SMART

geekdawson:

So I started seeing this woman recently
Or going on dates with this woman
Or however we talk about dating in our 30’s…

I went on dates recently.
With this woman.
She is…smart.
And I don’t mean street-smart
Talk your way out of anything savvy
Intuit danger in shifts of body weight observant
Figure out a temporary fix for the thing you can’t afford a repairman for handy
Or even
Especially
Know the geometry of fitting everything you own in two bags so well you can do it with someone screaming at you to get out

Street savvy, dark corner, make it work
Survival guide smart.
I don’t mean that.
That I know.

I mean, at first, book smart
School smart
Language smart
Education smart
And I’ve never thought of myself as stupid
But when someone asked if she’d met me at her work
I laughed
And had the urge to say “Oh no, she’s brilliant. I’m not really sure what I’m doing here.”
I’d never felt that way before.
It was honestly kind of delightful.

But that’s not really what this poem is about
Because that’s only at first.
It’s how I’m avoiding the thing. The actual thing this poem is about
Because booksmart is not what struck me about her

It’s the whip-crack smart
It’s the “You don’t even like the phrasing of your own question”
When she directs it back toward me smart
It’s the flash of sarcastic humor
And the elegant two-step of avoidance
It’s the way she croquets answers
Knocking my questions down the field
Off course
Smart.

I’m not sure where she learned
All that emotional street-savvy
All that almost undetectable managing you use when you know how to talk someone down
Even when they are screaming at you.
I am afraid it was in places as unfriendly
In their own way
As the ones I grew up in
It makes me want to call her
And ask if it would be okay if I drove a half hour
To spend fifteen minutes kissing her before driving the half hour home

She’s smart.
Emotionally savvy in a way that makes me want to give her all my
Best
Biggest
Brightest
Feelings
I am made mostly of feelings.
I want to pour the softest ones into her hands
Those witch hands that plant gardens in their wake and keep everyone at bay
I know mine are small but I do have this big thumping heart
To make up for it

friendly-animals:

Muffin & Cheese

hermionegranger:

The real “horror” of Hill House is not ghosts. It’s grief and trauma and broken relationships. It’s being alone and losing someone and living without them. The real horror is human. 

The real horror isn’t an afterlife full of ghosts, but the opposite: an afterlife full of nothingness. 

7-weeks:

If your arm was long enough to touch the sun,
you wouldn’t feel the pain for 6792 years. Maybe that’s why

I didn’t notice we were burning up until
my body was on fire, maybe

We only know love with our arms outstretched, praising
each other into godfire, our hearts

Like ashtrays for when the other turned to soot,
holding onto a memory we never shared. 

andhumanslovedstories:

mom was describing a tattoo a girl once took her to a back bedroom to show her, which was a fishing pole low on her pelvis with a line and hook that descended into her bush where a small clownfish hid amongst the hair. and that’s just. that’s a goal. and the ultimate freedom from obligation, like “gah I would shave but it would ruin my very good joke, what are you gonna do, I gotta make sure there’s foliage for my little clownfish to hide in”

then mom finished telling me this and looked off for a moment. “my god,” she said. “she was flirting with me. fuck. goddamn it.”