Where my America sleeps

Mountains are majestic.
Oceans are overwhelmingly inspiring.
Snow-capped peaks fill me with awe,
and forests of evergreens ring out in exquisite naturalness,
but real elegance, true inspiration
lies in the rolling rows of corn
planted so expertly by farmers
with sun-spotted hands,
the most authentic sustenance comes from midwestern
plows sowing soybeans, and small-town kids tearing off tassels for
five bucks an hour in a smoldering summer heat.
This is home to me.
This place, so thankfully distant from crowded city streets,
this place, so close to the hearts of my brothers and sister,
where we played softball, and built tree houses,
and found first loves on middle school swing sets.
This place where my mother made military-sized pots of
macaroni and cheese and insisted we eat our vegetables
before heading back out to further stain our hand-me-down jeans.
So many memories here,
sometimes they’re so thick and tangible
I am able to relive them as I walk
down main street.
Trips to the corner shop for strawberry jelly beans,
bike races won for dollar slushies,
kissing boys on rusting monkey bars
and etching eternal initials into wet concrete.

This is where my America sleeps,
where my dreams were planted,
where my soul rests its head.

What men want

Us women are always trying to figure out what men want from us.
How we can please them,
how can we make them want us.
I’ve done it myself, and so has every woman in this room.
Should I wear the heels or the flats?
Oh definitely the heels, they make my butt tighter AND my legs longer.
Does he like my hair long or short? Brown or blonde? Curly or straight?
Should I talk about politics, or would I come off as too strong-willed and opinionated?
Do I order dessert?
Oh absolutely not,
he’ll think I’m a future whale just waiting to snatch a man so
I can eat chocolate cake to my heart’s content.
Should I tell him that I actually DO need affection and that I really DO like chick flicks (because the characters are just so real and I can empathize with their struggles)?
Do I tell him I’m a feminist?
Oh hell no, he’ll call me a flaming liberal,
tell me to burn my bra and hand me a razor to shave my lady parts.

The thing us women need to realize is that men don’t care if you’re blond or brunette,
if you wear pink or green or polka dots or horizontal stripes,
and those highlights you just paid $90 bucks for? Yeah, those will go completely unnoticed,
because what a real man really wants is a woman with some god-damn self-confidence.
That’s right, a woman who works what she’s got,
makes no excuses for who she is, or how small her waist is (or isn’t),
and can eat a bowl of moose tracks ice cream without even glancing at the nutrition facts
(okay, maybe that’s just what I want).

Most men don’t even realize they want this type of woman.
They fool themselves into thinking they want an insecure,
does-this-make-me-look-fat,
I-depend-on-your-compliments-for-eating-disorder-prevention type of girl,
when all they really want is a woman who has her shit together and isn’t afraid to look real, act real, and be reeealy, really good in bed.
Yeah, I said it, you can quote me, and don’t “psha” me,
because I know this is how it is,
and even if it isn’t,
it would be wonderful if instead of a bunch of
male-pleasing, self-doubting females running around,
we had a whole hoard of beautiful, confident, self-assured women who don’t give a fuck,
(but enjoy fucking), and loved everything about themselves despite what men or
anyone else has to say about it.

Until then

When you kissed me on that bench,
by the lake,
under that tree that dripped with summer romance,
I thought I must be the luckiest girl in the entire world.
You imitated the bullfrogs, and I laughed,
and you loved to make me laugh,
so you blew raspberries on my neck,
and we spoke about pink elephants, and black holes,
and islands we would discover together.
We held each other like lovers who would soon be without
their counterpart,
and swore we would never love like this again.
But we both knew you were leaving.

I asked you to stay.
Asked you how I was supposed to seduce you from
hundreds of miles away,
And you told me there were plenty of benches in
Tennessee for me to kiss you on,
(and you always had something clever like that to say),
and I told you your wit needed updating, so you said,
“your kisses are better than hot coffee under my front porch
in a morning rain.”
I said, that’s pretty good,
kiss me ‘til it starts raining.

