i’ll let you be in my dreams if i can be in yours

All works by Shayna Giannella

[nondelphic]

real writers don’t have writer’s block because they never start writing in the first place.

[thebookofshay]

You’ll hate me later

But in the meantime

Your body and soul are too weak for hatred

But they’re just strong enough to

Take a selfie

Buy the tempur pedic mattress

Foot the bill

Nothing was the same but

Your hoops are a slay with your bald head

I’m not even saying that to be nice

I tell you the truth unless I think it would make things worse when they don’t have to be

Disease makes people ugly sometimes but I guess you didn’t get the memo

Asking yourself permission to be bare

To be scarred

To be burdened

To be scared

Can I be a princess with no hair?

Can I be the same with nothing as I was with everything?

Can anyone understand me please?

Right now I’m not sure

So in the meantime

We have to catch the Uber bitch we are going out tonight

One day we will love other people

So in the meantime

Let’s go for a walk

We need a different view than hospital beds in the living room

A different sound than heart monitor beeping

Do you think your dad will be reincarnated as a snapping turtle?

Not a life in a pond but like

A life that is simple?

A life without hobbling and wheezing

A life with working with what you got

Rather than what is taken from you?

I’ll never be able to skip a stone in my life but

I can walk across this log over the stream that you can’t

Are you jealous?

That we have exactly what the other doesn’t have?

That we fill in each others blanks?

Just not completely

Not enough

So in the meantime

Let’s go see what the neighbors cat is up to

We’re not going to want to speak to each other later

So in the meantime

Why is the sky blue?

Why do cats purr?

Can Barney live with us forever?

Why did Bosch use such contemporary styles for a pre-renaissance artist?

Why do you get grouchy when family is coming over?

Why do you yell so much?

I hope you know I love you

Even when I’m scared of you

Even when I’m disgusted by you

Why do we love each other?

If you hate pink and it’s my favorite color

Are you sure we’re related?

Did I really come from you?

I know you think you know the way

But that road has been under construction for years now

Please can I show you a better way?

Will you let me show you another way?

But you’re busy with something more important

So in the meantime

I’m going to cut this umbilical cord

One day we will be besties

In the meantime

Can you get your fucking shit out of the bathroom?

Oh my god you ruined my new top

I literally just fucking bought that I didn’t get to even wear it yet

I hate you

Maybe I don’t hate you

Maybe I hate the holes in the walls

Chunks of hair ripped out

Broken stuff

Trying to prove myself

Do you wanna smoke weed in the tent in the backyard?

We can squawk like seagulls

Maybe that will break the seal

The seal containing sisterhood

The seal milk?

The first example of

“You’re a dork but I love you

I couldn’t live without you

I don’t care how annoying you are

How much trouble you get me in

How much we hate each other

I love you even if we hate each other

I love you even if no one else does

Even if there is nothing worth loving I love you”

Why are you such a fucking bitch

Why are you so nasty to me

Why don’t you care about how I feel at all

In a steam room in Hawaii you reveal to me

What is hidden under bracelets

How much I don’t care

How I’m so nasty

How I’m such a fucking bitch

You’ve left me with a lot to think about

So in the meantime

Let’s just be sisters and not besties

I don’t know what we will be so

In the meantime

I’ll meet you at this hotel room

And whisper in your ear

And we’ll talk about Moonrise Kingdom

Oh that was your comfort movie when you were far from home?

That was my comfort movie when I didn’t know what was next

Hey can you answer my text

You’re acting weird for someone who knows he doesn’t love me

It’s not you it’s just that

I hate long distance

I hate that distance means I can’t touch you whenever I want

I can’t feel you whenever I want

It’s hard to spend days alone now that I know you exist

And I loved being alone

I loved to be alone before I knew I could have you

So in the meantime

Can we be specks of dust in a sunbeam?

I’m not going to see you again after this

Even if I want to so

In the meantime

It’s grandparents day

Can I stay here for all of class?

For the whole day?

Until you leave forever?

