Poems
POEMS OF LUCAS REGAZZI Content from 1000scientists.com
This will be my 8th untitled document And the last document I’ll need to complete Every last sentence, I’ll speak this to you in confidence, that I know now That we are the same heart Because hurt is inevitable, and although hurt seems stronger than any of your last I love you’s and any of your beautifully woven hurricane thoughts About how you feel We still knock on each others’ door to hear the heart’s footsteps anxiously run closer to welcome us in But before I let you love Kick off your shoes, please Destroy your shoes, set fire to your fucking shoes Because I’ve been walking bare through the muds of empty promises and frost ridden blades of grass and rocks so sharp they could Cut my soles and you’d be bled of me, whole-heartedly Swept away like a red nile, overflowing this whole damned city Of hurt so bad I’ve had to catch my breath perchance I’d exhale every second thought I’ve had of simply abrogating your existence Of canker soars from all of the deeply salted wish chips that I’ve wished, for one more kiss, or two more kisses Of regretting turning myself inside out A dandelion waiting for October until the wind dries out And all is left is an unlovable, bulbous stem Children stomp on flowers like that Well, most that is This was going to be a Sad poem A I’ll never hold you again poem A dissolving of apparent sweet nothings that tasted as sweet as anything real that I’ve allowed myself to indulge in But you stopped me Told me you needed time That the clock in your room wasn’t big enough for the hope that you had that one day things would work That gears were grinding in these clocks, they’re just too small to hear And there are millions of grains of sands in this hourglass of years But it’s only been two weeks, and fear haunts the senses Making each touch feel like 500 volts, and I illuminate my darkest secrets The amount of times I’ve resisted the urge to hold your hand, many, the hateful words I’ve constructed, plenty, The worth I had when you slipped and pulled my hand to the pavement,
pennies And as you remove your vest and hang it up On the rack closest to my aorta I want you to know that my heart is your home And that, we all fuck up sometimes Even this January rains Even dandelions turn white and old But that doesn’t make them any less than they ever were This is my 8th untitled document The one that will outshine the 7 bitter storms of words that I couldn’t write I love you for stopping me
Sometimes I feel as though I’m going insane Like I’m a child again, revved with fury in my head About never getting what I want and having every explanation for why I should be Or why everyone else should be Now, tell me if I’m being foolish, but am I the only one In search of spiritual communion? Something holy, but not anything that could be found At the alter, more like In the parking lot outside, where the blood is not consumed but rushed up With hiked skirts and true sin, passion and bite marks on every last goose bump that Trails your neck like an uncharted map, w ith each protrusion signifying an adventure to be had And your hair draping your face like a confessional Let us make like the host and share ourselves Feast on each other Because I know I lacked a father, and your face tells of lost valour So, who cares? We all have chunks missing, lets fit together like the fucked up puzzle that we are Because I’m tired of this soul playing bumper cars With every passing possibility of someone who could be something And I want nothing less than a naked soul, nothing poisoned by a guard
I remember sneaking out of bed at three AM in a sleep-deprived panic when my parents’ old and breaking hearts echoed off of the taupe walls and into my ears, age nine. I was fearful that it was my fault when I decided that I didn’t want to do the dishes (I’m sorry). Tip toeing with the elegance of a toy soldier; I hid behind the Christmas tree that was up one month too early for presents and I peeked into the living room. I was bright orange like a firefly on the wall, eavesdropping. Half of my face was lit by nothing but the screams of the fireplace and the heat of them trying to pick up the pieces. I’m glad we moved away from Ravendale, into that big, new house on Jenkinson because I would have never stopped searching the floor for any left over shards. Mom, I know you would have too, but you liked to vacuum. As if thirty years of your life could fit inside of a two inch wide tube. Sometimes I wonder when your love went sour or when your heart turned bitter or when ninety seven point nine degrees farenheit became a mere ninety seven. Was it when he made love with his work? I’m sure at twenty one in a white dress and his white shirt every love looks better in wor ds; in a vow to always pick up his underwear from behind the bathroom door, but I don’t think you cared much for laundry, either . As I was in the garage just now, having one last cigarette for the evening I remembered what you’d said about fate, specifically ours and that things would be different had Nora not died. That this wo uld all be different. And so I romanticized about different like different meant bet ter. As if different meant perfect: I would be in New York City, I would have never been foolishly in love, Nora would have taught her son how to be a husband and taught you to be happy. When I peeked into the living room, Grammy couldn’t do much to hold me back, but I’m sure if she were here she would have told us that different does not mean perfect.
