Lovely Glowing Tangled & Chaotic

Poetry by Isabel Dufford

[poetrybyisabel]

summerboy

Do you remember 

late night cold weather bittersweet 

cold feet and sadness

trying to keep yourself warm,

Long winter is over

and now you’ve warm weather, long evening

free smell of lilacs

loverboy

and you know it doesn’t last forever but god damn,

the lights of the city from eagle’s nest perch Gold Camp Road make you feel infinite

You’ve got summerboy

his hands feel like sandstone red rock monoliths, they’re strong

he is summertime Snow and smoke tricks

he makes you feel miles above the ground, small plane kind of free

you love the way his voice goes soft around the edges when he talks about flying

distant from reality, 

maybe he’s becoming reality

safe in a dangerous kind of way

and now you’re driving a little faster, playing your music a little louder

sleeping with the window open

funny how that happens.

—-

28 May 2014

[poetrybyisabel]

[poetrybyisabel]

July 20 (1:16 am)

[poetrybyisabel]

July 20 (1:16 AM)

I’m in a constant state of “want"

I very rarely “need”

quite constantly there is someone to be missed or some adventure to be yearned for

it's never enough and at times

that can get pretty lonely

like those hot summer nights with only the crickets as a reminder that you’re not the only living thing in the world

and sleep is simply not an option

not wihtout some sort of chemical assistance

it can get pretty lonely feeling pretty empty feeling like

nothing to see outside of these four walls it’s dark

but I’ve got to say I wouldn’t have it any other way not even when I realize that my chosen ambition my preferred institution has recently been determined

‘most expensive’

I don’t ever want to let the fear of years of loans or debt keep my dreams at bay but it’s more than a little intimidating

Some nights it can feels like the well’s run dry like

I’ve used all my words all the poems in my brain have been wrung out

when pen flails nothing but lines nothing but scribbles

can’t give up on that dowsing rod

Just as a man in the desert dies without water so too will my eternal soul

wither

if ever I stop trying to write

[poetrybyisabel]

Healing Poem

Yesterday I felt so overwhelmed the pressure building in my chest in my skull unable to breath unable to speak that I took a blank piece of paper, Crumpled it up tossed it in the sink took a match to it watched it burn I can’t describe to you the beauty it took my breath away I didn’t think about you for a minute Until it was nothing but ash in the garbage disposal Dizzy is a good substitute for hollow Two steps forward one step back I’ve been subsisting on songs letting the lyrics fills me up because most nights, I get so hollow it hurts Had we had a blood transfusion I don’t think I could have given you as many of my Secrets confession fears ideas and idiosyncrasies As I did I’m not sure that anyone except my mother has seen as much of who I really am as you have You broke off And I don’t understand why There’s a ringing in my left ear I’m disoriented because I don’t know what you’re thinking I feel Lobotomized.

I wrote it all down. Packaged my thoughts into ink in spare moments this is a poem woven of pain Composed in spare moments scribbled on bookmarks in lonely classrooms Added to line by line Each time I woke reeling from a dream of you Each time I watched a too familiar movie and it made me cry Each time I found myself singing along in the same way that you did You see I’ve discovered new mannerisms you’ve left your mark left a little bit of yourself in the way that I listen to music and tell a punch line I hope I did the same for you I hope you still think of me sometimes

This is a healing poem.

I’ll write down these things that I wish I could say to you these things that I think all the time thumb hovering over the send button only to close the phone Then I’ll share it with strangers on stage Let these broken heart emissions out into the air to relieve some the pressure.

We both know what it is to perform I once told you that I first learned to trust you onstage Because there is very little that is more intimate than whispered encouragements under stage lights

This is a healing poem.

