these are the words of someone i dont know
most of these poems are auto bio graphical if you think a poem is about you it probably is if you think a poem isnt about you it still has a fair chance that it is im in love with you im in love with everyone always
i know its stupid to compare my body to an orchid because orchids are parasites and i dont think my body is a parasite so ill compare my body to a body, ill compare your body to a body, ill compare the way we move together like two people moving together its slow like honey. im quiet when im moving together with someone but your breath huffs out your mouth in quick puffs and i hold my hands on your shoulders im going to go over the edge of the ship i am the man overboard i fall into the water. im carrying the water. im the water.
someone told me that orchids arent parasites theyre just like human beings they eat things that are dead so maybe my poem loses something but im happy that orchids are kind of like us an orchid could probably be my second cousin if i try really hard to make it happen my sisters boyfriend grows orchids if you get him to talk about them hell go on for like three hours i mean the kid is earnest about growing things and hes talked to me about going to the orchid club and talking about these delicate flowers with old ladies i dont know much about my sisters sex life but seeing as shes like two years younger than me im ok with that sometimes its better to be left in the Dark
people i have lain with slash known in the biblical sense: six people i have kissed On The Mouth: thirteen its strange to condense these encounters into numerical form its like numbers cant try to hold all the stuff that comes with Knowing somebody it is too much to simplify each of those numbers has a story behind it each of those numbers has a different gut feeling that snakes its way up from my belly button and curls in my sinuses im going to tell you about a few of them i think im going to yell this one
NUMBER ONE: I MET YOU AT SENIOR PROM AND YOU WERE GOING WITH YOUR EX GIRL FRIEND AND I WAS GOING WITH MY FRIEND WHO WAS A GIRL AND WE TALKED FOR LIKE THE ENTIRE PROM AND I REMEMBER AT THE WEIRD AFTERPARTY I TOUCHED YOUR WRIST LIKE ONCE AND WE EXCHANGED NUMBERS AND THEN YOU TOOK ME ON A VERY STRANGE DATE AND WE KISSED AND IT WAS MY FIRST TIME KISSING ANYONE EVER I MELTED AGAINST THE SIDE OF MY CAR AND MY HEART BEAT WAS LIKE A RABBIT WE DATED FOR THREE MONTHS THE SUMMER BEFORE I LEFT AND WE FUCKED SO MANY TIMES IN THE BACK SEAT OF YOUR OLD WHITE RODEO PARKED IN THE LITTLE OUTGROWTH OF BUSH ACROSS THE ROAD FROM BEESTON HILL I REMEMBER LYING ON MY BACK ON YOUR BED WITH YOU BESIDE ME TALKING ABOUT LIKE I DONT KNOW PROBABLY PANCAKES OR SOMETHING AND YOUR CEILING HAD THE MOST INTERESTING WOOD PATTERNS EVER WE BROKE UP THE DAY BEFORE I MOVED BECAUSE NEITHER OF US HAD THE PATIENCE FOR LONG DISTANCE RELATIONSHIPS AND ALSO I WAS GOING TO MONTREAL AKA THE LAND OF BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE
i remember being pinned against the wall and ravished with my roommate on the other side of the wall and putting my arms over his shoulders and leaning my head to the side so he could bite my neck i have a deep-set hunger for bruises i melted into the wall i melted onto him i was a wax candle burning too fast i wilted but he propped me up resuscitated me with his mouth his hands his body, burning hot against mine
i want to slough my skin i want to slough off my muscles my nervous system my vital organs etcetera i want to be a glistening white skeleton i want to love you as a skeleton i want to love you as a ghost i want to love you as a yawning void ill swallow you ill take all of you ill steal all that you have ill light candles on the bedside table ill pour anointing oil on my breasts ill dig my fingers into my rib cage and separate my bones for you ill crack my sternum for you like that one song says my existence is tenuous already youre reeling me in
i forget what loving is like i loved a boy for so long and i watched it slowly ebb until we laid side by side on my bed one afternoon and i said "i think that this is over" and he said "yes"
i imagine loving is something warm maybe like the same texture of tapioca and the colour of the inside of your cheek
maybe love is a lot more like spaghetti. its good and then you get halfway through and its kind of cold but you soldier through it and end up enjoying it even though its cold but then you get full and poke at it listlessly before giving up and putting it in a tupperware in the fridge that you forget about until youre cleaning out the fridge and realize you shouldve eaten it a while ago but its moldy now so you put it in the trash and wash the tupperware while you wear giant yellow gloves
i fell in love with my best friend and wrote him a letter that i stuck in his shoe one day when he fell asleep at my house and then i went to class before he woke up and spent the entire class hyperventilating because i knew what the outcome was and i thought hed hate me forever he didnt hate me forever he just said that he wasnt interested and i felt like i had missed a step on a staircase but then by some grace id recovered i dont know if i was even in love with him to begin with anymore
