miffy + poetry

i like miffy / i also like to write / they/them

[clover-writes-poetry]

"wooden payphone"

i almost throw up your favorite color when my parents bring you up at least once a week

something about the way you sound from their lips makes me feel like i am disrespecting who i made you out to be

i want to peel back my skin and grow a new set of hands but i do not have time before the winter blows my bones into the river

i prayed on my knees somewhere between a week and a month later after putting money in a wooden payphone and wishing i heard your voicemail

at the intersection of your street and mine i left my favorite book in a free library box in hope that you would think about me

i saw mrs. bailey's pre-teen with it three hours or three days later, the cover dangerously hanging out of her backpack as she ran towards her mother, and i cursed myself for being stupid

i am embarrassed that you once knew my full name

and i think i will remember yours sometime between my sixteenth and twenty-third birthdays as i clutch a photo with your initials on the back in my shaking hands

i move in and out of my grandma's old house because i don't think i belong anywhere that isn't an hour and fifty-six minutes from right here

you welcomed me back but i do not trust your eyes to tell me the truth anymore

somehow i feel as though you wish you never met me because i am so self-destructive and i can convince myself you have always hated me at the turn of a dime

i spend close to twenty-five seconds and twelve years waiting for the other shoe to drop on the carpet in front of me so i can say goodbye to the ghosts of your laughter that follow me home

i see their reflections in the puddles behind my muddy shoes and i will myself to walk a little faster so i do not have to hear them anymore

i don't go back to the wooden payphone but i get your new number from an old friend and pin it to my wall so i can call you from the river next winter

[clover-writes-poetry]

"breaking + entering"

I'm falling from your second story window  

That's how it starts  

Every now and then I end up crying in your bathtub  

With your map of the world shower curtain wrapped around my shoulders like a blanket  

I can always hear you downstairs, but you never come up to see what the noise is  

Distorted music comes from the car, and I hum along to Lucy in the Sky from your backyard garden  

You go to work every day and I hide in your spice drawer, smelling like cinnamon and nutmeg for a breath  

I talk to your cat when he looks at me like he knows I'm there   

You go grocery shopping and I sit in your cart under a bag of apples that’ll rot on your counter for a week  

You leave for a vacation, and I try to hide in your suitcase  

But instead, I sleep in your bed every night you’re gone  

When you come back you won’t even notice me sitting at your dining room table and watching you in the kitchen   

[clover-writes-poetry]

"promise"

i spent so much time with your head in my lap i forgot what it felt like when it wasn’t there 

maybe i should’ve held onto the wisps of you that were stuck to my sweater and kept them a box inside my heart 

i think i’ll be forever chasing the feeling i left on your back patio two years ago in some version of the past 

the last time i really slept was in your sheets staring up at the constellation of your face  

i find an excuse to bring you up at every chance i get 

mentioning you to the cashier at 7/11, telling my grandma about your latkes 

even when your jaw slipped from my fingers like sand from an hourglass 

and under the cover of night i still listen to songs you like and wish i could banish myself to go live in the field behind the graveyard 

among the skeletons and the dead flowers 

do you ever think about the flowers i gave you that sat on your windowsill for 3 months? 

sometimes i wonder if you look at them while you brush your hair in the morning in front of the photos of us stuck to your mirror 

almost identical to the ones on the corkboard in the kitchen 

breakfast at 7 am, your voice in my ear, the rush that came with boiling water, our favorite plates on the drying rack 

i miss you when you’re next to me and i wish i could reach out to tell you that 

imaginary fingers choke the back of my neck and i settle for watching you make dinner instead 

i loved it when you cooked, i told you that once 

you shrunk away from my voice and went back into the kitchen  

but i could see your face light up in the reflection of the white tile 

when you came home after work with a blue toaster i knew i was done for 

a week later i found us teacups on someone's doorstep 

we put on a record we didn’t care about, and you had your hair tied up in the kitchen 

making a pasta dish we’d had 100 times 

i poured the wine into our mugs, toasting to your hips as i raised my fork to yours 

in the dining room i’d eat your weapons first because i have always been disarming  

with your armor gone maybe you would let it be me who got to hold your hand under the table as if someone was watching us  

we said grace for our own religion and when i opened my eyes your hand was resting on my plate 

that night i put up a shrine to your name in the corner of our living room 

you laughed when i made heart cookies and they turned out as misshapen lumps  

pressing a kiss into my cheek you assured me they were just as good  

i used the nice jam we bought at the farmers market in midtown  

lines blurred between love and need as we spent all weekend writing the laws of our new country  

were you laughing when we walked around the city for three hours trying to find your favorite ramen place? 

