Times New Roman 12 Pt. Font

5/28/2018 Times New Roman 12 Pt. Font

1/23

times

new

roman12

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poems

by

megan

lent


2/23

Love Poem

In the La Brea tar pitsI have hidden a message for you.

It is sinking

through millenniawell-preserved for eternity. Someday

when the asteroid hits and the planet collapses

it will remainmy vocal record of a heartbeat

that rested beside you.

!ill you dig me up

from my sweet burial ground" I aminfinite even through my mortal

wounds patiently awaiting

resurrection.

I#m hiding in the corners of your

bones winging out my armsdesperate for your lips pressed

against my teeth. !hen he told me

$%ery few compare to you$I thought immediately of your coolness your heavy breath

wrapping around my unsteady mind.

I wrote $&ou are an ama'ing bat$

hoping you#d see and tell methat. I am Los (ngeles public

transit unreliable and blood-redyou have missed your stopovershot. I am overlooking a canyon

telling you I will write a poem about this morning. )he way the sunrise

ignored your face and so far below I hoped to fall.)here was no kindness in your eyes then.

I am spread out on the bottom of an opalescent pool my skirt is

clinging in all the wrong places. (nenigma in the body of a man

speaks to me from the surface. *is voice

is dry. I am choking down your throat.I am cleaning up the mess. I am

bolting through your veins.

I am running late. I am destroyingseven worlds. I am the atomic.

)he water is in my nostrils

as I try to speak your name

and drown instead.


3/23

Flux

I was building a time machineto get to last +ecember. &ou didn#t

seem to feel the way I felt when

I said we needed to meet again.,oing back to the night in early

(pril when we stood beneath the pier and you kissed me

and you thought I was so beautifuland I thought you would save me.

my darling so long

)he weekend in the summer where my hair

was in your lips in bed awake

waiting to get our feet free with sand.

(nd the moment in late /ctoberwhere I saw you driving your spare hand

steering my neck and whispered.

my darling so long

In twenty-five years you will see me crossing a street

apart from you in a foreign city

and you will not know me by my hair

silver in-fashionin twenty-five years and I will call you

from a payphonein a dinerand you will take fifteen seconds to recogni'e my voice

and I will tell you

where we went wrong and you will tell mewhere I can fuck off to.

my darling so long


4/23

Ghosts

!hen I was nine I read her diary the way one would steala sister0s book. I did not understand my biblical impulse

to crystalli'e against mortality. She was an elegy

a small thing.

!hen I was seventeen I kissed a girl.I thought of her eyes holding. It was nothing to do

with this girl0s blue but with her dark deep glass

hidden in a skullsince buried.

y treatise burns against uiet needs

an empty desire shallow cavesfar inside are bats pretty ice

a cold thing.

)here is life inside water there is water on planetsmiles and miles away. )here is a light in your face

shining past your death the way your fingernails danced

in art that holds a life together. like bones. like pearls.

So the spirit may livewe create and recreate. !e compose musicwith our hands

weaving about strangers in bars down side streets

we continue because we must. !e are a forgotten futurethe dearest hope of a girl

in a book in the past

praying on lips for our own truth.


5/23

Songs of Love and Hate

&our heart is an oak it is inlaid it is amber it is mother-of-pearl3when you thought my love was plastic

fools0 gold I opened up my chest

to show you my organs and bones so you could seethat I meant business.

&ou could run run run run but you could never stay away.

(fter the fight we thought would be out last

you had me walk down a hill

through broken glass.I hurt my toe singing 45amous Blue 6aincoat7

cursing to myself and swearing off your name.

)he glitter that is downtown Los (ngeles

notwithstanding it was an ugly nightpast 2 ( and there was no one out

but a couple unspeaking in a driveway. I told youI would write about you hoping that

would be enough.

I lay down in your bed and waited for you

all night

you

never came.


6/23

Dont Hold Your Head Like That, Someone Might Think Youre Guilt

*e was too young to know that I had heard the phrase 4I will kiss youfrom your neck to your navel7 many times already.

*e didn0t say that but he looked at me

with false pretenses. y point ishe didn0t know he was what he was. (s he poured my glass full

his dry I briefly imagined

that I was on my back in the lion0s den. )hen I thought aboutthe video of the man who owns the lion sanctuary

and the lions run up to him

to hug him. *e turned off the )%.

*e forced a lotfrom my mouth and I woke up

dead as the prophets.

