I know a woman
who keeps buying puzzles
chinese
puzzles
blocks
wires
pieces that finally fit
into some order.
she works it out
mathematically
she solves all her
puzzles
lives down by the sea
puts sugar out for the ants
and believes
ultimately
in a better world.
her hair is white
she seldom combs it
her teeth are snaggled
and she wears loose shapeless
coveralls over a body most
women would wish they had.
for many years she irritated me
with what I consider her
eccentricities -
like soaking eggshells in water
(to feed the plants so that
theyād get calcium).
but finally when I think of her
life
and compare it to other lives
more dazzling, original
and beautiful
I realize that she has hurt fewer
people than anybody I know
(and by hurt I simply mean hurt).
she has had some terrible times,
times when maybe I should have
helped her more
for she is the mother of my only
child
and we were once great lovers,
but she has come through
like I said
she has hurt fewer people than
anybody I know,
and if you look at it like that,
well,
she has created a better world.
she has won.
Frances, this poem is for
you.
Jan 28, 2025
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I hope you keep what resonates, and leave what doesnāt. I deleted IG for years. I got back on last August and have felt compelled to write - usually in moments where Iām broken open. My most recent piece I lay here for you:
My Melodramatic Dispatch š (pt 1 of ?)
TLDR: The girls are fighting but theyāre metaphors.Ā Enjoy :)
(ft. life lately)
I like to think that Quiet and Silence are like sisters.
And whatās the difference between them?
Quiet sighs sweetly with you in small and unnoticed moments--like pausing to admire spring blossoms, or the stillness after finishing a book you didnāt want to end.
She reaches for your hand and pulls you close--offering an embrace during lifeās painful moments.
In grief, she sits beside you, feeling your ache and holding space for precious memories.
She smiles wryly as two strangers catch eyes--feeling the world fade, and the pull of an invisible thread between them.
When words fall short in sacred moments, she holds the fragile stillness of a shared, knowing gaze.
Quiet is a gentle strength.
She is permission to savor, to soften,
to stay.
Quiet is a doe resting peacefully on a sunlit patch of earth, present & unafraid.
Silence looks at you sharply, unrelenting.Ā She sees past your facade and dares you to face the truth.
She sits--sovereign & accusing--in the breathless gap of a loverās quarrel.
Her presence--undeniable and weighty--strips you bare, leaving only your soul.
She leans against the doorway, arms crossed, as your lover walks through it, slamming the door behind them.
She doesnāt flinch.
She walks over, kneels beside you,
& calmly places a hand on your shoulder.
Silence is not cruel,
but a reckoning.
She rages.
She deafens & consumes.
She is a wave--denying you air as she pulls you under the weight of her.
As sisters, of course they argue.
They arrive at the door of your moment--an unanswered text, an awkward pause, a delayed response--& bicker about who the waiting belongs to.
Silence sneers, mocking your vulnerability.Ā She floods your head with panic, cringe, & regret.
Quiet protests gently, insisting thereās no need to spiral--nothing has been lost: not your dignity, not your strength, not your beauty or worth.Ā
Ironically during the purgatory of a message left unanswered, or the unnatural lull in connection,Ā
you have neither sister.
Only a cacophony of what-ifs & anxiety.
But as sisters, of course they reconcile.Ā (To be continuedā¦)
5h ago
Why would you do that to me?
I keep trying to locate the moment everything broke. Like itās a pin on a map I can circle in red. But there is no clear shatterpointāno clean fracture, no dramatic climax. Just pressure. Gradual. Relentless. Until one day, I couldnāt carry it anymore and I donāt even remember deciding to drop it.
Maybe the line was never drawn.
Maybe I was never taught I could draw one.
Is that my fault? His? Does fault even matter?
Was it an accident? Was it cruelty? Was it just the consequence of being small in a world that teaches people to take what they want?
I donāt know.
And Iām learning to live with not knowing.
But latelyāstrangelyāI think Iām healing.
Not all at once. Not dramatically. But quietly, like the way snow melts: slow and almost imperceptible, until suddenly thereās grass again.
Iām letting go of the obsessions that gnawed at me.
I have energy again, like I finally remembered how to move.
Iām picking up pieces of old joy, half-buried but still intact.
Iām remembering the things I loved. The things that loved me back.
And maybe, most importantly,
Iām forgetting the things that never really mattered at all.
Jun 9, 2025
š«
i canāt listen to music without thinking about her. every piece of shitty poetry that condemns my for you page makes me think of her in our living room. she is holding bills as she sits on our couch, a calculator on the table and a glass in the other hand. i will ask her what she wants for dinner, and she will tell me.
thereās something so guttural about knowing you want to love someone for the rest of your life. that little moments like a dinner order are exactly what will give you the drive to wake up and slave away to a 9 to 5. ive been thinking about what i wanna be a lot lately. i think itās honestly teaching. philosophy. i like to imagine myself as a philosophy professor discussing love with my students, i would tell them about my little artist at home and our baby girl and how i too thought marriage was simply the removal of autonomy until it befell my door.
i think thatās a normal way to feel, with tubes of āthe good ol ball and chainā and ācanāt live with her canāt live without herā down our throats like prospective foie gras.
but my love is gentle. it is patient. it is kind.
Mar 16, 2025
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Dec 5, 2024