by Sana Abuleil
and you don't know
who they belong to
or how they've sewn themselves
to your insides
but you feel them
and sometimes they're loud
and overpowering
until it starts to look a lot like
a tug-of-war match
between what you are
and what they want you to be
and what you want to be
is stuck on the sidelines
too afraid to push through the crowd
nothing forceful
and nothing persistent.
you don't know where to go from here.
neither do i.
08/10/2011
you never understood
why they called it a heavy heart.
it doesn't feel heavy.
it feels more like
an icepick heartache
more like a sprained aorta.
you can feel the limp
every time it beats.
you can feel it
and it doesn't feel heavy
it feels like a pulmonary concussion
like it's been bruised and shaken.
have you ever dropped a snow globe?
it doesn't feel heavy.
it feels like a mitral fracture
like parts that
scientifically
can't even break
but they do anyway
out of sadness
like self-destruction.
your heart doesn't feel heavy
but you wish it did
don't you?
and you wish
they called it something else
something more accurate
because i'm sure you'd take heavy
over any of this.
i'm sure you'd take heavy
over any of this
any day.
09/28/2011
there's this beast
and his hands are broken
and his teeth are sharp
but some are missing
and he'll come to you
thinking you're a hospital
and dammit
you are
you are
so you'll heal him
take him in and make your arms a bed
turn your fingers into iv lines
and nurse him whole
every bone reset
every wound stitched
every missing part replaced
and there he'll stand
beast again
so he'll dig his claws
into your chest
and rip pieces of you
i'm sure you need
and he'll blame you for healing him
and he'll blame you for bleeding
and dammit you'll apologize
you'll apologize
but if you read this in time
then i hope you bite your tongue
and i hope you understand
that your kindness should
never warrant an apology
and anyone who tells your otherwise
is wrong.
10/20/2011
you always want to be the one
who leaves
but he's threatening that
because for the first time ever
you want to stay
and this vulnerability scares you
so you don't just look for a way out
you make one
with whatever it takes
and by any means necessary
and right now that looks like
an underground tunnel
you've dug with your nails
and he holds your hands and asks
where all the dirt comes from
and why you're always sore
and why you collect plastic spoons
but you just smile and shrug your shoulders.
“i'll tell you tonight” you say
knowing damn well
you'll be gone before
the sun even sets.
10/30/2011
for 12 years
i've been trying to write a poem
that hurts so deeply
one that feels like ice pellets on glass
no
like reaching for the cupboard above the stove
tippy toes and all
but you slip
and your palm lands on open flame
except instead of your palm
i want it to be your everything
i want it all to hurt when you read this
i want emergency room stretchers and sirens
waiting rooms filled at midnight
i want casts and painkillers and blood infusions
i want you to feel something
because god knows i do
every time i try to write this story
but i keep choking
i keep spitting it back up
and thinking
when does
the giver stop giving?
when does
the doctor stop healing?
when does
the lover stop loving
and when does
the hurt stop hurting?
01/06/2012
i wish i could tell you that i'm here
waiting for you
with it all figured out
finally
but i can't.
because i don't.
i'm still scared of the future
and the past still knocks on my door
and the now sometimes feels like a blur
and i'm sorry.
but things are still okay.
people are still good
some of them
but by the time you read this
you'll already know that.
and i'm sorry
but at least i'm writing you this.
it's been sitting on my tongue for a while
i just hope it reaches you when your arms
and mind
are wide open.
i'm sorry i don't have it worked out
but if you stay
maybe we can do it together.
01/15/2012
you worry
you'll never be able to hear
your own thoughts
when there are tvs
and entire orchestras
in your head
drowning out your now.
but those screens
and symphonies
someone told me
they start reciting words
and playing melodies
you'll want to listen to
tap your fingers to
memorize.
someone told me
there will come a day where
the noise
turns into something
you'll actually want to hear.
i just hope they're right.
02/23/2012
there's something wrong
with the way you understand love
no
not wrong
different.
and not you
we.
but still.
when they give too much
you don't give at all.
your head gets louder
your mouth gets softer
and your eyes never meet theirs.
but
you love anyway
from afar
quietly
and always alone
but it's there.
and then
when they don't love you
or give you anything
when their eyes
stare at everything
but you
you can't look away
can't stop your tongue
from running
because being alone
when no love is given
means
the love you trap inside you
isn't going anywhere
and you haven't understood
how to give it to yourself
yet
which is okay
because you will.
but right now
this one-sided love
is the only thing you know
but that's why i'm here
to tell you that taking love
and giving it
should never be separated
that taking love
and giving it
is the only way this thing
makes sense.
take love
and give it
to her
and him
but first
to yourself.
