Poems Dee Knegtel

Poems
by
Deirdre Emily Knechtel 2001 - 2006
Contents
2001 ...................................................................................................................................... 3 2002 .....................................................................................................................................28 2003 .....................................................................................................................................57 2004 .....................................................................................................................................80 2005 .....................................................................................................................................91 2006 .....................................................................................................................................99 Index ..................................................................................................................................104
Post Poems 2001 - 2006
2001
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45.
A Million Miles And Sometimes When You Fall... Backyard Botany Better Than Okay Birthday Poem Cynical Don't Leave Drain Easier Every Time Farm House Blues Fatalism critiqued Forbidden Ghost Gone Without a Note Goodbye to Spring Grandma Anne Grief Upon This Earthly Sphere Happiness Household Chemicals Let Up Looseleaf critiqued Loyalty of a Glove Michael Monster Needles New Year's Resolution (Early) No One Has to Stay critiqued One in Five Painting My Dreams critiqued Please Explain This Poster Puppet Quiet Rage Rainy Monday Red Salt Water (or, Anatomizing Depression) Self Definition Significance Sometimes That's the Way Things Are Stop It Thank You The Best Advice The Perfect Daughter Thirty-Three
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Dee Knechtel

46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53.
Trichinobezoar Typical Self-Destructive Obsession With Flying Untitled Vain Foundation Victoria Waiting to Fly West Coast Whistler Hotel, Room 108 Where Roses Bloom in December
A Million Miles
somewhere amongst the wreckage there's some one worth talking to some one who isn't a bitter ghost crying out for affirmation somewhere amongst the wreckage... you'll find whoever it is that's been hiding a million miles beneath my skin.
And Sometimes When You Fall...

when you think that you'll fall over with every breath you take and you're absolutely certain the world around you's fake and your only friends are bleeding or they're way too high on dope you find yourself believing you need a little hope. when you think that you can't make it and you're up against the wall and you're afraid to look around you because you know you're gonna fall a million miles beneath you to the center of the Earth you need to gain perspective and understand what things have worth. when you're climbing on the tower and your fingers start to tire you're afraid of dying now, and returning to the fire don't be afraid to go downwards or upwards-- even if you die sometimes you have to have some faith and sometimes when you fall, you fly.
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Backyard Botany
spoiled fruit at her feet clear it away. she may have taken care in spring decked out each blossom with expensive perfumes and linens of delicate coloring. she was lonely, she wanted the company. but now, they're alone at her feet clear it away
Better Than Okay

somewhere there's a Candyland and i can get there with stolen butterfly wings. and there are no rats in the walls. just in my head. and everybody lives happily ever after and rides into the sunset happier, happier, happier than the Boxcar Children. (and she laughed, "it's a shame, when childhood illusions are shattered." and i said "no. it's going to be better than okay. it's going to be perfect.")
Birthday Poem
i'll sit at my birthday table eating my birthday cake
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Post Poems 2001 - 2006 i'll smile to the ghosts and table fairies at my elbows and everything will be just perfect except you're not here except nothing here is worth celebrating: i'm another year older another year closer to death/suicide/adulthood/redemption that's the age of everyone a year closer to the flame and my fingers are burning... another candle on my birthday cake.
Cynical
i feed you all my lies my various cynicisms my shields my poor attitudes you believe them and i wonder if i can get out of this trap love you with joy instead of desperation i wonder if i can ever laugh again without it feeling like blue echoes i wonder if i believe that life is so bleak and bleak or if it's my revenge my revenge against the world against that fatal believe. "No matter how cynical you are it is impossible to keep up." - Lily Tomlin
Don't Leave
why are you still here? i thought you'd left an age ago who do you think you are? i hate you but please, please, don't leave.
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Drain
everything goes down the drain these days for me it's mostly purple dye and blood you know the routine. i'm tired of living but i've got a pink spider in my pocket and i have a hair tie that belongs to my lover. so i'm okay.
Easier
best to knuckle under, after all weakness comes easier than breathing. the climax is bigger than standing on the edge of the frying pan. weakness comes easier than fighting
Every Time
every time you say those words i want to die along with you. is it hard to understand? am i wrong?
Farm House Blues

i wonder what it feels like to live in a pale yellow house that some long-passed ancestor built with his bare hands building along with it not just a farm but a life a family my family
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Post Poems 2001 - 2006 and then to look accross the expanse of land stretched flat and long hard work and green and tan and sky and time and silence... what was once so grand in my ancestor's day now a concrete ribbon of highway is laid mere steps from my house and if i look outside i could see a pale kid who probably hasn't seen a day of hard work in his life passing by on a car or bus imagining me staring back imagining they had my life
Fatalism
took long enough realizing all of it was mostly just me wishing for wings to take me away to places that never actually existed.
Forbidden
"come into the garden, child," she said the fruit had stained her lips the darkest red "darling, don't you don't you see? i've won my immortality..." the blood dripped from the vine my lover's dead.
Ghost
i'm haunted by the ghosts beneath my bed a woolen hat a black blouse
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Post Poems 2001 - 2006 a silver necklace your photo your memory and safety pins.
Gone Without a Note

swallowed up by the Earth at the age of twenty-five: darling... ambitions aren't wings guns aren't knives blood isn't solvent promises aren't promises.
Goodbye to Spring
they kissed the honeysuckle sky the subtle oak protective of every child. colors more vivid in hindsight: that cloudless blue that fervent green. those colors are long gone. our friend the tree has been uprooted years ago. nothing more than a patch of mud, ghostly and rootless just like anyone. and our friend the sky is nothing but gray and airplanes leaving this place. i sit where they made chains and feasts of clover. as always, the lone mourner.
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Grandma Anne
parchment skin that has seen better days you latch on my arm to steady myself. you amaze me. still going strong after so many years still loving your life when the love of your life and most of your vision has long since passed away. in 1925 your Daddy drove the Model T all the way to Pensylvania with the family, in tow. i wonder when i am older, will i have such a story to tell?
Grief Upon This Earthly Sphere

no one ever really says goodbye. don't ask me, i don't know why. i've been abandoned we all have been abandoned for Heaven Hell or in between. being left behind is nothing new but i can't forget can't forget can't forget you.
Happiness
i can be happy... i can say, "i can be happy." as if it were a matter of catching a joy in the air with a net and kidnapping it into a jar and looking at it, saying, "this is happiness."
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Household Chemicals
everyone's got five or six million swept under the rug.. pour yourself another, why not pour two? use it to induce a smile use it to relate you only live once... why not pour another? use it to laugh when you're not smiling use it on the kids help them form the right relationship with safe household chemicals.
Let Up
and am i naked on the dance floor cleaning up your messes with my tongue? the ropes bind my hands, (they hurt) i'm not complaining. i brought this upon myself. i never screamed, i never even asked why... so i won't be bitter as steel remembering: that you never asked my name or that, come to think of it, you never even gave me a compliment. it's my fault i'm drowning down down down DOWN where they whisper, "it could never happen to me. those stupid girls. half of the time if they said no, he would have..." LET UP. unless you've been down.
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Looseleaf
there was that wonderful all-around silence... and i thought, oh my God. i am trapped in a poem.
Loyalty of a Glove
there sits a black leather glove entirely alone on the blue bench against gray walls against gray sky and gray sand and gray sea its partner is in a pocket somewhere or on a hand or it has been carried away by a dog passerbys leave it alone optimistically believing that eventually it will be remembered and taken home like a baby in rushes or a filthy 'Nam veteran with very little clothes or sanity left on him spooked-horse eyes asking to be saved
Michael
he said, dear, don't puck your own petals he said, ,dear, don't be a statistic he said, well, y'know, you can talk to me and then he said, what do you care? -what do i care indeed. was all your advicee poison?he said, but still dear, it isn't healthy life's tough that way but you're amazing you can learn to walk on. first day of the worst week
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 he's been betrayed by the regulars "things this week making me want to pull a hot bath and open a warm vein." i feel sick. i constantly can imagine that crimson always bubbling and hissing like thick boiling water curling into pinky ribbons in the tub so i took an offensive approach. "hey you. you take care of yourself. if you kill yourself i'm going to Hell and i'm dragging you back. which will be difficult considering i've never 'really' met you." and my atheism. which is when you say something like i have no right. like we're not friends. what do i care indeed. and i guess that honestly i couldn't say where i'm trying to go with this all. except i wonder at these mechanisms we have in common the ones that keep us from loving ourselves or trusting the honest LOVE of other people these tightly conceealed chambers in our hearts these skyscrapers these steel walls these security systems that cut off circulation. and i see that as you die so do i die so do i suffer your loss so do i care. he said, i know how you feel. feeling like he had to be the responsible one.
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 Michael, i know how you feel.
Monster
sugar sweet crawling past my lips into my heart beautiful blood infestations. and i ask you, if we eat the mortals, and God eats us, what eats God?
Needles
i bleed red ink and sometimes salt water in a way a butterfly might attempt to beat its wings after it had been long-pinned to a card which labeled it extinct.
New Year's Resolution (Early)

even if i think i've given all i can give i have to keep trying and learn how to live i'll try to stop saying all the wrong things i hate the conflict and the tears that it brings i know i must stop saying goodbye hello has to be better if you don't cry i was never thrown in a cell forced to eat shards of glass so i've got to stop trying to kick my own ass :) if i felt pain before, at least i still felt i've got to learn to appreciate the card i was dealt i must let go of the pain most of it's already bled because if i stay where i am then i'm already dead.
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No One Has to Stay

"I didn't become a rock star because I wanted to be famous. I did it because it sounded like a good idea at the time, and I was so tired of being poor." --Foxglove, Death: The Time of Your Life by Neil Gaiman. in all my days, and all my lies and all my thievery i'll never forget the night the ghost turned to speak to me he said, "i don't know too much and half of it ain't true but early on i learned the ways the only ways to make it through." no one has to stay here forever no one's making you stay in one place you can deny whatever plagues your heart that's the beauty of our human race. he said, "you've got your music and religion and posessions you can get a girl and settle down or settle down for briefer sessions you've got your dear ones and your dearly hated, too but early on i learned those ways ain't the best ways to make it through." no one has to stay here forever no one's making you stay in one place you can deny whatever plagues your heart that's the beauty of our human race. i was naive and so i asked of him, "so what was it that you used?" he told me of the alcohol, other drugs that he abused. "i'm saying there's nothing to depend on nothing except you if you have a lonely heart you'll never make it through." no one has to stay here forever no one's making you stay in one place you can deny whatever plagues your heart that's the beauty of our human race. and i said "oh. now i think i get it." he said to me, "kid, don't forget it. strength to survive
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 doesn't come out of the blue you have to be willing to make it all the way through..." no one has to stay here forever no one's making you stay in one place you can solve whatever plagues your heart that's the beauty of our human race.
One in Five
five or sixty days later after the dawn it will cut your face right across the jawline better than a smile. and you'll realize it's been almost four years since 'all that bad stuff' went down... hit the fan. whatever. you're not her anymore, she's gone, she was young and stupid, and deserving of idle hands. and you're-you're-you're better than that. but i'm saying no. the bullet hasn't left my brain and i'm still filthy i'm still unworthy and i'll always be that way. every day i bleed, i'll be that way.
Painting My Dreams
why do they say you're gone when i'm sure you're just in the other room? why do they say you're gone when i'm sure you're calling to me? tiny images pacing on the screen tiny songs in my computer. why do they say you're gone when i'm sure
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 you've been here the whole time smiling at me settling next to me on the bus painting my dreams playing your songs.
Please Explain This Poster

illusion alluded to in fiction. the boy haircut and drawing causes friction. stand up respectibly if you're a man. mumble the truth embarrasedly fast as you can.
Puppet
Pinocchio complex Pinocchio complex Mommy why can't i be a real boy? what'd i ever do to you? the girls are playing dolls with me again and complaining when they get splinters. Mommy what'd i ever do to them? Mommy what'd i ever do?
Quiet
quiet like a raging storm that is how i'll go louder than a growing tree so that you'll never know. piercing like a warming breeze that is the way you'll feel gentler than a firing gun so that you'll know that it's real. pleasant like a screeching babe that is how i'll sound
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 shriller than a strumming harp so that you'll put me in the ground. quiet like a clanging bell that is how i'll move on louder than a falling tear so that you'll know i'm gone.
Rage
it twists in my stomach and swims black in my veins becoming shadows and "sadness" because all i know is concrete walls and ceeilings and floos and no doors or windows save the ones on elevators i have shadows in my blood that paralyze me when i lift my fingers i am only misinterpreted so i'm alone as ever
Rainy Monday
Monday morning suddenly it's six my head must've been thrown down Mt. Fuji while i wasn't paying attention the coffee is cold and i wonder if every rainy Monday is slowly killing me.
Red
roses are red and i can be red too. not a maniac not any longer walking on picket fences now, for you. wouldn't want it any other way. but when i close my eyes... it's still red.
Salt Water (or, Anatomizing Depression)

