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​

8/5/2021

Featured Poet: Natalie Valentine

Picture
              ​Timo Newton-Syms CC



A PARTIAL LIST OF THINGS I CAN AND CANNOT PROMISE 

To my next love, 

  1. I love hard. I love bite. 
  2. When we fight -- and we will fight -- please please please don’t stare at the wall or the floor or my your phone or the abyss
    or or or or or or
  3. Just look at me in my crooked eyes. 
  4. Like I am worth fighting for. 
  5. Like, relationships take work, you know? 
  6. But love is easy. 
  7. And I have loved foolishly. Honestly, but foolishly. 
  8. I have loved the wrong fucking people. 
  9. Which, of course, led to fucking the wrong people. 
  10. I’d like you to know that I am not broken, even though some days I will forget my medicine and that will really, really suck. 
  11. I am not broken, but rather in a constant state of mending. 
  12. I am not broken. I am muscles stitching themselves back together. 
  13. I am not broken. I hot glue the pieces of my pain artfully like a motherfucking DIY Pinterest queen. 
  14. I am not broken, she said, hoping that in repetition it will be true. 
  15. I do not come by trust easily. 
  16. I come by trust so easily that strangers break my heart passing on the sidewalk. 
  17. I will worry one night when you don’t come home and your phone dies. 
  18. I will not be sure who I’m more jealous off -- the people you’re with, or. 
  19. Your phone. 
  20. I will worry in perpendicular lines: that you are in a ditch somewhere. 
  21. or that you suddenly stopped loving me, because: 
  22. I am not worth it
    I am not worth it
    I am not worth it
    I am not worth it
    I am not worth it
  23. When you come home that night, totally normal, I cannot promise that I won’t cry. 
  24. Just hold me close and let me cry. 
  25. And kiss me. And laugh with me, because there is nothing that fear is more afraid of than laughter. 
  26. There is nothing that comes more naturally to me than love. 
  27. I lazer-focus love. 
  28. My love could scorch the earth. 
  29. My love is happy little seeds warm in the deep brown dirt that pop up springtime green to green the morning. 
  30. My love is not a morning person. 
  31. My love is melancholy. Sometimes it thunders. 
  32. My love stargazes and sees constellations in your eyes. 
  33. My love is electric on my tongue. It might shock you. 
  34. There is a lot of me, in me. In this 5’9 250 pound buzzcut fucked up eyes asymmetrical face pierced tattooed nail-bitten thing.
  35. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have room for you. 
  36. There is a universe of room in my heart for you. 
  37. I will have bad days. 
  38. I will have bad days because, like, birds die sometimes! And. 
  39. SERIOUSLY, WHERE DO THE DUCKS GO IN WINTER. 
  40. I will brush your skin with fingertips calloused from writing love poems. 
  41. I will wonder, how did such a masterpiece come to exist in this world? 
  42. I will never stop being mesmerized by your skin, your scars, your secrets. 
  43. I am getting so anxious because this is so long and I don’t know what number I’m on because I am spilling my blood and bone and marrow and it is hard to keep count when your guts are splattered on the floor.

    1. 1. 1. I am so frightened of being told that I am hard to love -- again -- that I want to push you away with excuses and reasons and
    2. JUST GO. LEAVE ME ALONE.
    3. I WANT TO BE ALONE.
    4. I WANT TO BE ALONE.
    5. I WANT TO BE ALONE.
    6. I don’t want to be alone.
    7. I want to rest my hand on your chest and listen to your heart beat.
    8. So I will stand here. I will stand here in my steel-toed combat boots.
    9. Because I know who I am.
    10. I love hard. I love hard. I love hard. ​





On the Almost-Second Anniversary of the Last Time My Father and I Spoke


The last time I spoke to my father was through text message on Christmas morning, 2018. 

He waited til the morning to drive home his point of bitter rage 
his history of hurt 
My father, my dad, wanted to hurt me as he had been hurt
and I let him for 29 years. 

on Christmas morning two years ago
for the first time, I said: no more. 

I told him to seek therapy as I have, and that this was the last time he would hear from me. 

I wished him peace. 

I sobbed, violent, shuddering sobs,
at the second leaving of my father. 
Sorrow crept up my throat, a vise, a sickness,
it threatened to escape. 

When my father left for the first time, 
I was taking a nap. 
I was 14. 
I never slept well again. 

Sorrow lives still in this one spot in the back of my throat: 
A threat and a promise

How do we grieve those who are still alive? 
How do we grieve? 
How do we

The lesson carved into my little feeling heart since I was a child is this: 

The people you love will leave you.
and life is the reason for their departure more often than death. 

Now that I am older - an age I didn’t imagine myself to be - 
I see myself keeping people, 
I ask them to stay. 
I say, please don’t leave me. 
give them little gifts like a crow,
pour from an empty cup,
trying to be something like enough 

I say, I cannot weather another departure. 
knowing that I will weather many more if I am to continue being ages I never imagined I would be. 

Life has also taught me that the strength and anger and cruelty of my fear pushes people away. It is too much. 
It pushes and pours 
roiling ocean waves crashing and crashing and crashing to shore 
I am the sea in my despair 

In the thick darkness of 4am
there are the faces of the people who are gone but elsewhere
A oncedearfriend from school
My first love

An old friend I asked to officiate my wedding. 
He said yes. 
A few weeks later, he stopped speaking to me for reasons that I still do not know 
No warning or explanation
just another face in the vast darkness 

I sent messages to him - to the void I guess - for years, telling him I missed him. 