And I’m still in a lot of pain Still finding myself short of breath a lot the simple truth is I miss you. And I still wish things were different But I’m thinking that maybe I’m starting to get a little better maybe one step forward two steps back is the way to do it This is a healing poem.

~~~

This is not a new poem, but I’m reposting it in full because I recently had the privilege of being reminded of the cathartic and healing quality that writing and sharing poetry has.

[poetrybyisabel]

breathe.

We are nothing but breath

boil us down

reanimate us

Inhale, exhale

I'd like to capture for you bittersweet

Because the feeling I get it reverberates in my ribcage and I think that it might just send me over the edge

the only word for it is bittersweet,

the kind of sensation you can only get when you are truly alone.

Inhale

Bittersweet like close to splitting apart at the seams

so close to sublime it aches

Brick walls warmed in the sun offer far more support than -

Exhale.

I sat in the back of that auditorium

allowed the tears to run down my face, stone

as you stood in the lens-flare suspended reality of the stage

Breathe.

The mantra is to forget but if it's forgotten then what's the point?

I don't want to forget a thing I just want to feel

bass-shake-my-bones

That's all it is - breath,

Altered consciousness I implore you

Show me the way

I have no god

I am godless

I saw a city on a hill through a haze but I didn't know what it meant or how I'd gotten across the street

Enlighten me

reduce me until I am nothing but breath

Magnetic force moon pull tide,

I crave your oxygen

Moon pull tide

Can we breathe, attain a higher consciousness 

I am ignorant

enlighten me

elevate me

exhale, let fingers of your soul graze your lips from within, clasp those fingers with mine

Inhale,

shudder, pulse,

A noise a feeling so other it resonates in your marrow

I'd like to forget my pronouns, let words trail off into...

breath.

Inhale, exhale

I know nothing of the sublime, only-

Inhale, exhale

Peel away your identity until you are left with nothing but 

inhale, exhale

reality extends no further than the reaches of your fingertips

electrical impulses, read them like telegrams like love letters like lost languages

Read me, decode me, I have nothing left to hide

Radio frequency crackling signal lost

inhale,

One day this will all be no more than a fever dream,

Exhale.

[poetrybyisabel]

To the boy in the coffee shop,

I’m getting a little dissatisfied

with prolonged stares and lowered tones

Hey, you there 

I’d like to share a hot coffee with you some chilly evening

it rains a lot at night, lately

I believe that you might have an Artichoke Soul

and I’d like to peel back your leaves and scrape my teeth on your psyche,

let my fingertips trace the interior of your cerebral cortex,

Show me your Views.

Let me follow your trains of thought into unknown terrain,

pass your opinions from your lips to mine

Boy, you fascinate me.

Take my hand, I’ll show you mine if you show me yours

You and me, let’s have us 

a Conversation.

[poetrybyisabel]

Artichoke Soul

Dignity dictates that I should be over this,

over you.

Over early morning blue-light before-the-birdsong sense of loss

over the fight-or-flight responses 

at familiar songs that evoke familiar memories

stunned into still silence like prey,

cornered by opening notes

My dignity dictates that all this should be in the past

But I can't seem to find the juncture where "is" becomes "was"

And I'm coming to the conclusion that there is no such thing as

"back to normal"

We are forever altered by the transfusions we share with one another

Direct IV line from my soul to yours,

trade my 

thoughts secrets confessions fears ideas and idiosyncracies

for yours

You can't hit "rewind" on that kind of process

See, "back to normal" does not exist for me

or you

or anyone else

Because I will never again hold that piece of me that I gave to you

and that's okay,

because I know that it sits in a drawer in your bedside table 

between your grandfather's watch and half a box of condoms

And It's Okay.

I think it's a shame that we are told to live life

as if we've never been hurt by somebody else,

and we never notice the scars that others bear

too preoccupied in hiding our own

I don't believe in Soul Mates,

because I find it kind of hard to believe

that there could be just one person in this world

who could offer you something Important.

Maybe we've all got souls like artichokes,

and if you want to really know someone

then you've got to peel back their leaves,

scrape your teeth on their psyche

Artichoke Souls.

[poetrybyisabel]

Untitled Love Poem

