Ex-Poems by Trevor L. Sensor

Ex-­‐Poems

By Trevor L. Sensor

February 16th

I like sitting alone, At shitty wooden (plastic) tables, In coffee shops where Everyone goes. I go with Dirty hair and smudgy eyes And makeup like Forgotten slashes on my cheeks.

I’m meaner, truer, a writer.

A grungy mystery.

No one likes being alone— But I do.

Half naked in your (and your, and your) arms, I always think about what it means To accept someone.

Your eyes crinkle, Deep in the corners, And with your smile, You steal mine.

You still could, you know; Have a piece of me, I mean.

I’m in love with Childhood movie nights and Dark molten eyes and All boys with rough hands.

And all boys with soft ones.

But that’s the problem.

I’m in love with No strings attached and What if we get caught? and Being the bad girl and Cheap rum, like nail polish.

I’m in love with freedom, And throwing these words at you all, And empty hallways.

I’m in love with empty hallways, But I’m not in love with you.

1

(So, go. It’s your turn— It was all Bare skin-­‐on-­‐skin, On sin-­‐on-­‐skin.

I was breathing your Heaving breaths, Chest-­‐on-­‐chest.

We were the world, Above sweet rest— But then— The rest caught up.)

2

February 27th

I'm exhausted of all that is intangible, because what I touch I know so well and uncertainty is such fresh hell and life's a fickle path to plod on.

Dammit if I know a single thing, fuck it I can’t even rhyme. (my parents, they were quite unkind) with ineptitude as my middle name (and falling on my face my game) I’d better have sense of humor, ‘cause things are looking bleak.

She’s so young with a face so fresh that brunette must be a lie because nobody can roll the die and win beauty with their brains.

Real life is somewhere in between, cruel jokes and fairy tales (fake vomit in the holy grail) all apples can’t be poison-­‐infused; well I guess we’ve all got our own views, (politics, religion, reality tv) on how we want to stumble forward.

Better use the past as a pillar of salt best to not look back today at all the ones that got away because what an awful way to pass.

We’re all trapped in the headlights; to breathe is to beget change now go ahead and rearrange call this a one shot deal, deer; all ends too soon, why waste fear?

I’ve got my antlers snagged on, too many tall trees.

Throw it all in, might as well. might as well love with it all I’d pick you with whom to fall, if we get a choice here. (do we?)

3

I’d sure love you an awful lot, unfortunately I’m wholly flawed with a heart once rubbed raggedly raw, no wait, no, stop, I really do— with all these little pieces, care for you.

I’d let you touch my love, if intangibility weren’t such a bitch.

Trust me, no one’s trustworthy but believe my heart anyway, someday, this is real, and I will stay irrevocably intangibly yours.

4

March 4th She is prettier than I, with Curves like a soft question mark And a fragrant down coating her In all of her slenderness.

Clothed in lavender most of the year, She rises above me at my tallest.

The frost comes.

Still, when she stretches, The air is filled with frenzied buzzing, Always.

5

March 18th

I fly in old prop rocket ships, Don’t fall for boys, just fall off cliffs, The credits all roll the same. (Don’t they?)

I live my life in between flawed takes, And holding on makes my hands shake, But this new voice stills them.

It seems the distance won’t be too far— We’ve got planes and trains and cars— So I’ll write him in a line, or two.

Soundtracked moments never last, But the questions others failed to ask, Those lips are known to speak.

Maybe He’ll call “cut” and we, Will meet eyes, then learn to breathe, And tear the script in two.

6

March 21st

There’s a hook somewhere deep in my chest-­‐-­‐ It aches.

It aches because I came home smelling like you, And it aches because I wanted to.

It aches because I tasted your tongue and Because I didn’t taste enough of it.

The hook is being tugged, slowly, Steadily towards you but I cannot follow and so, it aches, Because kissing you is somewhere between a spark and a slap, Because choosing you is choosing the empty road, Because your fingers were dancers on pointe on my shoulder blades, Because you leaned in so-­‐close and kissed me like a promise.

The hook is being wrenched steadily towards your song And I am helpless to stop, to slow, to breathe and so!