Please call, please call, I miss you 
I still miss you so much 
I think of you always 
I am a gentler, sadder ocean 
I push, I push 
I search for
meaning 
for my place in it
I crash, I crash 

how do we grieve those who are still alive? 

my waves beat against a lonely shore 
nothing after nothing after nothing 

then there are those who are gone but not elsewhere. 
My mother’s mother, the silly charmer
who sent pieces of gum in the mail when she wrote to me
My mother’s father, who I never knew
My father’s father, who I don’t remember
apart from pennies from a cognac coin purse and silent vibrating rage 
Friends, teachers who deserve more than a line in a poem

most recently there was Barbara. 

Barbara was my grandmother, 
my father’s mother. 
She taught me to love theatre 
She took me to Peter Pan at Olney Theatre down the road 
where I fell in love with the living darkness of storytellers bringing life to life

I never got to say goodbye.  
She came to me in a dream shortly after she died. She seemed to understand - though not approve of - my choice to keep my father out of my life. 
She said, of my ability to gather a roomful of beloved friends, 
he always wished he could do that. 

At her funeral in the church down the road from that theatre, 
I saw my father 
from behind - though he did not see me - 
he was so alone 
his hair yellowing, his back curved with grief and something else 
I heard later that he missed me 

I couldn’t say goodbye to her there. 
I said goodbye later in the best way I could:
sobbing in a darkened theatre, 
asking forgiveness from the rafters 
I love you and I’m sorry 
I love you and I wish it could have been different 
I love you and I tried
but I am an ocean of not knowing what to do

Life is coming and going. 
I’ve always wanted to be gone and, despite everything, here I am. 
an ocean and a bird 

Giving crowgifts, 
despite knowing that I cannot keep anyone 
Asking them to stay anyway
Waves of love; crashing 
hopeful and sad 

how do we grieve those who are still alive?





TO THE WOMAN IN THE FABRIC SECTION OF JOANN’S


There was a woman in the fabric section of Joann’s 
In Wheaton mall, 
Who held me close 
I could feel her wanting to cry

I had cracked a lame joke about wanting to buy too much yarn 
We got to talking (as craft people are wont to do 
She also could never resist anything soft and colorful) 
I happened to roll up the sleeves of my overlarge sweater 
Just because it was very warm 
Right there in the fabric section of Joann’s in Wheaton mall 

She saw my tattoo, a semicolon, a story I chose to continue to tell 
And she Knew. 
And I Knew because of the way she knew. 
It is so hard to talk about, 
To live through, 
She said 
And I knew, 
Because of the way she knew. 

She said I don’t talk about this to anyone, 
She said 
Not even my husband 

She said 
I can’t believe I’m telling this to you 

And we hugged 
In the middle of the fabric section of Joann’s Fabric 
In Wheaton mall
Twice 

There was a woman on the streets of Philadelphia 
Who had had a long day 
Betrayed by the break in her voice and the creases in her suit  

I had been walking in front of her, on my way to who knows where
and pushed through an unfriendly group of people 
Crowding the sidewalk
(Remember when people crowded the sidewalk?) 
Who just wouldn’t move

And I don’t remember what she said 
Or why we started to talk 
We laughed about people and the way they never move when you need them to, 
Even though it would be so easy 

But I know she had a long day, and sometimes when people crowd in front of you on the sidewalk and 
Won’tgetoutoftheway
It’s too much 

I told her I hoped that she would be able to rest tonight, 
she was going to skip a happy hour with friends, 
And I laughed and said girl you deserve a drink, though!  
You deserve to do something fun 

And she stopped, 
And I stopped
And I knew because of the way she knew. 
And she asked me if she could hug me
And we hugged
In the middle of a sidewalk in Philadelphia 

I hope she got to rest. I hope she got to drink with her friends. 
I think about her all the time. 

There was a teenager on the metro passing through 
Somewhere or other 
And I had had my own long day, 
Hot and sweaty with bare arms crossed
We sat across from each other, in our own tired metroworlds, 
And they pointed at my tattoo – the same one; the semicolon – 
And said, “you too?” 
And I said yeah, 
Me too. 

There are all the times I’ve felt the zing of connection to a stranger
From one tired or hungry or sad person to another, 

These connections with people I will never see again are holy 
They are god 
They are why 

I check the news for news of vaccinations 
I check my calendar to see what I’m going to miss 
I think of all the times someone has looked at me, 
Hopeful and uncertain 

“You know, I’ve never told this to anyone before.” 

Of the times I’ve said the same thing back 

I think of all these people I’ve hugged in the middle of the fabric section of Joann’s, 
Or in the streets of Philadelphia 
Or just two words on the subway that share more of my story than I could ever 
Say 

I hope they’re okay. 
I hope you’re okay ​


​
Picture
Natalie (she/they) is a poet, playwright, and maker. She has worked as a writer in theatres across the United States and with the zine Indoorsy. If you're looking for hopeful queer stories with a touch of melancholy, you're in the right place.


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