Songs I Can't Keep

You're still in my sheets and on my teeth

and it's not because you stay, I know

it's because I keep you here

and I keep you there

You're next to me in the back,

swaying to a song because I know all the words

and I like to sing them back to the band even if they don't see me

even though they've seen the lyrics in a million mouths

you're not really here though, I know

You're this song playing right now, this new one

I can hear it right now and by the end I know the words

I know, I can't keep this one though

this song is just for right now -

in this dim music box between buildings

it means the world for three minutes

You’re a song I can’t have and I remember it so well that

I feel like it’s mine sometimes but I know, it’s not

it was for a few minutes in a soft swelling crowd

this song was all mine, you were the world for three minutes

for one soft swelling season between seasons

and it’s done and I’m forgetting parts

because I know I can't I keep you, here

A perfect 10

"Who is like, a perfect 10 to you?"

"Oh geez, that’s hard. I don’t know."

"Just think, a perfect 10."

"Honestly-"

You said I was a perfect 10 once.

You said I was all ten fingers, 100%.

I’m not your solid A anymore, though.

Maybe because you didn’t mean it the first time,

or because I’m different now –

maybe because I’m not yours.

"Not counting personality - just looks, who is a perfect 10?"

"Ok just looks-"

Is that how it works?

I wasn’t sure if we could split it up like that.

I want to be a whole 10.

I want the sum of all my stuff to make some sort of wholeness.

I don’t think you can dissect it,

like a formaldehyde-soaked frog in Biology.

I hope someone tells me I’m a 10 again someday,

and I hope they mean my jeans and my paintings.

I hope they mean my whole string of teeth - smiling, and my laugh.

I hope they mean my hands, and my weakness for old movies.

I hope they mean the way I smell, and the way I kiss them by the nose.

I hope they mean me, and I hope they mean all of me

is “a perfect 10”.

Salvation

The drive is the best part. In the car, the music is loud enough so they can get away with singing badly but still hear themselves if they want – if they’re feeling brave. Who has the prettiest voice? They’re friends but there is an unspoken and ongoing game, everything is a game. They keep score. They count and recount score, silently. They park and keep playing music in their heads; they bounce when they walk. They go into a restaurant where the food is only okay, but the air smells like curry and smoke and the lights are low and there is dancing. There is some struggling artist fondling guitar strings in a corner. His songs are actually quite nice but the girls go to be seen, not to see. They don’t see anything, except the best-looking boys in the place, and their split-ends, and each other – they’re always sizing up each other. One girl is good at dancing so she’ll do that all night, to feel less alone, but loneliness and a bottle of sleeping pills will consume her later in the month. One girl is good at looking sad and pretty so she’ll cradle her drink all night and pretend to think, but end up thinking too deeply at the end of the year and sink to the bottom of a pink bathtub. The other girl hasn’t found her magic yet so she looks for it in other people. She imagines them looking for magic in her too, and that is her salvation. She imagines being saved by something, and she doesn’t know it, but imagining alone will save her;

it saves us all.

The Middle of Things

They say beginning is the best part,

they'll say nothing is so exciting as

the risky texts, brushing hands and legs

then the inevitable waiting, counting, and sweating

But I don't want that beginning bit

I'm tired of beginning and beginning again

place me in the middle, yes, the sticky thickness 

- the middle

I want the silent car rides, because I already know:

you love this song

you love that restaurant

you hate waiting at this light, and the next, and the next

I want the routine, because you already know:

how I love to stay home

how I love to be kissed on the head

how I hate small talk, since it's such a damn waste of time

Let's go there, now

to the middle of me and you

I know I go too fast at first, I know how silly that is

but I can wait here in the middle if you like

While you start at the beginning

and if you don't quit, if you stick around

you'll find me, here:

in the middle.

On growing up:

To the Class of 2013:

On Sunday I thought a lot about getting older. I thought about what that means when it comes to friends. I had a few close friends in high school, but in a way, everyone was a sort-of friend with everyone – at games when we all cheered together – we were all friends then. Sometimes I would pretend not to know somebody’s name when I met him or her formally for the first time, but I knew it, first and last name and who they dated and what sport they played. Almost everyone knew everyone and knows everyone still, and where they’ve gone on a mission and if they’re already engaged and what college they’re at. We aren’t all close and we might have even made some soft enemies but we are still on the same team. We’re still at a game cheering for each other. We’re still dressing up in church and smiling at each other at the grocery store and kissing and talking, we never stopped talking; we’ll never stop talking. Whoever has to marry me is going to hear all about the games and the boyfriends and the dances and every single “that one time” I saved. We’re all going to tell our kids about each other, isn’t that amazing? Even if we never spoke outside of school, I’ll talk about you. I’ll talk about you because you made me. We all made each other and now we’re all 18 or 19 but some day we’ll be 50 or 51 and it’s possible I’ll live next to one or two of you someday but I’m going to carry every one of you with me because I would not be what I am without every one of you. We’re growing up and moving out and moving on; we’re scattered and separate and so far gone – but we’re partly still at a game, cheering.