trapped in a fish tank poisoning everything i didn't realize the problem until the cold water swirled around my ankles. there is no exit. ice water but it tastes like blood or piss or tears... just salt water. (there's really no excuse, they say. seize your own happiness) and the water is closing over my head now. there's nothing to hold onto i'm pounding on the glass but i can't break it the water's over my head and i can't (make it?) breathe there's nothing to hold onto. outside, they all have sympathy, looking on. (why don't you just save yourself?) my arms ache. my palms sting. i'll be quiet now i'll stop screaming, i'm tired of the blood water violating my mouth. i'm tired of the piss and tears i want to get out, but there's not a patch of air or sky above me i feel how heavy my own skin can be. (why don't you just save yourself?) i've tried. i'm tired of fighting it. i'm too weak to make the smallest fracture in my little glass prison. (there's really no excuse.) they say. (you enjoy your misery.)
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 maybe i have no other choice. my eyes are closing, now... maybe if i just screamed louder maybe if i just flailed harder maybe if i just maybe if i maybe if maybe-...the blood, piss, and tears ...all but salt water. ...we're all but salt water i return to salt water.
Self Definition
i'm burning with rage this is all very funny "you and your psyco comments" yeah, you're right on the money! i'm a hippie you see i do nobody harm remind me now quickly not to cut up my arm ;) i like South Park and porn i like coffee ice cream i like to tear out my hair and try not to scream i like video games taking pictures of feathers i like spikes, whips and chains and i love my leathers. i like Japanese culture pop and history and i swear to God i don't damage nobody but me so why am i laughing? i just can't relate my feelings to anything in my current state i want to lash out and make some one cry slash out my veins and watch them go dry... but don't worry about me i'm all well and good i'd feed all those little kids if only i could
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 i'll drive off in the sunset when i'm twenty-one and i'll raid all the porn shops and i'll buy myself a gun. hell yeah, i am laughing i sure as sure know the score but one of these days i won't be around anymore.
Significance
could you imagine me one of those human sorcerers tall and monolithic like a mountain lightning crouching round my head like a blue halo like demons had halos. could you imagine me entirely wicked drunk on my own significance my cup resting on the tables of invariable gullibility grand and gigantic sweeping through cities could you imagine me i am the beetle beneath that Titan's foot... small... but my shell is tough... and i hold my own pretty well... with no false need for the awe and financial aid of the measses to realize my own significance
Sometimes That's the Way Things Are

i never asked why it hurts to be here like this. why we are forever caught between mourning, torment, and bliss.
Stop It
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 stop it the needles are screaming stop it my hands won't be still stop it stop it the needles are screaming! and i will be undone.
Thank You
thank you for the bruises and the cuts along my arm thank you for the wings that always kept me safe from harm thank you for the music that warmed my sullen heart thank you for telling me i was a failure from the start thank you for giving me no real cause to worry thank you for snapping me out of that good mood in a hurry thank you for the experiences i would later learn to hate thank you for the laughter and always making me wait thank you for the love you thought you had for me and thank you for the times you were my reality.
The Best Advice

don't be a fool don't do the wrong thing don't speak out of turn and don't make people uncomfortable don't tell the truth if it hurts but don't be a liar don't be grim don't be shocking don't be sad don't be depresing don't be yourself at the expense of others.
The Perfect Daughter

you always had to smile at the end of each sentence and tilt like a bird, requiring approval. i wondered about you. fighting with your mother, but always, always living up to her expectations even if it wasn't enough for her or you. i saw you milky white on the bleachers, fiddling with the loose thread on the cuff of your sweater. i saw that you were dead even when you smiled, tried to, when some one spoke to you. you were dead all along kept alive by French Club and a 4.0 average and you'd faked it even more than i knew how to
Thirty-Three
maybe you wouldn't cry who wants ink on their face? hope goes down the drain-like magenta soap suds, hair dye guitar strings traded for silver feathers... hope hangs on the doorknob.
Trichinobezoar
tell me, please if i am pulling your hair too hard... i'll yank a little harder. that's my love for you. plaits, pigtails, perfect parts that's my love for you. don't chew
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 on the end of your hair you bad, dirty little girl. sit very still in your pretty little dress.
Typical Self-Destructive Obsession With Flying

i want to be free from the memories that hold me to the shore. and i want you to be free from the bruises and the people who make you smile like a doll. i want the dead gray gulls to rise from the sand and tides and fly.
Untitled
and maybe you'd think of him years later hey, that guy was pretty cool. i wonder where he is now. is there a heaven? i'm so glad he ended his pain. the chemo was really awful, y'know? pain's a bitch. glad he didn't suffer anymore. (wonder where he is what he thinks of me)
Vain Foundation
here lies the wreckage of some forgotten passion: the foundation is crumbling red concrete all the rest is smoke or dust and charcoal and ash and nostalgia and the lingering scent of old fear once, where you scuffle your feet now some one ran through these halls and they were sun-dappled. once,e ,where you kick at flaking logs there was a bed and books and a favorite chair
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 once, where you poke aroud there was a memory of an embrace and a life and a song and a pain and LOVE that can't be seen now so you say, oh well. certainly once this was important to me but i'm older now i've grown out of it. old passions that never lasted long are not worth the time to reminisce.
Victoria
here i have been in your city a little less than a day and every building has your fingerprints on it and i keep hoping i'll meet you magically but you have flown away across the nation suggesting i was not meant to see you as something tangible. i wonder if you died a hundred years ago back when i was a happy child and your words touch me only with ghost fingers i wonder if i am quite in love with you the closer to fading i get the easier it gets for the tiny gates in my heart to open and swallow a lot of rejection and bring forth secrecy i wonder what you feel like if you're tall with a long red coat and blond hair if you're bright and dark and sullen male or female, pigeon, hedgehog angel or crane if i matter at all to you or anything
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 i don'twant your love so much as your affirmation yes, hello i am here but you aren't you're nowhere to be found it is not you singing me to sleep in my cavernously lonely hotel room just the passing of cars on the busy street below
Waiting to Fly
surely there must be somewhere far beyond oceans of doubt shut eyes and shut mouths and "you'll understand someday when you're older." and "try and be patient." surely there must be some one with hope instead of cynicism or lies surely i cannot suffer all my years waiting to understand waiting for truth or soft words waiting to FLY
West Coast Whistler Hotel, Room 108

we are asked calmly to turn the lights out and not be afraid because maybe there was a man with a gun in front of our hotel. i almost laughed. my roommate was the kind who was jittery and a hare when afraid she dared not take a step near the window but she insisted on blow-drying her hair i was the adult i have a reassuring voice and i analyze things until they're really not
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 scary. when she was done she asked me to stop reading my Emily Dickenson aloud which must've made my eyes flash red because then she asked me if i was annoyed with her. i said no i knew the remedy for the situation was to be rational. and let her sit on my bed eating ice and time and adherance to our instructions. and even as the air cleared i did not flinch-not even when our third returned in tears, a refugee i had difficulty indentifying whether i was shaken at all
Where Roses Bloom in December

she loves me she loves me not i hate the world but she's all that i've got. blood petals simmer on obsidian pavement with a sickening smell the sacrifice is spent. the road is a prison the sand is a cell ask any octillo this is place is like Hell. i'm wide awake but i've got nothing to say except, "sure is hot here, wish i was far away." maybe tomorrow i'll cut and i won't remember the feeling i had where roses bloom in December... she loves me she loves me not don't play games with the world she's all that you've got.
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2002
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.
3 Inch Song A Letter in Late Autumn critiqued A Letter of Apology From Not-So-Prince-Charming Becoming King Best Friend Bleeding in Watercolor Changeling Crystalline December Afternoon Feathers Foreign Language Girls Gray Area Insomniac Song Intervention Jamin-kun Lamented Lifeline Little Hope Madeline critiqued Masculinity Notes Plea for Optimism Poem for a Friend, or an Angel. Poem for My Mother Power Play Praying Room 304 (a villanelle) Same Planet, Different Worlds Scabs Sick Day Spring Fever, OR, Stuff that Doesn't Make Sense Suicide Note The Musician The Song to Say Goodbye The Valentine's Day Song Therapy Too Close to the Sun Under Earth Untitled 2 Untitled 3 Untitled Shakespearian Sonnet What Ought to Be Spoken, but Alas Dies Here with Water Lilies and Onions Provided by the Author
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3 Inch Song
the tickertape clique marches along acutely, singing their 3-inch song charmingly and astutely. ka chik ka chik! daka daka daka da! we lied when we came when we spoke what we saw. Porkpie Hat says to Lipstick "in allegorical way, we must spin what we must we must lie what we say." ka chik ka chik! daka daka daka da! each member is sharp each equation a flaw. on marches the mob suits smart cut and bleeding black and white for the fall Italian tailored misleading ka chik ka chik! daka daka daka da! Porkpie Hat's got the stapler Lipstick's got the last straw. Spectacles's got nothing except the tickertape cry raising a number or inkwell "hello kids, time to die!" ka chik cha chik! daka daka daka DING! better watch if they crouch better run if they spring.
A Letter in Late Autumn

stark, pale face, not an easy decision. dark, searching eyes hold severe precision. he thought he wore joy easily as a glove, he thought he could bear the full weight of her love,
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 but the tickertape clique sounds the silent alarm, the mental lynch mob lifts the blade to his arm. without control he raises the razor and he elimates all the places he could someday be. i can hear his mute cries as i write you this letter. my words aren't profound, but i can scarsely do better. i won't look up, friend. i won't move the scrim. let him leave if he likes, i cannot save him. carefully forming each line, his outcome is certain. he bleeds mere feet away, i will not pull the curtain. his last breath has escaped. a relief! no more violence. though he's died for us, friend. he's died for our silence. i suppose she will mourn, only time can tell. take care, my dear friend, i hope you are well
A Letter of Apology From Not-So-Prince-Charming