Sometimes I have dreams where I leave you voicemails on your house phone

And I am saying

“Fuck I wish I didn’t go back to class that day

I wish that I stayed

Fuck I wish that your sister didn’t die

I wish that you didn’t die

I guess I would want to die without my sister too but

Hey I really needed you here

I think a lot of people needed you here and

I wish you had stayed

I wish you had stayed”

And when I wake up I’m holding my hand to my face like a real phone and

I wish you had stayed

And in the meantime

I wish you had stayed

[thebookofshay]

It doesn’t matter it doesn’t matter it doesn’t matter

Tears laughs adventures love

It doesn’t matter

Was I the only one who didn’t feel the shaking foundation?

Why did I not know there was danger?

Conversations I wasn’t there for

Conversations you weren’t there for

Conversations none of us know about

All love is conditional

Be on your best behavior

Don’t go killing yourself now

You can do it when I’m done with you

And I’ll be done with you

You have no idea what kind of eggshells you’re walking on

You’re dripping goo everywhere again

Oh my god why did you suddenly start dripping goo

You’re getting goo on my cowgirl boots

This space is too small for all of your goo we can’t just make room for your goo

You have to take a picture with me I don’t care if there is goo in it

Participate or else

Perform or else

I’m so glad you didn’t kill yourself all those years ago

So you can do it now

Now that I don’t care anymore

Now that I’m better

Thank god that I’m better

I wouldn’t want to be like you

You don’t know how beautiful you are

You’re so beautiful in all the ways that you’re so ugly

The goo makes you ugly it always makes you ugly

You’re disgusting

You’re useless

You’re not as good as me

As anyone

Unimportant to me

No respect for myself for having ever talked to you

My best friend

I’ll scream it from the rooftops

So much love

Bugs in the rice

I know things about you that even you don’t know

I won’t tell you

My team has to win trivia night

He gets more chances than you

He earned them

He pays

He pays and he yells and he frowns

He doesn’t have to smile for a picture

He doesn’t have to be polite

You do

You can’t be like him

You still owe me

You lied

I won’t tell you what you lied about

Liar

Why do bad things keep happening to me oh my god why do bad things keep happening

Shaky hands and braking too hard

Hey do you know that you’re doing that?

Oh my god why do you not know that you’re doing that

Bum ass

Can you send me the three dollars you owe me

You never pay

You never pay and you cry

It’s so attention seeking to leave without saying goodbye

And you sob and you leave

You leave without saying good bye

Hey guys

Why did you leave without saying good bye?

[thebookofshay]

[thebookofshay]

Please, remember me

Honestly

In all my fears and all my sudden empty

The storm, before the calm

The tell-tale songs

The timeless sound of rocks against my window

Our dreams, a wishing well, a binding spell

Climbing ropes out of the echo chamber

The fall, the secrets shared, and if you prepared

You’d have been bold enough to save me

And please, remember me

Secretly

Someone said that you still ask about me

Long, after the poems were washed away

After the rain had long-stopped pouring

The drought, without a breeze, a trapeze

I thought you said you’d save temptation

Trust, meant saving you, from what you do

I know it’s hard to see the ground from up there

But now, that certain song, it hits a wall

And that’s the comfort of forgetting

And please, remember me

Tearfully

That same darkness doesn’t reach the city

And when, you’re alone up there, you shan’t despair

Among the angels and their judgment

A drummer, a curtain call, a certain fall

But things look perfect from a distance

Your tower, above the clouds, if you’d looked down

You’d see me first come up with anguish

But please, remember me

Tenderly

And please unearth me like a treasure

My heart, under the hill, and up until

I smashed out my rear view mirrors

A sword, trapped in a stone, a wishbone

That is broken in uneven pieces

The words gone unsaid, your troubled head

And my mother still tells you not to worry

So please, remember me

Thoughtfully

How every answer begs a question

Like “we’ll meet again” And “where and when?”

