2009
12.09
Wind shears her tears off the sides of her face, slicing cold wetness over the cheeks, stinging her eyes, rubbing the ducts raw with agitation, seemingly burning with frigid Winter, sticking strands of errant hair to her cheeks, rosy with remorse, snapping against the freezing brick wall, stoic against the impending glacial freeze of December darkness, allowing small people to scurry back and forth, searching for cover inside, but dashing out to take care of whatever it is these little people do all day before returning here, passing by this woman huddled against the bricks, freezing and coating the already slick sidewalk with tears of regret, or anger, or everything mixed together, so exposed on the outside of the building because she can’t go back in, won’t sit down on her bed, their bed, alone this time, amidst piles of things that used to be theirs, now separated into his and hers, so easily put into piles of goodbye as snow collects on the sill, she’s pressed between the cold of the weather, and the harsh chill of the lonely apartment upstairs, unwilling to go into either without kicking, screaming, the old ‘I love you, I know I told you to get out but how the fuck am I supposed to live without you, I hate you, get out, come back,’ and the stinging eyes of December, tears steaming on her cheeks, blushing them with icy finality like the sting of a sharp slap across the face she gave him that morning.
2009
12.09
As our lips pry apart long enough for words
With a shit eating grin on your face
You tell me
I drive you crazy
But sadly I lost my license to a DUI
So I really shouldn’t be driving anything
Anywhere
So wipe that brown smirk
Maybe that’s where we went wrong
Though without a license I suppose I can still ride things
You know like bikes
Sorry I may get sidetracked
But God damn, there’s so much to say
You had me at Jello
Shot
The red gloop in the slightly cracked plastic cup
Resembling my heart’s new condition
Malformed from the altitude pressure change on cloud nine
I held my breath for 2 months
Wouldn’t recommend it
I was so blue I could barely see you
Maybe that’s where we went wrong
But somewhere we went right
And left
Behind cautions
To a yellow triangle with a ped strolling
That ambler seems to have the right idea
Walking away cautiously from the incestuous thing we call
The lesbian community
Shoulda known I tell myself
As I chuckle
At my buddy Stupidity
As he kindly reminds me he’s still full of zip
Still living in that studio apartment in my cerebellum
And though he is alive and well we never talk much
The occasional inquiry about the weather
Is the extent of our convos
When really we should be sitting down
For a good cup a joe
And discussing life’s speed bumps
I would grill him for answers
To why he feels the need to linger around
And activate his power causing me to complete
An act of folly at least twice a day
Sometimes little and sometimes not
Whether it be forgetting my bus pass
Or not calling you back
Even driving home after the bar.
Somehow he always knows just how to make me fuck up
Oh and the bastard’s late on rent
I can’t forget about all his other comrades
There’s Ignorance
In that mansion up in my prefrontal cortex
Oh and Fear
She occupies a large part of my hippocampus
And let’s not forget Narcissism
Chillin on the front porch of Corpus Callosum
We let Bliss stay on the couch in the living room
Of our medullas for far too long
Maybe that’s where we went wrong
You hold me so fucking tight
I can’t remember where we first met
But then that flashbulb memory of mine shows me
That slightly cracked plastic cup
As you lay there next to me
You feel the balloon in my chest rising higher and higher
Then prick it with your sharpened pinky nail
You offer to help evict Stupidity, Ignorance, Fear and Narcissism
To throw their belongings to the curb
And you promise
To tell Bliss she has to couch surf somewhere else
Then the radio came on
We decided to make ‘My Girl’ our song
Maybe that’s where we went wrong
© Brittany Alverson, 2009