the bell's ringing in the forest, but already i know i'm too late: sleeping beauty's dead. i thought we forever, but we weren't, and i thought we made sense together, but we didn't. anyone could tell you, that's just the way it goes. we fed each other pieces of our lives in anticipation of a grander stage show that never quite happened. sorry i missed my cues, but me and the scrawny white steed have other sunsets to ride into now.
Becoming King
because God i still remember the pink feathers, the teddy bears because when i was a child i was a wolf because when i was a child i was a mouse because when i was a child i wanted to be king and king someday i still could be wearing a dyke haircut and an ugly hat and a long coat the first in a long line of obscene songs rattling off my favorite dirty verse: he was a girl but wasn't really and his word was integrity. and i might not be what you wanted me to be, leaving muddy boot prints on the rug sometimes i'll be scolded for leaving my tap shoes at the studio again and renamed for how i left my heart in the land of the rising sun. too many telephones are ringing off the hook in my heart like sand traps or landmines all of my signals are flaws, all of my flaws are brushstrokes and brushstrokes are what comes from bleeding. still i know nothing is better than the man i know i can grow up to be no place is better than behind my eyes and every word i breathe is more sacred than texts backlit in chapels because though i'm not Christ like anyone i can grow up to be king.
Best Friend
i used to tell you my all my fears i wonder what you did with them? when we did the dance of a hundred years under the night that sang like a gem. CHORUS if you fall i'll fall in too, if you lose i've lost the worst. the winner of the game was always you i was second to nothing and you were first. nowadays i'm underground, i'm still afraid of you. you don't know what to do with what you've found, i can't be repaired or be made new. CHORUS were we innocent then? somehow more pure? are we any happier or older?
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 how do you manage to endure? the ground only hardens and grows colder. CHORUS do you think about me often, or is this really the end? is it worth digging me from the coffin, to save the kid who was once your best friend?
Bleeding in Watercolor
i never asked you to climb into my tragic watercolor but you did anyway. i couldn't give you tea, so i bled for you a little... (i hope that was good enough for you.) and i thought you'd use those pieces to stitch up your wrists or stop the black holes from spreading. and i thought that you'd use those pieces for something other than giving me the privelege of eating your shit. and i never thought it would hurt every time you left you're tearing a part of the scenery, you're saying i'm doing all i can or maybe you're just saying i just don't try. i'm not an angel, my feathers burned when i reached Hell. stop calling me your-- how long do i have to keep on before i'm dry? i'm only human and sometimes i can't i'm only human and sometimes i just can't and i never thought it would hurt every time you left me i never asked you to climb into my tragic watercolor but you did anyway.
Changeling
i never had a father, presumably my mother found me cutting a tooth on a rusty knife on a night beneath a leaf in Central Park i never was a New Yorker, but at least i was found by one. spent too much time stuck to her soul like gum, sucking her neutral hose. a bright little sun, but she calls me rabbit-my ears point and the color of
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 my eyes tends to bleed so the kids call me an eyesore. i'll never be a New Yorker, but at least my mother makes me breakfast. not dinner, though. she doesn't come home, a little afraid of my homework and how my face is a light in the evening. i sit up because she tells me not to, watching the sky turn from Hi-C to cola. sometimes her men come in and look at me: nice kid, bet you're a great Mom, he looks like you but i'm her cousin's so she says, after all i'm not much of a New Yorker. but at at least she keeps me shut up. she doesn't love me, them, or anything but she lets us all feed at the foot of her skyscrapers. and i know she's dead and i'm wondering what would it take to make me a jealous machine gun, cutting out her excess, any other boys, and the smell of her taxis and clients. i may never be a New Yorker, but at least i'm as lonely as one.
Crystalline
someday you'll be cast in shadow and i'll lend you my light holding my breath to keep words from escaping waiting for the arrows to take flight. but your mouth is still set against me, you were too heavy on my back i was your great contestant but i never showed up to the track. and i won't expect your explanation 'cos i never asked for it then and if you ask i still won't answer why i never wanted to see you again. i said our life is just a story, just an old story it could be anyone's you tell me that i think too much but i stick to my guns. i said all stories have endings, and this is ending it's time that we finish the scene you tell me i quote too many books, and you never see what i mean. someday you'll admit to the years you kept me in a box under the bed i was the oddity you couldn't fathom
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 so into the machine i was fed but your resolve is set against me because you are never wrong conveniently forgetting how for each other we pretended to be strong. and i won't expect your honesty 'cos i didn't ask for it then and if you cry i still won't answer why i never wanted to see you again. i said our life is just a story, just an old story it could be anyone's you tell me that i think too much but i stick to my guns. i said all stories have endings, and this is ending it's time that we finish the scene you tell me i quote too many books, and you never see what i mean. someday i'll say i'm sorry for all the things you say i did all the times i tried to touch you my fingerprints were like a skid. but your heart is still set against me it's easier than letting go. you wanted to leech my misery but i never let it show. and i won't expect your affection 'cos i didn't ask for it then and if you beg i still won't answer why i never wanted to see you again.
December Afternoon
the street is silent, early December the sunlight never really touching the surface of the frozen air. i never thought the place i lived could be so quiet, i never thought a row of houses could feel so lonely. some one has died; i must acknowlege the fact that we're a row of candles, humans, melting away and being replaced and lit and snuffed, burning to little puddles of wax that are easily discarded. (at night on the corner a vampire yells "out, out..." and i have to admit i agree) my voice echos through these walls of ice as i sing to me to keep myself company, not realizing it's my music until i tread the front step
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 watching those rays trying to sting my face never quite reaching me through all the cold. if i could i would unmake it all for your sake; this dying and living, this burning we do, i would. because it's silent and i can see no reason why it's me standing on my front porch, watching my breath rise up, instead of you. there is no fairness in it. but only the docile sun ever seems to be fair, and its light is more like shadows here
Feathers
crushed beneath God's paintbrush, like Icarus did. feathers strewn, another broken dream falls down to the sea. without feathers, you're nothing but a child. intrigued by prophecy and stars, and loud electronic media. but worry not for the ones you lost for out of the ashes comes the phoenix out of the ashes comes the phoenix and the phoenix will r i s e and so can you
Foreign Language
i promised you i'd help you study; that promise still stands. if you thought that it'd help, i'd swim to Japan. these symbols mean devotion; these ones stand for heartache. please observe the strong emotion in the calligraphy, the grace and make. i promised you i'd help you study; i'll teach you everything i know. even though we're not together, aishiteru, koi. zutto.
Girls
you taught me how to say in French i'm naked uner my clothes
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 and taught me to be ok with that we all are, i suppose just kind of trying to figure out where all the fucking goes and it helps to maintain, we're all the same somewhat so i suppose. you were always good to talk when i thought my system stalled you could talk about it with all us boys i was the one apalled just kind of confused by the whole thing and what i thought i was called helped to know the fearless, nonetheless to myself i was apalled. and so i wait, the tables turn after a crush or three i meet you and now it'd seem you won't be teaching me for i'm the one that educated in how to be so free experience aside, i know inside you'll still be teaching me.
Gray Area
i don't know why it should hurt to talk to you. i've finally recovered, you're recovering too. i shouldn't write this, i should just forget it. i know you'd hate me forever if you ever read it. i guess this is what they call the gray area not love and not hate just "i used to carry her."
Insomniac Song
here are some things i never wanted to be: your dancer, your whore or midnight fantasy. i have a right to be angry but you see i'm not mad, what good is it to dwell on things i never had?
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 my family won't hear the promises you never keep sometimes in your house i'm still afraid to sleep. CHORUS every day TV tells me there's something dying for still i live underground with all the things worth crying for and all that's in my head is all you never knew i say goodbye to my adversary goodbye to you. i learned how to tie knots build shelters and fires even Good Touch Bad Touch but nothing about liars i wonder if you liked how i kept my hair long and i wonder if sometimes you'll hear this song with my hair all cut short and my face made into a sneer because i still can't sleep easy whenever you're near. CHORUS sometimes it gets too hard my veins boil with black all the grime and the words that can't be taken back and i know next time i see you i'll turn small and quiet and you'll needle and tease me they'll all think it's a riot i used to always wonder why no one took me seriously or what would happen if i vanished mysteriously but i'm too old for that now it's high time i moved on but i won't ever sleep until i know that you're gone.
Intervention
no such thing as easy living, and i've known too many kids fading, that waste themselves and their hearts, that live to be degrading...
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 like they're only happy if they're thin, like they're only happy if they're dead. and if i ever thought i could save them, this is what i would've said: we have to learn the hard way, you can't be loved if there's no love inside. doesn't matter what you do, no matter how many smiles you've lied, cut it, scrape it, bleed into a cup... if you can't find the answers, lies will never fill you up. no such thing as easy living, and i've known too many kids slicing, the emptiness crept through the back door, suicide is too enticing... like they're only happy if they're alone, like they're only happy when their fingers shred, and if i ever thought i could save them, this is what i would've said: we have to learn the hard way, you can't be loved if there's no love inside. doesn't matter what you do, no matter how many smiles you've lied, cut it, scrape it, bleed into a cup... if you can't find the answers, lies will never fill you up. no such thing as easy living. no matter how long you spend bleeding, all of us give way in turn, moments where our devils are feeding. but i never nailed my coffin shut, i bear these scars instead... and if i could've saved myself, this is what i would've said: we have to learn the hard way, you can't be loved if there's no love inside. doesn't matter what you do, no matter how many smiles you've lied, cut it, scrape it, bleed into a cup... if you can't find the answers, lies will never fill you up.
Jamin-kun
he asked me why i hated him, i couldn't exactly say it wasn't him i hated just what he represented. people who think they can
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 just find a boy or girl, touch their shoulder without touching their heart. i yelled, i struck, i scowled. and he wouldn't go away he asked me why i hated him, and i wanted to tell him to leave before i actually did. i still don't know why he wouldn't leave me alone why he tried to touch my shoulder why he tried to touch my heart with his eyes when he's older, and male, and wanted. why did he say he loved me? it's a joke, i told him. you're making fun of me, i told him. now go away, i told him. he asked me why i hated him. i told him, i don't. now go away.
Lamented Lifeline
sitting we three in a room staring blankly at each other not a single thing to say sad to think you were my brother you adjust your crown of thorns a dove called freedom dies at the door you scream but we will not hear you know nobody listens anymore you see them all so clearly crying, suffering, bleeding ink you do all you can for them but it isn't as easy as you think CHORUS for their sake you swallow their nasty shit for their sake you burn and you decay you can't save butterflies from spiders how long will you give yourself away? screaming to your tragic projects writhing beneath so much barbed wire you are not the savior you've tied your hands and you will tire black blood is cold it trickles down your features numb, your eyes go blind all you sought was to feel needed this isn't the peace you wanted to find
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 and they can't even hear you deafened too much by their pain you tighten your knots to inescapable when there's so little to gain CHORUS you bleed from the nails you drove into your hands a dove called sympathy tears at your heart and somehow i admire you for making a doormat look like art and you say you just want to 'be there' as if your presence meant anything at all you might be some one's safety net but who will save you from your fall? pathetic, lamented lifeline willing to cling by your teeth to any end how fortunate for any creature selfish enough to call you friend. CHORUS
Little Hope
and they never knew why their daughter went silent on the day before the dare they never saw how she wanted to fly away from anywhere. and they never saw how her lace became a razorblade. or how she became dirty by the mistakes that some one made. CHORUS oh what's wrong with Little Hope? all the words just get in the way oh what's it gonna take to get her back when's Little Hope gonna be ok? and they never knew why their daughter married the stage why fate moved her to perform singing, "he put in his sword and slowly i bled" as music boxes around her chimes a porcelain storm. and they never saw how her face became a hologram or how she might've feared to say, "this is just the way i am." CHORUS and they never knew why their daughter fell for a loop when they found her hanging there 'cos they never knew how she wanted to fly
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 away from anywhere. and they never saw how her discrace became like her cocaine because they never cared to ask why the tears drowned her like rain. CHORUSx2
Madeline
behind the mirror she keeps a room full of broken faces with old boyfriends and old bookends and a million quaint discraces. she showed it to me proudly after that, a cup of tea while she bragged of her endeavors into false reality. for her danger is too dangerous and only the moderate blessed she said she'd only let me leave if i resigned to 2nd best. CHORUS Madeline tore the mask from my face to kiss my burning scar she said it was a mortal sin to disguise who we really are. Madeline said it isn't right everyone tries so hard to hide and if God were truly fair we'd keep all our scars on the outside. she lives with the dream of a thousand cats wedged between poet and Poe. she showed to live without regret and always keep near what you know. she trims all her dresses with diamonds and her shoes have souls and transgressions; she told me that only through bleeding can we learn to accept our obsessions. her house was terrifyingly simple built entirely on a phrase it was only until i said goodbye that i saw i'd been trapped in a maze. CHORUS ever since i left her it's been impossible to sleep. i know the next time i close my eyes into my mind she'll creep and down my throat she'll dance
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 face tied in a pretty frown and she'll eat my heart with bitter tea and wear me as a crown. but i won't cry or move an inch when it's time to finally belong if i'm a puppet i'm glad to be hers my darling can't be wrong. eyes turned to ice and heart to stone but i won't complain because she torn down a wall inside my heart and taught me who i was. CHORUS
Masculinity
i remember my heart being squashed like overripe fruit in his teeth. there comes a time in every girl's life: you meet a boy. you grow up, and you meet a boy. and there comes a time for the boy to make you dirty. femininity is sullied by walking behind the male ideal, everyone walks behind the male ideal. or lives the male ideal, while walking behind it. i want a wife, a kid, a cat, a house, a flourishing career like i can buy to simulate on my PC in a dark room without windows. i'm not a good model of femininity, when i get cut i wash myself with tears and blood in the shower four hours. and it never did me any good to walk behind nothing.
Notes
small blue-eyed children following me with tinfoil KKK hats down the hall, me the un-pied-piper. back to the room with a blue rug, writing katakana names of people i don't know red Crayola on the dirty white walls.
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 waiting for those sharp-teeth geisha vandal dolls with razor silk kimino sleeves and fans, waiting to never wake up.
Plea for Optimism

i am every day grappling with this kind of apathy yes somedays it's true i wish i could die. but i can't see it this way, no matter how i say it. and i can't do it this way, no matter how i play it. i have to admit, i'm better than my own misery i won't give suck to it i won't let it nest in my heart. i'm out there, i'm fighting "the good fight" i'm trying my hardest. i am every day warring with this kind of disease trickling through my fingers. try and understand...
Poem for a Friend, or an Angel.

almost a poem, coming from you taking my hand, i ought to snatch it back before you do all this damage. and lie. don't worry, you say. try saying, don't breathe. and i'm thinking of a bus somewhere plowing into a dark future that no one is expecting. calling you names because we're young and we know instinctually the hourglass is emptying at an alarming rate time is growing dim and out. you're so gentle you floor me
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 as bones to graves. you're sweet in your own vulnerability your own death-path that sometimes meets with mine. friendship, call it kinship brothers we're not lovers we never desire to be but though you watered me with lies and never listened, i'll always keep a room in my heart especially for you. and if my other half asks me why i worry, why i put up with "all this crap", i might not have an answer right off. but i know if that bus crashes and our hair is burning if that bus crashes and we're dying if that bus crashes and it's our last moment you'll give me your hand, (truth and affection) and we won't be alone, dying there in that dark uncertainty
Poem for My Mother

some one's in the kitchen with Dinah... and all the patriarch does is hide behind the newspaper while she's throwing paper on the stove to burn it, muttering: everything's wrong, everything's wrong i always do everything wrong. the sacred family sits on a throne of dysfunction not necessarily unhappy, but unable to become a Hallmark card. she's a mother, not a cook and the flames lick the ceiling like a lover. the sun hides under the table with the dog, pretending he is four again. table and chair legs a forest. forest a safety net. there are no others. irresponsible me, she mutters, irresponsible me irresponsible me woe is irresponsible me. the sun's smile burns fingertips and his frown scalds skin. no safety net. his father, after all, has already taken the newspaper.
Power Play
did my soul stick to your teeth upon that first impassioned bite do you keep it beneath your pillow do you dream with it every night? a tango, salsa on my tongue down in the dark you used to grope you took it from me. my shadow my divinity, and any lasting hope. CHORUS tell me again why it's all my fault i'll say i never wanted it this way if i grovel will you give me back and let me loose from this power play? bathe in souls that you ignore happy to hear each word that fails leaking from my mouth slinking along like red snakes and bleeding end trails. worthlessly trying to move out somehow away from your path of lies your sadism my masochism... running from the truth behind your eyes. CHORUS could've sworn you said you loved me with your mouth and eyes, at the start while in your hands you held remains the pulp of my still-beating heart crying breaking tearing moaning compromising flesh is rending you're all too willing to step on me to get ahead. to your happy ending. CHORUSx2
Praying
please God, i pray, don't let me relapse. i can't live through any more mental collapse. let it be cancer instead, let eat me alive from the inside and out. i might yet still survive. let them poison and plug me if Fate can be kind... for the love of God please let me just keep my mind. i can't live through any more mental collapse. please God, i pray, don't let me relapse
Room 304 (a villanelle)

they say for these thoughts i am far too young. painting the night red, i'm only 16, prone on the floor. the victim has no tongue. like a broken chord waiting to be sung, no one can hear me and i'm never seen. they say, for these thoughts, i am far too young. not a word can hiss from this dying lung, refusing to gasp, wail, sob, cry or keen, prone on the floor, the victim has no tongue. they don't know the vein from which my death sprung, an accident, surely it must have been, they say. for these thoughts i am far too young. in this note all of my sorrows are hung, the scribbled red lines and corpse set the scene. prone on the floor, the victim has no tongue. my pulse suggest the fight's only begun, not alive or dead, i'm torn in between, they say. for these thoughts i am far too young. prone on the floor, the victim has no tongue.
Same Planet, Different Worlds

before i met you i didn't realize i could hate anyone at all. it was like a romance movie, we just clicked against each other like a broken chord. we were so miserable and wrong for each other, it's no surprise how good we were together. you're so ugly, with brief flashes of imitation velvet if i look at you wrong sometimes you're pretty i see you sometimes and you're pretty like you were. our adversity has spun more tails and poems than any romance, an obsession of unanswered questions, for me. your argument of impunity fell through when you started dating "cuz" like you didn't care what i thought like i didn't care that you were trying to hurt me and succeeded. you run with the herd and long hair make up and gothique dresses, willing to follow them all off a cliff, if only they don't drive you away to your death.
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 and i sit in the middle of the sea with a halo of flower petals cutting my wrist and wishing for a drink of good water. with "cuz" you walked down the street, not holding hands, you don't hold hands, but demand lovemaking. across the street i watched you, silent, tightening my noose. "same planet, different worlds," i whispered to you, and you didn't hear me. but then, you never did.
Scabs
picking at scabs a little stain of grape soda. don't care if no one cares, not a single iota. and if you don't notice still will never care. 'cos if you never show up no one'll be there.
Sick Day
it's a gray day rotating between silver 50's B movies stale comedy and the lush landscapes of Heaven. the phone is ringing and i'm picking up but there's no one on the other end. if i go to bed all the blood will well up again inside my head and a jellyfish will sting in my mouth till i free it. curled up on the couch, smoky gray robe just doesn't cover the blue chill of the box. i'm not really watching the evil doll that makes house calls, i'm thinking about a dream i had where i'm a vampire and i'm happy not bleeding never bleeding not ever not ever again.
Spring Fever, OR, Stuff that Doesn't Make Sense