i don’t remember but in the photo sitting on my dresser you were smiling, mouth full of noodles, eyes bright with joy 

when i signed the check, you made fun of how i write my ys and i snaked an arm around your waist in a way that seemed almost overfamiliar 

months later i stand in our bedroom door and pretend that i know a thing about love and anger and you 

i think this is what they wrote about, when i read that love is falling 

because i don’t know where the floor is 

because i know it’ll hurt when we hit the ground 

at one point i promised myself that i could be a person without you 

[i broke that promise 3 months and 2 years later when i lay on the cold tile floor and cried]

[clover-writes-poetry]

"metal mouth"

i bite the inside of my cheek so hard it bleeds

i watch you and her as if i’m watching a movie i don’t want to be at

she laughs and i think about drowning myself in a cup of soup when i get home 

her head rolls back on the seat and i feel sick to my stomach when you smile at something she says 

my only reassurance is the way you used to look at me

you turned your body away from mine, so i was looking at your back and i pretended not to notice

the sound of your laugh aches in my skull

i don’t tell you because you look so happy 

somehow when i’m sitting next to you i  feel so empty that drinking the atlantic ocean wouldn’t fill me up

you turn back towards me and i don’t look because i think it’d break my heart 

i laugh at the things she says because i feel like i’m supposed to find them funny  

i want to be a first choice for someone but i am stuck being the back up while your eyes flash with something unrecognizable 

i think i might hate her

it makes me feel like a bad person but i think i might

because i get a horrible hole in my chest and i’ve cried my eyes out the last 2 times i’ve had to be around you together

i know you’re not looking at me 

but sometimes i can feel your eyes burning holes between my shoulder blades

sometimes i hope you think i’m pretty

but then i remember what it feels like to be thrown to the wolves and i curl up into myself to avoid being bitten 

i think i might hate her but at some point i feel less like a bad person and more like i am protecting myself from being hurt

because i wish you would choose me but at the end of the day you don’t

it kills me that i didn’t expect you to

[clover-writes-poetry]

"good luck, babe!"

she smiles at you briefly and it feels like the sun has kissed your face

you watch her play basketball, cheering like you understand the sport

she pulls her boyfriend over to you and tells him that you’re her best friend

you smile at him, but you know it doesn’t reach your eyes

when you get home that night you press your face into your pillow and try not to think about how pretty she looks with him 

she laughs at something you said in class the next day, walking with you to lunch and taking you to sit with her friends that you don’t really talk to

your hands brush hers and she doesn’t pull them away, instead leaving them hanging dead in the air next to yours

God must be punishing you because why else would He put you in this situation akin to a hell

she breaks up with her boyfriend and you spend an hour in front of the mirror practicing the face you will make when she tells you

you didn’t want to look happy, even though you were

she comes to your house and you call her baby as you open up your arms and she crashes into you

she falls asleep with her head in your lap, your sister gives you a knowing look before she heads up to bed

you pick her up from your lap and carry her upstairs to your room and you turn away from her before falling asleep, but when you wake up her arm is snaked around your waist

you get closer after this, she waits for you to come out the theater every afternoon, 30 minutes after her basketball practice ends, still in her uniform clothes, leaning against the hood of her mom’s subaru, smiling like you are the summer sun

she stays over most nights and sometimes you wake up to her making breakfast with your mom and pouring coffee for your dad

she laughs at your brother’s dumb jokes and she comes with you to watch your sister’s volleyball games

you think it might be love but you don’t know if she thinks that

you’ve caught her staring at you more than once, maybe not lovingly, but with a look of curiosity like she doesn’t know what to do with you

school ends and summer begins and somewhere along the way she becomes your everything

she sleeps in your bed and picks you up at work and takes you to the beach when you ask her to

she doesn’t try to introduce you to her old friends and you don’t try to bring her to tuesday night book club but you know when you get home she will be there waiting for you

sometimes you wonder what it would be like to kiss her and you find yourself wishing you could

she has to get up with the sun one morning and you feel her lips ghost your forehead like she thinks you’re still asleep

your parents take your siblings to miami one weekend and she stays with you the whole time

at some point you push her into your pool and she chases revenge with her lips

an hour later you climb out, swimsuit in hand, her arms never leaving your body as you wander into the house

you proclaim your bed to be your holy land and she rewrites the bible in the curve of your hips

from then on you do not let her go

she is your God and you kneel before her whenever she asks you to

you fall in love in fireworks, short bursts of bliss that worm their way into your heart and prepare to hibernate for what seems like it will be a long winter

she holds your hand like she thinks you’re going to leave her but you are already planning the nursery for your second child

you think you might love her but it is her who says it first