tomorrow sometimes (title by dina :) )

On a clear day you
can see the place where the
ocean and the sky meet, seamless
and blend into one another
barely discernible in shades of
cobalt and gunmetal
and I guess that kind of looks like
tomorrow sometimes

But for me,
tomorrow just looks like
the same laundry list
as the day before:
4 papers
2 grants
1 empty checkbook
3 missed calls
5 unreturned messages
1 getting to Field’s Corner
right as the train crosses
the bridge toward Savin Hill
and 2 cigarettes
while I wait for the
next one.

Tomorrow is crumpled
in the wastebasket

All i want to see is
right now
this bed
and what we can do with it
I want to see my eyes reflected
in yours looking into mine
I want to see our fingers
intertwined
like an elaborate basket

I want to see the
back of my eyelids as I
drift
off
into that
sweet space
between your shoulder
and your collarbone
and today and tomorrow
where lifetimes can be lived
in eight hours
and nobody waits for the T

single serving boyfriend

I don't have one night stands
I have single serving
boyfriends

Like Ed Norton and Brad Pitt
except none of them have
been quite that
fetching

don't get me wrong
I don't lower my
standards
just because I know
they won't call
tomorrow

and this isn't
an
assumption
on my part
I am not making
an ass out of u
it's just me
because I let it
happen
again
and
again
and again

this one just
like
the
one
before....
out the door
as soon as they've
come to the
revelation
that they somehow
needed me
to get to

i don't know how
i became
"that girl"
but I'm sick of
being called
fantastic or
cultured or
different
or whatever the fuck
you think the prescription
is for your ailment
I am not penicillin
and I'm not a fucking
novelty
I'm sick of your soul
searching
and I ain't got shit
to show for it

this isn't your movie
stop playing
zach braff
he's not even that good at it
i am not natalie portman
or kirsten dunst
and I sure as hell
won't cry
if you get on that plane
we don't know each
other that well

if you're thinking
that we might have a
fun weekend
think about what happens
to me
on
monday.

what i cannot be and cannot have

he is neat
and i am all loud
color
mess

he is patient
and i cannot
sit
still

he is wise
and i lust after
every bit
of knowledge

he is calm
and i chain
smoke
camel lights

he is framed
perfectly
in the hallway
with the light burnt out
because I don't bother
to change it
but he is lit
like James Dean
with the light
pouring from my
bedroom

where I lie
waiting
in his shadow

i am not unbeautiful

recently I have found myself
running my hands along the
new smoothness that has begun
to take over my body
and the new curves
that appear daily.

it is like discovering uncharted
land
and yet it is
in words and thoughts
that i have found myself
recently

and i've thought about you
the space between us
and how i feel closer to you
than i did the last time
that you held me close

it becomes more inevitable
everyday
that i will see you again soon
and i go from fear to excitement
and back again
every hour
because i am not the same
woman that you left

i know so much more
about myself
and my place
and my feet fit
naturally in the earth
and the concrete
and my curves settle
against amazing people
who inspire me
and hold me close to them
because i am
beautiful to them as well

and I have become more
beautiful
to your standards
with each calorie burned
and each cookie
abstained
and each hour at the gym
every morning

but it is the beauty
that i feel inside me
beyond the new curves
that my hands can travel
it is the new ideas
that roll in my mind
and the anger that burns my
tongue so that my
mouth stays
open
constantly
flapping to keep some cool
it is this beauty that i hope
you see

so when my friends tell me
how much you
will regret our past
when we meet again
i hope that it will be
for how much more of me
there is to know
and not
for how much less of me
there is to hold

traffic

traffic

Red
Green
Yellow
Stop
Go
Slow Down
Slow Down

Why don't we ever slow down?
Stuck in the constant flux of
Stop and
Go
We forget to take our time
We only know how to
kill it
While we wait in the stand still
both picking up smoking
so that we don't have to think of
the ghost in the passenger seat.


We have stopped so often
That when we
Go
I do... as fast as I can
holding you close
kissing your lips
trying
to get you to take your g-d damn shirt off...
fitting as much as I possibly can in
before we stop again.

I miss yellow lights
the warning...
knowing when to start weaning myself off
of the needing.

