a thought

Dependent

It's late and I'm tired and I don't think I have something that resembles a poem within me. Though my poems are more like sentences cropped and cut and pasted onto somewhat arbitrary lines. But still. I'll just write this to you - curled up in my bed towards the wall, holding Wobby as though someone else isn't in the room - as though I'm whispering, almost silent, my thoughts to you as we lie on our California king, a fire going, in our cabin that nobody knows about. But us.

My father told me tonight to go to a website and fill out a form for financial aid. According to him, I am no longer a dependent for them and I'll need to try for federal support. I didn't ask questions, I'm going to assume, considering I have no money and no job and a year left of college to go, that they're still going to pay for my next year of life. But it did get me thinking. About being a dependent, being independent, and, as usual, my train of thought traveled me to you-

I have always been a romantic. In relationships. In "love" with one boy and then the next. I've always thrown myself into whomever I chose for that month or six months or year. And I thought I knew everything. I truly thought during my last relationship, after my last relationship, that I had seen everything and felt everything and been in every sort of like and love and fall apart there could be in this world. I was wrong.

I was in love with 'love'. Now I'm in love - with you.

I have never been able to spend so much time with someone, 24, 48, 72+ hours with my boyfriend and never get tired, never get annoyed or angry or yearning for a moment to breathe on my own. You dropped me off some six hours ago, maybe seven, and I miss you. I miss your hands and your eyelashes. I miss your smile and calming presence and the way I fit in your right arm as we switch the channels from one forgettable show to the next, quietly letting the unforgettable quality to the day sink, unnoticed, into our skin.

I have always smiled and wished to myself when I watched a couple in the grocery store: both past seventy and moving no faster than ten centimeters per minute, guiding each other to the jams and juices. I don't wish anymore. I look forward to, I calculate, I amaze myself at the amount of adoration I feel for you after almost an entire year. Some would argue my joyful proclamations and boasts - reminding me it's only been a year. I say: those lucky few who stand around a cake and talk with old friends and grandchildren at their 50th anniversary don't have an unthinkable amount on me. I've just spent a tumultuous, challenging, and beautiful year with you. We made it through, and I've never been more in love with you than I am right now - and I will be more tomorrow. I know now that this is it. This is what I dreamed of as a little girl, this is what I stupidly assumed I had before and never even began to grasp. I've had close to one year now with the only person I've ever known, and can ever imagine to know, who I can spend every waking moment with for days on end, and miss after an hour apart. I've done this for a year, never straying, never ceasing, never lessening - I can absolutely do it for 49 more. And more. More.

So life moves forward, and starting just about now I'm going to have a lot on my plate and a lot to think about and situate and take on, but I know I can do it. Because I am a dependent. I am dependent on you. And the best part is, while girls are usually the more emotional and attachable, and so you probably don't feel quite so much necessity for me as I do for you - you don't make me feel silly for it. You have never once made me feel bad for needing or wanting you so much, and even when you must say no to time together, you promise me we'll be together soon, and you tell me you love me. You are my absolutely everything. You are truly the one person I have devoted and will continue to keep my every emotion for - for the next 49 years or more and more, however long you want me. I adore you, buballoo. And I just had to whisper that to you before I fell asleep, curled up in your arms and so safe. So safe. Always.

I am a dependent. Dependent on you. On us. On the best thing I have even experienced in my life. On the best person I have ever known, and the one who knows, without even trying, how to comfort and complete and care for me. Thank you. Thank you for making me, letting me love you - a lock bridge lot. 

a poem written in the afternoon

College Relations

with the rush of semestered classes
paper, projects, printings of assigned readings
that i read and waste into the trash three days past
afternoons drawing squares upon the sidewalk
with friends who only desire a moment of youth
after super and before the work begins
hopscotch in the collegiate world
that attracts the unknown peer to marvel and try
a game just difficult enough
before continuing on to their dorm room,
study group, or work-out regimen
with schedules and subjects to learn and discuss
it is hard to keep up with the calmer moments
like this one here

to be in love steps quiet, understanding, into the background
of the academic clusters, the social demands
and knows that every now and again we'll return
to the moments of acknowledgement
like this one here
lying on a knowing bed in a rented apartment
on a sunday afternoon, just awoken

i watch you move, bent over,
gathering the lucky pieces of your clothing
that will make it to the wash in this
one-dark one-light load sort of day
and i realize the moment that love waited, patient,
for me to own

i've spent the last two days with you
hour after hour spent directly by your side
and we just move through it without thought
of why we aren't ready to part yet
we just keep our hips close on couches
and our hands on thighs or other hands
tracing back and forth the journey
of every vain and every digit

but, to bring this to an end
and to the point i lie here slightly smiling
as i contemplate:

i feel like once you reach a year it is assumed
in the general consensus, in between the both of us,
that we love each other. the end.
it is no longer new, it is known we'll be together
for as long as the other will stand,
and the novelty seems to tire.

but here, on this idle 18th of some month of a year,
i watch you pick up laundry in boxers
that only get use at the end of clean clothes
with the t-shirt you wore yesterday - hair dripping

and i know your hair smells of coconut conditioner
bought last week and already familiar to me,
and your sides will smell of Old Spice,
and your eyes will hide a blue within the green
when you glance up as you empty the trash
to make sure i haven't somehow vanished from your bed
since a minute ago when you glanced last

and i think that maybe the beauty between us
is not that we love each other,
as two can do even when they aren't right,
but that i really like you.
after reaching this place where i know more than anyone
about your thoughts unspoken, your ticks, your movements,
i like the way you speak
the slow drawl that is less than apparent but underneath your words
the different little laughs you do, the way you work on anything
in a way that makes your hands seem too big for the job
and the clumsy moments that are countless throughout a day.
i like your hopeless forgetfulness
and how you are so easily distracted while you drive
and i like the way you look at me
when i ask you a question while you have a mouthful of mouthwash.

i like these things and so many more
that as i lie here thinking about the multitude
i think that maybe this is what being in love is, after all.
a forever feeling that can sit dormant
while the papers are written and the friends are met with
because eventually, we will come to this bed and end together
a 72-hour span
in which we never tired of each other
not once.

