experiment two.

rubber

there was comfort in the sound
of the rubber stamp
being gently peeled off,
the slight sticking
a hesitation to leave behind a part of itself.
placed on a box
or a card
or a tin bucket
it hung there like a colorform moon.

funny
how, with stamps,
what's cut out
makes the biggest impression.

experiment three.

thursday.

it's my worst habit. 

not my parroting of things i find funny 

or of watching juno when my heart aches

or of pretending to text when i'm alone.

this one is both insignificant 

and monumental.

january 25, 2011-thursday.

damn.

tuesday.

it's second-nature

habitual.

the mystery as to why is never solved

but i'm guessing it's because i was born on a thursday.

the way the letters curve

the angle of the cross i add haphazardly;

it makes me feel like i've come home

like i belong in the middle of it all,

after the birth

and before the goodbye party.

fashionably late

in scratched out headers

and introspective smiles.

this isn't what i really wrote.

think in cinematography. 

i see us from the camera's point of view.

you can understand, then, why i become frustrated

when the scenes i had captured in my mind

can't be replayed.

i'm glad that we're living together.

i thank god

for putting us in the same place at the same time.

that's how i keep the hope

that you deem a defense mechanism.

you're the only person who'll follow my thoughts

but not my actions.

taffy-tongued this is too unfamiliar.

experiment one.

pocket.

naked struggling hands,

there's more to me than what i was born with.

i keep the mechanical gears

that keep my mind moving

in pockets.

they lie close to my skin,

warm and almost alive.

when my tongue

and ears,

pores and nails

fail to communicate my incessant need for order

or the solidarity that i seek

i dig in the narrow burrows

searching for the pieces of me

that god deemed unnecessary. 

in pockets

we hide secret smiles

and unanticipated comfort.

there's more to us than

naked struggling bodies.

no recollection of this

a snapshot of a girl

an eggplant with crystal eyes turning a corner

a woman three years older than me clutching a child

and i'm alone like i started.

dear guy who was on the 11a with me,

you looked like you had good taste in music. i should have said something when we both got off at hillsdale.

sincerely,

the girl with the same coat as you from across the aisle