Emily Thomas

I finally took the time to record some of my poems that I think were worth recording. They're old, but I like them. Let me know if you like them, too. Words: The root of the word complex is related to the Latin word for hug, and let me tell you, it’s complicated. You and I were, perhaps, a little too quick to deny our involvement with each other, and that girl, you know: the one we were both hitting on, perhaps she picked up on the tension that drew a taut string between us and forced you to emphasize how single you were in front of your boyfriend. 5 April 2012

I finally took the time to record some of my poems that I think were worth recording. They're old, but I like them. Let me know if you like them, too. words: I miss you all wrong, With commas in the wrong places And words between the spaces And things we never said, But not your smile, Not your laugh Or your taste in beer. I miss how warm you were, Even in summer, But not how close. I miss you like someone who has died: All backwards, Reflections, Remorse and guilt, Though I did nothing wrong. At least, none of the things you accuse. When I try to talk to you, It never sounds right, Like I answered a phone And am waiting for the static to produce a voice; There's a hang in the air after every word I say Where nothing is said, And I can't tell if you can't hear me Or don't want to respond. You look like you hurt, And I want to give you a hug, Tell you it'll be okay, Lie to make you feel better, Like a friend should. I miss you all wrong.

I finally took the time to record some of my poems that I think were worth recording. They're old, but I like them. Let me know if you like them, too. words: We built altars for unknown gods, And whispered in the woods, And talked for hours. No one told us to stop being weird. You held my hand and my attention, And I couldn’t shut up, Except I did, And I was staring at you, Eyes closed, smile, Beautiful. When your eyes opened, I think you saw me picking at the grass, Breaking Buddhist maxims And the silence, And trying to pretend I wasn’t taken in by your beauty. I hope I didn’t look away too quickly.

I finally took the time to record some of my poems that I think were worth recording. They're old, but I like them. Let me know if you like them, too. words: I love you. I mean, I’m in love with you. I mean… This is not a love song. This is a song of friendship, and of longing. What I mean is that I so viscerally want to be around you, where, for once, I am understood. What I mean is that I like you. I like spending time with you and your jokes. I am not used to that. I am not used to wanting something bodily the way I want your friendship.

I finally took the time to record some of my poems that I think were worth recording. They're old, but I like them. Let me know if you like them, too. words: I remember nights when my arms felt heavy. They told you when I was born that I was a miracle; that I would be five foot ten and my hair would be curly and you asked if you’d been in a car wreck. You didn’t know who ‘she’ was, or why they kept telling you about her and then they put a bundle in your arms. Admittedly, you were probably just tired when you told me these stories. When you finally realized you had a child, you asked my father about me; he joked that I had ten fingers and ten toes, and five on the other hand. You did not find this funny. I don’t remember you laughing much. You must have, sometimes, but the only times I remember, it was loud, grating, directed, usually at me. Your mouth was not large but your words would waterfall out, pouring down on me and I could do nothing but stand and let them fall around me. Your words soaked my hair in the shower and filled my belly before dinner, even when I would not listen. I would blame the hurt and pain on the blood, and my arms would feel heavy. I think there was a subliminal message that my heart was seeing and my head couldn’t. My arms felt heavy. You coursed through my veins and I could feel the way you judge weighing down every piece of me. I can recite your words: I memorized them. I did not have to listen. I knew the words you said. My arms felt heavy, and my legs, too. I wonder sometimes if you realized that I hung on every word. That I took everything to heart. I take everything to heart. My arms felt heavy, my hands weighed so down by words I had tried to catch and the words that came with them. The waterfall of your words had left a stain pumping through my veins: it dyed my fingers red for years. One evening, I let it all go, the waterfall becoming a river a trickle falling between the places where wrinkles form. What had looked a dry valley now held a sea. My arms, it seemed, felt lighter. I remembered that. I did not forget how to let your words go. Now, I let your words go. My arms feel heavy: they are solid. This is not a bad thing. My heart does not pump poison to stain my fingers; my hands have unclenched, and your words have fallen away, much like the rest of you.