Post Poems 2001 - 2006 spring time has settled it's getting hot. kids selling soda and hash out of their backpacks. so crazy and lazy these days, winding into summer. an idle exchange with a girl who's pretty in an ugly way and so dark that she's trendy: look (she says) i knew she was pulling up her sleeve to show me rows of red, a tribute, like a rose of red, a toast to ordinary pain. (i'm a hypocrite for saying) stop. it's bad. she laughs so coy, she knows my guilt too well. so i'm a window clear-cut and transparent for her? oh, surely she has me all figured out. no, you're wrong about me. (that i'm firm on) i stopped for good, i think it was January. hadn't been keeping track, scared stiff of jinxing it. that's what, 4 or 5 months ago? (she laughs, and i can see the hollow circles she dots her i's with) you're like a junkie, 5 months clean now! and then the next time you see 'em... (here she imitates a seizure) i can't watch her, disgusted maybe, with myself. or her. it doesn't matter. she shouldn't have the power to make me consider the disease again, i won't give her that power. she only has one body to cut. and that's the point, anyway. so i walk away, knowing, trusting
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 she wouldn't die because i never told her how sorry i felt for her. and the sun burns my eyes a little. too hot for me, i'm wondering whatever happened to winter. later, i listen into crowds of kids for some kind of insight into that girl's heart the hearts of everyone, us, this 'youth of the nation', ragged, expensive and unimpressed. (says the biggest dealer on campus to an underling) no, shit dude, i mean it. my uncle's dying from Hepatitus C and he got it from needles doing heroin. (says the other) it was only one time. and i'm starting to understand as the more powerful boy speaks. it only takes once, you know.
Suicide Note
the world is slowly bleeding crying, beating, and receding, dripping tears of pain and hate waltzing towards uncertain Fate. rising smoke is on the news, children wearing mourning hues. no place to breathe, take off, or fly, so watch TV while thousands die. the silent truth is never told... end it before it gets too cold becoming ice. this loving Hell... it's time to bid the world farewell.
The Musician
he left early one morning, i cannot tell you when; if somehow i had known it, i would have found him then. i can't say why he did it, too many scars, he hid. a death, a kill, an accident,
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 just like the others did. forever i'll remember you, my heart will not forget. though i still sting from losing you, i'm not sorry we met, and if you ever think of me, in your home highabove, remember how i trusted you, and think of me, my love. he left no forwarding address, no letter to explain, a poison cloud covered the sun and drenched my heart with rain; so still my heart is locked tight shut, with work and words and lies, pining for your laugh, your smile, the sunshine in your eyes. forever i'll remember you, my heart will not forget. though i still sting from losing you, i'm not sorry we met, and if you ever think of me, in your home highabove, remember how i trusted you, and think of me, my love. cloaked in gray, the years march by, perhaps twilight grows near. holding fast to memories, i won't despair or fear. i'll leave early one morning, i cannot tell you when; i'll be with him, this much i know. don't try and find me then. forever i'll remember you, my heart will not forget. though i still sting from losing you, i'm not sorry we met, and if you ever think of me, in your home highabove, remember how i trusted you, and think of me, my love.
The Song to Say Goodbye

alone in the dark the story started a quiet creature, broken hearted now forced into a world of sound black glass, blue shards, shy sky and ground
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 eyes burn to see the seas of flame that coo and cause a tiny fame like a snake that flickers over sand walk and speak and learn the land crowns of butterflies that sing to sleep the fear of monsters, nighttime deep and with a final, tender cry learn the song to say goodbye. so much for the soft sometimes places serenity and smiling faces so much for dances, daring, swift mother's immaterial gift the sky's black holes tear souls away oil streaks the street where children play starve the pretty, medicate the young radio noise ushered forth from the poison tongue selling hearts and hawking smarts for real estate and cuisinearts passion sold at the convenience store is all that's left, there's little more. as the world slowly bleeds all the world seperates and recedes the leaves have all fallen, nothing left to give no more reason left to fight or live miasmic fear of growing old the world does nothing but turn more cold no place to breathe, take off, or fly now singing the song to say goodbye to butterflies that still rest on a frightened head to flowers that guard everything that's dead to searing Heaven and gentle Hell it's time to bid the world farewell.
The Valentine's Day Song

Valentine's Day sucks it sucks really bad it's the dumbest holiday the church ever had CHORUS Valentine's Day is pointless Valentine's Day sucks the people in the Hallmark store wanted to make a few bucks Valentine's Day sucks! why buy the chocolate if you don't have a honey even if you do it's a big waste of money!
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 CHORUS
Therapy
i'll pretend that it is easy, this eyetwitch - myglitch - anesthesia, when she asks me why i suffer this malignant, shy amnesia. she wants to know where i can't go; what all those stories are about. because i'm always plagued by a stain that needs to be rubbed out. she'll pretend that it is easy, she wants to know where i can't go. it's no disease as she can see it, but then again, she doesn't know. these nightmares - brightscares - my delusion that all these stories are about, a weight destined to stay with me, a stain that needs to be rubbed out. we'll pretend that it is easy, these nightmares - brightscares - my delusion. though perhaps it is a little sad to live in this confusion. the eyetwitch - myglitch - anesthesia that all the stories are about might be all i am; i just might be a stain that needs to be rubbed out.
Too Close to the Sun

it is the fate of every Icarus to make his choice. he wants to fly! a Daedalus may never live; not every Icarus must die. while Daedalus and Ancient Greece live as they always knew, an Icarus, with "foolish" pride, will always know he flew.
Under Earth
dreaming of an icy field creeping along the orchard of bones, setting posies on the graves of relative uknowns.
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 tonight i'll slip to your silent world and sleep with you in your resting place against your skin. though you'll be cold you're all i know of grace. we'll be together, darling we're wed beneath your stone though all we face is blind decay at least we're not alone i grieved another when we met but read your epitaph, the only lasting words of you carved in: an elegant laugh. i then loved you completely you lived as i still did! a life of ordinary sin delighting in what they forbid. we'll be together, darling we're wed beneath your stone though all we face is blind decay at least we're not alone tonight we'll dance under earth intertwined as lovers do. we'll touch and move and celebrate though in the morning i must leave you cursing the life that seperates us. i'll kiss your brittle hand heavy is my skin until the night i can join you forever in your silent land. we'll be together, darling we're wed beneath your stone though all we face is blind decay at least we're not alone
Untitled 2
are you good at being miserable is your muse a sympathetic drunk? everyone's done the seperatist thing like you're worse off than the Titanic sunk. one of these days you gotta get outta bed one of these days misery cannot preside you're the bruising marigold the prince in which the world confides and he's telling you something you can't miss he's telling you you're ready to fly just pull the pins from your wings your limit is the sky.
Untitled 3
hotel art is funny i don't get Canadian money at four a.m. drawing circles on the ceiling traveling gives me a restless feeling feeling down but things could always be worse i could be going home in a hearse. riding for hours, i've nothing to do except ponder the wonder of me-without-you and forget which way we're going on the atlas and think of a poem for next years' art class in all honesty, i was expecting more pain in leaving. but i'm glad to see Seattle's rain. cousin is quiet and i'm half asleep i'm reciting the promises i never keep and every error in leaving i can find in my head am i really ok? is that what you said? life goes on just fine, that is its tendency and i can't cling to you because that is dependency. mountains are crossed riddled with warnings for frost the radio stations' coming in my hopes for a miracle turning thin it's gray as the Oldmobile crunches up to the drive somehow i'm home somehow still alive.
Untitled Shakespearian Sonnet

when i upon thy fragile face do look, all pains upon the Mother cease to bleed, so sweet thou art, thy world an open book, for thee i pray the world does not mislead. the Gods hate thee, more fair than their domain, they damn thy touch, the gentleness they feel, therefore punish thee with cold and sullen rain, yet still they fairness they cannot conceal. thy heart's more brilliant than the brightest star, nay, in thy presence, she is shamed to shine. i worship thee, like all things, from afar, someday i hope to bind my heart to thine. until this day i pen another verse, to shelter and to paint thee, i rehearse
What Ought to Be Spoken, but Alas Dies Here with Water Lilies and Onions Provided by the Author
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 it's funny i don't blame you. you pinioned me with light weight less than mine. words, i guess they were and expectation. you never knew what i'd held back behind my skin at the time, i hardly knew myself just that i had to rid myself of the smell of you. that sweet, sweaty smell still makes me gag. it's easier to say i just regret everything that happened, and i wish i could take it back, but after all... if i just regretted everything that happened i wouldn't be here, remembering you said: "Please don't leave me. My brothers or parents could die, I wouldn't care. But if you died... Please don't die. Don't kill yourself. I need you here." i can't ask you if you meant it. and i wonder why i do regret if i broke you heart at all even a hairline fracture... ...why should i be sorry for it? you left me in a bleeding heap, sore and deaf and dead and sad. i'll be frank, i haven't forgiven you, mostly because i know you'll never forgive me for not telling you what took years of hating myself to discover, that i thought i was better off alone and all that touch was toxic. you're hateful, spiteful you say because of me but it was that hate and spite that i was so afraid of to begin with.
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 and i faded... but you still stare a year later, and i wonder do you really hate me? you think i hate you, because i won't speak to you. it seems all too likely a creature like you is made from hate. but when you stare... i wonder, did you ever love me in ways we never said we could feel? tragically it seems all too likely a creature like you could never be made from love.
Dee Knechtel
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2003
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.
American-American critiqued Be critiqued Blue Umbrella Cut Dedicated to Michelle Different Duma's Love Emily Empathy That Does Not Save Everybody Misses You Fantasy Get Out of the Rain critiqued Heart of Ash (a villanelle) Hoping For an Early Thaw If I Ran the Universe Isolationist Theory Jennie Just Clutching a Poloroid Memorial Tree, No Placard (a villanelle) Michelle More Harm Than Good Mutoscope Ode to a Bloody Kleenex Springtime in October Stars (a villanelle) Suburban Angst (A Reprise on a Familiar Theme) Suburban Insanity Teenage (Moronic) Neurosis Television is Bad For You The Blue of Early September The Sum of Our Flaws critiqued Trees of Ash True Pain critiqued We Belong Together Wendy
Dee Knechtel
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American-American
"i wish those immigrants would just fucking learn to speak English. this is America, for Chrissakes. seriously, some of these people live here their whole lives and just never seem to bother. i get on the phone with one and i can't even fucking understand them." my grandparent's accent is not something you can take away from me. you can't even locate Indonesia on a map, but i can. i bet you anything you've got a T-shirt that was made there. it may have been stitched by a distant cousin with purer blood than my grandparents, who set sail for the USA. they left a rich life because they were too white. they lived a poor life because they were too dark. they never stopped speaking with a rich accent, and bickering in that mixture of Dutch and Indonesian. but what you don't know is this: my Opa rode a bicycle to the docks in Holland, he was taking radio parts to the resistance. his best friend was shot by Nazis in an alleyway, while he was taking a piss. i wonder if his friend was whiter, proving even to the Nazis sometimes your skin color isn't going to save you. my Oma refuses to eat with chopsticks,
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 or talk about Indonesia during the occupation. people she loved were killed, but the only story she ever told me was about the little brat of a Japanese boy down the street. they treated him like a prince! every day he would scream for two sticks of babi ketjap one for each hand from the cart in the street. he never ate it, he just wanted his way. my Oma shook her head. she must have been very hungry, then. my mother speaks three languages, not counting the German and French she took in school. she had to learn them moving from Indonesia to Holland to the USA in a few short years of her life. how many languages do you speak? she doesn't even have an accent. i remember in second grade Michelle Barry called my mother a dumb Indian. i didn't even think. i wish i'd hit her but i just told her my mother's a pilgrim, you ignorant girl. she's not an Indian, she's Indonesian. she's a pilgrim. and i think sometimes so am i caught on a boat adrift sharp rocks of final definitions, of race and culture, of filling out bubbles on tests as "Pacific Islander" in elementary when there was no "other" and then switching, embarrassed, to white, when some kid in Jr. High pointed out how pale i was. muttering, annoyed, at always being "other," at always being "multi-racial," at always being "different,"
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 just because my Oma made lumpia for my birthday parties. here's a secret: i'm not different i'm just like you. some one in your family spoke English with an accent fumbling with a restrictive, white language, walking on pins and needles for citizenship, reciting the pledge allegience with a different kind of pride than you and i could ever know.
Be
be fat and flaunt it, be thin if you like. be a fag, be a dyke, break a stereotype. be poor as a pauper, but rich in your heart, don't wait for the papers to catch on while you start. be dark and be proud, be pale, unashamed. leave at the door circumstances under which you are blamed. be a man, be a woman, be smart, and be fun, one doesn't exclude the other one. be crazy without fear, be sane if you desire. be the one who lights the lights, be the one who starts the fire. be the admiral in his pajamas holding a sequin-clad scholar. be a fishwife in rags with pins of rank on her collar. be a singer if you're off key, be a dancer if you don't know the steps. be a hobo in a fashionable suit, be a supermodel dressed in grocery sacks. be mineral, be animal, anything that lives free. be who you want, be yourself, but most of all, just be.
Blue Umbrella
i've got a blue umbrella with a sticking-out spoke jutting out like a hangnail where the little nub broke. everyone's in a hurry but my umbrella and me, they've got destinations, we've got nowhere to be. but if the wind should turn it into a kite, me and my umbrella would give ourselves up to flight. and if we should be caught in a hurricane, me and my umbrella may never see you again. i'd love to take uff up into the sky. with my blue umbrella waving you all goodbye
Cut
it burns and bleeds across my skin, such a failure, the red ink leaving a mark. i'm a pain junkie, this is my favorite passtime. i still hate, so with my razor i do it all again. get rid of the hate, cut it all away. get rid of the ugliness, cut it all away. soon nothing will remain beneath the surface. preferring to be selfishly alone, others only wish to dissect me. i think pulling the wings off a roach is cruel. i still love, so with my razor i do it all again. get rid of the love, cut it all away. get rid of the relationship, cut it all away. soon nothing will remain beneath the surface. now i might be suffocating dizziness and pain wells up in my chest. i make sure no one can hear me cry.
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 i still breathe, so with my razor i do it all again. get rid of the breath, cut it all away. get rid of the feeling, cut it all away. soon nothing will remain beneath the surface. i am completely lost in this world, unable to continue, i won't take the time to try. i can't make wings with these lesions. i still write, so with the razor i do it all again. get rid of the words, cut it all away. get rid of the emptiness, cut it all away. soon nothing will remain beneath the surface. nothing will remain beneath the surface. nothing remains beneath the surface nothing remains nothing remains
Dedicated to Michelle
you say that you know what you've gotten into; darling, please forgive me if i don't believe it's true. no one could love me the way that i love you. and i'm sorry to say that my rythm is shot you make me stumble and speak in clich so now clich is all i've got. please don't ever leave me, i'm full of pain when we're apart. this is not a silly joke, and i don't hand out my heart. but hidden in my pocket i saved a piece of you the part of you i'll always keep and that's what gets me through. with patience and with guidance you help me through my Hell. don't you ever die on me, part of me would die as well. so will we always be together? only time will tell. but if love is like a sin i'll always be glad that i fell.
Dee Knechtel
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Different
a harp amidst frogs, a jellyfish amidst acorns, an insect amidst crystals, a song that has no tune. a thorn amidst seashells, a padlock amidst pidgeons, an alarm clock amidst pennies, a song with no sound at all. a scar amidst magazines, a tongue amidst glass towers, an electric guitar amidst bicycle gears, the most beautiful and subtle song of all.
Duma's Love
the world is full of broken birds, skeletons attempting flight, like a poet who cannot find words, still trying to write. i thought i'd take you as my own, your innocence no real barter, instead of found myself alone, with the crucified, blind martyr. yet still i sought to captivate you, bruise your mouth in my embrace. all i did was humiliate you, sent you to gallows of disgrace. i visited you in your cell, a cloister, dark and cool, you blamed me for sending you to hell, you broke my heart, called me a fool. i have no tongue to fight you back, i'm not adept at feeling things. i never meant to hold you back, i never meant to break your wings. i never meant for you to hate, brought down with a stone's throw. i should've taught myself to wait, now it's too late, though i now know. i'll leave you as you've asked of me, silent my remaining years.
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 i knew not how evil i could be, until i saw your tears.
Emily
Emily, i'm sick of this, i'm sick of being tired, i'm sick of faceless comm links and late nights on the wired. Emily, i'm bored as hell, i'm a mover, not a waiter. i'm sick of getting hooked to pills just so i can kick them later. Emily, i'm sick of this, sick of the empty dialtone. i'm eloquent and i'm worthwhile, but only while i'm home alone. Emily, i'm bored as hell, nothing really seems to matter. i'm too exhausted to move, watching as the world gets flatter. Emily, let's stop all this, we don't really have to lie. we don't have to rationalize, and we don't have to wonder why. Emily, drop the charade, i've always known you hate me, you don't have to stick around while the wolves interrogate me.
Empathy That Does Not Save

