My Poet Roommate Tells Me

She tramples in through my bedroom door and stands there

in the frame, hair a mess and the plumes of smoke from her

cigarette jumping through her hoops

She looks down at her pint glass—full of what—and dazing,

droopy-eyed,  breathes in the tension in the room.

Then she looks, I think at me, her petite and

boney body pointing a sharp finger without needing to even raise a hand.

She accuses me of “trying to finish a conversation already over”

wanting to “kiss the body of my lover, the one mouth,

the simple name without a shadow” and other countless things

as I tally up THE NUMBERS of everything she’s said so right.

She asks, much too loud for this hour of the afternoon

“WHAT DO WOMEN WANT?” and tells me.

Tells me what I want, as she sways a bit toward me,

arms with fingers, every one clad in silver rings, relaxed at her side

and plops herself onto my desk chair to say I’ve stolen her red dress.

The one that confirms his worst fears about her and

shows how little she cares about him

or anything except what she wants.

And she snickers, bluntly, how poorly it fits…

too flimsy and cheap for me.

She leans back and relaxing into her vodka-drowned mind

tells me that she knows. She knows “I can’t forget…”

she pauses, drifting the Virginia slim back between her lips, and

exhaling bursts out laughing about

“the long vein rising up along the underside of his cock”.

I wonder vaguely if she’s gone and fucked my man

however mine he isn’t anymore….and anyway

She asks me. Asks me to TELL HER if she’s going

to stop thinking about her losses now and listen to mine.

She tells me to tell her how I hurt and to dance with her

“dance with me while we fool ourselves.”

Then she’s whisper silent as she tells me

“starting things up was hasty, love” as I refuse to SPILL

and then I remember again

That she’s blunt and ugly

She lunges to punch me in my gut and sinks it

deep and penetrating ‘til I feel it in my chest,

when I’ve just held it all weighing there between my breasts.

She drowns me with my own sorrows and dilutes my words

to kool-aid while she pours out her straight Jack and I sip, direct

from her pages, hoping to strengthen my own.

+Written inspired by Kim Addonizio, a poet I have to "spend the semester with" as a "roommate" as an assignment for my intermediate poetry class. Really so excited that I chose her. She's going to be an awesome roommate to punch out some words with!

A few lines were "borrowed" from Kim from several poems found in her her poetry book Tell Me.

Social Death and Brain Abuse

The fine print is reading rest in peace

asking if I comprehend

I’m donating my brain

and they need permission to administer

21 units of substance

my heart climbs up in my throat,

constricting and convulsing;

lungs suffocated by my thoughts

burdened by books of biased words, and

sinking in stacks of stapled papers

I sign

21 units

wading through war-zones of un-washed  laundry

knee-high and wasting in the ground

mixed with smells of last week’s dirt and grime

from both the humid heat and the death of time.

The plague of Troy fogs my eyes as                       ENGL44H             MW 

Freud strikes a fire and fries my mind,                  PSYCH1                TBA

slowly peeling away delectable layers   

to taste the fear of failure as I lie,

mastering my female anatomy                                HLED4                   TBA

while telling tall tales with little words                   ENGL 27B              Th

that tickle the tongues of those thirsting                ENGL 27A              W

for something to compute in labs where               CPAS10                  TBA

tables have no use for chairs

but provide communication.                                   COMM10                M

21 units of venom sink and slither slowly

until that’s all I am,

fearing falling asleep in the battle-field of class

while running with no breaks

along dotted lines with the zig-zag of my name

signing away my life

just for the semester.

My First One Night Stand

It was late, but not late enough for closing time,

And we were just two young old people

with half too many beers and the heat of cinnamon schnapps

fogging our decisions as we sang too loudly to that Gotye song.

He leaned forward in his chair, beaming grin, stubble on his chin,

and pressed his leg way too hard into my thigh.

Game on, my brows answered before my tongue.

And that’s when we left the building.

For me to make a play and

wrap myself around him from behind.

For his breath to hitch just before he turned

to unleash a trail of kisses down my neck, and

strike a flame with the match-head of his finger, burning

slowly along my desire, down the valley between my breasts,

over the plains of my belly, and finally smoldering inside me.

In a blink we had voyeurs; a mommy-daddy date night,

gone terribly right as some stick-figure bumper-stickered gold Suburban

paused mid-street to enjoy a rarely-seen public mating ritual of the dark and urban jungle.

We proudly gave them quite a show,

until he licked his fingers clean of me while dialing for a cab,

attempting words from his mouth as I distracted him with the

flesh from the back of his neck gathered gently between my teeth.

And when the cab arrived, there appeared no driver present

as we tinkered and played with one another in the back seat of the car

before unwrapping each other as candy

In the industrial concrete stairwell of his building

where the current could no longer be contained

between our male and female circuitries.

We nearly melted the metal rails we held to,

As we soldered ourselves together.

And then: everything the way it was before.

His door closed, our clothes off, contemplating the pleasure of the couch,

but pulled into that too-familiar hallway on the left, and the room directly to the right.

Into those same blue sheets, nibbling, pulling, drinking in

the man I’d missed for months.

Mine, again.




+Written on 8/30/2012 for Jeff Epley's Fall 2012 Intermediate Poetry class. The assignment was to capture narrative elements in the poem.

On Cat Boxes and Laundry

She looks at me

Big green eyes made smaller, slightly,

slighting me a little.

I know she’s thinking

Why the fuck the dog

Gets fresh-cooked chicken

In extra virgin olive oil

While I scoop what we call

“chinese food” in her bowl.

A small helping

Of essentially nutritionless

Sawdust and pulp.

The package says chicken

But we aren’t entirely sure she

Isn’t eating cat

At ninety-nine cents a bag.

And I know she figures

If the dog does something annoying--

Say, persistent whooping cough

Or whining as bulbous glaucoma

Squeezes out her eye--

And gets a treat

Maybe she’ll receive the same.

So she stares at my mom—

The queen of the house—

As she enters into her bed chamber

And squats

To piss

On the queen’s

very treasured

Crown

pillow.

Dear Change

Dear Change,

I’m sorry but I

Can’t explain the

Strong aversion that I

Have for you and your

Inconsideration

Toward normalcy.

I get comfortable with my

Pocketbook and you come and short

Change the situation

With your lack of

Balance and stability.

I get comfortable with my

Man and he

Tells me he can’t

Change…when that’s the

Last thing that I would

Ever want him to do.

I get comfortable with a

Schedule (that I don’t follow

Anyway) and you come in and

Disregard my disregard and

Change it all around.

I don’t want things to always

Be the same

But I don’t want them to

Change

Me 

I feel…

Sincerely,

Stuck.