My Astronomical Heart

[myastronomicalheart]

Numbers

only I would carry the heavy sense  of the marker of another year or the amount of purposeful missteps that lead me to this sorry dimension in which only I can exist

and only i would unravel sense from a knitted ugly sweater of regret like texting the back of your head from a busy street and receiving a “who is this” back like being uninvited to the party, again.

out of forty-one thousand, seven hundred and ten, this is the poem on the back of my hand.

have you ever reread a book and found it’s not as good as before? and in the back of your mind you can brag about your favorite some crafted love in obscurity, even though a romance is sitting paperback against the headboard. i have found your bile poems pinned above your desk at a temporary place always high, and high rent but a good distance.

a tonal shift in the weather your atonal atonement at the end of our road trip there was not a day of placidity, not a day for me, at least, of lucidity, and still i dream in restrictive hues take me in any shade of blue your favorite shirt or a vein in your eye or hell, even mine.

holy unwanted god, i am sewn into you. cramming all my memories into a closet with one shelf i still have the files. ! Memory is Full

k.e.s. April 2014

[composernevercomposed]

Only I would carry the heavy sense Of the marker of another year Or the amount of purposeful missteps That lead me to this sorry dimension In which only I can exist.

[myastronomicalheart]

whenever they mention a death in the next town over

i immediately hope that i will have another chance to say to you,

"for god's sake, just leave me alone."

[myastronomicalheart]

sometimes you end up in the archives of a past life...

and you're listening to a spotify playlist called "darkness" consisting of mostly songs exes recommended to you

and you're just like how did i get here

[composernevercomposed]

it is an unfinished poem i left on the floor

when i moved out of that rectangle they call a residence.

my footprints stamped the words on the walk to the shower

where i promptly purged them and tried to hide

i think that someone who has such dictation over my respiration

should not allow “stupid” anywhere near “your aspirations”

and so you’re very clear on the fact 

that i am teetering on a heart attack,

in fact,

who else drove me to the hospital at four a.m.

but what is the difference between attacks

when it’s panic or heart it’s still a physical fact

that my life is in danger

[myastronomicalheart]

have you ever walked a long way in the cold

to step into the smell of warm leather of luxury

and you can see the freeze roll by you, black and white

and you know you have to step out again sometime

and somehow that chills your aching bones

even though the heat is still surrounding you?

every day spent with him is like that.

k.e.s. 2.16.14

[myastronomicalheart]

i had a dream last night that you died

and beyond a simpler sadness, the worst

came from the death of our discussions.

those still lay dormant,

and you still lay active.

has she ever hung her head

and crooned "how could you do this to me?"

because i can't picture it

except in a nauseating memory.

you know, i've heard about your girl's smile.

they say it's always frightened off.

i can't picture it.

i can't face her face

because i look in the mirror too often.

every couple months i take a beating

to remind me that i'm healing

when really the skin smoothed over years ago

you know, shingles hurts like a bitch at the slightest touch,

but it never shows on the skin.

k.e.s. 2.16.14

[myastronomicalheart]

love was intangible

when i was introduced

now i feel i wrote a list

and you managed to find it

crumpled on the ground,

and you were kind enough to pick it up.

i'm afraid anyone could've trailed me

and i've found that we are not

born with engravings on our back

with another's initials

but i still question

that realization

because from time to time

i feel like i'm bleeding from

a sore spot on my spine.

in some ways

you were a map to freedom

but other times

i think you just rewired my mind

so that i am undeserving of someone

who can stand up straight 

while trying to heal my coal-burned feet

and in some ways

i am still a seventeen-year-old girl

clinging to an ever-tilting axis

waiting for you 

to stand me on my feet again.

k.e.s. 12.23.13

[composernevercomposed]

the quickening of your heart beat

in syncopated rhythm with my tapping feet

the moment just before, suspended above all my misgivings

the brisk air just before thanksgiving

procrastinating your leaving

and now we’re even.

The ever-present premonition

An ugly juxtaposition,

the beginning...