this is a real love poem now, one that doesnt just skim the surface i love you. i want to hold your face in my hands and kiss you. i love you like the path of the stars through the sky. i want to hold you and press flush to you and feel your warmth. i want to touch your fingers to my fingers. i want to learn your body like a book i want to read every memory i want to cut a curl of your hair and keep it secret in a locket and then when we break up i will give it back to you so it isnt creepy
I READ THE SONG OF SOLOMON WHEN I WAS IN GRADE SIX AND ITS VERY PRETTY THERE ARE SO MANY SIMILIES COMPARING BREASTS TO YOUNG DEER I DONT UNDERSTAND THAT TOO MUCH BUT THE INTENT IS THERE I GUESS IM TRYING TO WRITE MY OWN SONG OF SOLOMON BUT YOUNG DEER SIMILIES DONT WORK SO WELL FOR DICKS
ACTUALLY THOUGH I WILL LOVE YOU GENTLY IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPRING I WILL LOVE YOU IN A RENTAL CAR PARKED IN THE LOT OUTSIDE OF A WALMART AT THREE THIRTY A M I WILL LOVE YOU A STEP OFF OF THE TRAIL WITH LONG GRASS TICKLING MY ANKLES I WILL LOVE YOU THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND FEET BELOW THE SURFACE OF THE OCEAN I WILL LOVE YOU THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND FEET ABOVE THE SURFACE OF THE OCEAN I WILL LOVE YOU IN A RICKETY HOTEL ROOM IN BANGKOK ILL LOVE YOU LIKE THE MAN IN THE MOON ILL LOVE YOU LIKE THE SOLAR FLARES
the best one night stand i ever had was with a guy who was slightly taller than me and that didnt really matter but was notable because i hadnt really fucked a guy slightly taller than me in a long time but he was sweet and uncertain and we fucked once, then twice, then three times, then woke up the next morning and fucked again before i left, walking funny down st laurent with a huge smile on my face
its raining slash snowing out im sitting on my bed in the dark listening to old of montreal songs you know like dustin hoffmans wife calls in detective to dust for porcelain particles on dustin hoffmans tongue being in love is a terrible thing its terrible because sometimes the vessels you want to hold close to your vessel are not wanting any part of it and you want to keep trying but instead you have to swallow your love and nod and watch them walk away and not reciprocate and you curl up in your bed and dont leave the house for three days subsisting solely on hummus and carrot sticks and you watch bob ross videos to make you sleep and the only person you see is your dealer and he says man you look rough and you go yeah i dont want to talk about it and he shrugs and says i have two strains in today and you go cool which one is sleepier you smoke a lot of weed and you eat more hummus and carrot sticks until you run out and then you make pasta and eat that and you read cracked dot com articles because you dont even care anymore your brains mush anyway maybe one of your friends comes over unexpectedly and sees you in this state having not taken a shower for like three days and all manner of dark circles under your eyes and also like twenty joint butts languishing in your ashtray theyll take pity on you and get you to clean up and take you to la belle province for lunch and youll sit across from the counter and eat your fries one by one dip them in mayonnaise first and then sometimes ketchup because quebecois fries for some reason really lend themselves to mayonnaise a lot more than the shit you get at like burger king you say that and then you realize hey youre not thinking about the gaping void in the middle of your chest and you start laughing with your friend eating fries in a belle province on st. laurent and that night you go to a party and you feel better the album has moved on to dustin hoffmans wife makes a sarcastic remark cuts the head off a duck places it where the tub was and begins to groan (growl)
love is hard you might be in love with the person sitting next to you and you dont even know it you might be in love with your grandma and not even know it you might be in love with the cashier at segall's who has blue short hair and laughs at your stupid grocery store jokes even though youre sure shes heard them all before and you might not even know it you might be in love with the pretty girl who sits in front of you in one of your classes and looks like she should be a bird or an owl or something with the way she perches in her chair and takes scrawled notes and you might not know it theres so many people in this world you could be in love with a lot of them why not try being in love with like four people at once its a difficult exercise but its fun
NUMBER THREE: im trying to forget you im trying so hard to forget waking up next to you at eleven in the morning im trying not to learn you im trying to make you angry at me to have something to remember to be a warning but no i walk with you i ask for your hands your help i want to be close to you i want to be knowing of you but i shouldnt i shouldnt you are the grapes i am the fox we are locked in this dance i want to break the chains but i cant i cant my hands are shaking under the table im ok i promise im ok
a long time ago my mom told me i was pretty and i was like ok thats super i dont know if im still pretty im not too concerned anymore its ok to be not pretty its great you can be any adjective you can be any proper noun you can be any verb you are a part of speech and you can change whatever meaning the dictionary has for you whenever you want im not pretty anymore mom im like the feeling of looking at a bit of light that is shining in the space between two trees in a forest which probably has a big long compound word in german but since english doesnt compound words thats about the best i can do ive met people who are respectively - the sound of a motorcycle engine someone is very nice to - the smell of a large leather jacket in goodwill - looking at a moire optical illusion - patchouli (thats it just patchouli) - a very happy root vegetable - a pool of water at the bottom of a mountain - schadenfreude all of them are wonderful all of them are their own language all of them are following the heel toe progression of mortality
