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The Interdisciplinary Work of Lyss Warmland.

Posts from the Poetry Category

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my curiosity continues
to betray me
for when I pry into
your gaping mind
I’m met with
aggression.
It’s perspective.
I guess
I know
it’s based in fear
and I commit
to no fear
no gaping mind
it’s a guest with no end
no catharsis
it’s perspctive
it’s tearing down
first
my mind
your mind
collective minds
perspective.

 

There’s something to be said
For the pain of knowing
What you want,
Putting in so much
That you lose the rest of
yourself,
And being rejected
Over and over and over
And getting back up
To put in more
Than you ever had to
Begin with
And finding that what you wanted
Doesn’t feel
Like it was for you
After all.
There’s something to be said
For dreaming and working
And not being seen
And finding that
You were never made for
That dream.
(Or the dream was never made for you)
You were made for
The challenge.

there was a storm:
snow cascading from the clouds
the doctor
halted by the chaos
sat home by the fireplace
so I was delivered by a
stranger.
there was the cord:
connecting my mother and I
wrapped tightly
around my under-sized
neck, turning my face
blue, like I’d be for
years.
there was my grandmother:
on her own death bed
refusing to 
hold me or see me,
my mother’s daughter,
who took her name
Dorothy.
There is a matrilineal lineage:
and a traumatic birth,
a precursor
for an anxiety-induced
identity formed by
crisis.

this time around,
I don’t feel the need to
fight/flight/freeze/fuck
or to perforate my
scar-stained flesh.
it helps not to be fourteen
fifteen
sixteen
seventeen but
twenty-six. 
it helps that I have loved you
and know now
that love is
patient/kind/hopeful
not
envious/angry/selfish
loving you-
is delightful because it is true
loving you-
is the taste of sugar
after black coffee.
it helps that I have loved you.
and though my body is here,
I am sitting on the bed with you
laughing too loudly
over curse words and cold tea
and how our love
is delightful because it is true.

I am like one of those
green/mossy/grassy weeds
that grow in between
the cracks of sidewalks.

You see something
undesirable/a mess/alive
and you just want to
pull me out by the root.

What you don’t see is
roots so deep I won’t
ever truly get out from
under your skin-

I mean-
the cement.

You
-thin everything
soften while we
both move too fast
too loud
too much
it’s harmless.

I can’t talk to anyone
the way I talk to you.