It feels weird Writing you out like a distant idea. Understanding that my words have made you a memory, kind of like the mulberry tree that I used to pick from or a girl called Laura from my childhood, who is admittedly my first love. You are the second love that I’ve felt the need to make a memory. You are, however, the first I’ve felt like my words are a courtesy, or my thoughts are excessive. Instead of a splinter, I thought a forest of you. You were a mosquito bite treated like a storm of locusts. You have not made me bleed as much as this poem wants me on a hospital bed. I am not here, wishing for Winter or pleading for a handshake. I am only sad that all you’ve done is made me in between. I am a crack in the sidewalk, I am a mattress cover, I am holding a plane ticket, I am dissonance. I may be torn. But I am not drowning, I am not breathing, my soul is soggy like a wet napkin after a cup of coffee has fallen in love with the floor.
And then the sun shone brighter, even if it was through the slits of t he blinds that cage the windows and all things that I need to run through. I could see, though barely, the fields of flowers that I could graze with my hands, feel life’s colours and smudge the palettes onto the blank canvas of my skin. Though life has this funny way of dissolving your vulnerability to the greatest incubus. I sat quietly as you pulled me by the hairs of my neck, bleeding as your nails dug into my mind, scorning me. I’m scorned, I’m scorned, I’m scor ned. Belittling the treasures I’ve found, of these infinitesimal fucking slits through the window by ripping the coverings off t he glass, pushing hard; my face to the frost, showing me the world like you are seeing it, like you want me to see it, like you want me to push you off but you don’t. You long for me to be colourblind, frail with regret and betrayal and the nonsense of wilting but I’m a young, hopeless dreamer who is far too young to dissolve.
SMALL
You’re not doing well and finally I don’t have to pretend to be so interested in your on going tragedy, but I’ll rob the bank that gave you the impression that money is more fruitful than words, and I’ll cut holes in the ozone if it means you have one less day of rain. I’ll walk you to the hospital, I’ll wait in a white room that reeks of hand sanitizer and latex for the results from the MRI scan that tries to locate the malady that keeps your mind guessing, and I want to write you a poem every day until my hand breaks and assure you that you’ll find your place, it’s just the world has a funny way of hiding spots fertile enough for bodies like yours to grow roots. and I miss you like a dart hits the iris of a bullseye, or a train ticket screams 4:30 at 4:47, I wanted to tell you that it’s my birthday on Thursday and I would have wanted you to give me the gift of your guts on the floor, one last t ime, to see if you still had it in you. I hope our ghosts aren’t eating yo u alive. If I’m to speak for myself, I’ll te ll you that the universe is twice as big as we think it is and you’re the only one that made that idea less devastating.
Dewy August: I’m having a cigarette at a time where I’d normally be a few hours into rest, at six in the morning, a suburban soundtrack of commuter traffic still faint enough in the wind and my breath, a thick cloud coating new air. My brain says twelve degrees but I’m aproned in thoughts warm enough to light a forest fire. August, you will be trying, and August I will try my best not to panic over September’s return, but August, you must promise me that you will hold my hand until the very last day, where our goodbye will leave me fragmented; a catalogue of sorts, secre ts of the summer, the faded heart ache of Winter, you must keep it until the next time we meet, a year today, to show me how much I’ve grown.
