op-ed​

​https://medium.com/@adriannasvitak

poems

hey there delilah
pedals around town, swaying alone on
a lime green tandem bike she found one afternoon
propped up and dusty
rust crawling down its spine
but here, now it’s all her own
like the sidewalks, the streets that creak
with the gravity that keeps her from flying up
up away
into clouds that spin stories for her
skies like a painting, wet acrylic and smooth




elastic elation
i beg of you
i’m on my knees.
we spend
all our lives
searching for
____
and sometimes,
we call it happiness
but i know it as the soft hum
in the corner of my brain
where i send thoughts to die
forever perched on this question mark, you and i
and then the soft rust
finds our hands,
and we are finished
but the question
the question of
what is the question
will keep on beating. horridly tender


sometimes i think
happiness is like
that stocky white carton of milk
in the back of your fridge
expiration date: 1/12/14
shrugging and
running to the grocery store
over, over, and over
except
sometimes it takes a while
and the milk i get is always sour


your blood
reeks of harmony
and there is too much
history to be had
in those eyes of yours.
i am pulverized
by your gaze,
almost.
plastered like a shadow to a wall.
i could spend a lifetime
running through your mazes



the wind outside
howls at me
just the way
you do.
in your sleep when
you can’t remember
where you are going
or what your name was
or what your eyes look like
when you are talking to her.
the wind outside
pulses its dark blue fingers
along the spines of trees,
bark blistering in the damp night.
the way you do, your
tears stain
late afternoons of
forehead pressed hard
to my vertabrae
shaking

calendula eyes
they saw me sink
yes
and my dear you were crying
tears of gold
“i never wanted to hurt you”
but haha
ah my child
you did you did


here, take this
alphabet
crush this cluster of letters in your hands because
i’ve tried and tried
but no,
words won’t do the deed.
right
i’ve picked me up
and reassembled me a million times
but woken up still
shaken,
haunted
like what’s that feeling
of missing someone you have
never met
or memories,
the kind you’ve never had


everything i own is a little bit worn
afraid the edges might
cut too clean
neat
you’d find me too hard.
the way it is,
things are
gentle, and raggedy
the way you’d feel about your
childhood doll
the one you could never let go of
holding all the time
the way i’d be
worn
weaved around your years



like some destructive pattern
that pervades
i get choked up
on the soft of your skin
and you hurt
the way it hurts to stare out a
window
on a rainy afternoon
when no one is home anymore
can you hear me because i am not
here at all

​