And you told me I was your favorite girl,
and I was thinking... “you bet your sweet ass I am”,
but I diplomatically replied with... “and you are my favorite boy”,
and you insisted I call you if insomnia set in,
so I did, and I’d lay on my pillow with my cell phone to my ear,
smiling, while you read me poetry in your deep, playful baritone until I was too sleepy to complain of the places between us,
‘til I slipped into slumber and dreamt of your hands
moving over my body with such deliberate strength,
but so....gently, so....perfectly.

And I like how you speak in full sentences in text messages,
and how your eyes soften when you see me,
like I’m some relief you can rely on,
And I’ll probably never long for another as I have for you,
and I can guarantee that no person has ever been so expertly missed as I have missed you,
and you will live in the deepest parts of me until
bullfrogs stop ribbiting and rain stops falling on roofs made of tin,
until that little, bald section of your beard begins to grow in.

I will love you until then.

Ice Queen

He was like every other early advancer I had come across.
He thought dinner, and a movie (WOW), and some eloquence-lacking conversation would make my clothes fall right off in the passenger seat of his trendy 2009 Jetta.
He was just like every other 9 to 5, pink-tie-wearing,
drunk-off-Michelob-Ultra,
buy-your-girlfriend-a-Coach-bag-so-she’ll-keep-putting-out-kind-of-guy that makes me want to chuck my chilly ass off a train bridge.
He wouldn’t have known a real woman if she walked naked through Nordstrom with ninety grand worth of axe body spray
strapped to her back.
He said I think you are an ice queen, and I said well,
you and your nice jeans,
and your manicured fingernails don’t melt this iceberg.

I like a man who wears cut off t-shirts,
who can build cabinets with callused hands,
who drinks black coffee, shoots straight whiskey, but still reads me poetry by candlelight before we make wild love as dawn peeks its way onto white-washed walls.
I don’t need a man with fortune,
I want a man who appreciates the greens in the stems of wildflowers and
gets lost in the leaves of lofty oak trees.
I don’t need a man to protect me, I want a man with safe arms,
always open and optimistic and strong in principles, not in arrogance.
But you, you are not this man.
You are all the same.
With your spikey hair, and perfectly polished pearly whites,
and not a scar on your body,
because you’ve never done anything dangerous enough,
you’ve never taken the rough road through windy, dark streets.
You’ve never taken a chance,
you won’t even dance by yourself,
with the door closed,
and the lights off.
But I suppose I can’t fault you for this. Because it isn’t your fault.
It’s probably what everyone’s always wanted for you your entire life.
It’s what your dad did, and what your friends do,
and you probably think you’re successful,
and you may call me an ice queen now, but if you only knew the pictures I can paint with my tongue you would rip off that Hollister, American Eagle, Abercrombie bullshit and let me teach you a thing or two about living dangerously.
Because I am not your average Barbie bimbo,
but I can do back bends, and I can limbo,
but HIM though,
YOU though, you’ll never know what it feels like because to you,
I’m just an ice queen,
unwilling to give it up.
So you call me when you’re willing to give IT up.

For Sam

I wish I could write you a poem that would explain everything.
I wish I could write you a poem that you could reference
when you need to know how you should feel
when you don’t make the basketball team,
or when your first girlfriend leaves your heart broken in pieces,
or when you think that no one in the world understands you,
but this is not that poem.

This is not a poem about love, or successes,
This is not a poem about life’s mysteries, botched wisdom,
how to swim, how to read, how to understand women (yeah, right).
This is a poem for you, my little brother.
This is a poem to tell you how much I love you, unconditionally, forever.
I wanted to tell you that when I look at your little hands,
I get a feeling deep in my soul that peace is possible,
that all is right in this unforgiving world.

