by Madisen Kuhn
a soft summer afternoon
i spent the day in the city,
we ate lunch a few blocks down from the ballpark
and smiled at the parking attendant
who has never forgotten our faces
ever since my dad accidentally tipped him fifty dollars
instead of five
the sun soaked up my energy
and painted my cheeks with sunburn
as i watched my favorite team win
in the twelfth inning
it’s now ten o’clock
and my eyelids are ready to close
as the night closes in,
content with the day’s content
how lovely it is,
to not be plagued with
pre-slumber dreams of
insufficiency
how lovely it is,
to fall asleep
knowing that you lived today
knots like pretzels
everything is in boxes
in my mother’s house
in my father’s house
in the back of my trunk
different things in each of them
books and vinyl
jesus, innocence, mirrors
paintings that my little brother and sister
made for me at school
and i can’t find my journal in any of them
i didn’t used to have to tie strings
around my pinkies
to remind myself to breathe in words
i used to write too much
with ink smears tattooed on the
side of my left hand
i carried it around
sucking on my fingers
tasting the poetry drip
from my mouth like sticky mango juice
and people read it
and my muses hated me
and i didn’t even have to try
a sorry sort of snake
with skin of ivory
that blushes at the sight of sun
even when the clouds are out,
i turn into a silly shade of pink
with a heart that drops
falls down, down, down
into a rabbit hole
at the sight of anything
remotely shattering,
gasping at little cracks on the sidewalk
carefully tiptoeing around bumblebees
with lungs that fill with cotton
in fear of a hansel and gretel gingerbread house;
lead me to the witch
where i will cry and wonder,
“how did i get here?”
and forget about
all the gumdrops in my stomach
with poise that only lasts seconds
in the face of spiders,
they crawl into my mouth
kept there until given the chance to spit
them back into your face
i will hold my breath
and picture fields of lavender
where a tanned girl spins carelessly
until my tissue-paper limbs
learn how to hold me up
slamming doors
on days like these, sunny and slow, i am supposed to be happy, but all i feel is emptiness and doubt. what if i always feel this way? maybe only some people have purpose or find purpose. how do i know if i am one of them?
anhedonia
the roads are wet
i don’t know when it rained
maybe i’m not
a writer anymore
maybe i stopped
paying attention
maybe i left
behind all wonder
in my adolescence
maybe i forgot
how to find meaning
in ordinary things
flowery air
and lemonade
gingham dresses
and handwritten
letters covered in
glitter and cursive
maybe i need
to read more books
and take more walks
and spin more
beach house records
then, maybe then i’ll find
stars in blue irises
and messy hair again
bathroom mirror pep talk
stay busy. don’t let yourself freeze. move even if it feels like all your bones are broken and someone replaced your lungs with deflated balloons. those little voices in your head telling you that something is terribly wrong, that you are not okay, that there is no hope, that you should lay cement over your feet and accept defeat . . . they’re lying. they are not you. maybe our brains aren’t wired just right, but that’s no excuse to abstain from life. if we aren’t living, then what are we doing? it will pass, it always does.