I wrote a love poem last summer, and I just re-read it. 

And it's a good poem and to me, it holds a lot of meaning and memory but really it's kind of a blank slate, a fishpond or a sky full of clouds that anyone could look at and see their own story. 

I also realized that I'd never named it.

____

Untitled Love Poem

Lately I've been inspired

Inspired to think and feel like never before

Emotions like little embers pulsing sunset colors inside my beating heart burning holes in the lining exposing my soul to yours

But I don't mind

And usually that would scare me terrify me paralyze me shock me into fight or flight mode but dear boy,

You've got me in fight and flight mode

I tell you I want to fight off the world push it back away from my face fly off with you into the fuzzy edges of the night sky until it's just your warmth and mine

All we need is echolocation and thermal vision because I'm starting to feel this connection forming between us right here like little girl braids woven into spontaneous friendships but stronger

A lot stronger

Because it's made of unburdened confessions covert kisses in the dark and fingers linked stronger than chains,

I want a lot of things, these days

This heart of mine was just a motor for my bloodstream until you walked up to me and near about tore it out of my chest I told you

You could do a whole hell of a lot of damage with that thing if you wanted to

And you just said

I will treasure your heart like I treasure my air and my water,

Like those elements my love you are my

necessity

And it sounded cheesy but I melted from the inside out all the same'

[poetrybyisabel]

Spin

Have you ever felt your heart expand to bursting

physical-visceral-this-is-a-medical-emergency

kind of sensation

at a song

played too loudly

on your headphones?

It occurs to me,

“This is bad for my ears

my eyes

my neck

my liver

my brain chemistry

my sanity

my psyche”

It occurs to me that maybe I don’t care

Because baby,

I love the spins and

I never want this song to end and

really,

there’s not a whole lot else to say

[poetrybyisabel]

So I'm sure he's a nice guy and all, but

I have a confession,

and I’d like you to sit down for this

because it might come as a shock, but:

I never liked Ed Sheeran.

There was nothing I loved more than

watching your face while you

concentrated on your guitar

And you know that my heart melted

every time you played a song for me

So it’s been swell but the swelling’s gone down,

and now that it’s over

I feel like I should tell you

exactly how I feel, so:

Fuck Ed Sheeran.

Seriously, fuck that guy so hard

Not because I don’t like his music,

I never did

but because every time I hear “Give Me Love”

it makes me think of you

plucks at my heartstrings in painful ways

that saccharine voice and insipid lyrics

stand as a visceral reminder

of the good times,

the good times that melted with the

warm weather.

So dear boy, with my heart kind of limping

and my 2 am half-dreams still occupied by you,

I feel I should say:

  Ed Sheeran can go eat a dick.

[poetrybyisabel]

There's a lot of music and lights and breezes that bring scents that tag along like youngest in a family, there's a lot of furniture up here and some days I come up here and I discover ideas and other things but usually it's just clutter up here in my heavy-ass skull and then.......

now and then.......................

a poem will happen.

I love it when that happens.

[poetrybyisabel]

[poetrybyisabel]

[poetrybyisabel]

Boys - #1

I still think about Valentine’s Day

pink hearts printer paper they say “Let’s Fuck”

that delighted me

made me laugh

I still remember the way I felt when you introduced me to your mom and held my waist as I struggled to reach chords on a once-familiar fretboard

How could I forget?

I don’t want to write a poem of remembrance because it hurts starts to fray the edges of the bandages I’ve wrapped around

I’ve started to heal enough that I want to remember but at the same time

it lingers

this lingering feeling it slowly fades

even that fades

it all fades

that used to scare the hell out of me

but there’s still this thing that will always be there this thing that I wrote in a journal and folded into small squares this thing that you placed in the drawer next to your bed

between your grandfather’s watch and half a box of condoms

someday I’ll write a poem just to remember

like a time capsule because otherwise I’ll forget these individual sensations

[poetrybyisabel]

Your New Girlfriend

Does she talk dirty to you in French

the way that I did?

Do you play crossword puzzles together

and sing to each other in the dark?

She probably writes you love poems

the way that I used to.

[poetrybyisabel]