im sitting next to u on a couch and the psychadelic furs song love my way is playing and i really want to kiss you because it feels like a good time to kiss u like in a teen movie but im kind of afraid of kissing u because what if im not the plucky young protagonist maybe im the best friend who doesnt get any action and just is a really shitty wingman the entire time i dont kiss u and you get up and go play slap cup in the other room and i sigh and go ok i guess im not cast as michael ceras character i can tell when im the protagonist of the teen movie im in because things go well and when mercury was in retrograde and my friend was telling me shit was weird i felt really happy that whole period of like two weeks and i saw four bands in a living room and i watched three people get tattoos and i sat on a couch behind a mosh pit talking to a boy and i think a lady hit on me but i cant tell with ladies and then i went to get bagels with this boy and his friend and we sat across from fairmount bagels munching away and i could even imagine the camera angle it was just so perfect
i went to your house the other day. your roommate answered the door and said you werent there. i said okay when will he be here and your roommate shrugged and said i dont know, text him or something. i said later he said bye i make movies in my head when i walk down the sidewalk and when i went home from going to to your house the other day the movie in my head was soundtracked by the smiths and was filmed in black and white. it was about a girl who found herself in a world where it was always raining. she was in love with a woman who lay behind a bay window on a chintz armchair. the girl was deathly afraid of water and had to find a way to get across the street to the bay window and leave a little note on the glass so maybe the armchair woman, her love, would see it and be so struck by its simple beauty that the rain would cease and she would come outside her apartment and shine radiant, drying up the remains of the rain. then the girl could run out from whatever cover she had hidden under and leap into her beloved's arms. they would eat ambrosia under palm leaves, they would drink the finest honey sweetened liqueurs, they would make love on a bed made of a thousand butterflies. i opened the front door to my apartment and took my boots off and walked four steps to my bedroom and fell on my bed facefirst. i scrunched my face up and made a sound like a two year old having a temper tantrum. something small and made of paper fell off my wall. i turned over and stared at the ceiling and
as if that wasnt enough, more love poems:
=====================================================================> i am going to love you on the prow of a very large yacht making the crossing from tortola to saint thomas. i am going to kiss you there and the wind will whip our hair back and our clothes will flutter against the planes of our bodies. i am going to kiss you a lot and the movement of the ship beneath us will make our bodies sway against each other in a slow oscillation. i love you waking up on the floor of an unfamiliar apartment i love you screaming expletives on the roof of a hotel next to the pool that since we arent guests were technically not allowed to swim in i love you underwater touching your face with my hands feeling the downy softness of your eyelids and the curve of your cheekbones i love the curve of your back and the way it straightens out when you stand for a minute and then slides back into a sinuous shape i love the wide planes of your back i love your shoulderblades i love running my fingers soft down your spine i love the weight of you i love the realness of you i want you to ground me im a ghost let me possess you so gently im going to love you under a table in the library ill love you with the smell of books around us ill love you listening to the keyboards clack its so quiet here its so quiet inside us i love you on the roof top huddled around a tiny gas barbeque in spring i love you in the middle of angrignon park watching a family of four run amok in the tall grass i love you standing on the corner of the street in the snow with cars passing by behind me, at night
NUMBER FIVE: over the summer i slept with you so many times and we were each others support net we carried each other we helped each other we were indelible parts of each other and now i listen to you talk about the girl you like and i dont feel pain i dont feel sorrow i feel happy and excited for you its strange how love wanes. when love leaves it isnt an all at once thing it takes its time it meanders it forgets things and has to come back it slides slowly out the door and sometimes you forget that it had gone and you kind of run around the house looking for it and then remember that oh it left three weeks ago youre still my best friend and i would kiss you on the mouth again if thats what friends did but its not so instead ill give you hugs and hope you remember how i remember, i hope you remember lying together in the fading days of july exhausted and overworked and keeping ourselves together through holding each other closer closer close