It aches.

7

April 10th

I wander with the rest ‘round this ghost town, And there are holes in my old shoes.

The puddles of tears keep soaking straight through, Left behind with the dreams trodden down.

Rivulets of somedays coat the window panes, As I stare through cold glass at new shoes.

But to go inside, to surrender, (with all that I’d lose) I’d give up so much more than I’d gain.

Women without raincoats or pride Are dragging along bags of new chance.

They hope to trade dollars for romance, To win someone to walk by their side.

Behind the cold counter at the department store, The sad man in grey gives a woman change.

And she takes it, but things stay the same, Because you can’t buy true passion anymore.

Men with grey hairs and memories too great to bear Bar-­‐shop for someone who won’t forget.

There’s nothing so heavy to carry as regret, And nothing that’s as easy to share.

It would just take one touch—for warmth, hope— But the baggage ties up everyone’s hands.

World-­‐weary they are from a lifetime’s demands, And drenched from not learning to cope.

All of these hourglasses of lives to be lead, Overflow of sands that most will echo.

Too busy shopping to ever let go, Too disheartened to walk a new path instead.

8

April 13th

nothing could stop me from hearing it, the sound of my empty hands around yours (the left one and the smudge)

it rang in the pit of my stomach for a thousand clicks around the hand-­‐wound clock

but somehow I learned to be electric again— to fill my palms with sparks and steering wheels—

to make them capable of cupping a stubbly chin, striking steel, painting on a real smile— or letting one go.

I sought to return to the sweet deafness of unbeing, but instead I found returned to me a muscle memory—how to again use these calloused limbs

for watering the daylilies by my porch when they reappear at springtime.

9

April 14th

At nine, I flooded your backyard so that the rubber ducks could have an escape route.

They floated away in a river of mud and drowned tulips, and you cried all afternoon.

Ten years later, it’s flooded again, and it shouldn’t matter much, but you’re escaping too.

As you float away with a sticky chin, a popsicle melts into memories, and my hands are left red.

Still, I’ll transform the tree house into an ark with ducks and dolls in twos like you and I.

I’ll stock the stores full of mud pies for meals and your favorite grape Kool-­‐aid.

I’ll braid you a bracelet, or two, of olive branches and dye it blue like your overflowing eyes.

Last, I’ll bring my guilty green thumb that the new tulips love, hopeful you climb aboard.

10

May 1st

Close—you’re at “almost,” girl; It’s all within reach if you can stretch Yourself just a little bit thinner, And pinch away the inadequacy in that inch.

Wouldn’t it be a lovely thing— To have curves like one icon and Wear the armor of another?

You can be that, girl, if you try harder.

I’ll leave many things unsaid.

(You do not have to be perfect, dear.)

But I’ll assume that you know them, And want a memorable beauty, besides.

Accept that many are cleverer than you, More remarkable and gentler, too.

Accept that they may win a hundred nods, But sweeter still are your two hundred stares.

Defy them, defy grey-­‐beige Spanx; Wear all the things I could never wear, Overlook the boys who did not love me, And scorn those that swore they always would.

To do this, smile like you know passion, And touch as though you bleed mysteries Instead of paint. Never cry— Because salt is not lovely. You will be.

Break your glasses and paint Your nails redder than your lips— But only just. I need you, girl, To be more than the meat in your head.

11

May 21st

I can lick your lips for you bee-­‐stung because they're just that sweet-­‐-­‐

is that the best you can do?

Your ego is more frail than pigeon bones-­‐-­‐ boys like you get lost in New York City and in my eyes fifty times a day.

Bumblebees die after stinging just once-­‐-­‐

entrails make for the the ultimate white flag on Sunday mornings.

12

June 12th

she patches the wholes with saccharine kisses, and draws herself a dreamer with cerulean ink, rusty park swings, and grape Kool-­‐aid.

she water colors rosy sunsets like starts, and runs from forever with canvas capes held tight against translucent wrists.

she swallows hangers to make permanent grins, and dyes herself pretty with a broken red pen, magenta lipstick, and old heartaches.

he sketches three blanks, then bleeds off the page, and outlines her pink heart with jagged glass stencils, his soft-­‐soul shoes laced for leaving.

she fires her hands into statues, praying. she’s fine; she’ll fly off, wild in a mask of spun sugar, but until then, she paints slowly. but until then,

she melts.