we both smiled and laughed beneath a cold silver sky. you don't fool me and just like our tastes in music and clothes i share your scars. they bleed on my arm and across my heart. "i just don't want you to go through what i went through," i smile and i don't fool you.
Everybody Misses You

everybody misses you and we all hope your sky is blue.
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 you left, we knew not what to do, and everybody misses you. i won't announce a love for you or say the things that no one knew. you left, i knew not what to do, and everybody misses you. when times get tough, i look to you, your light has often pulled me through. you left, i'm learning what to do, and everybody misses you. everybody misses you; we hope your skies are always blue. moving on is what we do, but everybody misses you.
Fantasy
if i rape you, will you take it? will you pull my sword into you? when we're sweetly juxtaposed, will you let me continue? if i had you shackled, would you swallow all of me? as i choke you, as i whip you, will you consider dignity? concentrating on my presence, you need a little time to bleed. just like a jar or ether, you will give me what you need. will you take a chance on me? give me power, give me bliss. when i am done with you, will you hang, or slit your wrists?
Get Out of the Rain

just get out of the fucking rain, i want to say, but don't. wondering if you're stuck in there or if you simply won't. i don't know what disturbs me more, when you complain aloud, all that you miss, or is it that it used to be my cloud.
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 don't get me wrong, i love you still, and i mean no offense, when i just want to smack you down for all your ignorance. i know i once wore black like yours (i'd like much to forget) so i shouldn't be judging you because you're not there yet. but for God's sake, please town it down things really aren't that bad. you've got a house, a shelter and a friend who'll let you drive them mad.
Heart of Ash (a villanelle)

time can't erase the burns of memory and fear, permanent, though flesh may rot off the bone, the scars are shaped like hands that never disappear. a long time ago, you left all that you held dear, in the grayness, it is said your heart died alone. time can't erase the burns of memory and fear. these scattered piles of ash show what happened here, piled high and solemn as a funeral tome, the scars are shaped like hands that never disappear. was there struggle or violence? nothing is clear, though the cracked walls wail, and the floorboards creak and moan... time can't erase the burns of memory and fear. who could have done this to you? did you volunteer? burnt away are your feelings, your love, and your home; the scars are shaped like hands that never disappear. no one remembers you, no one sheds you a tear, just the ghost of your grief making scars of its own... time can't erase the burns of memory and fear, the scars are shaped like hands that never disappear.
Hoping For an Early Thaw

you never wanted this for me, you only want me safe from harm. but this is my first letter not carved into my arm. you say you never loved me right, (that's not easy to hear), admitting you pushed me away,
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 when you said you held me dear. even though it is long over, we will never be the same. you're wrong to say i'd hate you, when i can't forget your name. in my memory exists a secret part of you i saw, deep in the gut of winter when it was far too cold to thaw. i do not like to think i had no hope from the start. and sometimes i wonder who could melt the ice around your heart. not too sorry that it wasn't me, not when you made my being sink; i haven't lost my faith in you, and spring is closer than you think.
If I Ran the Universe

if i made the universe i'd never do a thing except to invent pasta and perhaps the tire swing. i would invent ice cream sundaes and popcorn at my leisure i would invent the Hawaiian islands for some vacation pleasure. all my clothes would be pajamas and i wouldn't bathe for days i would take that nasty Satan and i'd stick him in a maze. if i ran the universe i could lie in bed all day, broken only when i felt the need to laugh and play. if i ran the universe there would be no such thing as hate no one would make me go to school or clean my dinner plate. i would spend my whole days giggling, creating what i want be it a pink kaola or a star-spangled elephant. i would not make a race of creatures with free will just like me i would not leave them to figure out their own mortality if i had to make a race of people, i would make them all the same so that they wouldn't hurt each other and then lay on me the blame.
Isolationist Theory
hey Jesus Christ, how you doing tonight? delicate child, got your mouth glued shut. i hear you don't preach anymore, i hear you don't even get paid to fuck. and it helps if you slow down a little; and it helps if you just go down easy.
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 they've installed cameras in your TV; they're about to let you go crazy. no, i don't wanna go out tonight, just gonna stay home, listen to Marilyn Manson. paint my nails black, slash myself to shreds, you couldn't move me for a movie star's ransom. hey Jesus Christ, what a tough world tonight, getting screwed like an angel on Sunday. i hear you don't love anymore, i hear you shoot up just fine in your own way. and it helps if you just hold on a little; and it helps if you know what you're getting. they've installed radios in your rosary; they're gonna keep you from forgetting. no, i don't wanna go out tonight, just gonna stay home, listen to Nine Inch Nails. paint my nails black, slash myself to shreds, scream at the sky until it pales. hey Jesus Christ, you're sure lonely tonight, a toy looking for some one to break. i hear you don't try anymore, i hear you don't give a fuck if you're fake. and it helps if you breath in a little, and it helps if you know you're not winning. they've installed microchips in your brain; they're gonna find out how much you've been sinning. no, i don't wanna go out tonight, just gonna stay home, listen to The Cure. paint my nails black, slash myself to shreds, and wait for you to show up dead at my door.
Jennie
will i have to shoot up bleach just to finally clean you from my system? when we parted i swallowed my fingers down to the knuckle, trying to return your discharge to its rightful place. unfortunately... some portion must remain; i find myself still craving your placebos, your tickets to defective dreams. honey, please come back. my child within begs for bruises,
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 starving for a heart that no longer makes noise.
Just Clutching a Poloroid

i clutch your picture tightly, knowing that any moment it could crumble, get caught by the wind fluttering like confused snowflakes upwards like ash from a campfire into a tear i made in the sky long ago to serve as my escape route. my dirty fingers have long since rubbed out the inscription you made for me. planted in the frozen ground, i am waiting for bleach or absolution. the gap in the sky is draining the whole world of color. not for the first time, i'm wishing you could see this beauty. when inside i am ravaged, starving and raw still bleeding in my sleeves but before the guilt of generally existing comes, forcing out more blood, forcing out tears. you could see that my halo's tacked on crooked with masking tape, and that i've been steadily pulling the feathers from one gray wing since it popped up in the first place
Memorial Tree, No Placard (a villanelle)

still white blossoms bloomed for you and your shame, a courtyard tribute to young suicide, your legacy stands. but what was your name? you gave it all up, your passion and pain; time washes away at you like the tide. still, white blossoms bloomed for you and your shame. friends sputtered in darkness without your flame, but i didn't know you before you died. your legacy stands, but what was your name? this tiny tree is all you could reclaim were you to return, afterlife denied; still white blossoms bloomed, for you and your shame.
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 you're no longer factored into the frame, most ignore your flowers, they're terrified. your legacy stands, but what was your name? petals will wither and fall without aim, like your youth and all that you held inside. still white blossoms bloomed for you and your shame, your legacy stands. but what was your name?
Michelle
you say that you know what you've gotten into; darling, please forgive me if i don't believe it's true. no one could love me the way that i love you. and i'm sorry to say that my rythm is shot you make me stumble and speak in clich so now clich is all i've got. please don't ever leave me, i'm full of pain when we're apart. this is not a silly joke, and i don't hand out my heart. but hidden in my pocket i saved a piece of you the part of you i'll always keep and that's what gets me through. with patience and with guidance you help me through my Hell. don't you ever die on me, part of me would die as well. so will we always be together? only time will tell. but if love is like a sin i'll always be glad that i fell.
More Harm Than Good

why tie me down with all these things, tell me what i have to be? i am losing circulation and you can't even seem to see... you do more harm than good. but i am growing wings that will someday set me free.
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 i won't give into my frustration because someday you'll have to see... and i'd free you if i could.
Mutoscope
scratches all around my neck, i wake up sometimes mourning the images that won't come back as i awaken without warning. i want to go back to frozen trees and the sky of broken glass, i want to kiss the rotten girl beneath the overpass. i want to sleep again, Good Old Conductor, black as cancer, will try to persuade me in the tunnels, perhaps he can provide an answer. i can't face the world not knowing, and i cannot bear to sever. the world is much too bright for me, i'd rather sleep forever. so let me close my eyes again, let me go without a care to cold whispers, brittle figures and the Theatre In The Aire. let them cover me with brambles, my neck and wrists both bound; let them fill my mouth with bone i'll swallow truth without a sound. i may even start to like it, and i'll learn all i can satisfied that i'll be safe until i start to dream again
Ode to a Bloody Kleenex

i'm a disappointment to myself, never being quite as strong as i know i ought to be.
Dee Knechtel
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Springtime in October
the bud i held in my fist finally opened as i unclenched my fingers. warmth and fragrance washed through me as i finally relaxed stretching those tensed muscles filled to the brim with the joy of letting go.
Stars (a villanelle)
stars fade and tremble as they will-in human lives, a pain that pricks. they call it God, or take a pill. like children waiting for "until" swimming deep in radio clicks, stars fade and tremble as they will. like hunger that nothing can fill, humans destroy their magic tricks: they call it God, or take a pill. galaxies dream, they grind and drill, time makes commands and then convicts, stars fade and tremble as they will. the word tips forward, likes to spill. humans will fear they're lunatics, they call it God, or take a pill. confused, the humans rape and kill, can't seem to find their instant fix. stars fade and tremble as they will... they call it God, or take a pill.
Suburban Angst (A Reprise on a Familiar Theme)

i'm sick of sucking suburban sludge and no one understands. i've got SUV jizz sticking to the roof of my mouth. what's fresh these days? what's real? not here, not you, not me either. got a high school diploma, no job and i'm getting fatter and whiter by the minute. i guess that means it's finally time
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 to fuck the status quo. yeah, i'll toast my frapp to that: all hats turned backwards, waiting for our international adolescence to finally end
Suburban Insanity
i am insanity: cleaned up and sanitized for the top 40, for Dairy Queen menus and dentist offices available in Spanish, and possibly Korean, Vietnamese and Russian. take me away from here, i'm frustrated and i don't know who i am. take me away from here, i'm sick of making 50 cent phonecalls and plastic minutes with hidden fees. don't make me buy a cell phone an earpiece, an anchor, a ball and chain. that's just not me and i don't want to supersize it. i don't want fatty saturated ideals or to understand why everyone gave up when i get older. what happened to caring? what happened to making a break for it? i started bolting for the finish line, screaming, "when i turn 18 i am so out of here!" but my spokes rusted and stuck; i slammed my chin on the curb. ambition is easily washed away with tears, self-pity, and disinfectant. eventually i'll lay my memories out on the lawn ragged and faded and smelling of mold. 50 cents for the one without a left eye and in need of stitching. yeah, the folorn one. what do you mean, how could i part with it? i don't even remember what it means anymore. i am insanity: buried underneath a forest that was razed the ghost of an apartment complex, the writing on your TV screen. promising more bang for your buck. 50 cents doesn't buy you anything anymore.
Teenage (Moronic) Neurosis

