Coming Home

Come on home to me
Come on home to me
In a few years time
I know you think in kind
How we’ll be everything
We ever wanted to be
You slumped over your desk
Dealing with literary mess
The wall plastered with positive publishers responses
I am in the living room
Rambling on the phone
About another cause
People breaking laws
And what I’ll do about it
Oh, what I’ll do about it
The cat’s gotten fat
Still the holy terror
Maybe we’ve gotten fat as well
I won’t care about aesthetics
Or how big the bed is
As long as it’s your face I’m waking up to
So come on home to me
The one dream worth waiting for
You with a smile
As I open up the front door
It’s a dream, a magic little dream
Of things that can possibly
Happen one day, if everything falls in place
But it’s my motivation, my inspiration
I’ve never wanted anything so much
So I’ll go through the motions
Going through the motions
Until it can be us

Getting on the plane

I don’t want to go
Your breath on the back of my neck
Nestled into me
Like the Russian dolls that fit
Evenly into another
Easily

The soapy sponge in hand
Scrubbing at the pots and pans
Your music on the radio
And you kiss me sweetly, soft and slow
And I don’t want to go

To leave your bed
Where I rest my head
Upon your chest
You asking me
Which books I like best

Snow ball fights
Late nights
Talking about star ship flights
To leave your side
Person to confide
Your hand in mine
And it feels so
Oh, I don’t want to go

Walk me to the gate
Is it to late
To cancel my flight
Can’t I suspend time and
Stay for one solitary night
Is it to late to tell you how I
Hate being alone now
God, I just don’t know
How to go
How to leave him again and again

It gets harder every time
Leaving you behind
Telling myself I’ll be okay
Without you there to say

Silly puns
“You’re the only one”
Football stats
“I love you back”
You break my heart with every smile
Knowing it won’t last but a short while

Don’t let me go
Don’t make me go
Don’t you know that home is wherever I can fall asleep in a house
Where someone loves me

The Ramblings of a Cynical Romantic

I have a problem believing in the existence of love. To me, it’s like being a kid at the airport. No matter how many times you watch a plane disappear into the sky, you can’t quite believe that something that big can fly.

This month, my parents had their 20th anniversary. They bicker, poke fun, and are still so very obviously in love. It’s painful sometimes, being around two people who have made an art of fitting into each others lives. I’m afraid of that feeling, I guess. I don’t ever want to feel as if I’m sacrificing a part of myself for someone; no one could be that important. But seeing my parents argue about clothes not taken to the dry cleaners, talking about finances…it alls all do very domestic. They are so happy.

I know that love exists, but I try to let myself believe in it, for fear that I’ll start making compromises. Rorschach stands gruffly in the corner of my head repeating the phrase “never compromise.” I’m suddenly struck with my silly inability to write anything (even about love) without making a blatant reference to something related to comic books.

Love…is an outrageous, terrifying endeavor. As a word, love is murmured into the ears of teens eager to feel something. We love that show, that book, that food. We as a society are in love with the idea of love.

And if that’s what love is, some societal ideal based in myths and legends, I think I’d rather a good book, a good show, some good food. I don’t want to love because I’m supposed to, I want to love because I have no choice to. I want to fall in love so unconditionally that the thought of a life without that love is repulsive, like the meatloaf my ex’s mom made that one time that I just couldn’t bring myself to eat, even to be polite.

And I am fickle. I can’t even keep my hair the same color for long, much less look the same person in the eye, every day, until the sun goes supernova.

And what happens if and when I find someone who asks me to put the things I can’t do without away? Emily, the action figures go in the box, with the comics, your notebooks, your silly ideals, and the steel toed combat boots from Americorps. Stay, stay with me, that cause can have another, you weren’t making much of a difference anyways.

In this moment, it is so very easy to say “kick ’em to the curb, girl, NO ONE is that important.” But I think back to when I was 14 and a boy told me my Birds of Prey poster was stupid and that I needed a tan. I didn’t tell him to fuck off, I didn’t tell him to take a hike, I didn’t tell him that the Birds of Prey would kick his sorry ass if he lived on Earth 1. I looked up tanning creams and got burned in more ways than one.

What do I want? I want a love like Amanda Fucking Palmer and Neil capital N Gaiman capital G, two artists who exist as two awesome individuals with two individual careers and fans, but exist together as one couple that love each other and inspire each other and read or sing at each others shows, who accidentally write songs or albums or books for each other and then call each other twits when they don’t quite connect the dots. I want someone who understands just enough to love me but not enough that I stop surprising them. Someone who will make a lifetime goal, an art of trying to get to know me, because I am still young enough to believe that I am that interesting, that special, that much of a mystery.