lying in bed beside him our hips touching "i dont understand this whole sex thing" he says "why not" "its like. why do we spend so long trying to find people who want to mash parts of themselves against part of yourself?" "i guess babies" "yeah i guess" its warm and we stay hip to hip for like four hours in my tiny dorm room bed we watch the breakfast club i reach way over on my bedside table and i drink a bottle of apple juice im going to live the rest of my life in bed ive decided
this poem is called "babylon" and i cant read it out loud ever
i want to love you in the gardens of babylon. we will walk along the edges of the walls and we will drape ourselves in jasmine and honeysuckle and a million sweet smelling flowers. we will climb trees and sit on the branches and braid vines into each others hair. we will be naked except for wreaths of hibiscus and rosemary. i want to kiss you ankle deep in a koi pond. i want to kiss you ankle deep in peat soil, black and moist. i want to make love to you under neath a joshua tree. i want to make love to you under neath the hanging fronds of a willow. i want to lie so quietly with you on a lily pad. we will drink the waters of babylon and we will retreat into the trees and flowers. we will become dyads. we will become as ethereal as the greek myths that float around the dark mysterious ageless parts of our cerebellums. i want to kiss you in the roots of an old oak tree. i want to whisper in your ear the colour of a thousand different flowers. i want to have your body as supple as a young sapling. i want you like a rowan tree. i want you like the heliotropism of a thousand bean plants grown as a science project in fourth grade. i want you like the glory of the mahogany. i want you with all of the grace of a thousand tiny bouganvilla flowers esconced in their jeweled parapetals. come to my babylon. come to my deep and hidden places.
and ill be crying over you i spent so much time in middle school crying over boys who didnt deserve the tears i shouldve kept my tears and started a garden id grow the sweetest peaches the most luscious pears and id bite into them and the juice would sink down my chin crying crying crying when youre thirteen you dont think too much about peach tears that comes with age i think
im sitting on the kitchen counter bumping my boots against the cabinets "what are we even doing here," he says i dont say anything i just watch the tendons in his hands move as he stirs the pot on the stove "why are we like existing" he says i shrug my shoulders and look into the middle distance like that will solve my problems (it wont) he turns the stove off and drops the spoon and walks to me takes my head between his hands says "you are beautiful" i say thank you he kisses me right on the mouth and the noise that i make answers all of his questions
i will kiss you until your face blooms into a rose i will kiss each and every one of your petals i will feel the velvet soft ness of your skin i will grow antlers and become a deer we will both be deer in spring time and we will love in the forest i will kiss you into a dozen new forms i will kiss our vessels apart, together, apart i will change us with the sorcery of our bodies ill pour you out of your amphora and eat you raw ill become a metamorphic rock and lay with you under the root systems of a thousand ancient trees ill be the wispy clouds over the moon ill be the first few licks of flame on a bonfire i will love you staring deep into the heart of the sun becoming blind i will love you fading in out in out of existence, peekaboo i will love you sweat slicked and panting on your unmade bed in the middle of the summer
"you know whats weird" i say lying next to him on my side, hip sinking into the bed and my head on his chest "what" "vaginas. vaginas are weird. i dont know why i have one" "you dont have a dick though. dicks are crazy" i shake my head and sigh "but like no. theyre external. youre not putting anything inside you, you dont have like a little cavern expressly made for putting things in built into your body between your legs" "fair enough. you dont like make a huge mess when you come though" "its not a huge mess jeez its like a little bit" "no its a huge mess" i roll over so im lying on my back now my tits flattening cause of gravity and i look down and think "ugh" to myself "do you know what dysphoria means" "kind of" "oh"
THEY. CALL ME THEY. forget the stuff between my legs forget the secondary sexual characteristics forget that i have wide hips and a soft jawline forget all that shit i want to be an androgyne bombshell i want the whispers of "is that a girl or a boy" to be replaced by "is that human or divine" i want to confuse people i want to make them think about their own fleshy amphoras i want them to have to think about ooh maybe im not so much of a man a woman a something in between call me they because she is too femme and he is too macho, i am the mysteries in between venus and mars and i will seduce both of them call me they because it makes perscriptive grammar enthusiasts angry call me they because "xie" is too alien and "it" makes me feel like a piece of furniture and i dont think i could be as unabashedly gorgeous if i were a chest of drawers i am the mysteries of the universe i am the in between i know and yet i dont know and i want to learn
thank you for reading my love poems
xoxo blare