But we never did have those
yield signs...
It has always been
hot and cold
night and day
not being able to get enough of each other

and then...
STOP

Never sure what triggered the red light
too much
too close
too fast

But it was you who wouldn't let go

You who kissed first
You who crept to my porch
You who kissed me and told me
how much you would miss me
the night before you left...

And I prayed for a yellow light then
an extension on our parting
But city traffic is unreliable
and I have been stuck smoking
at this stop light for
two fucking years
and I don't think I can listen to
Suzanne Vega sing
"Cracking"
one more time.

I can see the light turning yellow
for the traffic to my right
This is the longest three seconds of my life...
one
did you miss me?
two
who's that other guy?
three
when are you coming back?

the green light is coming
but I'm not sure
if I should keep going
or turn off this road
for good.

whitewashed

I do not have
white pride

because

white
is the absence of color
and although I have sometimes joked
that you can see through the barely there pigment of my skin
I derive my pride from
the colors I have within

red
of sunkissed tomatoes in gardens
from Roxbury to Campobasso

green
like the beans I harvested from my mother's
ghetto garden
stemming them one at a time
in a broken plastic strainer

blue
was the color my baby brother turned
the night he stopped breathing
and the machine that we brought
home with him from the hospital still
sometimes blinks

yellow
in my mind

purple
is the color of the sky against sienna streetlights
on nights when I sat
on a third story porch
letting the summer mist envelop me

black
like the holes
left behind by stray bullets
inches from my brother's
bed pillow
13 and he still sleeps in the livingroom

orange
my gemini power color
sunset
and the crayon i sometimes
used when drawing pictures of myself
as a child

white
is an absence of color

it is a state of mind

it is agreeing to be nothing
in the name of holding others down

it is allowing yourself to forget that
you were once barefoot
stomping on grapes
black hair braided coarse down your back
singing songs while you kneaded dough and
praying for better for your children

it is believing that NOTHING is
better than something that other people
think is dirty

well I will play in the mud
because my sun spots are
sporadic
and you cannot see
the herstory
in my hips
taste the wine on my lips

hear my soul crying out
I AM MORE THAN THIS

hear my soul crying out
i am more than this

so think on it a bit

because if we keep the beourgoise
whitewash our ancestry

it won't be long
until none of us exist

night light

I feel like I learned last night
what it was like to be blind
to have your other senses heightened
by the dark.

The last thing I saw was you
moving toward me
cat like
and when we met in the middle
i closed my eyes
knowing that your night vision
was no match for mine.

And even though my eyes
were looking only at my eyelids
and occasionally in to yours
While the strong muscles of your
back moved
underneath my tiny pale hands
I can still see the smooth caramel
skin
contrasting with my ghostly complexion
pulling out the freckles in my arms
like a blue shirt
brings out the color in my eyes.

the heart is a muscle

I could never love a poet
Now, please don't take that as rejection
It's a challenge

You see
I have
lost my footing from a well
executed
"What did I do to deserve you?"

And I've swooned over
a convincing rendition of
"Baby, you are so beautiful."

I have even
had my heart "skip" a beat
from a simple question like
"Why aren't the other girls more
like you?"

Screw the skip
and the pitter patter
I think that your sentiment
laced with a simile
or a metaphor
might make
the machines
flatline

And I'm sure you could
revive me with your
rhythm and rhyme-
your flow could teach
my blood
And have my heart
dependent on the
breakbeats
that lay the canvas
for your paint

Now that's a serious
responsibility
so if you're not ready
think
before you spit your clever line
and save your poetry
for a girl with a stronger heart

tomorrow

On a clear day you can't see tomorrow
but you can see the place where the
ocean and the sky meet, seamless
and blend into one another
barely discernible in shades of
cobalt and gunmetal
and i guess that kind of looks like
tomorrow sometimes

But when I see tomorrow
all i see is
the 4 assignments i need to
finish
my bank balance
the morning rush at the gym
the smelly guy on the red line

I don't want to see tomorrow
all i want to see is right now
this bed
and what we can do with it
I want to see my eyes reflected
in yours looking into mine
I want to see our fingers
intertwined
like an elaborate basket

I want to see the back of my eyelids
as I drift off into that
sweet space
between your shoulder
and your collarbone
and today and tomorrow
where lifetimes can be lived
in eight hours
and nobody waits for the T