I found outlater

how he had been congratulating himselffor his actions and I thought

there is no real poetry

in hating a man. It0s only interestingif you kill them or forgive them or

forget them.

I guess.


7/23

Ma!s

y favorite lie is that 8apoleon shot off the Sphin90s nose. (ndI0ve heard many good lies such as 4I am not dangerous7 and

4)here are no raisins in that oatmeal cookie7 and 4I0m not feeling

for you what you0re feeling for me.7)here is nowhere in the world I want to go

with the same capacity for longing as a picture of the pyramids

from the cover ofNational Geographic.

)hese read like break-up poems because they were once but aren0t anymore

but will probably be again one day.

6ob and Laura were prime-time )hursday

but then Laura passed away.

8ow when 6ob says 4my wife7

he0s talking about somebody new.

)here is no altar for someone with eyes like mine.

8ow you think every girl with red hair looked

the way I looked now you will thinkevery seashell ends at my ear.


8/23

"lge#ra $

In math classes I would stare at herpassing by the window. I sketched and

everything I drew ended up looking :ust enough like her face

her bodysmall in a skirt.

She was the way it feels to sit on the hood of a carand what a nickel looks like. !e sat in a park

watching barbers play bocce. ( woman sits beside us

at a chess table

showing usher wrinkled hands.

She0s somewhere near the sea or the fog who knows anymore.

She is a skylight she is uick she is emerald.I wish I could0ve told her that.

&ou could find 9 hidden in her teeth.

I want to skywrite )*; /S) B;(


9/23

" Famil of %irds

I assumedwhen she wrote of

him taking off his glasses

wiping sweat from his face to shootthe sick dog that she was also

writing of her own father. Because when you write

it0s never about what you saybut what you0re not saying

and who you0re not saying it to.

I go outbirdwatching I see

a family around a nest in a tall tree.

I wait for them to leave

I will gather the eggs. I am a fo9I am a hawk. I will not break one

but I will inspectand see the light blues and deep cream swirls

of the near-porcelain smoothness

and smallness.

It0s enough to

invent memories

but what of the storiesthat did happen

but thatwe can never tell"

I left the eggs alone

in the nest. )heirmother is coming.


10/23

&oshua Tree

( skull dries in a red blue desert.I am drawn through the dust and dirt

by a man who says I have shark eyes. *e takes

my words wrapped in silver cupsand saves them for me

when I will need them.

In the desertI bloom around him. *e leads me up

a mountain of rock so that we can see

for forever. I think of a cactus

shaped like a woman I think of a womanwho could paint a cactus flower

with the same finesse

that he brushes my skin.

!e belong to the desert

because we have such cold skinI stand behind a spindling tree

and he photographs

me.

I stand in the middle of the road

heat swelling up shoulders burning

my fists in defiance. *e is throwingsomething in the air

and letting it fall to the ground.

In the night we drink whiskey

and when we sleep we are dreaming

of palm treesand salt.


11/23

Gra'eland

y brother lives on an army base in /klahoma.

!hen I was 12 and he was > our favorite album was ?aul Simon0s Graceland. !e listened to it

every night. I told him someday when I0m 21 and you0re 1@ we0re going to drive there. !ewill go to rodeos and motels and flea markets on the way. ?eople will ask us if we really like

;lvis and we will laugh at them. Because they0ll never understand.

y brother is learning to throw live grenades.

y brother and I both have blue eyes. !e both like to walk on the cracks in the sidewalk. !hen

we were little he had long hair and people would ask if he was my sister. )his didn0t bothereither of us. !hen we were little we liked to dance around the living room. I would tell him

we0re going to be famous. *e believed me.

y brother0s hair is cut short now.

!hen I was 1> I left school for a while. ( lot of things had happened. I0d had my heart brokenand moved in with a man and I was sad and hurt and learning that the world was a cruel place.

!hen I was home I stayed up late not sleeping. y brother saw me in the kitchen looking at

knives. *e played the ukulele for me and made me hot chocolate.

I am 21 and my brother is 1@ and I am at an airport in Los (ngeles and he is on an army base in

/klahoma.

I think I could go my whole life without going to emphis without seeing a dead stranger0s

dead house. But ?aul Simon sang he had a reason to believe we all would be received at,raceland. I think about this a lot about what it means what ,raceland represents.

I think of that scene at the end ofField of Dreamsand wonder what everyone in each car was

thinking on the way to the baseball field.