Post Poems 2001 - 2006 we hold our breath, and we go numb, cover our ears, make ourselves dumb. we want you shocked. call us absurd. we're proud to be emotionally disturbed. i want them to name a neurosis for me, nothing sad or banal, just a new word for me. this is more than a Rite of Attrition, this is a symptom of my condition. we won't flinch, won't look away; vomit and violence are mere child's play. and we don't want pity, we don't want you to care, but you validate us with the way that you stare. i want them to name a neurosis for me, nothing sad or banal, just a new word for me. this is more than a Rite of Attrition, this is a symptom of my condition. no one will find it, not unless i show it. no one will ever find it, not unless i decide to show it. i don't need you telling me what to do. i don't need you telling me what's right. we want this control, we want to die young; we all have to go, so why not jump the gun? don't tell us that we have gotten too out of hand. why do you even try when you don't understand? i want them to name a neurosis for me, nothing sad or banal, just a new word for me. this is more than a Rite of Attrition, this is a symptom of my condition.
Television is Bad For You

she looked like a bald, blotched rat, blue eyes way too wide
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 her soft skin pulled over bone too tightly, her teeth were broken jagged ugly. she said she didn't know her husband killed anyway, and oh, the fear those girls must've felt right before right before right before-oh God here come the tears. a not-so-artful cut to the victim's sister her tears dripping onto a black, flat stone, her voice over just saying so many girls are buried here and all he said was, what's the big fuss i killed a few girls; there's no justice there's no justice there's no justice. i decided to switch to a program about some TV star i didn't know whose mother beat her with a belt to kind of even out the evening, the skinny, plain blonde said she hit me but i never but i never but i never cried.
The Blue of Early September

a child breaks down a piece of sky just like a china plate, jagged silver pressing to the soft white, making a tear, a streak of sunset red. "how much can this hurt?" the shadows are clawing and slipping. spiders skitter on pin feet as they cut up trails and rest in my head. "no, it doesn't hurt at all!" the clouds pierce me in approval while i make a smile of barbed wires. there are not enough tears for this joyous celebration. this is me, learning how to recieve. this is me, teaching me how to bleed. this is me, working to achieve my potential.
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 this is me, how much can this hurt? no one told me it was wrong, so now i'm losing control... no one told me it was wrong. no, it doesn't hurt at all...
The Sum of Our Flaws

where do you think you're going, driving in your angst machine? your life was over long ago, your life was really just a dream. you laid it down, you let it die in a wait for the world to inspire you, but you never took a closer look at the perfection you tried to aspire to. you thought you knew what you're about, you thought you'd die for your own cause; but if you asked, i might've said we are the sum of all our flaws. CHORUS and it's true i worry so, and it's true i love you still. we can hate us endlessly, but you know i always will. and if it turns out to be true that wounds of ego start to kill, we'll die together in our hearts when we have had our fill. "to each of their own", our private Hell, our stylish parties thrown in spite. i agree with what you hurl at me, and cut it up at night. drunk on yourself, the colors fade, i'm smudged black in the distance. i hate myself for loving you, but i won independence. i thought i knew what you're about, i thought i'd die for my own cause; but if you asked, i might've said we are the sum of all our flaws. CHORUS i think of you as emptiness, dissatisfaction personified. we weren't lovers, foes or friends; your fangs just had me terrified. you found me and you picked me up, you bought me, an accessory to you.
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 you were never shocked enough we never made it through. we thought we knew what we're about, we thought we'd die for our own cause; but if you'd asked, i might've said we are the sum of all our flaws. CHORUS
Trees of Ash
everywhere i look, the sun is shining too brightly; how do i learn to be happy? everywhere i turn, there's a smile on another beautiful face, but i don't know how to be happy. when i was young i had a kite, the line was frayed in the middle and snapped. my best friend hit a telephone pole, since then i have no friends. everywhere i turn, some one is laughing; i wish i knew how to be happy. everywhere i look, a flower is blooming, but i don't know how to be happy. when i was young i had a name, it sank and faded in the middle. my best friend forgot how to spell it, since then i have no friends. i'm a hundred years older every time i wake up, i don't know why i even face the morning. the tree outside my window is burnt to ash, i don't want to be me anymore. everywhere i look, the sun is burning the sky; how do i learn to be happy? everywhere i turn there's a smile on another false face, but i don't know how to be happy. when i was young i had a kite, the line was cut in the middle and snapped, my best friend hit a telephone pole, since then i have no friends. everywhere i turn, some one is giggling; i wish i knew how to be happy. everywhere i look, a flower is dying, but i don't know how to be happy. when i was young i had a name, my best friend deliberately mispelled it, since then i have no friends. i'm a hundred years older every time i wake up, i don't know why i even face the morning.
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 the tree outside my window is burnt to ash, i don't want to be me anymore. i don't want to be me anymore i don't want to be me anymore i don't want to be me anymore.
True Pain
spinning endlessly but going nowhere the little numbers click down and down. i hunger, and watching the merrygoround only pains my stomach more. the bright light, the low-pitched whine is a symphony to the eternal anguish of humanity. each moment as disappointing as picking up the phone hoping for your girlfriend and instead receiving a call from an old friend of your mother's. my whole being cries out with need. when will my macaroni be done?
We Belong Together
we belong together, if you're the bridge, than i'm the water. i could go a little faster, you could be a little smarter. we belong together, if i'm the cracker, you're the cheese. i could do more with my flavor, you could do much more to please. we belong together, if you're the finger, i'm the thumb. i am picky picky picky, you are just a little dumb. we belong together, if i'm the roots, then you're the tree. you just watch out for lightning, and i'll watch out for dogs that pee. we belong together,
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 if you're the wood, then i'm the fire. when we are both together, we are something to admire.
Wendy
each day i try so hard but nothing seems to change. i count my bruises in the nursery. before taking me into bed, i tell myself a story: Peter Pan, magical and brave is never struck for being bad. he never cries and he can fly away. to Neverland. i could as well, if he would only come. i know he's real, he played his pipes for me. i didn't have to cry myself to sleep. i have not heard them since, but i'm certain he will come. he left his shadow snagged on a loose nail by the window sill. i wait each night for him, with his freshly ironed shadow. doesn't he want it back? the harder i squeeze his shadow to me the more it fades away. if Peter doesn't come soon, it will be gone entirely. i'll have no one to give these thimbles to... doomed to a life without Neverland, or flight.
Dee Knechtel
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2004
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.
(I Guess That's Why They Call It) Breaking Up A Tuesday in Late November Amaterasu (a villanelle) Baptized critiqued Boy or Girl? For Every Cinderella Freezing Over Hate January 2004 Let's Hear It For Healthy Girls critiqued Melanie Necklace Reactionary Stance Seastar Summer Fruit The Political and Wartime Science of Me Where Are You, or, Ever Since the Reformat I've Felt So Empty With One Word... (You Can Erase Me)
(I Guess That's Why They Call It) Breaking Up

it's ridiculous how much it still eats me up inside-the words i can't bring myself to say. i would apologize for your sky falling down if i thought i could even make a dent in you. it isn't my fault all your windows have shattered, i'm afraid i can only look in. something i did made you slowly disappear from my sight i saw your ribbons slip from my fingers but could do nothing. now i watch you fade like the sunset slowly dying beautiful and alone.
A Tuesday in Late November

ghosts in gray hoodies trudging through bleak neighborhoods rain falls, soft and cold.
Amaterasu (a villanelle)
you make the sun rise of your own accord, burning my heart when you look down on me, your smile is something i cannot afford. are you some kind of undeserved reward? inspiration sent to sing tenderly? you make the sun rise of your own accord. if you were made simply to be adored, what would the best form of worshipping be? your smile is something i cannot afford. i've seen the others, and how they've deplored on their knees, begging for your company, you make the sun rise of your own accord. i worship, but i only make you bored i'm in your sights, but my face you can't see... your smile is something i cannot afford. pining for you, i'm forever ignored, but i understand, i'm never worthy-you make the sun rise of your own accord! your smile is something i cannot afford.
Baptized
"Baptism is supposed to save you. That's the good part. The bad part is it doesn't change you; it doesn't make you do right." --Jane Thurmond, The Great Baptism
stiff in my new Sunday shoes playing hide and seek between the pews standing still is just enough i'll be saved by God till i grow up holding my breath listening to the pastor as he dampens my hair my heart beats faster so now i'm a Christian though i'm only four God loves everyone and loves me more the light falls down turns the world gold Dee Knechtel Page 81

i give mommy my hand to hold she smiles, and pastor says i'm blessed at this moment God must love me best i bow my head solemn in prayer young and dumb and unaware even if you do it as each Christian should a baptism doesn't make you good i am not pure i'm only saved they say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions i guess that means God does not save the in-betweens the teacher lady at Sunday school says we're all God's children but i'm no fool i've seen God in books and on TV there is no way God looks like me i'm brown and ugly and far too small i don't look like my God at all i cannot believe God made me right i get pinned down and i can't fight i cannot breathe i cannot see why isn't my God saving me? as i watch the covers rise and fall i think God loves me not at all say what you want in song and rhyme if God is watching all the time and loves the children like in the song Dee Knechtel Page 82

why didn't He help me what was wrong? i made a mistake what, i'm not sure but He must know i'm saved, not pure the words i said were not enough or maybe He thought i just made it up in the pageant someday i'll play a king grandmas dab their eyes when i start to sing at the altar again i can finally see God loves everyone except for me
Boy or Girl?
i exist in the limbo between the girl's and boy's bathroom between two pitches of voice between chest binding and flower-printed bras with identity so fragile that sir or ma'am has life and death power over me i can't protest, you didn't know... at the movie theater or fast food joint it would be rude to correct you. some men, they call me girl, i'm no more than a few folds of flesh some women, they call me girl, but say i'm bowing down to misogyny (i'm no more than a few folds of flesh) one question, one answer so simple in my mind so complicated elsewhere throwing me thousands of miles from where i was born, where i was supposed to be and painful inches from where i know i'm meant to be.
For Every Cinderella

some say it started with the apple: a garden, a girl who couldn't do what she's told. if he raped her, got her pregnant,
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 she was asking for it. i have to wonder if it started when they bound her feet at five, caged her belly in whalebone and then steel, carved and castrated and sewed things shut. or maybe it was the stiletto heels, the fad diets, the facial paints, the teased hair, the eating disorders, the breast implants. who now can remember? her jellyfish soft flesh has been bent and mutilated stretched and woven into the assignations of others. but the world has not succeeded. everywhere, women continue to speak their own language. they are mothers, wives, and daughters, yes. but they are also sisters, goddesses, witches and warriors. they wage war in ways men cannot fathom, they have won battles where men hold nothing but fear.
Freezing Over
goodbye sunshine, winter has risen from cracks deep in the ground. goodbye comfort, winter has sharp edges and cold hands. goodbye color, winter has me in a gray embrace. goodbye music, do not stir me-- i only want to sleep now. hello shadow, what color was the sky before? hello numbness, i no longer remember her warm embrace. hello drabness, springtime is dead within my heart. hello silence, i will sleep forever beneath the glacial ice.
Dee Knechtel
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Hate
hate comes out in jagged pieces like ice floes on the river of my great-grandmother's youth. i'm throwing it back throwing it up ice cold black-gray sharp charcoal pieces of hate vomiting from the wounds of my damaged youth while simultaneously creating new ones.
January 2004
the spines of trees broke straight in half from carrying the burden of too much ice. shattered limbs came crashing down, cutting the power lines like terrorists. i slip on a patch of vomit-colored slush (ohgodletitbesodaletitbecoffeee), slam my head on slick pavement, hear Happy New Year bells. hurrying to my feet like a turtle, i leave behind the pattern of a fallen snow angel, melted and dirty at the edges.
Let's Hear It For Healthy Girls