A Problem of Mine

And still I’d like to catch you when
You fall asleep right beside me
That could be the problem then

I don’t believe in love or things
Of that nature, yet I find myself
In it, constantly
It’s difficult to live a solitary fulfilled life
When Pintrest shows me all the ways to be a perfect wife

But I’m not blaming you, or anyone of your gender for
My fickle heart and
All the boys next door
Waking, it’s much easier
To focus on the power of “her”
But when I’m asleep, I start to dream
About how I could be so happy

It’d be much easier to be a lady
If I could simply hate the men around me
But I’ve seen the good with all the bad
And I wonder if I had
Been to hasty to swear off all
Conventional ideals for
Love and like and maybe a bit
Of affection for someone who
Talks like you didn’t know they still do

Morning Glory

Things will be better in the morning
That’s what mom always would say
Dreams would come along shining
And insecurities they’d slay

But in the a.m, I’d be the same girl
Dealing with my place in the world
My dreams were always how life could be
If I were taller, if I were anything

Not me

The first was a pal from when I was young
We’d run through the fields and have lots of fun but
I needed a tan and to throw away comics
My boobs were too small and I didn’t kiss yet
And when he met my bestie, I went on the friends list

But it wasn’t long
Surely life goes on

The second one liked the leader
But I played second fiddle
So I guess I was good enough
For just that one month
He wanted to hear me talk on the phone
While he imagined what we would do if all alone

And I played along
Knowing it felt wrong

The third was gentlemanly, so much no one knew
Things that aren’t talked about, don’t make them lies, they’re still true
He loved to argue and drive me places
But looked anywhere but me in front of old faces
I still have the card from that one valentines day
And answered his college call once when he was far away

And I waited long
Knowing I was wrong

The fourth one is kind, this one is sweet
Swept my shoes right off my feet
He buys me nice things while I’m saving the world
Wants to have a boy and a girl
Wants to have me all of his life
Oh god, he wants me to be his…
Don’t we look so nice?

Isn’t this what I wanted?
Someone who’d love me as myself?
Who’d only love me and nobody else?
Why am I scared, why am I sad?
Isn’t this the best that I ever had?
Thirteen year old me would call me a fool,
Doubting the one guy who isn’t a tool
Doubting the one guy who loves me for me
Doubting the one guy who doesn’t play on my insecurities…

So do I carry on?
Forever seems so long…

Things will be better in the morning
That’s what mom would always say
But I’m too old to want to believe in heroes
Who will come save my day.

In the a.m, Im exactly the same
And nothing’s as dramatic as I claim
I should be happy, I should be set
Why am asking myself if it’s over yet?

The world as we know it

I will never have kids
Or a white picket fence
I’ll travel the world
And learn self defense
I will fight for the little guy
And bring secrets to light
And steal away slaves
In the dark of the night.
For until I can hold the world at its word,
I can’t risk the life
Of my baby boy or girl.
Dear love of mine, wait if you can,
For a loving wife and suburban family.
But I swear with my right hand
I’ll bare no children ’till evils fatality.
My best friend in high school was plagued by bad dreams,
A mother she once had who did horrible things;
The men who once visited, with cigarette breath,
When she was so little, she prayed angels be sent.
Another had a sister, innocent and kind;
Exactly the prey evil doers have in mind.
The trial did nothing, as they all expected,
For the helpless child was already affected.
So spare me pleadings for your own earthly legacy.
If that’s all you want, you won’t get it from me.
My best friend in college carries a knife.
My best friend in college carries mace.
We exchanged rape whistles before departing into life,
Not understanding the uses of them we would make.
My brother and sisters, I’m constantly in fear of,
They’ve only ever known the light side of love.
So wear the condoms, I’ll take all the pills.
For I will die surely, if my hope is killed.
Say it isn’t fair, oh, I’m sure to agree. But, babe, life ain’t far, at least, from what I have seen.

History

(This is an older poem that I have not really edited. Hope you enjoy anyways!)

History

Our love is fleeting,
barely a moment set in time
When we are dead and gone,
and left in nobodies mind,
The world will be left to lovers like ourselves
Thinking that their feelings were never felt by anybody else

I want to say that our love story
Will inspire the entire human race
And I want to say that our love
Will find a way
Into every history book, very poem, every song
I want to say to you
That all in the future, everybody knew
How you were shy, but caught my eye
And I started to fall for you

But isn’t it enough
That I love you now?
Isn’t it enough
That we show our world how
Dreams and fantasies
Collide withreality
And create a thing of beauty?

Who cares
If history remembers us as
Cleopatra and Marc Antony, Or
As Henry the 8th and his wives?
Or even Romeo and Juliet, as fools?
As people worth remembering?
Those around us, wow, they
Look at us and wonder how
And that’s alright, that’s all we have to be
Just us, just right, just for now.

Heads and Heels

I will pretend to be content
But the act is for your benefit
Though you may hope with time it will be real
I will say what you like
Hear your problems and give advice
All the while containing how I feel

And oh, to be satisfied
watching those animated eyes
And oh, to feel complete
Hearing your beautiful voice as you speak
Oh, not to care
As you tie a ribbon round your hair
Oh, to be content
Not loving everything about you

My wallet is depleted
But I will do whatever’s needed
Just to get the chance to be by you
It’s just so obvious
To everyone around us
But I’d swear a thousand times against the truth

And I don’t believe in destiny
And I sure as hell don’t believe in fate
I don’t think there’s a higher being
Monitoring the choices we make
But from the moment I fell, I knew it forever true
I could be a skeptic all my life,
But I’d believe in you.

So read the books I recommend
And hope that time may one day mend
The figurative heart left in my hands
Some might say this is no life
Waiting for when the time is right
But maybe one day I live up to your demands.

I’ll take you anywhere
I’ve got so much time to spare
For you will always be priority
My friends may mock
I don’t care if they talk
For this love has given me notoriety.