I think I0ve already been everywhere I0ve been and maybe that0s enough.

I think that0s an obvious fact but what I mean by it is forget it.


12/23

Love Poem, Pt( $$

(nyone could walk into this room and see that we0re underwater.8ot :ust you and me either. )his is a sinking ship.

I hope when we0re twisting our legs around kelp and trapped by opposing currentsthat we find time to finally get to the bottom of things.

If we0re lucky we0ll be memoriali'ed into fish tank displays. ( castle for you and me.

If we0re lucky we0ll be allergic to sun and stay in the ocean until our skin wrinkles to the bone.

aybe you know that this water-based language isn0t me searching for a solvent or some%irginia !oolf thing or because I0m thirsty but because the ocean reminds me of you not the

other way around.

)he ice caps are melting so maybe I0ll have my wish soon enough.

&ou are the part in the movie where the girl goes you taught me how to love. I am the part in themovie where the boy goes I wish we0d never met. )his isn0t a real movie :ust one I#m making in

my head.

&ou are a sweater printed with a stranger0s face and I am wearing it.

&ou are an adaptation of a plagiari'ed novel that I am reading for class and crying even though I

know it0s all fake.

&ou are a :oke that I0m playing on us both.

&ou are all of my allergies e9cept instead of hives I0m getting the reali'ation that I don0t know

how to leave you.

I don0t want to leave you.


13/23

$ )ould like to make it so that $ never kissed anone )ho )asnt ou #ut $m not sure thats

!ossi#le and even if it is !ossi#le doing so might make it so that $ never )ouldve kissed ou

in the first !la'e #e'ause $ think the first time $ kissed ou it )as t)o*!arts #e'ause $ )as

drunk and one*!art #e'ause $ )as daring mself to kiss someone )ho )asnt the last

!erson $d )anted to kiss, and, ou kno), theres the #utterfl effe't or )hatever, and

ma#e everthing ha!!ens for a reason, #ut ou kno) )hat no) $+m thinking a#out it andit )as not to do )ith me #eing drunk or our hands on m shorts or our laugh #ut

everthing to do )ith the )a the Ferris )heel lights refle'ted in our ees

(s our heads touch bodies down on benches in a cactus garden

my hand on your face and your hand on mine

looking at tree leaves swaying above us and hoping it0s not another earthuake

I am thinking about lips yours and mine and othersand I am trying to apologi'e to you

through osmosis.

!e looked at very old books and letters and paintings and rosesand we thought about how someone can make a soft human form out of a block of marble

and I wanted to scrunch up inside your pupilsand I wanted you to think I was pretty

and I wanted to run my fingers over all your cells one by one.

I am sorry that I keep writing about other people.

It0s about processing and catharsis and memory. (nd about trying to forgive myself. (nd them.

It0s about how time passes and being bitter and trying to make things different.

It isn0t about you and I don0t even know if it0s about them.&ou tell me that I don0t know if I mean what I say and most of the time that0s true.

I0m impulsive but I don0t like change and I do a good Stevie 8icks impression and you loved itwhen I sang 4&ou0re So %ain7 at that bar after the =at ?ower concert and once you were lookingthrough a list of near-immortal animals like lobsters and clams and sponges and whales

and you were so annoyed that I kept saying which animal I wanted to be whale obviously butthen you agreed that whales would be the best to be. (nd we watched a )% show about artificial

selection and we thought about breeding wolves into dogs even though neither of us likes dogs

but that0s not really the point. &ou were so sad that we don0t have identical +8(. I wanted to

absorb you.

I am sorry that I am hard to talk to sometimes and that I am easily confused and bored and that

I often forget which word I want to say when I0m trying to talk and I0m sorry that I never madeit to the 8ational Spelling Bee past the =alifornia round and I0m sorry that I said you didn0t

understand me and I hope that someday we0ll get this right.


14/23

om!arative Literature

)here is a concept in 5rench literature of the flAneur which is when a man walks around lookingat things aimlessly kind of like in 45eeling ,roovy7

and the fact that I0m using 45eeling ,roovy7 as an e9ample and not I don0t know

some 5rench writersays a lot about me. But there aren0t many e9amples of the flAneuse e9cept in Clo from 5 to 7and that part inLost in Translationwhere Scarlett ohansson walks around )okyo looking at

flower arrangers and a temple and an arcade.

