#kayleighwanzer

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kayleigh wanzer: thirteen weeks

1. consider everything: consider beginnings, consider endings, consider how both kind of feel the same way. when i think of us loving each other i only remember those bright blue autumn days, as if it never even rained. i know that isn't true.  2. there's something poetic about choosing the path of no choice.  3. if i came over and presented you with a peach, would you know what i mean?  4. vocal chords, finger nails, blood.  5. it's getting harder to stay vague.  6. when i saw you walking with her down the street all i could think of was: at least you both walk the same way--sideways, quickly paced.  7. there is a time and a place for dramatic irony. right now isn't one of them, please turn off "only the good die young." 

8. i don't really want to be quiet but i can't think of much else to say. 

9. i know it rained, why can't i remember rain? let's not get caught up in nostalgia. i am no longer the person who loved you. 

10. maybe we are the seasons: you are winter with settling, frozen resignation. i am spring with strong wind, thawing dedication. 

11. it didn't hurt, but it still felt like something. 

12. i want to mention the peach again. do you understand now? hold one in the palm of your hand--feel soft fuzz, feel bruises, it's smaller than you thought it would be, isn't it?  13. there will be no mourning, there will be only relief.

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kayleigh wanzer: because i didn't want to write a poem called 'you will miss my blowjobs'

you discovered how to crawl inside someone  but still leave quickly,  still get away with relative ease.  and i'm writing valentines to your absence  x o x o to the opposite of presence.  here's one for all of all your worst qualities, i've been thinking about your acne scars.  how you laughed too loudly sometimes.  this isn't about your lips covering my body, how my hips would ache  and then arc toward yours.  this isn't about how your bed became ours,  about the way you kissed my ear the second time we saw each other and said even your ear is cute, are you even real? this isn't about fucking in broad daylight standing up in your curtain-less living room, not about how you told me to choke you,  when you came and fell backward eyes closed, breathless, gasping: oh my god i almost passed out this isn't to say i still taste you in the back of my throat.  valentine: i am going to tell you  our story backwards. i cut my bangs, you wouldn't even recognize me now.  I will see you on the street,  i will wear that polka dot dress,  we will smile, nothing more will happen.  and if you need me i'll be down on our shared sidewalk,  i'll be pouring out a beer for both of us.  valentine: there are different ways to get rid of lonely, there are different ways to keep warm.  you've been going to the bar on sunday afternoons.  i've seen you outside, smoking. 

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kayleigh wanzer: in which i try to say we were a storm and fail

it's storming in the city we used to live in, the one where we're both just visitors now. and i am trying to think of something to say, something that seems more meaningful, something more than just quiet resignation. and i am reading encyclopedias online, they're saying that lightning is seen before thunder is heard, that light travels faster than sound. and i am remembering our bedroom, yes, maybe light comes first, but we were always so dark and quiet. i am remembering when i stopped wanting you to hold me, it was slow, not sudden, does that make it lightning or thunder? does it have to be one or the other? maybe it's neither, maybe we were just a brief rainstorm, the kind where in the morning you can't tell that anything has even happened until you step on the grass in bare feet. until someone says: hey, did that storm keep you up last night and you say: no, i must have slept right through it.

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kayleigh wanzer: on fishing

flesh and light bulbs burning, burn out and everything will be exposed. i never see you when it is still light out. and i want to be louder, i want to scream when i see you. (i don't even like you.) okay, fine, listen: when i smell cigarettes i taste you. you the one who only smokes when you drink only drinks when you smoke only calls me when you drink. and i am hooked. baited. you know this, you play the role of disinterested fisherman up before sunrise, sitting in a still rowboat and i'd compare myself to a fish but most of the time i am too eager, too quick to let your hook catch itself on my lower lip. what does it mean if last time you wouldn't even kiss me, if we just drank until we fell asleep, if i followed you into the back of your dark apartment saying where are you where are you and you called out i'm here.

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kayleigh wanzer: think

I find your lips and think holy think holy, think if i think it enough you will pray to me. think altar. think alter, think i don't even like you, think i am nothing like you. think fire. think deserts, think sand. think dryness, think anything to put out what is rushing through me, think yesterday i thought of you and the river twice, i think i like the river more. think self doubt, think self-preservation, stop thinking of self-loathing. stop, think self-creation, can't stop, think self-destruction. think this summer, this city. think of how it will destroy me.

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kayleigh wanzer and molly kat: joint effort part three

slip into a self that’s more comfortable, shed identity like lace lingerie I want you to know how fucking important I am I am both feminine and fuck you I am trying to figure out how to be both more and less persistent break down my self into some thing I should own

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kayleigh wanzer and molly kat: joint effort part 1

cannot seem to liberate from this sunken city cannot stop comparing myself to the river

how to be woman to be compromise and jet fuel, to be poison

how I yearn to be both consistent and brand new

my right side is pulled taught strung out above the water

I’m lying when I say I don’t crave the struggle

I thirst for it, I need it

I want the shelves of your mind to avalanche anthologies,

I want you to be something specific.

I keep picturing people’s heads exploding and books flying out. how can I be less surreal?

I wasn’t the one huffing sharpies in a grocery bag, but I was born wanting to escape.