The long way to you is still tied to me
But it brought me to you
I keep wanting to give you
What is already yours
It is the morning
Of the mornings together
Breath of summer
Oh my found one
The sleep in the same current
And each waking to you
When I open my eyes
You are what I wanted to see
--W.S. Merwin, 'A Birthday'
Give me the strongest cheese, the one that stinks best; and I want the good wine, the swirl in crystal surrendering the bruised scent of blackberries, or cherries, the rich spurt in the back of the throat, the holding it there before swallowing. Give me the lover who yanks open the door of his house and presses me to the wall in the dim hallway, and keeps me there until I'm drenched and shaking, whose kisses arrive by the boatload and begin their delicious diaspora through the cities and small towns of my body. ... I want this world. I want to walk into the ocean and feel it trying to drag me along like I'm nothing but a broken bit of scratched glass, and I want to resist it. I want to go staggering and flailing my way through the bars and back rooms, through the gleaming hotels and the weedy lots of abandoned sunflowers and the parks where dogs are let off their leashes in spite of the signs, where they sniff each other and roll together in the grass. I want to lie down somewhere and suffer for love until it nearly kills me, and then I want to get up again and put on that little black dress and wait for you, yes you, to come over here and get down on your knees and tell me just how fucking good I look.
--Kim Addonizio, 'For Desire'
I am not a patient person. When I can actually find something I want, I can find a way to get it. I like to play by the rules but have been known to bend them from time to time, when it counts. It is a way of saying I did not come here to lose. I brush my teeth when I am upset. I have not been that hungry lately. This might not be pretty but I have got to find a way to fight, to beat the odds, to prove to you I am worth it. I am learning to keep my damn mouth shut, to be a quiet thing every day even though it's eating me up inside. I will not say a word. I am trying.
Every time I meet someone new I want to start my entire life over again just for them.
"I'm partly somebody else trying to fit in and say the right things and do the right thing and be in the right place and wear what everybody else is wearing. Sometimes I think we're all trying to be shadows of each other, trying to buy the same records and everything even if we don't like them."
--'Go Ask Alice'
This is no longer about which route to take on the way back home. This is much more serious and more like a long line at the public bathroom; everyone is pissed off. I am only going to tell you this once and then I will tell you again because this is the type of thing you have little choice in, it's the flip of a coin and you're wiping the salt off your hands from the peanuts on the airplane saying I'm sorry and saying I am not sorry anymore. The house is in fact not on fire. I stand up and tape it to the wall but that does not mean I will see you soon. There is a dream some place that I gobble up and then it's gone. A life spent looking for you and all the excuses and I'm okays, then my own hands then just remember to breathe. Don't stop now.
In the beginning and at the end
We are everywhere and nowhere.
But it brought me to you
I keep wanting to give you
What is already yours
It is the morning
Of the mornings together
Breath of summer
Oh my found one
The sleep in the same current
And each waking to you
When I open my eyes
You are what I wanted to see
--W.S. Merwin, 'A Birthday'
Give me the strongest cheese, the one that stinks best; and I want the good wine, the swirl in crystal surrendering the bruised scent of blackberries, or cherries, the rich spurt in the back of the throat, the holding it there before swallowing. Give me the lover who yanks open the door of his house and presses me to the wall in the dim hallway, and keeps me there until I'm drenched and shaking, whose kisses arrive by the boatload and begin their delicious diaspora through the cities and small towns of my body. ... I want this world. I want to walk into the ocean and feel it trying to drag me along like I'm nothing but a broken bit of scratched glass, and I want to resist it. I want to go staggering and flailing my way through the bars and back rooms, through the gleaming hotels and the weedy lots of abandoned sunflowers and the parks where dogs are let off their leashes in spite of the signs, where they sniff each other and roll together in the grass. I want to lie down somewhere and suffer for love until it nearly kills me, and then I want to get up again and put on that little black dress and wait for you, yes you, to come over here and get down on your knees and tell me just how fucking good I look.
--Kim Addonizio, 'For Desire'
I am not a patient person. When I can actually find something I want, I can find a way to get it. I like to play by the rules but have been known to bend them from time to time, when it counts. It is a way of saying I did not come here to lose. I brush my teeth when I am upset. I have not been that hungry lately. This might not be pretty but I have got to find a way to fight, to beat the odds, to prove to you I am worth it. I am learning to keep my damn mouth shut, to be a quiet thing every day even though it's eating me up inside. I will not say a word. I am trying.
Every time I meet someone new I want to start my entire life over again just for them.
"I'm partly somebody else trying to fit in and say the right things and do the right thing and be in the right place and wear what everybody else is wearing. Sometimes I think we're all trying to be shadows of each other, trying to buy the same records and everything even if we don't like them."
--'Go Ask Alice'
This is no longer about which route to take on the way back home. This is much more serious and more like a long line at the public bathroom; everyone is pissed off. I am only going to tell you this once and then I will tell you again because this is the type of thing you have little choice in, it's the flip of a coin and you're wiping the salt off your hands from the peanuts on the airplane saying I'm sorry and saying I am not sorry anymore. The house is in fact not on fire. I stand up and tape it to the wall but that does not mean I will see you soon. There is a dream some place that I gobble up and then it's gone. A life spent looking for you and all the excuses and I'm okays, then my own hands then just remember to breathe. Don't stop now.
In the beginning and at the end
We are everywhere and nowhere.
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