a strange woman, I am a small one.”
I am sorry for not being all you thought I would be.
Sorry all my jokes are empty.
I’d love to leave your mind more than your body
but right now
I don’t have the choice to unlove either.
Sorry you had to hear this.
the girl who couldn't finish anythin-
I am unfinished thoughts and
half-scribbled poems.
I cannot complete anything, my cigarette
stubs are twice as long as yours.
You once heard me muttering
that my legs are so short
because they gave up on growing.
We both know I will die when
my heart gets bored of beating and
that I will be too preoccupied with the next thing,
the fascination of being dead, to notice.
I am constantly on the move for something new
and yet, have never grown sick of loving you.
FARTHER, FURTHER
Kirsten held her hair away from the flame as she lit a cigarette off the stove. She stood in the kitchen a while, taking long drags—breathing the smoke in deliberate, trying to slow down her mind—and finally she left. This time there was no note. She’d no plans on returning. Wasn’t any point in going anywhere but farther. Always farther.
The motel circuit in Missoula’d dried up. The owner of the last building was letting Kirsten stay with him, which wasn’t uncommon. She still paid for a room, but only worked it, didn’t live-in. This landlord was fairly kind, but annoying. Horndog. And after an entire day of it, the last thing Kirsten wanted at night was a fuck. That was why she was leaving this one. Usually she left notes, in case she ever needed to come back, but Missoula wasn’t much of a place to come back to.
Folks don’t mind regular girls, but usually a cut had to be given. Kirsten worked hard; she didn’t give cuts. It was easier to just greyhound to another city and start over. A few weeks later, once things got too cozy, do it all over. Again again again. Sometimes men would ask where she was from, and Kirsten would answer with whatever the last town’s name was. But in her head she’d sometimes have trouble remembering. That was good. She needed to go further. Always.
