#purposelycontrary

[purposelycontrary]

originality

i wrote you sonnets in my heart my tongue tripped out couplets my fingers scrambled to give you verses my brain floundered at spewing out imagery

i thought love was about finding out new ways to say “i love you”

i forgot to tell you                              “really, i do. love you, i mean.”

[purposelycontrary]

grandpa's eulogy

they told her that he followed her that it was inevitable that that's just life that it was peaceful that         "don't worry                             it's okay                                            we bought wreaths for you"

but it isn't okay because because grandpa was strong and grandpa was conniving and grandpa was selfish and grandpa was fiercely intelligent because grandpa was loved is loved will be loved

did he not feel loved?

was she not enough? were they not enough? but of course, i guess

grandma was sweet and kind and  the world is not meant to survive without dualities the death of one leads to the death of the other they were complements in life they will be complements in death it's only just

was she not enough?

[purposelycontrary]

To Brittney

In the stage that is given to us The stage that is life The worst heartbreaks aren't loud and flashy, played by accusations and bruises But quiet, plagued by doubts Disintegrating before The eyes of its players Too helpless To stop It.

[purposelycontrary]

novels are like chocolates

he told her there is nothing "nothing you can get from reading a novel that you can't get from sparknotes after two, three, four weeks, how much detail do you really remember?"

floundering falling dragged down wait what? but intuition habit heart taught her beauty taught her love wait what?

denial is easy arguments thrown up "but you learn-- i could not know what a 19th century Russian noblewoman feels what she experiences in adultery, heartbreak novels are portals to other worlds"

what use? what use? what use?

easily forgotten, easily dismissed no lessons learned, no skills taught there is no use there is no use in a novel none at all

but no.

novels are like chocolates sweet melting temporary no nutritional value but happiness elusive taste, fleeting until the next

smooth, cold, sweetness, bursting bitterness novels are like chocolates you can't stop yourself from reaching for one more.

[purposelycontrary]

imperfectly executed perfection

she is a clockwork doll made too hastily  a mistake someone never bothered to fix

she is a clockwork doll, designed to strut and parade for everyone’s amusement, malfunctioning and malformed insides praised for their faults shiny casing blinding their eyes to reality

her cogs were carved just a little too close together so that she runs faster than she ought to and when set on flat ground easy throughway smooth bridle path everyone praises her swiftness beauty of her structured exertions until there is a bump

a bump any tiny bump every tiny bump and then  she

explodes spray of falling cogs

she is a malfunctioning clockwork doll and at any slight disturbance

door closed too hard whisper too quiet scream too loud she explodes her malformed cogs revealed

for everyone to see

and they see

they see the terrible exquisite mistake that makes her her and are helpless to help her cannot remake her intricate delicate cogs cannot give her replacement functioning parts so they just hurry to cobble her back together averting their eyes ignoring the ignoble calamity that is her doomed life

and so it starts again her broken malformed cogs forced back together the shiny casing put back on she’s wound back up wound back into motion wound back into disaster “there you go you’re fixed” and she goes on again impressing everyone with her swiftness of recovery the dexterity of her movements and the glitter and glamour of it all blinds them to the thin wire she treads on and the tension running through her cogs until 

she breaks

again

no amount of veneer will ever be enough no amount of oil will ever fix her no clockmaker will ever remake her parts they’re all too blinded by her imperfectly executed perfection

and besides

"she’s functioning fine now isn’t she"

and yes she’s fast and exciting and shiny but the veneer keeps bursting apart keeps getting duller keeps having to be reapplied and each time she lasts less than the last and each time it takes longer to reassemble her and each time another cog is lost another cog is misplaced another cog is cracked there is a ticking clock on her body and one day she won't be repairable won't be worth repairing one day they will leave her broken shrug their shoulders move on

she is a broken clockwork doll nobody bothers to repair

she is a broken clockwork doll and nobody cared

[purposelycontrary]

realistic fantasy

"it's realistic fiction" she tells them except no "it's not" they tell her "it's                                           all fantasy" it is? but the connections her favorite authors made between mythology geography inexplicable coincidences proof proof, right? and how can it not be? because when she closes her eyes fairies dance on the insides of her eyelids wolves howl morphing man wolf man wolf mermaids surface for air shaking out their hair submerge again will-o-wisps tempt the traveller away from their path kelpies leap with joy tossing their great maned heads pixies tumble and giggle imps play tricks and recoil hissing from iron mighty griffons set off into the air unicorns delicately prance through fields centaurs impart their knowledge pegasuses soar gods declare their judgements on the lives of men fairies

fairies populate her world alongside sphinxes and gargoyles and wryms parallel universes of ultimate limitless power possibilities endless even now even now with her eyes closed she sees every christmas light flickers with the magic of a fairy every trembling tree leaf hides a sprite dryads hide in the trunks of trees and as she darts through the city, her head turns for glimpses the fading footsteps of red caps birthed from desperate

hope and they call it fantasy they're all blind this is her reality this is her life

[purposelycontrary]

mom?

the first time she did it, you thought it was a fluke.

wednesday night, three missed calls, call her back to find out that they’re in maine, that there’s groceries in the fridge, that “i hope you brought your keys with you when you left the apartment this morning because no one’s there to let you in.”

"you’ll be fine"

so she’s not there when you climb into his car and she’s not there when you have a few drinks and she’s not there when you let their hands wander all over and she’s most certainly not there when you stagger home half drunk half undressed half crazed hoping beyond hope that this was a test

it wasn’t

there’s nobody there to let you in nobody there to ask concerned questions nobody there to be angrily accusative nobody

nobody there

the second time, you knew it isn’t a fluke.

you called her three, four, five, seventeen times and she doesn’t pick up and you send her an email like “are you still alive? is everything okay? did anyone get hurt? is everything okay at work? let me know if i can help out in any way an—”

"we’re in jamaica. no reception. email me if you need anything. no reason. vacationing. it’s rainy, not that much fun.”

this time you don’t go out not because there’s nowhere to go but because there’s still finals to worry about because your friends need you and your classes require you to be well rested because living by yourself meant that you finally learned what responsibility means and so you don’t

because even if she hasn’t grown up, you have.

[purposelycontrary]

i am...

i knew you i knew you long before you had even noticed me

i knew you by your black-clad followers "friends" you called them but i i knew that they, like me, loved you--and who could possibly not?

i knew you by your languid lounging do you know how incredible that was, for me? freeing my back to mimic the curve of yours knobs of my spine wrenched from their customary domiciles, taught the etiquette of loose-limbed nonchalance  to nod along to ephemeral jazz to fly high on air, on life, on more than life

i knew you by your eclectic fashion by your scent, something distinctly other that i never quite pinpointed that i still don't know the source of

i knew you by the air of grandeur and life that hung perpetual around you

and when i first approached you i defined myself with you designed myself to entice you.