And how enduring reaps no pleasures

And then, I went on to say, “another day”

And “maybe next time you’ll be ready”

But we won’t, live to tell, I’ll break the spell

And now your absence liberates me

And please, remember me

With certainty

The stairs I forged to keep you from crawling

Tales, of Sisyphus, of vindictiveness

Of an angel trapped inside a sinner

Your hands, between my knees, and through my teeth

I said “the trapeze act was wonderful”

The crowd, the circus train, the cleansing rain

The abundant element of sorrow

So please, remember me

Finally

And how you felt upon my leaving

The saviors, the safety net, and don’t forget

How I was trapped in your perception

The journey, and so it goes, now no one knows

Why I’d have friends in such high places

Mirrors, twine undone, poems unsung

Now here’s your moment of reflection

It was never meant to last, but by contrast

Where I am I’ve never felt more grounded

Red twine stretched too thin, the act begins

And all I ask is that you paint me a picture

Of the crowd, the sky so vast, the broken glass

The faces strange and unfamiliar

This poem, and what it means, broken dreams

Crashed around the hopeless trapeze swinger

[thebookofshay]

Suffering is not a generous thing

Old wounds don’t always heal how you ask them to

Despite the exchange of your bones and sanity

Compassion might make you flinch

It might undo the stitches you worked so hard to embroider into your flesh

And you resent it

Some wounds are a phantom limb

Though you have convinced yourself that they aren’t there anymore

You can’t seem to explain the anguish

It’s white powder and paper straws

It’s teeth and fists clenching

It’s how every exchanging of intimacy is a preparation for war

It’s managing to keep a beat that follows the tempo of the chaos

Perfectly

Birds make nests in your anguish

For fertile foliage sprouts from you like spring time

And you hack it away and stitch yourself shut

Exposure to the elements has never worked for you before

And you’re too preoccupied with arming yourself for hibernation

To recognize that the ice won’t melt without the sun

That shadows can’t sustain life

That the commandments you follow to prevent injury won’t conceal you

It was shocking to hear you speak so casually

Of revealing your lacerations to The Madonna

And how she saw your exposed bones and mangled tendons

And poured her vile of lye into you

To create something volatile

And you speak of how that was the first time you ever knelt down before something holier than yourself and begged

And how it was also the last time

A being too impure to be cleansed by holy water

Despite the sterile chemicals in your veins

I remind you that you don’t need to bring weaponry to my temple

But your cynicism is louder than my gentleness

So I allow you in anyway

Hoping you’ll pray

But armed with the knowledge that you have chosen yourself as your own god

And that the sphere you exist in won’t welcome me

But rather than scorn you I recall a time in my own passages

Where it was the violence I endured that caused me to become gentle

And I know that a peaceful interaction can never occur between two warriors armed to the teeth

You march like a conquistador

And I lay my weapons at your feet

For I have nothing to gain

And nothing to lose

All I ask is that you kneel down before me

And tilt your head back

And allow me to remind you of the burning sweetness

That was your pink skin birthed new

I only wish to show you what it feels like to inflict pain

Rather than endure it

To leave wounds behind rather than hide them away

To restrain and control and possess

For one instant in your field of chaos

My body is a magnet to your suffering

And when I touch the goosebumps on your skin they read like Braille

And though you are unaware

In your skin there is an unwritten scripture directed only to myself

Reminding me not to repent unless you ask me to

[thebookofshay]

[thebookofshay]

I knock on the door

This unkempt little room

A space that we’ll share

For a lifetime or two

Your brave hands are shaking

Your stare feels like a kiss

And all I can say is

“Wait till my therapist hears about this”