03/01/2012
remember
please
if there's nothing else you do
just remember.
remember how they hurt you
but don't ever hold it against them.
remember what they said
but forgive them anyway.
remember what you did
but love yourself still.
remember
because
the moment you forget
there will come
a flood of the same mistakes
over and over
and you will welcome them
with open arms.
but i swear
you can't afford
to hurt much more.
05/09/2012
at times like this
you'll try to tell yourself
that the pain can drive you
can take you to places you've never been
but these places aren't always good
and you'll go anyway
and that's where i am right now
in a car
or train
or something
taking me somewhere
i don't really think i want to go
but i'm going because that's what you do
when the pain is this bad
when your heart aches so much
that the hurt
echoes
through every part of you.
you let it take you where it has to
and you pray
to something
to someone
to anything and anyone
that the places it will take you are good
and the people it will drive you to are good
but that isn't always the case
and i haven't figured out yet
what you do when this happens
and how you get home from here
but i will
i know i will
and i'll tell you when i do.
06/14/2012
you won't always make homes out of people.
you'll make them out of kindness
photos
voicemails
and you'll make them out of moments
and you'll make them temporary
because you can't keep visiting places
you can never live
and you can't keep holding on to people
you can never have.
07/13/2012
you're losing your memory
so let me help you out with this.
have you figured out what it means
to break
or to be
or what it means to feel
both of these at once?
because i know most of last december is a blur
and the one before that.
god knows what you've missed
but right now you're hurting
and you thought you would recognize this feeling
the breaking
and the being
and the trying to fall apart
without losing the little parts of you
you've held on to.
you've lost your memory though
so none of this is familiar
but you know you've felt it before
you must've.
you have a list too long to tattoo
of everyone who's hurt you
who's made you bleed
made you scream
made you lose your mind.
but this
this is something different.
it's starting to feel like a new list
isn't it?
but this time
you're the one who's doing the hurting
and the list isn't yours.
08/06/2012
you can't write
so by default
you can't breathe either
it's like an entire universe
is building up inside you
but you can't show me it
and i know
it's beautiful
and it's big
and it's growing
but it's hidden
you just don't know
how to uncover it
so you're trying to collect stars
from other universes
you're trying to build flashlights
using nothing but your smile
you're not an engineer
but you're trying to study the circuits
of your heart
because maybe something's disconnected
maybe a wire is missing
and that's why you're here
that's why you're stuck
that's why you can't speak
but nothing seems to be working
and you don't know how much longer
you can last like this.
09/18/2012
i don't know who taught you
that love hurts
that if your heart aches
and your mind is torn
then it's real
because
this is going to make you spend
the next part of your life
searching for pain
to remind you
that you're in love.
and then when you find people
who will finally love you back
you're going to question it
because it won't hurt anymore
and you'll think that must mean
it isn't real
but it is
it has to be
because i don't think
love is supposed to hurt.
i think it's supposed to heal
and i don't know
who taught us
otherwise.
09/27/2012
my poems are all
starting to sound the same.
they blur into each other
the way the traffic lights do
when they reflect on the street
after a rainstorm
and the whole city
lights
up at night
and it makes sense
because lately it's
been rainstorm after rainstorm
so why wouldn't these words
get washed into each other?
but i'm worried
that this isn't just happening here
on paper
i'm worried that it's happening
inside me too
because it's getting a little hard
to tell the difference
between feeling too much
and not feeling at all.
so it's kind of like these late-night rainstorms
except the only difference is
there are no coloured lights inside me
to ease the darkness.
but i'm still writing these poems
even though they're all the same
because maybe you need to hear me tell you
it will be okay
in a hundred different ways
until you start believing it.
so here's another poem
that i could've written in 4 words
but instead i chose 203
this time
because maybe you need to hear it
in a hundred different ways
and maybe you need to hear it
in a hundred different words.
10/12/2012
don't read this now.
read this the day you hear your words
in the mouths of people
who were never meant to taste
your thoughts.
don't read this now.
read this the day you realize
you're alone
not physically
you're never really alone
physically
but you are in other ways.
read this when you figure out
what ways i'm talking about.
don't read this now.
read this the day you feel
your teeth
being pulled from your gums
because that's what it will feel like
when you lose the people
you thought you needed.
don't read this now.
it won't make much sense
because you're too trusting
and you're going to be devastated
when you find out
that these people
really want nothing
but to see your downfall
and they will
at any costs
but you'll get up anyway
and when you do
i hope you realize
that sometimes
it's better to just
bite your tongue.
and i hope you don't read this now
because i want you to learn it on your own.
11/01/2012
when you say you feel anxious