The First in Almost Two Years

I wrote a poem today. It still needs lots of revision and the like, but I haven't written a poem in so long. It feels amazing.


when she opened her mouth to scream there were icicles inside*

hanging from her throat, stalactites
in a cave that only sees light when
it's bad enough to scream.
when face pressed into pillow,
smothered sounds is not enough,
when the energy from deep inside
pushes to the top and the force of it all
is so strong the mouth opens without choice,
when finally she parts her lips, she finds the sound
frozen and dangling at the point
when the world was about to hear


*The title is taken from a skit done by the Neo-Futurists and TMLMTBGB

Touch

I've been really sick the past couple of weeks. Sick enough to call my mom several times a week. Sick enough to take sick days during my first month at a new job and sick enough to be near tears several times each day. And when I'm sick, there's one thing I want. One thing I need.

I need to be touched.

In general, I'm big on touch. I grew up with parents who were very physical-my dad rubbed my back every night before I went to bed. My mom would cuddle with me and when I was sick she would play with my hair, gently tucking it behind my ear. Even now, I lay with my mom when I visit and probably will still when I'm 60 and she's 87. In my world, touch means love, compassion, nurturing.

Most importantly to me, perhaps, touch means "I know you're here and I'm acknowledging your existence."

The lack of touch in my life is what I've always missed most about leaving home. I'm lucky in that my friends (most of them) like hugs and will let me rest my head on them etc, but it's still not enough. It's been rough the last month because I got used to being with C.- being held, cuddling, hugging, holding hands.

I realized how much I miss physical touch when I was riding the CTA home from work one night and the guy next to me didn't do the usual, "I'm trying to keep from touching the person next to me as much as possible," that so many people do while riding public transportation. He just sat and all of our legs touched and our sides were touching. We were sitting next to one another as most people would with their friends (which is just to say, sitting naturally) and I thought, "my god, I don't know the last time I had this much contact with someone."

I sat there so ridiculously happy that this stranger and I weren't trying to pretend the person next to us didn't exist, that we weren't obsessing about "personal space," that our bodies rested naturally against one another. I was happy to feel the physical presence of another person, to feel that my body existed in relation to someone else's.