a beautiful poem
80 degrees in the shade
with a breeze
by a pond with a fountain
sprinkling
overalls over calvin klein
underwear
on a thursday afternoon
in the summer
far away from an old home
closer to a new home
free,
free,
free
a shattered glass
you and i
broken windows
open only to embrace the
soft morning dirt
born with poison on our lips
devouring the universe
in small breaths
wondering why the days
feel so dizzy
again and again and again
there are no flowers here
there is nothing to help them grow
shower
this is
your open field
this is
where you lie on your back
on a fluffy, plaid duvet
eating strawberries
forgetting the sound of honking cars
and car alarms
this is your studio
replace the clay with bars of soap
paintbrushes with shampoo bottles
write your thoughts on fogged glass
lists of run-on sentences, scribbled
without inhibition
this is where the water runs off
your shoulders
this is where you reflect
it is not poetic
it is quiet, it is ordinary
knots of hair from gushing wind
smoothed over with aloe conditioner
everything is spinning, but here it slows
this is where you pause
this is where you breathe
this is where you begin again
pure
who would have thought i would become so obsessed with clean? not my mother, who’d nag me to pick up all the clothes scattered across my bedroom nearly every day of ninth grade. we rarely saw the floor. i’d sleep beneath books and laundry on my half-made bed. now i scrub dishes, scrub counters, scrub the floor at night because i can’t stand the thought of a dirty kitchen—little cockroaches scurrying in and out of pots and pans. my home smells of lavender oil, a soft mist, air cleansed by a pink-glowing himalayan salt lamp and plants in the living room. now i put things away in drawers, close doors of rooms that are the slightest bit messy. now i straighten books on the coffee table, set the remotes parallel to one another, everything must be in place. now i floss, wash my face every night, stare in the mirror and repeat i am clean, i am clean, i am clean. now i burn my skin in the shower, inhale the steam until my breathing is slow and my sinuses are clear. i am clean, i am clean, i am clean. now i fold the laundry, stack our clothes into two piles, his and mine. i make our bed, i organize our shoes by the door, i kiss the man i love goodnight. i am clean, i am clean, i am clean. i know what my father must think, i know he loses sleep, i know there are holes in his tongue where his teeth have made a home. i am clean, i am clean, i am clean. i know he wishes i stil
l went to church, wishes my boyfriend believed in a god, wishes i was clean. i am clean, i am clean.
october
will you still condemn me when
i am married to the man i welcome into my bed
because god is still not, and never was, a part of it?
subtlety
your eyes don’t feel like daggers
they look like the reflection of a knife that is being
sharpened;
a promise
and i brace myself
every time you throw your hands in the air
and take it back the next morning
i bite my tongue so that when
you finally let go
i’ll know the taste of blood;
it will not be a shock,
i will have seen it coming
you will not go out with thunder on your heels
you will leave in a whisper
or rather make me feel that it was my idea
you will give up before you go
a ghost of you making oatmeal in the kitchen
a heart already captivated by the enticement of
something new
something different
something that is not me
and i will have known the feeling
of you gone
long before
you’ve left
your twenties & stability: a paradox
i crave a home base so badly. somewhere that is somewhat permanent. i want a door to walk through, after being away for a while, where i can drop all my luggage and sigh because there is art on the walls, lights wrapped around the deck, a queen-size bed frame. it smells familiar, like lavender, like laundry. a place where i feel settled down enough to buy curtains instead of putting up flattened cardboard between the windows and the blinds. somewhere i have time to garden, or take painting classes, or go to therapy. a place with a café a few miles away that knows my order when i walk through the door, earl grey tea with honey and a blueberry scone. friends who come over on tuesday evenings and sit on my couch and eat the baked brie i’ve put out on the coffee table, laughing, the corners of their eyes crinkled, a fully contorted face that only appears when you’re really, truly blissful. somewhere i can bring my neighbors muffins when they first move in and water their plants while they’re away. our dogs will be friends and we can talk about politics between mailboxes. i want traditions, and family, and familiarity. where i am now is a place between places; traveling is a lifestyle, instead of a vacation; acting with the wisdom of a parent who doesn’t want to buy their child expensive shoes because they know they’ll grow out of them in just a few months. i feel like i am watching everyone else live while i wait for my turn.
agape
they tell you to dispose of anyone who makes you feel
like
you aren’t easy to love
but sometimes you aren’t (easy to love)
some days you’ll rock back and forth on the kitchen
floor
with terror dripping from your quivering lips
some days you’ll need to be carried to the bathtub
while your mother pours water over your uncombed
hair
some days you will be a storm cloud, you will be a valley
you will be selfish, and cruel, and jealous
you will not be easy to love
but i will be here
to hold you in the middle of the parking lot
when it feels like the world is falling all around you
to pull you, kicking and screaming, out of the front door
so you can inhale fresh air and look up at blue skies and
be reminded that there are beautiful things
it will not be easy
it will take patience, and clenched fists, and slow breaths
it will sometimes feel unbearable (to love you)
you will feel like a burden; you will feel like you are not
enough
and i will love you
because you are more than the moments
when you cannot properly love me back
things that remind me of delaware
1. a travel-size spruce candle from p.f. candle co.
