bunkmate // page 2
“the shit I missed”
last night i met a poem in a dream she was shaped like an icicle and had no skin
two cups of coffee
i felt the change in the currents of my stomach
like the irregular pulse of a train passing by
like a hand on a naked thigh how is it possible for something to be that soft
i'll show you my passport photo so you can see what i look like when i am planning to go somewhere
we’ve been in the same room for so long without talking so long that my teeth already feel like they need to be brushed again
i don’t want to hear your girl troubles i want to be your girl troubles
i spent the whole weekend trying not to cry and i put myself to sleep by practicing the imaginary speech i’ll give to all the people who have hurt me these past couple of months, on the drive to work i imagine they are all on the road with me, putting me down for going to speed limit.
today my mother told me that she has become too depressed to read and i laughed because i was reading something funny while she was talking to me this was not the most poetic thing that happened to me today im sorry if it seems like i disappear some nights i’m here and i’m listening but i am also hiding i asked kaitlyn how do you wake up before ten am without dying? she said go to sleep baby you’re the best must we chose between soup or salad days or can we have both, like at the olive garden though i’ve only heard of this my mother won’t let me eat there
the sound of my mother grocery shopping is the sound of my mother on the phone with my father who is at the grocery store
and i am in a room in the house as far away from this conversation as possible
feeling inadequate
our names have too many consonants and my voice is deep i think if i tried to sing they would cancel music forever
everyone go home
your bunkmate talks too much. your bunkmate is your friend. your bunkmate is alyssa. alyssa is a poet.
contact~ alyssarorke@gmail.com bunkmatepoetry.tumblr.com amrpoetics.bandcamp.com
made in NJ march 2014