It wasn’t beautiful. A Winter wedding is a union of elation and depression, red velvet blankets in a cheap motel room stained with semen from sex de void of meaning, and black mold clinging to the fringe of floral shower curtains like a heap of dead forevers. You sat down at the foot of the bed, looking at me like I had already driven away. I was thinking about watching CNN. How fucked up is that? I wanted to know that your second hand, off-white dress, and my black polyester bow tie wasn’t as tragic as a hurricane devouring a suburb, or a train derailment in no where, Virginia, ending the lives of t wo young college hopefuls. I was naïve. I thought that there were as many right ways to feel love as the amount of pubic hair, belly lint, and scratch marks abandoned by lovers in our honeymoon suite. When you looked at me in bed that night, I put my hand on your chest to feel a little more human. I don’t know what to call you; a name does not describe the aches, o r lack of. This love is unusual and comfortable. If you were to leave, I know I’d search for days, in newspapers and broadcasts, in car accidents and exposés on genocide in Kosovo. (How do I address this? How is one to fe el about a love without a name?) My heart would be ambivalent, too scared to look for you behind the curtains of the motel window, outside in the abyss of powder and pay phones because I don’t know how to love you.
Perhaps you’re fascinated by the contours of my cheeks with skin like bed sheets that hide all of the complexities of what’s underneath, and present an image of simplicity (that is easier to digest than skipping heart beats for hairy legs). I wonder if these next six nights of not having to feel so alone will make you wondrous in keeping me as a bedside table: to place your hard times on before you get the forty winks your eyes need to glisten in the midday light of my bedroom. And it’s hard to fall back into sleep when I’ve fallen in love with studying the one that lies next to me. I wonder if you’ve found landscapes in my elbows like I’ve found ebbing tides in your forehead. Perhaps your love for me is flee ting, and you’ll have moments where you consider tearing yourself even further apart, but as soon as it’s possible you close your eyes again, fall out of the thought and back into sleep. But, perhaps you’ll keep me as a bedside table: to place your brain things in my cupboards, to place your step dad in my cupboards, to place your sad eyes in my drawers, to put your heart ache in my mouth, your desire for love in bite mar ks on my neck, and your misty breath in my ears whispering ‘you are so important to me’.
i’m starting to lose the memory in my fingers’ tips, blades that once carved the bones in your head now lie dull at my writing desk — i have yet to move my hands to write important prose or grocery lists (i look to the bruised apple, perched at the corner of the table as if a threat of suicide) — i only have the effort to scribble and re-scribble reminders in my brain to buy cigare ttes (although these words never have e nough time to weather). Divine Apatheia, if You’re alone, i’m alone. i know that doesn’t make sense, it’s just that everyone else’s unholiness frightens me. say, if i were to wed a dangerous love, a painful surrender, i’d tap, tap, force nails into these knees, become anxious, fidgety, and write, ache, write — feverishly about what it used to be like t o run — with scissor fingers, sculpting poetry int’your bones
If I were asked to recount the day (count backwards, churning seconds into the mound that makes a year), when I touched our nitrogen dipped earth and it shattered itself into symmetry or asymmetry (depending on your vantage ), I would reserve that kind of sor row for a self that loves itself without question. These words (entwined with frozen dew, shards of grass, an image of your body lying bare against my belly) are tainted. you edit my words as I churn ink into poetry, churn wine into courage, grind pity into more sorrow into concrete, gradually mixing and patching pieces of the world back – together. Back, together – back together – these words are still two pounds too heavy. If I recount the day that had me transferring between lines on the subway (my home, uprooted – your bed, unscathed – all of the important things of an elephant weight), I would blame my hands for their lack of grace, blame the sun for its cowardice, the moon championed that day (the day I almost leapt from my dorm window, alongside the meaning that fled so far from my finger nails, my laundry bin, the Isis in your eyes). you watched me reduce myself to a child in need of a ward, an intervention, nodding at strange questions, fe igned clench-tooth smile – and yet a year is a mound. I’ve seen it all collapse, and then unfold into something I don’t quite know yet. Soon, time will don new meaning to sure ground, I’ll look back to a day, bound in leather, that reads more like a history of fighting for.