I finally took the time to record some of my poems that I think were worth recording. They're old, but I like them. Let me know if you like them, too. words: 1. Did it start with you? Or was I presented, an elephant to be discovered with groping hands and feasting eyes, and an incurable hunger? 2. You know I used to write letters to you, first in ink, then in braille, scars raised from my skin, and then disappearing. When I wrote you letters in ink again, I burned them, never quite able to figure out what to say. What do you say to a thief who steals because he is sick? 3. Did you wonder if my braid was a rope? Were my hipbones the pages of a book you couldn’t read? My legs, the trembling bumps of a goose removed of its feathers? Was my breathing the wind, whispering through the cracks in the windows? Blind man, did you wonder if everyone had to touch the way you did? Did you wonder if everyone else had to use their hands to see how someone looked? 4. There is a small, angry part of me that hopes your wife spit on you when she left. There is a less small part of me that hopes she cried, and wished you well. Depending on the day, I think I’d have done the same. 5. For a long time, I saw you as evil. I forgive you. I forgive you.

I finally took the time to record some of my poems that I think were worth recording. They're old, but I like them. Let me know if you like them, too. words: Party Rules: 1. Do not kiss girls you have never met. I do not care how many drinks you’ve had, or how alone you think you are; you are at a party, and people will see. 2. Do not go into someone’s room, and do not close the door. They will think that they have been invited to some party you did not know you were hosting. 3. If you must kiss a girl, and let’s be honest, you’ll do it anyway, make sure that you do not let people see. They will think you are performing for them. 4. Do not drink rum or tequila. 5. If you must go into someone’s room, and kiss a girl and close the door, make sure you lock it first. You never know who might think you’re in there just so they can join you. 6. Do not touch girls at parties. You will kiss them because you keep drinking rum and tequila. 7. If you are a guy who leaves your room unlocked, and you find two girls kissing, leave. They probably didn’t want your company anyway, and they were doing just fine until you showed up. 8. If you are the owner of the room, that does not mean you are automatically invited to everything that happens in your room. Do not invite yourself. If we need you, we will ask for you. 9. Do not drink tequila or rum. 10. Do not sleep beside men and expect them to try nothing. There are men who try nothing; they aren’t the men who invite you to stay in their room if you’re a little too drunk to drive home. 11. Do not under any circumstances kiss girls you have never met; they will think you are performing for them.

I finally took the time to record some of my poems that I think were worth recording. They're old, but I like them. Let me know if you like them, too. words: When I finally try to speak, my brain is a buzzing beehive of words I try to say, spilling out of my mouth, and swarming to your ears, a low hum approaching, and I can feel the legs inside my skull, dancing to communicate, but somehow I don’t know how to tell you what it is they’re saying. I want so badly to be clear, and your ears are heavy with pollen, but somewhere in translation, a few bees get lost. They do not know where they are supposed to be going. I wonder, is this what emotion is? An uneven spilling of sound waves; a colony going a hundred directions; a swarming hum of white noise wingbeats? I tell the therapist all of this, and she nods, takes notes, tells me this is all normal. They have medicine for this. “I don’t want medicine,” I tell her, the buzzing growing, “I want honey.”

I finally took the time to record some of my poems that I think were worth recording. They're old, but I like them. Let me know if you like them, too. words: You count smiles like scars, love to keep inventory of every object and every stare and you remember every person who has ever complimented you. You think they must see something you never can. You look for hours, analyzing freckles and follicles, seeking some magical mark that makes them like you. You look for a smile that they will like, and you count scars like stars like constellations of freckles and you wonder how many people inventory themselves like you. One nose, sensitive, two eyes, astigmatic, two lips, lightly used, arms, wrists, scars, scars, scars, twenty-four ribs, two breasts, one belly, two hips, two full thighs, you could stand to lose some weight, when are you going to work out again? Two knees, two calves, two feet, scars, scars, scars. Scars on wrists, scars on hips, scars on thighs, and scars on lips. There’s not a part of you that you haven’t hurt to see if it would bleed, there’s not a part of you that you haven’t made bleed. You used to start fights in school, used to pound your knuckles into something solid so you could feel the skin breaking with your heart, because at least then, you had a hurt that would heal.

I finally took the time to record some of my poems that I think were worth recording. They're old, but I like them. Let me know if you like them, too. words: Have you ever wondered to taste the sky? What would it taste like, do you think? Did Vincent feel it on his tongue, crackling, sparking, filled with colors of a hundred beaming oils? Was Starry Night actually a confection, made of sugar and flower water, not of oils, like we’ve been told all our lives?