2. lavender essential oil
3. putting together furniture we shouldn’t have bought
4. depression cherry by beach house
5. yellow gatorade
6. texas roadhouse
7. dairy queen onion rings
8. moldy flowers
9. my very first rice cooker
10. what it feels like to not have a father
11. reading harry potter and the cursed child by the pool
12. flattened cardboard boxes tucked inside bedroom blinds
13. learning how to be alone without letting it kill me
14. empty strip malls
15. noise complaints
16. talking him out of a tiny house right after graduation
17. game of thrones
if i hadn’t been moving so quickly
i forgot to buy flowers today. i bought a vase a few days ago and it’s been sitting empty on our kitchen table. i went to the grocery store and rushed through the aisles, picking out sunscreen, provolone, tomato, a head of lettuce, and i forgot to buy flowers. i moved hastily to the self-checkout, threw it all in plastic bags, inches away from the florist, slipped out the automatic sliding glass doors, and walked briskly under the july sun, just to get in my car and speed through traffic lights. i forgot to buy flowers today.
emma
i love girls with inspired souls that radiate
while their heads are in the clouds,
spinning around and around and around and—
who has time to scan the crowds
to see if people are pleased?
am i amusing? do they like me?
she doesn’t ask herself questions like these
she wears her thick and messy eyebrows
with pride and ease
rolls out of bed in her apartment
in the middle of a bustling city that is
full of possibilities, and no guarantees
but still, she chases it (it is anything, it is everything)
like an old lover who slipped away
when she was too young
to nurture a romance that, at the time,
felt much too cliché
and as each day passes by,
her dreams barrel into her like a dewy, ethereal mist
that illuminates her candid beauty
she laughs, and glows,
and dances until her feet are sore
and, oh god, she is free,
and she is everything
i hope to be
courage isn’t fearless
this is not poetry. this is ripping your hair out on the highway, looking down at the clump of insanity in your hand, thinking oh god what have i become. these are cuts on the insides of your palms from clenching your fists so hard that the physical pain distracts you from the pain in your head. this is being alone. this is only having yourself. you are in a hotel parking lot in an unfamiliar town, and a man is tapping on your car window telling you he wants your dog while you sob on the phone to your father, telling him to not come get you because you do not want to be someone who always has to be saved. this is driving five minutes on the interstate while your heart races and your vision blurs, only to get back off and work up the courage to keep going all over again. this is yelling in your car alone, “i am strong. i am not my anxiety. i can do this.” just so you can make it fourteen miles home. this is not poetry. this is self-neglect. this is avoiding therapy, avoiding medicine, avoiding growth, avoiding life. this is expecting people to always take care of you. this is asking for help before attempting to fix the problems for yourself. this is being a burden on the people you love. this is not being able to love as much as you want to because you are always putting your fears first. this is when you
realize that you need to get your mental health under control before you destroy yourself completely. this is the moment that you tell yourself that you are in control. that you want to be so much more than who you are limiting yourself to being right now because you are not doing everything in your power to be better. this is knowing that even when you think you cannot, you can. this is your turning point. this is that scene in an ’80s coming-of-age film where electronic music blares and someone sits on their front steps or on the hood of their car and realizes that they are capable of having everything they could ever possibly want, and their face is glowing and your heart feels warm just being there to watch it unfold. to see hope and crave it. this is when you look at yourself. really look at yourself. and decide that there is so much more that you will be.
i want you to cry, i want you to kiss me
i still remember the taste of nectarines
sweet and cold
held between sticky fingers
my abuelita would bring home bags of them
and i would plant the pits
in little plastic cups filled with dirt from the backyard