13

June 26th

is lined with intentions and snowy half-­‐stalks of corn that say very little.

My tires catch on ice as I coast around the bend into town and the countryside slips by like daily conversation— unremarkable, unnoted prose—noted.

Fog, a curtain marking the world’s edges, hides the field surrounding the lake until the Honda parts it.

Snow and dead grass protest quietly against the intruders, but soon surrender.

A startled mallard’s wary eye meets mine— alone and left behind, bitter with the frost.

I wish I could take him with me but there, he’s leaving, going, going, lost— over flat land just as flat as when I left it last— five years ago and all that’s changed is my hair, and the miles on the Honda.

All the old words to ashes, ashes to rust on the bumper and on the dilapidated tractor waiting hopefully in front of a barn with no doors, because those fell to pieces first.

Oh, that tree back there has grown too, a silhouette in the fog, all ashy grey— like the shadows beneath my mother’s eyes, the shadowy shape of a cage with no locks, or a shadow returned home.

14

August 2nd

It would be like unfolding, I think. I am an accordion, bound tight by biting commentaries, defense mechanisms, and all of the used bandages returned with I.O.U.s from soldiers who once lost an organ or two.

I am the letters from their wives, who've written love notes to ghosts naked in my sheets, assuming that they're still men-­‐-­‐ folded tightly in the pockets of pants he doesn't wear anymore.

Truth-­‐telling is less complex than this folding, but harder, too.

Warriors prefer corners.

15

August 11th

is the last thing I see of my departing childhood before the U-­‐Haul truck slides too-­‐fast over the ice at the mouth of my street.

A billion love poems have been written about the perils of becoming too attached to another heartbeat,

but what about the risks of becoming too attached to your own, and the way that it sounds when it reverberates in a particular space?

A lost echo can be detrimental if it’s the only thing keeping the beat.

Anywhere I’ve ever tried to stay has left me, instead.

The corn is too tall to see past the bend in the road ahead.

16

September 8th

but honey I promise you that I'm bad news.

I'm good at a lot of things, but not being good to sweet boys like you.

I am a beautiful jigsaw, but some pieces are missing.

This cliche poem is almost as painful as them.

17

October 13th

Say my name.

Say it like a plea, like a prayer into my hair.

Raise elation-­‐goosebumps on my shoulders and whisper me promises.

Kiss my collarbone like you’re starving and Breathe hot breath into my ears like a secret, Because the image is so lovely, My back pressed against drywall, And you pressed against me.

18

October 15th

Be a little girl. Have a woman’s voice.

Check under the bed for monsters.

Accept that most of them come from the world— Accept that they are the shadows in your closet— some will even say that they love you. They’re lying.

Break down.

Cry for the monster to leave, ask that he take his boot smudges and wipe them from the threshold.

Be ignored, grow small: the incredible shrinking woman.

Give up.

Take what you are given. Don’t ask for more.

Be a paper doll. Be changeable.

The shadow paints your face.

The shadow draws your clothes.

The shadow directs these dreams.

The shadow shatters them.

Lose yourself. Become a shadow.

Find yourself in the monster.

Hide under the bed.

Become hard.

Stop having nightmares.

19

October 31st

The thought of corrupting you sets me aflame.

Honey, you don't want me.

You want me to take on your darkness and win a race I'm not running.

You want me to smolder alone-­‐-­‐ but I carry ember confetti, and a starter gun forever smoking.

You want me to contain you, but I am the fuel.

20

November 1st

I wish that I could taste the paint on my tongue and make it real-­‐-­‐ would the little blue flecks look as lovely mixed with the bile in my stomach that lurches from side to side burning my insides but not burning you?

I feel the pain of fires he lit inside me, but the flames cannot consume themselves and so I look at this painting that I won't turn to ash.

I search here, for a face and a name and blue eyes not borne from oil.

21