You got some unholy hours

And you got many miles

And we both got an abundance

Of errors and trials

And you had my attention

You had my guarantee

But you’ll never be getting a poem out of me

And though some things are fleeting

You don’t look away

Like Halley’s Comet, auroras

Or each brand new day

If you just fear it leaving you

Then it’s already gone

As if your fear of the night

Creates an everlasting dawn

If nothing gold will stay

Then love her good while she’s here

There are no solid answers

The future was always unclear

But I gave you my golden

Trails of comet debris

But you’re surely not getting a poem out of me

And it sounds quite insane

But I know it’s compelling

When they all gather around

To hear the story I’m telling

About a mid air collision

About being caught off guard

About adventure and crossing lines

And blatant disregard

For directions on a map

Love poems and love songs

Not even a second to think about

If we were doing this wrong

But it’s nobody’s fault

It’s not like we can foresee

But you still won’t be getting a poem out of me

Unmade beds in Philadelphia

Breakfast down south from home

All these unfamiliar places

I guess I should have known

That this wouldn’t be comfortable

I guess all growth never is

I drank you in too quickly

And I gave myself the spins

I should have lied down

Before saying something so delirious

Just you and I smoldering

Within something mysterious

But I gave you my truth

My appointed trustee

But you’re still never getting a poem out of me

And it was no crime of passion

It was no crime at all

An unspoken agreement

That I’d answer your calls

And sometimes I’d make that journey

And sometimes you would come here

And you’ll meet me halfway

But it feels insincere

And I’m not going to force you

In a heat of delirious love

I have a ground view of it

I’m no longer above

And your gift was reality

And that gift set me free

But don’t you ever go thinking you’ll get a poem out of me

And yes it’s a poem

But I’ll never admit it

We’re filled to the brim

With these contradictions

I’ll tell you I love you

And then I’ll go ghost

And pretend I don’t care

When I care the most

And I know that you’re thinking

Of us brushing our teeth

Of your lyrics I finished

Of what lies beneath

Of the facade I’m maintaining

If there is one at all

If you made the right choices

If we were ready to fall

Well when you’re outside my door

You won’t have to knock

Because you know that it’s closed

But that it’s never locked

And maybe it’s all gone for good

But we’ll just have to see

But you’re never fucking getting a poem out of me

[thebookofshay]

Journal entry

[thebookofshay]

You ask me to cleanse and heal you

But my hands are covered in both of our blood

So I choose to shield you from accountability

Like it is a violent beast that will tear you limb from limb

Mutualistically parasitic

If I am not the only one who can make a home in your body then you have no purpose for existence

You allow me to drain you so that you might drain me back

You suck my bones dry from sustenance

And my cells work together to produce more for you so you won’t starve

Because I know you’ll do the same for me

Our street flows both ways

It flows with substances and half truths

Aggression and silence

Enabling dread and unspoken questions

And in the morning we share a bowl of regret

And serve each other the illusion of forgiveness as a means to and end

What things will you allow me to do to you so you won’t have to bear my absence?

Why does reflecting on yourself hurt you more than shards of mirror penetrating your fists?

What are you afraid you’ll see?

What are you afraid of seeing that i don’t already see everyday?

If being alone with yourself is a nightmare

Can’t you see what I live through?

But instead of putting these questions between us

I pick the shards from your skin with tweezers

And channel my contempt into destroying any reflective surface

Because any image that haunts your dreams

Haunts mine too

There is a beast outside our house

Our house that is built from cyclical bullshit

And when I go to catch a glimpse she doesn’t look as bloodthirsty as I had thought

Her eyes are full of wisdom and her heart is full of experience

And her mouth is gentle and bears no shame

Only bitter truths

Yet for some reason

I find more comfort in having my bone marrow leeched from my pores

In a house where the walls are stained with blood

Where shards of mirror on the floor cut like knives if you don’t tread lightly enough

Where delusion feeds us both but satisfies neither

Than to let this well intentioned creature in

And hear what she has to say

[thebookofshay]

Your presence in my dreams is so genuine that for a moment I forget that you aren’t with me in the physical world

I panic knowing I only have a moment to tell you everything that I need to say

But your stoicism is contagious

And you usually have more to say than I do

Even though you hardly speak

Sometimes I can’t even get words out

Because my grief is too thick and the seconds are fleeing from me

And in those moments I realize what it must have felt like to have such little time left

But so much you wanted to do and see and say

Moth balls and Chanel perfume and tobacco is suddenly the most beautiful thing I’ve ever smelled

It smells like youth and innocence and feels like the first time someone ever wanted to understand

And if you stayed for a while

I’d tell you about how mom is doing

And how dad is doing at work

And I’d tell you about the crazy wonderful chaos that follows Lexie everywhere she goes

And I’d tell you how I discovered how important it is to bloom in the frost

How it’s beautiful to be able to stand out and make a scene with your vibrant resilience

