Waste Not, Want Not (by Rebecca Chasteen) Monday, Oct 12 2009

Sex
is so tricky;

It’s so easy
to get someone to love
how you look in their bed.

It’s so easy to
be wanted
and ride that high
unaware
there’s no where to land
unaware
what changed while you were up there.

It’s so hard to tell
when words are as real as they can be
and when they’re bargains for heavy breaths
(or the heavy breaths, bargains for words- we all know how that works).

It’s hard to tell
when everyone’s on the same page
and when
by some slight of hand
the page turns-
burns
love and lust
separate
instead of having them become one
movement
all in the same.

People lie and say
it doesn’t matter, no strings attached.
Never believe that.
Sex has never been
clean cut.
There has never been
“just a fuck”.

Bodies are driven, have motives, have spirits-
everything means something.
So
it should be a rule-
we have to love the ones we fuck,
no matter what.

And we have to trust the ones we love-
Isn’t that equation clear enough?
Take the guess work out of it.
Make it count.

We should demand to refuse
those
so bent on wreckage-
so concerned only with
their moment.

Sex should be fun
as much as is it should be love.

Make it matter (because it already does).

Waste no
body’s
offering.

Minimize nothing
with manipulation or make believe.
We owe our lovers all the honesty we’ve got
(and we should love the ones we fuck).

Waste no
heart’s efforts
with tricks and games
(where not everyone’s a player, but everyone gets played).

Waste not-
bodies or hearts
or want not-
right from the start.

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pour the waves (by Rebecca Chasteen) Monday, Oct 12 2009

Some days,
the music just has to be loud
loud enough
to drive out all temptation to believe in lies
to drive out the numb that doesn’t try

The music just has to be moving enough
to keep me moving
has to remind me of
everything that matters
everything that moves
there is never
nothing
I can do

I can do
something with this
even if it’s
just feel it
even if it’s
just be here

be here
and don’t leave
don’t obliterate myself
on rocky shores
don’t release my grasp
don’t follow their lead
this is what there is to believe-
this is all there is
and this is all that matters

some days
the music just has to be loud
loud enough
to remind me

I just have to be needy enough
to pull it in
anxious
angry
enough
to demand more

pour the waves
pour the waves
pour the waves

my skin is bare
my throat is dry
my stomach waits
my heart aches

pour the waves
pour the waves
pour the waves

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I hope this counts (by Rebecca Chasteen) Saturday, Oct 10 2009

I want to apologize
every time he touches me
because I’m so sorry
it’s not you.

You know I tried,
right?

Or doesn’t it count-
so long ago?
Or doesn’t it matter
at all?

I hold tight to hope
while shadows push their way
as far as they can go,
take everything they can…

They can’t
take this-
this part that’s been waiting.

You know
I always wanted YOU-
right?

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It’s a happy madness (by Rebecca Chasteen) Saturday, Oct 10 2009

It’s a happy madness.

I wish you understood
the clothes on the floor,
the books and papers and pens-
the movement.

I wish you saw how pretty
the movement
is;
the moments when
nothing matters.

I could never trust you with that,
with something
as precious as that;

of course I tried,
only to find
.every.
.time.
you marked it wrong,
told me so
and grabbed me to come along.

But I’m happy
in the madness, the movement
I am happy

in,

on,

my own

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bury (by Rebecca Chasteen) Tuesday, Oct 6 2009

if i could bury myself in this, i would. i would suffocate myself with this. i would place it over my mouth, my nose, my eyes. i
would just let it be the last thing i breathe, the last thing i see, the last thing i think. i
would leave it
just like that. so i would never have to wake up without it one more day. so i
would never
have to look at it from a distance, from an unimaginable distance. i
wouldn’t have to
yell into the void between, the place where my voice never reaches, my words
never matter enough.
i wouldn’t question again why i stand on the fringe of it all, why i
assume
my bridges are too shaky, or my roots too heavy, my intensity too much or
of course, not enough, whatever the argument may be. or that i
am too much or
too little
never again a concern because,entombed in this, i couldn’t be
anything else
but the one who carried this so close it took over and
took my place, couraged me enough to
let go and just
be this
and nothing else, since
i
never really was the rest. i never really was anything else anyway.

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Field Work- documentation is so important (by Rebecca Chasteen) Saturday, Oct 3 2009

There is a psychology to everything.

You’ve got to know
I gather my field observations
and slide them under my microscope…

you’re still driving me crazy
your hands are still warm
warm
on my skin

they are still
the only hands I ever really want

we don’t even have to talk
I can hear your thoughts
we could go forever
we could sit in silence
it’s really all the same

That’s what I already told you

That’s just the truth of us

there’s not a stitch
wrong with what we sew

we hold our borders well
until-
for just a while there
I thought we were mindless
we were
shaking everything down
we were
going to lose all our senses-
drive away,
never come back

I get it
I’m right there with you

I’m placing your hand in mine-
it fell into me this time;

you
aren’t ice
you don’t just shimmer past

what would you have done
if your name rolled off my tongue?

That has me drinking
That has me holding on

my god,
you are
exactly…

you need more time, so do I

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Losing Wars (by Rebecca Chasteen) Tuesday, Sep 29 2009

It’s

the quiet ones to watch out for, the ones

that manage to slip by you disturbing nothing

too much,

but everything just enough, before you know it,

you’ve lost things

you didn’t even know could be taken away.

no one

fights the demons

disguised so simply.

this

is how wars are lost.

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Pandora’s box (by Rebecca Chasteen) Tuesday, Sep 29 2009

I listen to angry music

way too loud

dig my nails into my skin

diverting the pain

until it is safe

until the knots are gone

until the threat of unraveling has subsided

and I’m breathing again

it is then

I’ve regained possession

I cautiously

return to living

and carefully

step around

the pandora’s box

that looks like you.

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Nothing left- the final step (by Rebecca Chasteen) Tuesday, Sep 15 2009

You stand, stripped, looking at the mirror
your lack of reflection proves your disappearance
you are a million things,
and nothing

everything you took off
is now wrapped around your ankles,
tight-
like shackles
you can’t put anything back, nothing fits anymore

You wait for someone to take you,
but there’s nothing left to take.

You move, slowly, weighted,
towards sleep
but you don’t even know which way to go
your compass broke

You have no convictions-
sounds like a death sentence.

faith drips from your skin,
making puddles beside love-belief
it will all evaporate
like trust
disappointment had you purge enough
to be rid of hope
and reconciliation

You search for something,
words-
that mean nothing and change nothing
you try them,
taste them,
throw them out.

The depths of you are vacant now, aren’t they?

It’s dangerous, not to mention unattractive
to stand the way you do,
waiting
spilled open
aimless

I have nothing left to say to you.

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Skin Tuesday, Jul 7 2009

I know crying doesn’t change a thing

I know I could have
sat somewhere else
or moved faster
spoke firmer
I could have
but I didn’t
and I can’t shake
unwelcome hands
pleading face

you can’t say
” I love you”
“come back soon”
when I’m running out of the room
when I said to stop

what about me said
I didn’t mean it?

or are you
too hard up
too assuming
too confused

I could do worse
and I could do better
than this
than tears in the car
professional phone call
coffee at the mall

this is
brush the dirt off your shoulder
kind of thing
and didn’t I show you my child
my ring?

I don’t know why you even tried
or why
I didn’t
exit quicker
why I cried

my skin’s thicker.

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