skinny girls don't do it for me when i see one i just turn off the TV Paris Hilton-- i'm just not feeling her flair somebody get that girl an eclair women, there's nothing wrong with filling your tummy those dinners we take you out on cost lots of money we'd much rather that cheesecake go to your hips than imagine you purging it past your lips
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 you don't have to be Christina, all skinny and dirrty i think you're much sexier if you are sturdy i don't want a girl who'll float off like a kite i want a girl that can help me in a fight i don't want a girl delicate as a snow flake i want a girl who can polish off a big steak be you big-boned, rounded, or just rubenesque a healthy girl is what i like best those skinny girls just get on my nerves give me a lady with a whole lotta curves some heroin addict will never outclass a fine looking woman with a fine looking ass i'd never take a skinny girl out on a date i don't wanna see ribs unless they're on my plate i like a brick house, just like Rick James a pro-ana girl just isn't the same so baby, don't listen to those jealous bitches, come to my house for some sandwitches i like when you fit all your clothes like a glove when there's more of you there's more to love
Melanie
cupid aims his bullet when it's least convenient it can shatter your skull and shatter your head if your security's too lenient. Melanie, Melanie you don't want me to say your name Melanie, Melanie i try to forget it but i love you just the same bleeding, sent to the hospital tied down to recuperate she'll send you that break-up letter in an envelope marked, "Fate" Melanie, Melanie we don't talk anymore but i still know your name Melanie, Melanie do you wish we never played this game? and i wonder if you miss me i don't think i wanna know and i wonder if you hate me because i let you let me go Melanie Melanie have you found some one new to call your name? Melanie Meanie i cried out for you but you never came
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 you'll realize you bear a scar bandaged in your recovery spelling her name, but not at all will you be shocked by the discovery. Melanie, Melanie you can't keep me from saying your name Melanie, Melanie i guess not every love's an eternal flame
Necklace
the girls i know wear necklaces made of teeth, some of them mine. each time you speak to me, a little scar blossoms over my heart. like everything else about me, these marks aren't visible to you.
Reactionary Stance
i've been thrown down, i've been thrown up, and i've been thrown away i've made fists and slashed my wrists trying to make it all okay. tried to keep all of this darkness from seeing light of day tried to protect the world from me but it happens anyway. you say that i don't know but i just don't wanna hear it i've got the truth in the palm of my hand and this world's taught you to fear it i've got my heart in a box and i'm never gonna let you near it. i've been killed and i've been born i always did the best i could. tried not to swear and combed my hair doing what you said i should i could repent for all religions but i'd still never be good.
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 you say that i don't know but i just don't wanna hear it i've got this lie printed on my T-shirt this world's taught you to revere it i've got my heart in a box and i'm never gonna let you near it. you sulk you burn you suffer wailing into telephones you don't want to join the army of dead surbuban clones you know some you'll wake up lonely and the worms will lick your bones. you say that i don't know but i just don't wanna hear it i've got a life to live i don't need your bruising spirit you've got my heart in a box but i'll never let you near it.
Seastar
i often have a dream about you and me we're holding hands as we walk towards the sea as we jump in and we're swept off the sand i find that i have lost hold of your hand... water fills my mouth and i can't call for you a storm gathers to turn gray what was blue i'm going numb, but i kick and i fight please God, let me see her again tonight that's when i see you, safe and dry on the shore but you're not the girl that i love anymore wearing the clothes you wore when we met, you ask me why i don't come out of the wet. and as the dream that i often have ends, you smile at a party, surrounded by friends telling everyone in the world of my charms, but you're out there dancing, not here in my arms. further and further away you dance, till i wake i sit up in bed, pray it's all a mistake i touch your hand as you sleep and you moan. i turn over and go back to sleep alone.
Dee Knechtel
Page 88
Summer Fruit
we bow our heads and give thanks for summer fruit that kind of sticky sweetness that runs down your chin. roses bloom vibrant in the backyard the color of the inside of my head-pink and red while i'm suffocating in the sunlight.
The Political and Wartime Science of Me

mucking through your Vietnam, i've got an army, 10,000 strong. you promise not to lie, and laugh, and send your troops around the back. first it's love, then hating me, though we're all the same in therapy, you can't seem to realize some things cannot be colonized. you could slaughter me to the last man, still you'd never know quite who i am. with sweet treaties set on betray, you swear it's not a game you play, threatening to spit chemical fire on anyone who might call you a liar. but your only praise originates from places where you're chief of state. do you think i trust your diplomat? your constitution in a land that you bombed flat? hold me hostage, you can't win because you'll never be able to rewrite my laws. your troops are all afraid of me, why not just face reality? even if you plant your seed, absorb me, and i'll just secede. if you change my institution, i will start a revolution. if you must invade my lands, you'll just get lost in my strange sands. no matter what you try to do, i'll always win. i don't need you.
Dee Knechtel
Page 89
Where Are You, or, Ever Since the Reformat I've Felt So Empty
where are you? early in the morning telephone lines crackle and fuzz. my computer stalls, shudders, and cannot find you. i guess mostly i wanted to be sure you were still gone for good, wondering if you ever think of or look for me.
With One Word... (You Can Erase Me)

say the word "rape" and i don't want to play here anymore. say the word "rape" and i don't want to go on anymore. say the word "rape" and i don't want to be me anymore.
Dee Knechtel
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2005
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.
2-Toned critiqued An Open Letter Body Talk Daddy Give Till it Hurts Heart Burnt Keeping Quiet Maki Most Amnesia is Willfull Natasha (a villanelle) One Spring Tuesday Questions for My Sunday School Teacher Sticky Summer on the Bus The Truth
2-Toned
i'm 2-toned big-boned i rip up the looks and i tear at the seems, sharing my truth with the other in-betweens. i rewire notions freezing oceans of doubt. when i go out, people shout, "LESBIAN!" like they can tell who i am by the shape of my skin. if you gotta call names, settle on one, am i a faggot, a dyke, or a dumb Indian? here's the answer: i'm none. but if you ask what i am, i'm afraid i can't guess when i shelf myself i always price myself less than buyers expect, they say i've had it hard but they haven't seen the epic failures in which i've starred. i won't take credit for making it so far alive, even a filthy maggot knows how to survive, besides, no one really wants to hear what i've been through it didn't happen if it didn't happen to you. grew up in the suburbs, never been in a fight, if it didn't leave bruises then it must be alright who cares if i can't sleep at night? if it didn't happen to you, it didn't happen, right? i haven't slept a full night since i was 4 and these days my daymares get hard to ignore
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 so that's why i'm always trying to settle the score i want you to take truth till you can hear no more. this world isn't safe for little girls and boys sometimes it's got nothing to do with the toys their parents can buy. when parents lie, their world shatters, and if that means nothing to you, then nothing matters. it's the silence, not just rape, that's killing these kids, who can't speak words their society forbids and those that can are called liars, they just want attention the only recourse is lawsuits, not prevention. pay attention to me when i'm talking to you if it happens to me, then it happens to you. so don't sit there pretending there's nothing you can do keep your eyes open to the notion and keep your kids close to you. safety is not an illusion, i believe it exists somewhere now the only thing to do is to take care to find it. to bind it. to make it your own. presence of mind begins in the home.
An Open Letter
there's so much i wish i could say, but can't, we're wondering where all our happy days went, and each day you and i try so hard to be brave, and our childhood is gone without so much as a wave. you've gotta be strong, and i've gotta be strong too, gotta hold on for our lives, with nothing to hold onto. words are so useless when it's a breaking heart you're nursing, no one wants to spend all of their time conversing with hollow words that fall like dead birds that can't call. but still i want to say that i love you, it's that fact that makes all the misery more true. i want to do so much more than just cry or pray, living should be so much more than just living through the day, and anyone who says, "that's just life," "it's a stage," "so young, so much pain," could not have been our age, it couldn't be that easy to forget when you've got to grow up, but you're not ready yet. when you don't have a choice, the pain's on your doorstep, and it's screaming so loud you can't take one more step, so you just keep on walking and you force a smile, you might not see that i'm with you, mile after mile.
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 until we find the brief happiness we both belong to, gotta hold on for our lives, with nothing to hold onto.
Body Talk
i don't speak to my body. i don't know the language, and i refuse to learn. stretch marks and scars must remain ignored, unexplained and unapologized for.
Daddy
"i wanna be like you" it's not just a song to me. i never wanted more than to walk like you, talk like you, be like you. i know i disappoint you, and it must not be a comfort to tell you that i'm trying hard. i know you don't understand, you've said so. again and again. maybe it's too late to salvage hope, maybe it's too early to expect you to. every day, this matress crushes me: these words, this life, this skin. every time you say, "you're my daughter and i will always love you." it grows a little heavier. help me, Daddy... i didn't realize love could hurt this much.
Dee Knechtel
Page 93
Give Till it Hurts

how is it you take everything everything that doesn't belong to you? how is it you want everything everything that isn't yours to have? and why do i keep giving it to you? leave me naked. you might need my clothes. leave me skinned. you might get cold in just your own. leave me picked to the bone. who needs a heart anyway? i'll give till it hurts (how is it you take everything?) i'll give till i can hurt no more (everything that doesn't belong to you?) i'll give till i bleed (how is it you want everything?) i'll give till i can bleed no more (everything that isn't yours to have?) take it all. i'll be reformed. reformed in your image. take it all. i'll be reformed. reformed in your image. take it all. i'll be reformed. reformed in your image. take it all. i'll be reformed. reformed in your image. take it all. i'll be reformed. reformed in your image. take it all... who needs a heart, anyway?
Heart Burnt
8:05 and i want to bleach my brain drink a glass of milk to ease the pain, that hateful time of morning where the night before floods back, i'd like to forget nightmares, but i never found the knack. i've survived the gauntlet, but there's nothing i have earned, except sore muscles, stress, and a heart that burns.
Keeping Quiet
while you speak to me i press my nails into my palms with the weight of all my anger and wonder why these little crescent trenches don't leave permanent marks.
Maki
if i, with tears of self-pity and shame, could cry you a river to sail you to the ones you love, don't you know, surely i would. if i, with my anger and excuses could tie up loose ends like ribbons for you, don't you know, surely i would. i've betrayed you i can't save you for all i want to do don't say i'm being too hard on myself don't say i've done all i can don't say that you forgive me when you love some one disappointing them is the worst thing you can do.
Most Amnesia is Willfull

i don't want to be erased, discredited, displaced deleted from your cell phone over things we never faced you've forgotten me, i can feel it at night. as a mere mental image, i can't put up a fight. like bad news, you ignore me, put me out of your head, in mental piles of garbage amidst thousands dead. it's like i am homeless, even if i persist, even if i beg why, to you, i don't exist. you decided it's over, so it's over. so there. since there's nothing between us, you don't have to care. besides, why would you bother?
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 you've found a new toy. something else to criticize, hate, and destroy. so why is it i find it so hard to forget you? you wanted to tear me apart ...and i let you. with a sequence of buttons, i'm overridden, replaced. how do you find me so easily erased?
Natasha (a villanelle)
why do we see love as losses and gains? as if loss weights us, gains keep us afloat each word slips like razors drawn over veins. we react so violently to change, though water is slowly filling our boat, why do we see love as losses and gains? when you live, or at least go through the pains, you find being loved a chance too remote, each word slips like razors over veins. you may feel unloveable, childish, strange, but this isn't a contest, nor a vote. why do we see love as losses and gains? the music of life plays in subtle strains. if you listen only to one sour note, each word slips like razors over veins. life is a merry wreck we can't arrange, but love wraps around us like a life coat. why do we see love as losses and gains? each word slips like razors drawn over veins.
One Spring Tuesday

the companiable tree that always greeted me as i entered my neighborhood had all her arms cut off, and now stands there as naked and vulnerable as the Venus de Milo.
Dee Knechtel
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Questions for My Sunday School Teacher

what makes a human great? is it to rise above the squalor? if we're meant to love, why can't we find the space between us smaller? do we die a little more with each tear that goes unshed? is the flesh and blood serrated by every word that goes unsaid? why are we hopless, twisted like knots that never fray? why can a poet write and still not have a thing to say? and if you think you know the answer, tell me, what are humans made of? and if you think you know the answer, tell me, what are you afraid of? the words in my heart burn my tongue even when some are tender, we run for miles towards the end, but in the end, must surrender. we don't really have a choice, God or death, we must believe we don't control, we never will get an answer before we leave. and if you think you know the answer, tell me, what are humans made of? and if you think you know the answer, tell me, what are you afraid of?
Sticky Summer on the Bus

