an old poem with no name

My stomach is hungry for nothing but you
as I flip through a book of contemporary American poetry.

Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath,
whose words mattered more than skin.
Allen Ginsberg,
who I would have loved to fall in love with
if only he and I weren't both in love with boys
who made us scream in the night
and open our mouths, pointed to heaven,
to ceiling paint,
to thick air and the smell of latex.

One day I will be in a book like this.
Immortalized. Pressed flat between the pages.
You will be immortal, alive in my poems.
In my very handwriting you are alive.

Past Frank O'Hara and Robert Lowell,
still I think of you, to whom all of my writings are now addressed.
I think of how my stomach is clawing and complaining,
of how you are trying desperately to communicate
with me, your love aside from Austin, Texas,
where you are. Where you always will be.
Austin, Texas that holds you.
Austin, Texas that keeps me hungry.

One day I will be taught.
Eager college students will pour over my ramblings.
Pea-coated scholars will argue
over the steam of black coffee that I loved you, really.
head, heart, bones, limbs,
and tongue and breath and fingertips.
That I loved no one but an empty page.
That I secretly wanted to take too much Advil and sleep.
That I was too afraid of nothing.
That you never existed at all.
And they will all be correct.
And they will write essays.

The book ends with Carl Phillips, who I don't know.
His poem "Revision," which I have never read, ends:
"You speak first. And I'll answer."

My phone is filled with messages from you.
Love and miss and want and need
and begging me to smile,
to make you feel better.
But I am already abandoned.
My phone wants me to want to talk to you.
To send words from my pillow to yours.
Too many miles for feeling.
My phone vibrates.
I close the book of contemporary American poetry.
My stomach growls.

everything's changing now, isn't it?

This crazy night will make you evaporate
as you soak in stars and nightmares,
the blades of grass, the wind,
the endless suffocation of summer.
And soon it will all disappear
just like you are now,
rising into the air,
fading, melting really, into the landscape.
Becoming the sky, the breeze,
your eyes stars and your mouth a moon.
Morphing into your surroundings like a chameleon.
You sigh and the tree leaves shiver.
You laugh and the waters ripple.
If you cry, we'll both be drowned.

Wait.
Please wait for me to tell you I love you.
Please stop becoming the grass and tree bark long enough.
I am sitting here still human, after all.
I would like to tell you
while I can still see your face shining through the midnight,

there is no one else could make me hope as much as you.

******

so i have decided to share some poetry as well with you. if there even is a "you" as i'm pretty sure no one cares about this silly blog. but i'm determined to let this blog live and see how it comes out. it's another way for me to get out all the little monsters intide my brain, so i want to keep it. i've just noticed a little note on my wall from my niece. it says "i love you, jessie <3 courtney."

here are some pictures from months ago when i was in new york. they're film and i didn't bother editing them. i kinda need to go back right now. i kinda need to live anywhere else right now.



the last is of me and my good friend, kelly. she's in college now. everyone is going to college. i'm tired of change. my pockets are filled with pennies.