[myastronomicalheart]

apparently

you love me.

apparently you loved me

when i was having a panic attack.

tears on my face

face in the pillow

you loved me then.

you even loved me

after i took 

much too long to respond.

and unfortunately 

you loved me

when i was not ready to be loved.

by anyone.

[myastronomicalheart]

anyone could love a girl

who was shimmering in evening glow

after the meal before the bill

the tinkling jazz and the twinkling stars

i could love that girl, too.

i find it harder to love the girl

who pulls the sheets over her head 

and tries to get out of her own body

because it just never feels right

who tries to scrape the last bits of life from her fingertips

grating it off with her teeth

i try my hardest but sometimes i can only give so much

and so they say you should wait until it's perfect

but i think it means so much more

that you gave me this as i cried

you said "i love you" and i said, "why"

but i'm hoping you have an endless supply.

[myastronomicalheart]

predecessor's lament

does she kiss you with fury,

in a heavier passion, a lighter worry?

you leave the lamp off,

you sleep on the far side of the bed

you hate when you're questioned

does she notice, or is she exception?

could she understand all your obsessions?

I feel like I held a garage sale,

and unwillingly sold my oldest possession.

I'm not selling

so why is she buying?

And though I set you high with inflated praise,

You were never mine to appraise

or to polish

or to own...

k.e.s. 10/30/13

[myastronomicalheart]

Plenty of Time

(You probably don't remember, but I do. We were trying to sleep, but I couldn't, and I needed to get up early in the morning so I kept checking the time. You told me there was plenty of time. And hey--"you should write a song like that, Plenty of Time." Soon after, I did.)

Grasping to the night

You whisper it's all right I'm due north in the morning But your space is mine

  The sounds keep me awake

I embrace a new mistake

Your skin is alive in June

And we have plenty of time.

  I'm only asking to live till tomorrow

Each breath I swallow I beg for two

My heart is losing its light

But I have plenty of time

As long as I'm with you.

  The stillness of your sleep

When quiescence fails to keep

Is harboring my pain

I'm breathing your air

  Your sounds are beautiful

When the moon and love are full

I'm a thumbtack from the past

But I'm okay

If you stay

  I'm only asking to live till tomorrow

Each breath I swallow I beg for two

My heart is losing its light

But I have plenty of time

As long as I'm with you

  Till the moment that I die

I'll be truly alive

Because when I'm with you

I have plenty of time.

  k.e.s.

9/17/10

[myastronomicalheart]

elsewhere

i think it's sad

i'm happiest when i'm asleep.

don't take this the wrong way,

i will never be folded neatly in a cardboard box

to be shipped off to the other side of the world,

to a place we call heaven

a place that other side calls earth.

but there's no use fighting the urge-

because aren't we all

dead on arrival?

consider it

necessary travel.

i am stamped with a one way ticket 

to such a far off distance that i almost loop to the start

so far around the world that nobody would know if my heart ever beat again

but they'd get a feeling something or someone was very-very-

close.

breathing in their ear, whispering "don't forget me,"

but the silence is what really gets me,

the fact that you will be nothing and were once nothing

makes it all so easy for me to generalize

because so was i:

find me at baggage claim,

we'll all bump into each other there

while seeking our duffels of dresses and distresses

and when the time comes we'll land in a land 

where nobody knows we exist

we'll get a feeling something or someone is very-very-

close

but we shall hear only the silence, until moans a far off whistling train

it will loop around to pick us up, around the world, and back again.

k.e.s.

8/17/12

[myastronomicalheart]

k.e.s.

[myastronomicalheart]

[myastronomicalheart]

Souvenir

She wears a jewel you gave her.

after all these years

i can't help but see

the catch of light

in the glitter that becomes her.

i won the game

i should be clearer

i reaped from you

a good two years

(a deeper souvenir

from crystal clearer)

but a long scar

is slashed upon my chest

she wears your heart

but I wear it best.

2013 k.e.s.