preteen prostitot girl out with her sisters: a teenager carrying a baby and a 7-year-old. she can't be more than 12, long, skinny legs and cute belly showing for all the world to see. a man asks, "are you Puerto Rican? how do you say hello?" i crank up the volume on my headphones, worried for her, embarrassed for him,
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 and secretly glad my countries of origin are not so apparent.
The Truth
i get angry i get dizzy God knows it isn't easy truth twists around in different versions in different words different perversions it's sickening, the prospect that there's nothing i can do truth is this painful, simple thing that i can't bring to you.
Dee Knechtel
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2006
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
Antibiotic Beautiful Dreamer Bends Coming to Blows Discovered Disgorge Drink Rain Water One Ring, One Boxer Think I'll Stay
Antibiotic
a heart can be wrapped safely in barbed wire, it's quick and easy, and others will quickly learn not to touch. possible side effects include lesions infections discomfort loneliness and fatality. do not attempt if heart is prone to beating, as this greatly increases the risk of side effects. ask your health provider if you are covered
Beautiful Dreamer
before the end of the night, i might lose you to all of your impossible dreams the ones that sweep you away just before you close your eyes at night i say the duty is not mine to give you wings or lighten your load those who cannot do that on their own do not deserve to fly, do they?
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 still i know i'm shirking as you fall asleep, lightly breathing bunched up in the corner, knees to chest this escape, the only thing you seem to live for before the end of the night, i might lose you if the colors of your dream are so vivid you finally realize you'll never see them waking and thusly, preferring fantasy, sleep forever
Bends
what a horrible oxygen tank i make the slightest pressure and i break losing every breath you take when i cover your mouth for your own sake.
Coming to Blows
i'm sick of feeling i'm sick of talking i'm sick of you so let's get to boxing when we sit at the table let's not say grace nothing's as blessing as a fist in your face i don't need discussion i've had plenty of those can't we just let this come to blows? don't tell me what i can't do because i'm too smart or act surprised at the hate that glows in my heart the time for sensetivity has come and gone now is the time to beat you like a drum i used to scream in your face for attention now i've found a new way to relieve all my tension it's too late for reason i don't wanna resolve it only your blood
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 is gonna absolve it i'm sick of feeling i'm sick of talking i'm sick of you so let's get to boxing
Discovered
still, the bluebells bloom, tiny and unexpected, wholly beautiful.
Disgorge
i hate how you're inside of me in my blood, inescapable the remains of your hate hide in me rendering me emotionally incapable i hate how i'll never forget your splinter burrows to the heart of me i hate myself because of you these parts of you are part of me i remember the night you raped me i remember the night i died i remember your attempts to unmake me and how you managed to take me alive where are you now, you fucking coward? do you live in a world only you can see? can't you accept the truth when it chases you? is that why you can't look at me? i grew up, you motherfucker don't you dare try to evade me i grew up to find you, fucker 'cause i am what you've made me i remember the night you raped me i remember the night i died i remember your attempts to unmake me and how you managed to take me alive now it's time to say goodbye i'm killing you for good this time so goodbye, mother fucker i'm taking back what's mine i remember the night you raped me i remember the night i died
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 i remember your attempts to unmake me now you're going to be sorry you survived
Drink Rain Water

am i just sitting in the rain, drinking my pain 'cause i don't know better? most people are afraid of drowning, so they just sit under clouds and get wetter my compassion's out of fashion, when you're told to love freedom more than your fellow man i feel like i can't do enough, even when i do what i can my heart's a threat to my security, someone put it under cardiac arrest i'm in danger i can't explain, maybe it's a terrorist there's such a painfully thin line between being self-protective and self-involved the safety of each is debatable, like a chord left unresolved you end up begging the silence for your sins to be absolved
One Ring, One Boxer

i've got a mouth full of razorblades i swallow them to make your memory fade when i think of your face my eyes start to glaze you're nothing but an inhuman haze and i wonder-- is it you who made me like this? when you spread my legs and you grabbed at my wrists? is it you who turns my hands into fists and turn girls that i love into girls that i miss? did you want me to grow up, a bastard like you, a lost pedarist without moral or clue? i tread water 'cause that's all i know how to do do i beat myself up because i can't beat up you? it seems like all these years i've been trying to escape me is that what you had in mind for me when you raped me? or did you not think? was it only a perk? guess you truly did fuck me, hey man, nice work. and when i think i can finally beat you fair and square in the boxing ring, your blow comes out of nowhere and the blood starts to flow, like every day every year, how do you keep hurting me when you're not even here?
Think I'll Stay

i wasn't joking, you weren't lying, when i first met you, you were crying. that April day i tried to dry your tears foretold our situation for the next 400 years. and i still don't know if you understand the words i say, or if you do and it makes no difference anyway. even if you truly think this is a fucked-up game i play,
Post Poems 2001 - 2006 think i'll stay, think i'll stay, think i'll stay. starved for attention, starved for affection, i guess i never offered you enough protection. i didn't know the nature of the attack, i still don't, but i still got your back we may not be soldiers but this is a war where nobody wins and nobody keeps score; we may not even notice we've already died, but i know i was always by your side. i never promised i'd love you better than the rest but i've always been honest and always done my best. i can't be the one to make you stand up, that's gotta be you-- but here's my hand up. and i still don't know if you understand the words i say, or if you do and it makes no difference anyway. even if you truly think this is a fucked-up game i play, think i'll stay, think i'll stay, think i'll stay
http://www.postpoems.com/cgi-bin/show_bio.cgi?userid=faithless_the_wonder_boy
Dee Knechtel
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Index
(I Guess That's Why They Call It) Breaking Up ................................. 80
2001 ........................................................ 3 2003 ...................................................... 57 2004 ...................................................... 80 2005 ...................................................... 91
2006 ................................................. 99
2-Toned ............................................. 91 3 Inch Song ............................... 28; 29 A Letter in Late Autumn ....... 28; 29 A Letter of Apology From NotSo-Prince-Charming .......... 28; 30 A Million Miles .............................. 3; 4 A Tuesday in Late November .. 80 Amaterasu (a villanelle) ....... 80; 81 American-American ............... 57; 58 An Open Letter......................... 91; 92 And Sometimes When You Fall... ............................................. 3; 4 Antibiotic .......................................... 99 Backyard Botany ........................ 3; 5 Baptized ...................................... 80; 81 Be ...................................... 28; 54; 57; 60 Beautiful Dreamer......................... 99 Becoming King ........................ 28; 31 Bends......................................... 99; 100 Best Friend ................................ 28; 31 Better Than Okay ........................ 3; 5 Birthday Poem ............................. 3; 5 Bleeding in Watercolor ......... 28; 32 Blue Umbrella ........................... 57; 61 Body Talk ................................... 91; 93 Boy or Girl? ............................... 80; 83 Changeling ................................ 28; 32 Coming to Blows .................. 99; 100 Crystalline .................................. 28; 33 Cut................................................. 57; 61 Cynical ............................................ 3; 6 Daddy..................................... 10; 91; 93 December Afternoon ............. 28; 34 Dedicated to Michelle............ 57; 62 Different .......................... 28; 46; 57; 63 Discovered .............................. 99; 101 Disgorge ................................... 99; 101
Dee Knechtel
Don't Leave ....................................3; 6 Drain .................................................3; 7 Drink Rain Water....................99; 102 Duma's Love..............................57; 63 Easier ...............................................3; 7 Emily ...................................1; 27; 57; 64 Empathy That Does Not Save .57;
64
Every Time .....................................3; 7 Everybody Misses You .........57; 64 Fantasy ........................................57; 65 Farm House Blues ......................3; 7 Fatalism ...........................................3; 8 Feathers ......................................28; 35 For Every Cinderella ..............80; 83 Forbidden .......................................3; 8 Foreign Language ...................28; 35 Freezing Over............................80; 84 Get Out of the Rain .................57; 65 Ghost ................................................3; 8 Girls.........................................28; 35; 85 Give Till it Hurts .......................91; 94 Gone Without a Note ..................3; 9 Goodbye to Spring .....................3; 9 Grandma Anne ...........................3; 10 Gray Area ....................................28; 36 Grief Upon This Earthly Sphere
.......................................................3; 10
Happiness.....................................3; 10 Hate ...............................................80; 85 Heart Burnt.................................91; 94 Heart of Ash (a villanelle) .....57; 66 Hoping For an Early Thaw ...57; 66 Household Chemicals .............3; 11 If I Ran the Universe ...............57; 67 Insomniac Song .......................28; 36 Intervention ................................28; 37 Isolationist Theory ..................57; 67 Jamin-kun ...................................28; 38 January 2004 .............................80; 85 Jennie ...........................................57; 68 Just Clutching a Poloroid ....57; 69 Keeping Quiet .................................91 Lamented Lifeline....................28; 39
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Let Up ............................................ 3; 11 Let's Hear It For Healthy Girls . 80 Little Hope ................................. 28; 40 Looseleaf...................................... 3; 12 Loyalty of a Glove..................... 3; 12 Madeline ..................................... 28; 41 Maki .............................................. 91; 95 Masculinity ................................ 28; 42 Melanie ........................................ 80; 86 Memorial Tree, No Placard (a villanelle)................................. 57; 69 Michael .................................... 3; 12; 14 Michelle ................................. 57; 59; 70 Monster ......................................... 3; 14 More Harm Than Good ......... 57; 70 Most Amnesia is Willfull ...... 91; 95 Mutoscope ................................. 57; 71 Natasha (a villanelle) ............. 91; 96 Necklace ..................................... 80; 87 Needles ......................................... 3; 14 New Year's Resolution (Early) .. 3;
14
Same Planet, Different Worlds28;

46
Scabs ............................................28; 47 Seastar .........................................80; 88 Self Definition .............................3; 20 Sick Day ......................................28; 47 Significance .................................3; 21 Sometimes That's the Way Things Are ................................3; 21 Spring Fever, OR, Stuff that Doesn't Make Sense ...........28; 47 Springtime in October ...........57; 72 Stars (a villanelle) ....................57; 72 Sticky Summer on the Bus..91; 97 Stop It .............................................3; 21 Suburban Angst (A Reprise on a Familiar Theme) ....................57; 72 Suburban Insanity ...................57; 73 Suicide Note ..............................28; 49 Summer Fruit ............................80; 89 Teenage (Moronic) Neurosis ...57;
73
No One Has to Stay .................. 3; 15 Notes ............................................ 28; 42 Ode to a Bloody Kleenex ..... 57; 71 One in Five................................... 3; 16 One Ring, One Boxer .......... 99; 102 One Spring Tuesday .............. 91; 96 Painting My Dreams ................ 3; 16 Plea for Optimism ................... 28; 43 Please Explain This Poster ... 3; 17 Poem for a Friend, or an Angel.
.................................................... 28; 43
Television is Bad For You....57; 74 Thank You ....................................3; 22 The Best Advice .........................3; 22 The Blue of Early September...57;
75
Poem for My Mother .............. 28; 44 Power Play ................................. 28; 45 Praying ........................................ 28; 45 Puppet ........................................... 3; 17 Questions for My Sunday School Teacher .................... 91; 97 Quiet ......................................... 3; 17; 94 Rage ............................................... 3; 18 Rainy Monday ............................ 3; 18 Reactionary Stance................ 80; 87 Red.................................................. 3; 18 Room 304 (a villanelle) ......... 28; 46 Salt Water (or, Anatomizing Depression) ............................. 3; 19
Dee Knechtel
The Musician .............................28; 49 The Perfect Daughter ...............3; 23 The Political and Wartime Science of Me ........................80; 89 The Song to Say Goodbye...28; 50 The Sum of Our Flaws ...........57; 76 The Truth ....................................91; 98 The Valentine's Day Song ....28; 51 Therapy........................................28; 52 Think I'll Stay ...........................99; 102 Thirty-Three .................................3; 23 Too Close to the Sun .............28; 52
Trees of Ash ..............................77

Trichinobezoar ...........................4; 23 True Pain .....................................57; 78 Typical Self-Destructive Obsession With Flying ........4; 24 Under Earth................................28; 52 Untitled ..............................4; 24; 53; 54 Untitled 2 ...........................................28 Untitled 3 ...........................................28
Page 105
Untitled Shakespearian Sonnet

.................................................... 28; 54 Vain Foundation ........................ 4; 24 Victoria .......................................... 4; 25 Waiting to Fly ............................. 4; 26 We Belong Together .............. 57; 78 Wendy.......................................... 57; 79
West Coast Whistler Hotel, Room 108.................................. 4; 26 What Ought to Be Spoken, but Alas Dies Here with Water
Lilies and Onions Provided by the Author ...............................28; 54 Where Are You, or, Ever Since the Reformat I've Felt So Empty........................................80; 90 Where Roses Bloom in December ..................................4; 27 With One Word... (You Can Erase Me) ................................80; 90
Dee Knechtel
Page 106

Poems Dee Knegtel

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Poems Dee Knegtel

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Poems

Deirdre Emily Knechtel 2001 - 2006

Post Poems 2001 - 2006

Post Poems 2001 - 2006

And Sometimes When You Fall...

Post Poems 2001 - 2006

Better Than Okay

Post Poems 2001 - 2006

Farm House Blues

Gone Without a Note

Post Poems 2001 - 2006

Grief Upon This Earthly Sphere

Post Poems 2001 - 2006

Post Poems 2001 - 2006

Post Poems 2001 - 2006 Michael, i know how you feel.

New Year's Resolution (Early)

Post Poems 2001 - 2006

No One Has to Stay

Please Explain This Poster

Post Poems 2001 - 2006

Salt Water (or, Anatomizing Depression)

Sometimes That's the Way Things Are

The Best Advice

Post Poems 2001 - 2006

The Perfect Daughter

Typical Self-Destructive Obsession With Flying

West Coast Whistler Hotel, Room 108

Where Roses Bloom in December

Post Poems 2001 - 2006

Post Poems 2001 - 2006

A Letter in Late Autumn

A Letter of Apology From Not-So-Prince-Charming

Post Poems 2001 - 2006

Plea for Optimism

Poem for a Friend, or an Angel.

Poem for My Mother

Post Poems 2001 - 2006

Post Poems 2001 - 2006

Room 304 (a villanelle)

Same Planet, Different Worlds

Spring Fever, OR, Stuff that Doesn't Make Sense

The Song to Say Goodbye

The Valentine's Day Song

Post Poems 2001 - 2006 CHORUS

Too Close to the Sun

Post Poems 2001 - 2006

Untitled Shakespearian Sonnet

Post Poems 2001 - 2006

Post Poems 2001 - 2006

Post Poems 2001 - 2006

Post Poems 2001 - 2006

Empathy That Does Not Save

Everybody Misses You

Get Out of the Rain

Heart of Ash (a villanelle)

Hoping For an Early Thaw

If I Ran the Universe

Just Clutching a Poloroid

Memorial Tree, No Placard (a villanelle)

More Harm Than Good

Ode to a Bloody Kleenex

Post Poems 2001 - 2006

Suburban Angst (A Reprise on a Familiar Theme)

Teenage (Moronic) Neurosis