And how nothing makes any sense to me

Except for words and images and emotions

And how one night I was up putting drugs up my nose with strangers

And called mom begging her to quit smoking

So I wouldn’t have to exist in the hollow shadow of another important woman

If you could stay a while

I’d show you all my funky outfits

And my smart-ass mouth that annoys mom so much

And my sassy attitude

And I’d show you my tattoos

And the stupid boys I dated

And how many different hair colors I’ve had

All the animals I loved

And I’d show you who I am now that I grew up as an eldest daughter

And how I’m always the one wiping the tears but never shedding them

How my criticism can get ahead of me

How I’m doomed with the burden of pleasing and taking on responsibility

How I always find the right words to say

How I am everyone’s favorite support system

How my work is never done

But you can’t stay long

You have somewhere else to be

And the look on your face says everything I need to know

So I sit down next to you

And we butter our onion rolls

And make our coffee too sweet

And we admire the hydrangeas

And all of the things I have to say

I’ll have time to tell you later

[thebookofshay]

I will let the void of you consume me

[thebookofshay]

Please, remember me

Honestly

In all my fears and all my sudden empty

The storm, before the calm

The tell-tale songs

The timeless sound of rocks against my window

Our dreams, a wishing well, a binding spell

Climbing ropes out of the echo chamber

The fall, the secrets shared, and if you prepared

You’d have been bold enough to save me

And please, remember me

Secretly

Someone said that you still ask about me

Long, after the poems were washed away

After the rain had long-stopped pouring

The drought, without a breeze, a trapeze

I thought you said you’d save temptation

Trust, meant saving you, from what you do

I know it’s hard to see the ground from up there

But now, that certain song, it hits a wall

And that’s the comfort of forgetting

And please, remember me

Tearfully

That same darkness doesn’t reach the city

And when, you’re alone up there, you shan’t despair

Among the angels and their judgment

A drummer, a curtain call, a certain fall

But things look perfect from a distance

Your tower, above the clouds, if you’d looked down

You’d see me first come up with anguish

But please, remember me

Tenderly

And please unearth me like a treasure

My heart, under the hill, and up until

I smashed out my rear view mirrors

A sword, trapped in a stone, a wishbone

That is broken in uneven pieces

The words gone unsaid, your troubled head

And my mother still tells you not to worry

So please, remember me

Thoughtfully

How every answer begs a question

Like “we’ll meet again” And “where and when?”

And how enduring reaps no pleasures

And then, I went on to say, “another day”

And “maybe next time you’ll be ready”

But we won’t, live to tell, I’ll break the spell

And now your absence liberates me

And please, remember me

With certainty

The stairs I forged to keep you from crawling

Tales, of Sisyphus, of vindictiveness

Of an angel trapped inside a sinner

Your hands, between my knees, and through my teeth

I said “the trapeze act was wonderful”

The crowd, the circus train, the cleansing rain

The abundant element of sorrow

So please, remember me

Finally

And how you felt upon my leaving

The saviors, the safety net, and don’t forget

How I was trapped in your perception

The journey, and so it goes, now no one knows

Why I’d have friends in such high places

Mirrors, twine undone, poems unsung

Now here’s your moment of reflection

It was never meant to last, but by contrast

Where I am I’ve never felt more grounded

Red twine stretched too thin, the act begins

And all I ask is that you paint me a picture

Of the crowd, the sky so vast, the broken glass

The faces strange and unfamiliar

This poem, and what it means, broken dreams

Crashed around the hopeless trapeze swinger

[thebookofshay]

I will be one of the few people you never got to figure out

[thebookofshay]

