Alyssa

*Garage Days*
*Leaves*
*With Conditioning*
*Compact & Oxford*
*I am not the poem*
*Independance Day*
*Premium*
*Branch*

*Garage Days*

When we put this band together,
it was never about making records.
It was never about viewer discretion,
or high quality,
or hot-boxing your mothers kitchen.
There was nothing in the contract about the violent,
the fraudulent,
and the premium grade plants we collected
to grow behind unsuspecting window sills
where unsuspecting mothers
placed unsuspecting lips to our cheeks to kiss us goodnight.

When we put this band together,
it was never about the sex.
or the little mermaid,
or Absolut divisions.
It was never about Southern Comfort,
or living on the edge,
with vacations to Italy and unassigned seating.
And I never remembered anything that permitted
the glutinous,
the treacherous,
and the tears of a mother,
shed for her child's success.

*Leaves*

You smoke your cigarettes in the pool,
steal from everyone but yourself
and promise me we won't get caught.
You slick your hair,
bring me home too late
and flaunt the stolen watch on your wrist.
You ride your bike drunk,
with your shirt off
smashing bottles on Lexus's and all the cars you could never own,
than hop into your Camarro to pick me up,
and take me somewhere where I shouldn't be.
but if it's with you, than it's right.
And for every time you've led me into your room,
I've spent a night crying.
because you didn't call
because you slept with someone else
because you stole from me again,
and you promised you wouldn't.
and I believed you.
And for every time you told me you cared,
I've spent a night tripping.
Over the body of your best friend,
heaving,
passed out at my feet,
with his mouth open.
and a watch that doesn't belong to him.

*With Conditioning*

I remember the first time I saw a man in a woman's two piece bathing
suit,
and how I must have enjoyed it.
Because I felt a little funny,
the fabric being so tight against his legs and all.
But nothing could rip my eyes from his long black hair,
cut short with pinking shears.
And left to grab for that liner,
where a woman's thigh should be.
But the more he grew,
the less I noticed his oily, shaven head,
with dark long locks,
smoothed
and washed,
with conditioning.
And the more I realized his tiny hair.
Two rows of marching ants on his stomach.
Trudging towards that pink bow,
that had looked so becoming on some blond haired model,
that he would never be.

*Compact & Oxford*

Five miles to Newark.
I'm tired,
lonely,
sick of breathing stale air.
Staring back through the window,
the smile of street lights.
Pictures remember the times,
with beach balls to bounce your soul in.

Five miles to Newark, he reads.
I'm having trouble seeing in the back.
Head out the window,
panting.
One more gaze,
and I'll smash the coasters you set your drink on.

Roots lead to you.
So do skies. And me.
I lead to you.
Empty journal by his feet.
Do you feel?
Five miles to Newark,
push me away.

*I am not the poem*

I am not the poem.
I am no poem.
No few, flowing words can describe me,
or my passionate hate for poems.
No single emotion,
loving hate.
Or how about hating love?
Maybe just plain hating.
I am never the poem.
I am not describable
I am not worth describing.

*Independance Day*

July 4th,
curled up on that couch,
with pillows brushed up against wet skin.
And blankets to wrap your arms in.
The flickering lights of Memphis,
flashing at me from static screens,
and Billy Idol on the radio.
All kept together,
intertwined,
by the rhythmic snoring of the boy on the couch.
Empty wrappers on the porch.
You laughed,
wishing your watch would stop.
I wished it would go,
waiting for the fire to wake up,
in the bed where we didn't sleep.
Only held together by the chalk outline of your best friend,
neatly passed out at my feet.

*Premium*

Dirty sex in the newspapers.
More hate,
than I can hold between two fingertips.
To throw down again,
on to the piano,
to strive at that symphony,
that I never learned to play.

*Branch*

I remember the first boy I met who slept with shoes on.
And how I felt,
as he sprawled out on the couch,
with nothing on but shoes and a white afghan,
knitted by a mother who didn't know we were there.
And when I woke,
the afghan long discarded,
I watched him choke himself in and out of sleep,
as the rhythmic pattern of his shoes,
tapping,
ceased to wake the sleeping god on the floor.
and he fell back asleep,
his head on my lap,
his shoes on the couch.

Copyright Alyssa 1999