When you smile that toothy grin,
geez, that little smile,
it’s the brightest thing that’s ever blinded me with happiness.
I would give you everything in the world if I could.
I would gather all the good things that were ever created,
mold them together in a giant mass of awesome,
and keep it in the basement so you could tear off a little piece when you were feeling sad,
or needed a reminder that things generally turn out okay.
I want you to know that things aren’t always going to seem fair,
that you WILL get caught doing stupid shit,
and you WILL wish you hadn’t done it,
but be glad you did,
because you shouldn’t EVER hold regrets within yourself.
Live every day like you do right now.
At 1 year old.
With cheerios on your fingers, juice in your sippy-cup,
and a contentment that every adult wishes they could grasp for
one
single
day.

"A" for effort

You. He told me.
You are the nerdiest nymphomaniac I ever encountered.
He told me the words I chose to speak and the topic of conversation was all Greek to him,
that he couldn’t understand why any woman would read poetry,
let alone hold “outdated” ideas of feminism.
He wasn’t the deepest, most seasoned lover I’d had.
Sometimes he wasn’t sure where his hands should caress, or how his tongue should press against my...lips.
Sometimes my hips would ask him if he could move just a little bit to the left,
and sometimes he understood,
and sometimes he didn’t.
Sometimes he’d say, “hey! Slow down up there!”
And I’d say, “hey! You’re so slow down there!”
Most of the time he moved to his own rhythm, and that was okay with me, as long as he,
you know,
respected the outcome.
And the outcome was always slightly better than average, but it was never that clenched-fist, muscle-spasm, bury-head-in-pillow-for-fear-of-waking-the-neighbors’-neighbors
kind of orgasm,
But it was dependable.
It was that little, black dress in the back of your closet that always feels flattering,
and that book,
that book you’ve read over and over and the pages are falling out,
but it always takes you to the same, wonderful place.
See, I didn’t care that he needed direction as to where to put his....erecti....hands,
because I was his professor, and criticism was something he could surely withstand.
So I gave him an A for effort,
not because he made up in coordination what he lacked in experience,
but because there is always praise to be given for passionate persistence.

My God

I saw this man standing on the fountain at my school,
He was yelling at passers-by and shaking his bible in the air like a weapon of war.
His imposing, roar of a voice was getting rather heated by the time I passed by in my tie-dye and jeans, my brown eyes met his
and I smiled without thinking, (mistake of the century).
He cried, “Sinner! You need some saving!”
My God, that’s strange, I don’t feel as if I’m drowning, or choking, burning in a pit of hot lava, being trampled to death by a herd of wildebeests. I feel...good.
I said, I appreciate your concern, sir, but I’m simply not sure that I agree.
Because the God you shriek of is all fire and brimstone, spiting and smiting, judgment, deprivation, drip some water on your head and you’re granted salvation...my god.
You preach of exclusions and black and white with no grey in between.
How can that be, sir?
Your God tells you to shun the Jews, the Muslims, the Buddhists, the gays, the gay-supporters, the pro-choice-ers, the feminists, the liberals, the evolutionists, the trans-gendered, the women who work too much, the men who don’t work enough, the divorced, the free-thinkers.
Sir, I don’t mean to sound combative, or at all as though I have this insight into His nature within the scope of my worldly understanding.
All I can convey is my consciousness and the
God that visits me at night.
I’m not saying you’re wrong and I’m right,
because the realities we see are molded by our experiences
and maybe I’ve been more fortunate than you.
But the God I know is all peace and kindness.
Not tolerance, but acceptance with open arms.
He’s warm and natural, greens and blues and purples and reds.
He smells like a baby’s soft skin, and rain and wind,
and the perfume my mother wears only on special occasions.
He tastes like a lovers’ kiss, wild raspberry stains on my fingertips,
and chocolate chip pancakes with whip cream faces.
The God I know records no wrongs on His Blackberry with a petty vengeance, no.
He’s always on love’s side.
I find my God in the strangest places. Not in cathedrals or mosques, or masses or sermons, no. But, on a flight to Miami and the woman next to me is flying to the funeral of her young sister and I hugged mine just last week.
Or in a mother saying good-bye to her son, a Marine, and she’s so damn proud but scared as hell this may be the last time they’ll speak.
You see, sir, your description and mine could not be more disparate,
my God is all tender touch and compassion,
not discrimination and prohibition.
My God is
love,
sir.