(jb)

a poem perhaps too poetic

Daydream

i dreamt of you last night.

i was sorting cards into piles of their suits,

sitting in shallow water,

and it appeared that at the end of the sand

that i carelessly burrowed my feet into

a deep, dark water extended forever.

we were at the end of the world, it seemed.

you sat behind me on the shore

a yard or so away, sharing banter with the boys

passing around what i knew wasn't Camel

and i knew would enhance the day -

calling to me every once in a while to hurry up

so we could start playing.

and i sat smiling, singing, sorting.

i turned to glance your way

and assure you i was almost done

when a dripping mountain arose from the calm

spontaneous and lethal - just off shore

and coming close quick.

i rushed to pile the cards and excavate my toes

when i was pulled in

and thrown up into the wave -

holding tight to the deck and balling my body into a shell

as though my spine would protect me.

i was in this state  of wet and whirl and turmoil

for quick some time and then,

as if the wave was a wall

and all you had to do was reach in and pluck me from it,

you reached in

and you plucked me from it.

you carried me through shallow waters and sat me on a stone

with blue green waters all around and coy fish

wondering what all the fuss was about.

still holding tight to the cards

that had lived shortly as my lifeline i said:

"i think i dropped some" in a pitiful, worn voice -

looking up at you with tired eyes.

you smiled warm and big

and gave me a look - that look

you give when im pitiful and adorable -

apologizing for something that isnt my fault.

"its ok Jess," you said, wiping seaweed from my shoulder

and placing salty strands of hair behind my ear,

"i brought a second deck just in case."

and then i awoke to you kissing my neck

and nuzzling your nose into my collarbone.

i love you. i love you. i do.

(jb)

billy collins: carry

Carry
by:Billy Collins 

I want to carry you

and for you to carry me

the way voices are said to carry over water.

Just this morning on the shore,

I could hear two people talking quietly

in a rowboat on the far side of the lake.

They were talking about fishing,

then one changed the subject,

and, I swear, they began talking about you.

a poem written in one sharpe glance

Togetherness

Wednesday started with a promise of love and lust
an ending to the afternoon and morning
that i could look forward to - salivate to
during the driest moments of my day.

Last night you wanted time to yourself -
an evening to relax and get some sleep,
however blissful you may find it
in the absence of me.

But now you climb into the soccer-mom van,
a rental from over-obliging parents
to a child in a rivet he doesn't want to take the time
to climb from,

and drive away -
four hours time from when you said you'd be back
to pick me up and have our night.
And i look over again once more
the words i sent to you tonight
over the too-easy technology
that we are blessed and plagued with in our modern world.

Yes: i was unreasonable, unabashed, and unfeeling,
in complete disarray and dis-control of my feminine whiles
in this horrid time of monthly terror

but you didn't fight.









You never fight or try

to change my mind,
to reel me in,
to remind me of the promise you have always made
for that night i so look forward to.

You simply drive away
and move forward in the nothingness
you have now accepted as your everyday

as though one night doesn't matter,
as though one broken promise is justified in circumstances,
as though my reaction allows your chill,
as though it will all be better tomorrow
because it always will.

But if you keep taking
from the basket between us that is love
and cant find a way to put some back

we slowly
surely
melt
then
break.

(jb)

a poem on athleticism

Look at You - 
You Don't Know How to Play Basketball

you're not even moving

with apathetic motions you force

heavy feet around the court

not because they are inherently sluggish

but because they are unversed in this particular play.

the confidence and determination i see in you

kicking a soccer ball in detrimental moments or light-hearted games

has vanished and in its place is

unsteady effort to pass the time with friends -

leaning in to your ball-holding counterpart

with a cheeky grin of mutual understanding.

the civil competition will end

and you will walk to the lunchroom

to combine your comrades and anecdotes with mine

and we will sit at a round table exchanging playful banter

before all will go their separate ways

and you and i will end up alone

cuddled on a familiar couch in your apartment across town

watching late-night television and speaking little more than

to whisper the occasional reminder when we feel its been too long

since the last indication of love

and when our eyes grow heavy

and the shows begin to bore our tired ears

we will save just enough energy to listen to

a few more whispers in the dark as we fall to sleep

side by side and completely disregarding of the fact

that you don't know how to play basketball.

(jb)

a quick verse on teaching

A Life in Service

I walk into the classroom and i check the thermostat,
I straighten up the rows of where they'll sit and where they've sat.
I put a box of crayons back into it's given place.
I step into the powder room to freshen up my face.
The bell with ring, the children come - a frenzy through the door
and i will show them things that they have never seen before.
It won't all be smooth sailing, but when they look up and smile
because they finally understand - i'll know my life's worthwhile.

(jb)