Monday, May 19, 2014

Happenstance

I am terrified of when I will happen.
Not of what will happen to me, not
of what I must endure
but of what I am going to inflict
and affect.
I am going to happen to someone.
I want to happen hard and fast
and be lasting
but what if
I am soft like water
and happen like mist
without the hardness of rain
without its stinging insistence
what if I happen
fleetingly
like dew
like vapor
what if I don't happen at all?
What I know is that I can survive.
We default to survival, to endurance.
I am terrified not of defaulting
but of not happening --
of being embryonic
and unrealized.
and I am terrified of happening also
because I know
the effects
of being happened upon.
Perhaps the most terrifying of all
is living
with the intolerable pain
of paradoxical wishing.

Sunday, May 4, 2014

Namesake

The way I say your name is different
from the way I say anyone else's.
It sounds fuller, rounder...
as though my tongue and teeth are
trying to ball it up and push it
towards the back of my throat because
your name belongs inside me, not exposed
and in the air
where anyone can use it.