Hopeless is Homeless, You Coward

A Poem by Amber

Because I knew I had to get to sleep.

I never meant to give up.
When you called me yelling
"Guess what I saw!"
I thought, knowing you, it's
the man on the moon,
my name in the stars,
the solar flare that you
said would be the end of
Earth. But you said, "A man on
his bicycle with a parakeet on his
arm, riding across Ford Road!"
And I worried, "What if he gets
hit?" And you replied, "He's a bird,
he can fly away." And I smiled and I.

   Never meant to give up
when I went to bed last night,
but I found myself
on my hands and knees,
counting carpet fibers and making
wishes on the constellation map we
tacked above my pillow
all those years ago.
And you said look at where
you were and where you are
now and you took me by
surprise when you accused me
of loving and I screamed "I NEVER!"

               Meant to give up
on those days when you were waning
and you said "I'll be full again,"
and I said "You have to be
new first." and your skin felt
like wax and I wanted to mold
you back upright and talking,
but you wanted sleep more than
my company. My heels are sore from the
push-ups and (Oh! Look at that!)
there's a perfect impression of
the smooth tile floor on the cups
of my palms and my voice is
scratchy from the fresh-cut
grass and you laugh so hard that
your eyes water and I'm so shocked
to hear your smile that I collapse, and
you whisper about what it takes,
and I never meant.

                                    To give up
while the Summer
shade still hides it's secret piles of
crinkly leaves? "Unthinkable!" you
shout, terrified that if these
leftovers should be thrown out,
you would end up with them,
and you're afraid of the dark, and
of bugs and so you can never
be thrown away. Somehow, I
know that you're not afraid of
anything, but you're just not ready
to leave as we dance in used-up
dandelions and I tell you how
I was shooed away when I brought
the flowers home, and how they
said they were weeds, but all I
saw was a handful of crushed
petals, my own personal broken
beauties (which stained my hands
for 27 hours, in case you were
wondering.) You smile and
ask did I know that I close
my eyes when I tell stories, and
could I please keep them open
when I tell YOUR story? And my
hands grab the grass for
leverage as I ask you where you're
going, but you just shake your
head and put a dandelion crown on
mine, but it's not enough and I
beg you not to leave me,
and you say "I never meant to."

                                   Give up
and succumb to the
shivers, and your mattress is
practically disintegrating with the
effort. When I tell you this, you
say "When the world ends, we'll
all disintegrate." and I yell at you
and tell you to shut up and you
tell me I'm worthless, but I
know you didn't mean it. You
ask me to tell you a story,
and so I tell you about War and Peace,
and you smack the table and
shout, "MY PEN IS OUT OF INK!"
And I realize now that this is
the worst thing that could have
possibly happened, so I pad to the
CVS in my slippers, but I only
have 37 cents and the cashier gives
me no sympathy, so I walk
for miles, scouring gutters for
your lifeline. When I come back
to you, you hug me and thank
me and ask me if I will
accept the challenge of a
staring contest. "Winner gets a
pen!" you chime, and you made
me alright again, even if I lost.
I needed you to get,
but I never meant to give.

   Up
somewhere in the sky,
you tell me, is a spaceship!
I know this, of course, but I did
not know that a toilet was broken
on it. "That's something YOU would
know," I whisper, and even though I
thought you couldn't, you ask
"What's that supposed to mean?"
You yell to sit still, very still,
not to move a muscle! I freeze
in place, and only too late do
I realize that blinking is involuntary.
You say "12!" like it's the
best number ever, and then I'm
informed that this is the number
of freckles I have grown since
summer has started. I tell you that
you're brilliant, and you slap me
and scream "DON'T SAY THAT!"
And I find that 'taboo' has
one too many Os for 'boat'
and I breathe, in and out, and I relax.
I see you swallow and I flutter
closer with the cool washcloth,
but you swat me away. I
stare at your fingers, suddenly
mortified - have you just used up
the last of your energy? But you
twitch and groan and tell me
you're sorry. You accuse me of
loving and I whisper "forever,"
before you look me in the eyes and say
I never meant to give up
           .