I like to go on long walks without destinations. I used to do this in my early teens where I would

walk across 5olsom looking at the ponds and the offshoots of the river

and taking off my shoes and buying sheet music and lattes.

I want to bapti'e you in the (merican 6iver and then fuck you hard.


15/23

Pros!erina

It wasnt the way he held my hand,

mama, and it was of no beauty in his face

that I went; but when he asked me,

I could not say no. When he gave to meseven small seeds, what could I do

but follow?


16/23

-otes on a S'ene

I invented you you know. I wrote every line you0ve ever said. *ouses are cards and waffles andglue and they do break easily in fact. But that0s not what )*IS is aboutD

D

+on0t get all cute. It0s not a good look. )his isn0t about you and this isn0t about me.

(boveE ( uote similar to most movies of the @Fs.

InsetE It0s about romance. It0s about fast cars. It0s about birthday cake and sand in your socks.

It0s about the girl across town that you ignored ad I left who we were supposed to stick around

and save her from minivans and manicures and manufactured lawns and being a soccer mom.But her fate is already in the tape loop. &ou walk away that0s cool it0s fine

that0s great. Skimming the surface of what I#m trying to say here. I think better

after I0ve fallen asleep. &ou can :oin me in my dreams if you choose don0t get me wrong. ,etthis all straight I0m not ;li'abeth )aylor and you0re none of the above. She arrow to previous

is no Stella then again she is no saint. I refuse to :udge.

8o one wants me to hang around on their wrist a cheap watch you bought in =hinatown and left

to waste in a sink in Seattle while your girl changed out of her underwear and made youpsychotic tea. !e should spend

Between this a scene from 5rench 8ew !ave director 5rancois )ruffaut. It0s all about style.

more time together I am a good ride I don0t come with seatbelts bring your own.

)he moon is less than complete but it isn0t empty it0ssilver it0s a rhinestone it0s my eyes on your face( It0s telling you that it0s all okay.

=ut. ;nter new tragic character fade out slow with music

I walked to the park I thought I saw you I didn0t


17/23

Through a Glass Darkl

I want to burn the sculpture garden to the ground because I let too many boys touch me thereand I made the mistake of calling them men.

I0ll burn down every movie theater in Los (ngeles too starting with the ones that have specialscreenings and re-releases.

aybe I0ll :ust burn Los (ngeles period so that I don0t have to think about anyone anymore.

I don0t think I really have the disposition to be an arsonist.

5lames that are climbing up my shinsI am strapped to a cluster of board

dying at the stake. I am no eanne +0(rc

my hair is too long and I wouldn0t

admit to ,od telling me to do anythingand I am no witch either. I will burn

:ust for the sake of it.

)he black-and-white smoke plumes will be perfect for pro:ection.

I was never cra'ier than when I first discovered how much I needed you.

I need you now. &ou are across the city building wooden bo9es and I am in a crowded Starbucks

watching an Italian woman order a =aramel 5rappuccino Light. I0m wishing she was you. Iwould love you if you were an Italian woman who drank =aramel 5rappuccino Lights and I

would love you if you were a professional mime and I would love you if you had no face and Iwould love you if I never knew you.

)he night in anuary I cried on a black sidewalk

breathing in dirt and tears and clutching my headknowing that I am incapable of not fucking up everything beautiful I see

I have an urge to destroy beehives but I never do.


18/23

Dialogue $ Have .ritten "#out M /es

4?ale Blue ;yes7 by %elvet


19/23

The hild

It looks at mewith tiny brown eyes. ( delicate face. 5at little hands.

;verything about it is ordinary. ( te9tbook definition of a child.

It is a small thing( soft thing.

I look at him his name on my phone his arm brushing mine apologetically.

*e says something offensive to the man behind the desk in the lobbyGbecause he is frustrated not because he0s a :erkG

and rubs his face while I grab the room keys.

)he child still looks.

In the elevator I ask himif he thinks we0re going to be okay.

*e tells me not to ask things like that.

So I don0t.

I lean our suitcases against the wallopen the drapes

look out at the parking lot the desertthe gray hills beyond it.

I tell him that I feel dusty and dry from the drive

and I go to turn water on in the bathtub. I sink into the soap and the liuid and the stale scent of cleaning ammonia

closing my eyes for a minute. /pen. *e0s in the doorway he0s ne9t to the bath

he has his hand on my knee he0s kneeling on the floor

both knees a genuflectGas if I am something holy to see something worth noting a tabernacle.