I finally took the time to record some of my poems that I think were worth recording. They're old, but I like them. Let me know if you like them, too. words: The ribcage told the heart one day, “I’m tired of being beaten,” but the heart, in all its tenderness, could not stop. I wonder if your Heart beat too hard. If you forgot my name was not Ribcage, forgot your hands were not Heart; I am not used to receiving hugs; don’t like getting gifts: I am too long used to apology. When you were afraid, your Heart beat so hard against your Ribcage and I understood when I was told that love hurt because your Love hurt. I tried to remind you. I gave you so much room to let your Heart beat freely, I spread your Ribcage open so your heart couldn’t touch when you were afraid. Or angry. I spread so far that you looked like a butterfly: beautiful Ribcage wings spreading behind you as I tried to help you fly and tried to keep your Heart from slamming into me. I don’t like getting gifts: I am too long used to apology. Too long used to books wrapped in ribbon appearing outside my bedroom door; to checks arriving in the mail; to text messages with apologies for the wrong thing. I am told that confrontations are best done by not saying “you.” You add too much confrontation to confrontation – You accuse without accusation; and I am tired of taking responsibility for your Heart pounding so hard. You must have named me incorrectly, thinking that calling me Happy would bring happiness to you. You do not send me gifts for holidays – you send me apologies, but you tell me your Heart beats so hard because I ripped those apologies from you like teeth. I did not rip those apologies from you like teeth. I wonder if your Heart pounds any less hard with me gone; I wonder if you know I am gone. I wonder if you sit at night, missing the feel of your Heart on your Ribcage or if it pounds that much harder waiting for me to come back home. I wonder if you know that I am home. That I sit in my room, and that no one calls me Ribcage anymore. I wonder if you know that I was never your Ribcage; whether your Heart pounded to show me how much you loved me. Your Ribcage is there, wrapped under your skin, and when your Heart pounds against it, you feel the memory of what you thought was Love rise like bile in your throat, and you call me. You tell me that you miss me, and that you love me, and that you’re so proud of me, and I try to believe you, but I feel my Heart slam hard and fast against my Ribcage, and it reminds me of you.

I finally took the time to record some of my poems that I think were worth recording. They're old, but I like them. Let me know if you like them, too. words: Yours was the first poem I fell in love with. Something about the sound of heartbreak made me want to scoop up all your words and hold them, and hope they chose to stand looking over the edge, and not to jump. Perhaps, I tell myself, perhaps I was projecting my own fears into your screaming night, maybe I just wanted your words to hold me and make sure I woke up the next morning. It was your view of beauty and ugly, I think, that taught me to be such a good kisser. I learned by wrapping my lips around your words, then trying to teach the words to others, hoping they would interpret the taste of my lips to be the verbs, and the touch of my tongue the touch of all those gods and angels and deaths. My eyes reflected your cities and Molochs and when my ears resonated with I love yous, I told them all that I could not love them, or I told them, rather, that I had seen the best minds of my generation driven to madness. I do not that they understood. I did not lie. I make a point of telling only truths, forgetting that people don’t love truth because people don’t love ugliness. You taught me beauty in ugliness; fear in death; oblivion in forgetfulness; I learned from your whispering and nasal live readings that I could contain beauty in the death of beautiful things and the lives they left behind so unjustly. I love too much. I love Carl Solomon. I love your words like a lover, with tongues and hands and ears and smell, the decaying glue of book-binding as close to me as my hand, shoved between my legs. I digress. I also held your poem in my arms at night, your words bleeding out of me when I ripped myself open, and scolding me for letting them go, and it kept me warm until the crust had to be washed, soap and water and blood, from my arms, filled with your words as bandages. Yours were the first words I fell deeply in love with, and they loved me, too, as they loved so many of your tragic young men, dying in streets and streetcars and seventh-story walkups, of drug overdoses and AIDs and heartbreak. I still carry the flame, your words with me when I remember that time, and your tragic young men and your gods-of-cities, but I am different now, and the words that keep me warm do not leave; I hold them inside, and devour more, hoping that I can stuff my veins with poems of so many artists, promiscuous with words and poets and falling in love with all of them.