Suffering is not a generous thing

Old wounds don’t always heal how you ask them to

Despite the exchange of your bones and sanity

Compassion might make you flinch

It might undo the stitches you worked so hard to embroider into your flesh

And you resent it

Some wounds are a phantom limb

Though you have convinced yourself that they aren’t there anymore

You can’t seem to explain the anguish

It’s white powder and paper straws

It’s teeth and fists clenching

It’s how every exchanging of intimacy is a preparation for war

It’s managing to keep a beat that follows the tempo of the chaos

Perfectly

Birds make nests in your anguish

For fertile foliage sprouts from you like spring time

And you hack it away and stitch yourself shut

Exposure to the elements has never worked for you before

And you’re too preoccupied with arming yourself for hibernation

To recognize that the ice won’t melt without the sun

That shadows can’t sustain life

That the commandments you follow to prevent injury won’t conceal you

It was shocking to hear you speak so casually

Of revealing your lacerations to The Madonna

And how she saw your exposed bones and mangled tendons

And poured her vile of lye into you

To create something volatile

And you speak of how that was the first time you ever knelt down before something holier than yourself and begged

And how it was also the last time

A being too impure to be cleansed by holy water

Despite the sterile chemicals in your veins

I remind you that you don’t need to bring weaponry to my temple

But your cynicism is louder than my gentleness

So I allow you in anyway

Hoping you’ll pray

But armed with the knowledge that you have chosen yourself as your own god

And that the sphere you exist in won’t welcome me

But rather than scorn you I recall a time in my own passages

Where it was the violence I endured that caused me to become gentle

And I know that a peaceful interaction can never occur between two warriors armed to the teeth

You march like a conquistador

And I lay my weapons at your feet

For I have nothing to gain

And nothing to lose

All I ask is that you kneel down before me

And tilt your head back

And allow me to remind you of the burning sweetness

That was your pink skin birthed new

I only wish to show you what it feels like to inflict pain

Rather than endure it

To leave wounds behind rather than hide them away

To restrain and control and possess

For one instant in your field of chaos

My body is a magnet to your suffering

And when I touch the goosebumps on your skin they read like Braille

And though you are unaware

In your skin there is an unwritten scripture directed only to myself

Reminding me not to repent unless you ask me to

[thebookofshay]

You ask me to cleanse and heal you

But my hands are covered in both of our blood

So I choose to shield you from accountability

Like it is a violent beast that will tear you limb from limb

Mutualistically parasitic

If I am not the only one who can make a home in your body then you have no purpose for existence

You allow me to drain you so that you might drain me back

You suck my bones dry from sustenance

And my cells work together to produce more for you so you won’t starve

Because I know you’ll do the same for me

Our street flows both ways

It flows with substances and half truths

Aggression and silence

Enabling dread and unspoken questions

And in the morning we share a bowl of regret

And serve each other the illusion of forgiveness as a means to and end

What things will you allow me to do to you so you won’t have to bear my absence?

Why does reflecting on yourself hurt you more than shards of mirror penetrating your fists?

What are you afraid you’ll see?

What are you afraid of seeing that i don’t already see everyday?

If being alone with yourself is a nightmare

Can’t you see what I live through?

But instead of putting these questions between us

I pick the shards from your skin with tweezers

And channel my contempt into destroying any reflective surface

Because any image that haunts your dreams

Haunts mine too

There is a beast outside our house

Our house that is built from cyclical bullshit

And when I go to catch a glimpse she doesn’t look as bloodthirsty as I had thought

Her eyes are full of wisdom and her heart is full of experience

And her mouth is gentle and bears no shame

Only bitter truths

Yet for some reason

I find more comfort in having my bone marrow leeched from my pores

In a house where the walls are stained with blood

Where shards of mirror on the floor cut like knives if you don’t tread lightly enough

Where delusion feeds us both but satisfies neither

Than to let this well intentioned creature in

And hear what she has to say

[thebookofshay]

In your perception

I am half dreamed

And you don’t want me to be aware

As if my own divinity was a well-kept secret

Locked in a safe within a forgotten library

Why are you struck with fear of me having knowledge of my own power?

What are you afraid I won’t let you get away with?

You want me to see you as the engineer of existence

As if you put the earth on its axis intentionally

So that I might be frightened of what orbits you

But when I spoke to God

She told me she put you before me to humble you

She said that being a tiny helpless creature in my palm

Will teach you everything you need to know about surrender

That nothing is remembered about pompous men besides their pompousness

And that you are destined for more than conquering civilizations or restoring humanity

So if your knees and spine tremble in my presence

Just remember that you were never destined for greatness

Only something gentle