*e climbs in fully dressed on top of me cradles his head underneath my chin.!ater pour out of the sides of the tub I think of the child in the lobbyI think of the cells in my body

I think of the pores in his skin.

I hear him whisper to the heart in my chestwe will be /H


20/23

You .ill -ever 0no) $f "n of This Ha!!ened

)here are many ways to tell a story.

*ere is oneE

!hen I was fourteen I had a best friend. She was sick with one of those 4white girl diseases7 that

afflict people who aren0t white girls too but she was a white girl so I guess it0s accurate. I slept

on her floor every night when she was sick trying to hear if her heart would stop in the night. Iwas so scared. She went to the hospital for two weeks and got her mom to ask the doctors to let

her out. I was so tired of her by this point that when she died I didn0t feel anything.

)hat0s not precisely true. She didn0t die. She0s alive and well in San 5rancisco. !hat I0m sayingis is that there are many things that are true that aren0t real.

*ere0s anotherE

I had a friend who sent me essays and stories and articles that she thought I0d find interesting.

Some she wrote and I liked them best but others were :ust things she found online. /nce shesent me a book only it wasn0t a book it was a conversation. Between a man and a woman. )heir

te9ts. It was beautiful. )hey talked about trees and aging and water and se9 and magic.

I began to search around for the authors who were only identifiable by their )witter handles and

I found that I was acuainted with the man. (nd that was cool. I told my friend this and she

thought it was funny. )hen I started looking for the other author the woman. (nd I found that

she had died. I remembered her name after reading itGshe0d died tragically but in a way thatcould have been an accident or could have not been an accident. I0d never spoken to her. In my

head I think I had her confused with another girl who0d died the year before who killed herselfafter a mean internet boy told her she didn0t deserve to live. )he same mean internet boy used tolike to message me that I was fat and a slut unprovoked. It really hurt me then but probably

wouldn0t hurt me now. I#m not sure why it wouldn0t hurt me now as I am still insecure and

sensitive but I think I would find it oddly amusing that someone would go out of their way to tryto belittle me. ?eople have all kinds of ways of coping. Some are useful and some are harmful.

8ot all work. 8ot all are okay. But I think I0ve accepted this.

I told my friend about the woman and she didn0t understand. I guess that makes sense. !edidn0t know her. But I think what hit me was was that we had e9perienced her words. She had

touched us. (nd now she was gone and we didn0t even know it. !e were holding her time

capsule.

It0s like the poems I used to write about the wife of a man I had a brief online affair with. *ow I

don0t know anything about her but decided that she was a great chess player. (nd that she readthe Bible. (nd that she had black hair. So I wrote all these things about a woman playing

strategic games and uoting ob and lifting her hair from her shoulders but I don0t know if any

of that happened.


21/23

I like to tell the story about the time I met /wen !ilson and the time my best friend and I took a

train to the %alley and were stuck their for hours and the trip I took to see all the =alifornia

missions when I was ten. I tell people I0ve been through lots of earthuakes but I haven0t really.I tell people I was never religious but I was an altar server for three years.

I reali'e about the girl and the woman and the wife that they were all true in some ways. )hestory with the woman really happened. )he other two almost did. But they were truer than that I

think. /r they were all :ust as true as every other story.

)here is a city of three million surrounding me and everyone has a thousand words playing

through their heads at rapid-speed right now. ;veryone wants something and needs something

else. ;veryone is searching.


22/23

Santa "na .inds

)his could blow us both over.)his could be the end.

)his could be natural disaster earth-shattering apocalypse.

I am afraid of the way you look at meI am afraid of falling down flights of stairs

I am afraid of death.

)he faultlines below us are trembling and achingthey want us gone but we refuse to budge.

(nd with the wind in our hair and dirt clinging to our teeth

we stare forward

toward paradise.


23/23

egan Lent writes poetry short fiction and nonfiction occasionally performs standup comedy

and works on screenplays for fun. *er work has been featured online at sites including %I=;

)he 8ervous Breakdown )he *uffington ?ost and eta'en in print inIlluminati Girl Gang,Vol !and"eep This #ag $%a& from Children, Vol ! and in the *ousefire collaborationNouns

of $ssem'lageShe is the author of the ebooks (ou )ere a *art& #ut I )asn+t Inited ?angur

Ban ?arty Three -toriesBe (bout It and*atron -aints8(? as well as four ebooks withariah Hrochmal. She is a student in Los (ngeles.

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