theresa m lapensée

musings & other stories

Poems

And then there was this

The places that inspire, used to surprise

me so

on ice-cold summer buses, bar napkins,

late night forays

into drink, politics and woes

I once said make me a real live woman

and glancing at piles of photos,

finding their order out of albums, labels

and words

slight turns of head, gleam in eyes

give short answers

To questions I haven’t asked in

mere years

What they don’t say of the craziness of youth

is the blood & guts insistence it pushes through

veins, limbs, heart

always kicking, moving forward for

something

So many highways with no care for

the cities they lead to

late nights awake, watching the mornings

arrive

What they don’t say

of headaches behind the eyes,

cold feet, colder bed, long nights

of wedded bliss

 
Summer used to be my favourite season

 

So what of inspiration?

hilarity-ensued, warm-handed,

back-drenching

3am wake-ups, tangled sheets, hotel rooms

half way ‘cross the globe

inspiration

Don’t tell me you supposed

eyebrows raised, senses perked

that we were done conversing?

assumptions, promises & works

abound

the little me is/was no longer

Dance on the table, kick off your shoes,

I’m dying to share a drink

with

you

and give no, half-hearted, semi-sincere

gestures for what it all means

in the end

Only the hardest of hands is worth holding

 

Oh here comes September

Passport

What have you been up to lately?

Hiding in the apartment for 3 days, in the hopes

that some half-decent, outside-desired words

will spring up like spring grass, doesn’t seem

all that worthy of conversation

mon dieu

 

Sometimes the thing you’re looking for is right in

front of you,

Other times it’s so buried in memory, illusion

and indecision you will never find it when

you need to

 

I will keep passing drinks, taking the last one for

myself, smiling when I sip

beer does taste good almost every night you

drink it

 

There have been too many smeared nights, with

smeared eyes

and figuring out whether or not

you or you or you like me is tiring at 25

I wish I was bold enough to stand up and walk out

when I wanted to leave, bold enough to say

there are some things I just won’t do for money

 

But then again there are some things I will

 
Family photos: silence behind the smiles,

words never said

where is home, anyway?

Surely there were good times that have

gone swimmingly by…

 
What is flippin’ stuck in my eye this time, old buddy?

 
People say this is the best time of my life

with such finesse and finality

Oh if mine has come & gone I will surely need

more books to read

“take something positive out of every situation”

 
coulda fooled me, kid

 
I just keep re-writing everything till there’s a

big pile of papers on the floor,

because before long I will blink & the story will be

the one I’ve been looking for

I don’t know:

my parents have so much pain

between them, it sits like an ocean in the room,

their long ago 50s births, 60s growth just an image

in my head

now we’re all here surfing the net

and watching oprah on satellite TV

there are some days when folding laundry

is even too depressing

 
my aunt put a gun to her

head

maybe some people were only ever here by accident

& thank god there is a way to medicate us all

hail mary, full of grace

 
Where are my little doll sisters?

asleep in my pocket for now,

aisles & shopping carts, shining-ly away

 

There are secrets filling my memories--

I used to slam doors and insults,

oh but enough of that already

I’ve nothing left to say

 
If you take me out of metaphor

I’ll have nothing left to wear,

rien left to cover all the knots

& grooves

 
my little pal,

my little pal, home


p.s. (there are quieter ways to drink yourself

into oblivion, you know)  

Maybe one of these days words will stop being the empty symbols they are and become the living, breathing love i beg to infuse them with....

 
There were so many summers

spent being the mad, crazy,

beautiful losers

we were

always too young

to recognize,

to recognize any of it at all

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