Crush

When I want to feel 10 again I drink Orange Crush
because it makes my tongue orange and it
tickles my throat
like laughing with my Best Friend
still tickles my heart

The itsy bitsy spider crawled up
the water spout
a crush came to kiss him
and washed that spider out
Spiders live their life hungry
and so do I
Where is the more
where is the why
I hit the mark today
but there has to be more
If I rewrote the calendar
and added more time would that time be mine?

I know exactly how many heart beats
there are between noon and 5 every day
I know because I count them
as my bruised heart crushes the blood
this way and that

Then there's not a noise
not a movement that changes what it is
the crush
the grapes under our feet turn from fruit to wine
and it's easy to get drunk with a stranger
and for a brief of time he is mine
because a crush is not sober
by definition you have to be drunk
you have to wear the straight jacket
or you have to be very sleepy
Say anything you want right now
the stars will keep the secret
it's late late late
and I won't remind you what you've said

A crush is not a romance it's Emily's thing
with feathers that sits perched on your soul
knowing, with little bird eyes
that it will never be enough
until he says just the right thing
at just the right moment
and you hear it with a tender ear
and a less than cynical soul

Love is time tested, a crush is momentary
you take it minute by minute while
God crushes time in your head and the
in between times pass slower
than the watched teapot
and sometimes all that's left is the
residue at the bottom of your tea cup

Witches can read those leaves, those oils
and tell you your future
just as daisies do when you pull those petals loose
does he?
does he not?
will he?
is he brave?
and if he is, am I?

Did he linger to think of me today
as I wondered of him?
Do I dare ask the question or just let it sit
on my sugary lips
Yes, I've eaten cake
and today I'd trade a bucket of butter cream icing
for one smoke signal of desire

Hell, Emily died crushing
Oh sure he was coming in the fall
"Kiss him quickly!" I wanted to shout
into my book of collected Emilyisms
kiss him and let that kiss tell you
if his beating instrument of pain
whispers your name
then take him home and make him
a pot of goulash
and tell him in tiny tiny whispers
that you love him just a little

And even when you know three minutes
before he's gone that you'll miss him
don't mention it
don't leave any evidence
of any kind
rip up the notes
burn them
be brave
be one of D H Lawrence's Wild Things
choke back the tears
ask for no pity
be the bird fallen from it's perch
frozen
be cold because men love cold

And when you are out there alone wondering
and he's off doing what "off" people do
believing you are the one off
you, the girl full of love and hope
and nature and paints and flowers
You're the silly waiting girl
the last check mark on the list
the "oh yeah, her"

Then one day when the storm has passed
when the sky is so blue
you can't think of anything but blue sky
and the sparkle in a stranger's eye
as he smiles slowly at you
somewhere, somewhere far away
the last crush is wondering what about that girl
the blond girl with butterflies in her hair
and that oh so pleasing smile
where did the wind carry her affections?

Oh that affection? It's carrying kites
red kites with whispered agnst
Oh my sweet friend whisper into this thing
that will fly into the air
all your meanderings
all the things you wish he'd heard
those moments when you pushed the world away
and patted the seat next to you
in a knowing manner and there simply was no reply
we'll fill this kite with such thoughts
and send it airborne and when it is a red spot
in the blue blue sky
the bluest sky on a Spring Day
we'll cut the string and laugh a little
on a rocky shore near Edinboro

*********************************************************************************

Best Friend and I seldom crush at the same time. Well lately we have been. It's kinda funny, we hurriedly tell the other what the day was like wondering and then we complain a little and then wax poetic. She helped me write the poem, her inspiration in my ear. I worked it for a few hours, leaving to do some other musings, to start a painting to figure out my life. Then while we are talking the phone rings a few times and finally I answer it, "WHAT WHAT WHAT?" It's Richie from school just checking in and I put him on speaker phone with the two of us for awhile. He sounds fine, I have to go I am being a poet and I like nothing more than being a poet.

I was at the market today finding tea and oh the tea I found. If you haven't tried back currant tea you should and I know where to find it so if you dont let me know. I found tangerine tea, apple tea without cinnamon, blueberry tea and some fine looking papaya tea. The phone rang two stores ago when I was buying a new vacuum, (mine blew up seriously a giant cloud of dust) and I carried her with me to the market like having her next to me rather than in my ear. She had been to the eye doctor, off marketing. Had I heard from my crush today? No. Had she heard from hers? Hell no. Terrific. I was thinking a crush is like being crushed by a bug sometimes. You don't have the assurances of love you just have the angst and that ever excited feeling of Nancy Wilson singing "the first time on a ferris wheel." The view from up here is so clear and real and all I have is the sense of falling fast. And then the part where she sings "did you do this just to please me?" I am working on not being so pleasing, not so nice. I am working on it.

I read in National Geographic once that spiders spend their whole life hungry, really hungry, starving. I'd rather live loveless, lost in books and paints than to be hungry. I'm just not going to do it, ok maybe for a little longer. When do you know when love is real? When do any of us know? Are you a coward when you don't say it first? A fool when you do?

I am never jealous, it's not an emotion I understand. I don't have green eyes, they are blue blue blue. If someone has something I want, I simply work to get it. I am territorial though and I know I like what is mine close to me but what if something is yours because it's just a part of it? Can you have someone's hand and know you won't have the shoulder? I'm not sure. I'm a work in progress, a flawed child of God, an unfinished painting.

Come away with me in the night
come away with me and I will write you a song
Come away with me on a bus
Come away where they can't touch us with their lies
and I want to walk with you on a cloudy day
in fields where the yellow grass grows knee high
so won't you try to come
come away with me and we'll kiss on a mountain high
come away with me and I'll never stop loving you

That's the element of a crush when it changes isn't it? When it's the decision to come away with me and change it all. A crush can last a week, it can last 20 years and all that keeps its alive is the water and the sugar and late night whispers that change your soul, how you look at the world and certainly how you measure time.

And I want to wake up with the rain falling on a tin room while I am safe in your arms. And all I ask of you is come away with me in the night, come away with me.

Nora Jones

You can live a whole lifetime in one night but only if you are brave and are you brave? Brave girls die once and their best friend makes them tea and takes them kite flying. Coward girls die over and over again wondering. If you leave he will miss you, this is a promise because every man misses a girl who crushes him.

Carrie.