times new roman 12 pt. font
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New poetry from Megan Lent.TRANSCRIPT
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5/28/2018 Times New Roman 12 Pt. Font
1/23
times
new
roman12
pt
font
poems
by
megan
lent
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5/28/2018 Times New Roman 12 Pt. Font
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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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;(
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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
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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.
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18/23
Dialogue $ Have .ritten "#out M /es
4?ale Blue ;yes7 by %elvet
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.