masochist love poem

I am such a fucking masochist
you're breaking my heart
and in between tears and
non-existent emails
I think "that poor man.
I hope he's okay"

Patterns, patterns
repeated for twenty years
I'm so quick to give myself away
and leave so little for myself
clenched fists, early mornings
it infuriates me to think
you may consider my
sweet, open loving heart
for a sign of weakness
when in the long run
I was the strong one
and you were just
a fucking coward

Seeking Books for Review

I've got lots of time on my hands lately so if anyone has a book coming out and is interested in having it review by me, please let me know.

Janice Brabaw
c/o Tangled Up In Blue Productions
629 Grand Street
Brooklyn NY 11211

I'd be interested in book exchange as well.

chasm

how long can you call out a lost lover's name
when you can't even hear the echo of your voice
in the chasm he has dug before you?

my best intentions smashed, crushed like glass
no longer can I pine and worry about men
who will not even honor the past with a proper goodbye

away

i am turning blue
from holding my breath
i am turning cold
huddled up next to
the corpse of "us"

I am bruised from
kicking myself in the ass
for all the mistakes I made
So many apologies i sent you
that you never even acknowledged

you have pushed me so far away
when all I wanted was to be close
I've been living in dread
waiting for you to tell me to go
but I never imagined
that you of all people
would break your promise
to never ignore me
to never disrespect me
or strip me of humanity and compassion
and just hope that I'd take my heart
and go away

to softness

you mistook my devotion
as a betrayal of myself
but perhaps it was only a surrender
to softness

you trembled when I said "you only"
as if I was trying to steal in the night
the lit and dark of the depths in you
as if I was trying to rape and plunder
the very breath inside your lung

I saw your vulnerable and your blue
you built walls of ice and said
look here baby, you can see right in
but as I kissed and touched and
grew red and frostbit and oh so
insecure in my ability to melt
and drink the essence
when I said
look here baby, I need a little help
I don't think that I
can ever be enough
if I stay sane, if I fall to crazy
or just reject the validity
of everything I knew I needed
and you would not give
not even lend

I refuse to question
the ripeness
the rightness
the glory and tartness
the sweet and the saintly
of my simple and complex
my precious and rare
adoration
fireworks
you ignore
you bruise
you refuse to accept
despite given
with only the pretense
of strings
hypercolor
they only appear
when in question
when in doubt
of worthiness

but you were
honey
but you were
something to believe in
but you were
appreciated and adored
but you were.

these are the reasons I call your name
why I try beyond all reason
to scatter and settle and start over
in the hours we first exhaled
side by side
possibility on our tongues
when we awoke
when we tried
when we held each other safe and cherished
if not yet loved
if not yet loved

if not ever loved
potential energy
kinetic motion

neither created nor destroyed
bubbly shifting tao
the gurgle in my heart
the heat of my hands
where does it go
when the other side of my bed
becomes so cold

funhouse

the ceiling today seems absurdly low
I noticed as I lay on the floor
back to the tile, breath even
and yes, that trio of lightbulbs
seem so much closer and the funhouse
slant of my tilted house I can almost
trace with fingers that before could
never reach

this carpet is thicker, somehow, undeniably
i light a cigarette, i avoid the ash
I am sinking deep into newly plush threads
on my elbows, elbow-deep in crusty soft paint
I am writing words on cardboard
I imagine that if I ever see you again
I'll hold my sign up and if you still know your name
You'll come and sit and find me and explain

you said to go slow, i didn't know how until
i had crashed and as I recovered my carcass
from the burnt and twisted wreck I recognized
the state of our affair and I ran away
I hid in shadows and re-wrote poems
I jumped on a bus and swore I'd sit in the darkness
of the country that I fear more than death
I swore I'd sit there and look into it's heart
and I'd figured out what I had to do
to keep you and find myself

you said to me that you just wished
that I liked myself more
I could only say "me too"

but now your wish has true
I've fallen back in love with myself
as I've fallen out of love with you

Edge

I am bruised, lover, I am hoarse and sore
Your fingerprints, blue and fading
Indelible, still on my skin
Your taste is forgotten

I wait on the edge of my bed
Wrapped in my seafoam sheets
I wait to see if you will kiss me goodbye
Before you leave, like you always did before