Poems by Stela Xega

Stela Xega

It is okay, you are okay

It is okay
to be silent
and not know
the whole of it
all at once

okay
to be halfway
the whole of the time

infinity stretches
you are always running
trying to catch the loop
of the universe
you will circle yourself
many times
only to be welcomed back
by a new face in the mirror
a new layer of skin

I am halfway
always
everything is nothing with a twist.

No nametags

Not everything has a nametag.

everybody feels something walking down a street they’ve
never been on.
I remember when I thought I knew everything.
and now on many days I wake up
I do not want to be Wonder Woman
didn’t ask for a cape of responsibilities
and titles
to hang heavy on my back
choke the hallelujah from my throat
many days I wake up
I want to stay in bed
have grown tired
of always practicing how to lift my feet
to learn the steps it takes to fly
and hold myself up
some days
I wake up
I do not want to be anything
I do not want to be anyone
I am tired of trying.
I want to drink and have sleeping

pills all day, I know I am my own bad
kill my self again, save me, safe me my friend
and still—
I carry a superlative
I want so badly to live up to
I walk out the door
I put the cape on,
and at least when the wind blows
I will feel a little something
like flying.
Darling, listen.
no matter what we do
our fingers will end up
blistered,
our palms
bloody
if we
look into the mirror
long enough to know anything,
if we pull the rope harder
or let it give,
and the only thing
that means anything
is what we’re bruising for.

Love

I knew i was in love when sleeping
On your floor
Was better then sleeping
In my own bed

I knew i was in love when staying in your arms
Was all i wanted
and was better then every other place on earth

I knew i was in love when I cried into coffee cups
and kept drinking anyway,
slept nearly 20 hours a day
Since last Friday

I held onto the hope of you
tighter than my own sanity

I have felt
pathetic
and wrong
and amazed

I knew i was in love when at nights
I wish that with my last breath
I'll exhale my love for you
And i desperately hoped
It was a cold night
So you could see what you meant to me

I knew i was in love when we were staying
Together in bed and i wrote
'Please don't leave me'
With my fingertips on your skin

I knew i was in love when i decided to let you go and I'm happy
That's the perfect end for a piece of shit story like this

And now i think i might brutally murder the next person
Who says they love me and leaves

I knew i was in love when you looked at me
In the middle of the night
Rain pouring on our faces, phones constantly ringing
with pity somehow and said
'listen, i have to go, i don't know what to say'
And i tiredly answered 'Don't worry i know what we are
And i know what we are not'

I knew, i just knew that i wanted it to much
And you didn't want it enough
A basic imbalance

My mom told me once
'stop setting yourself of fire for someone
Who stays there and watches you burn'
I guess mom was right

I knew i was in love when i realized i used to shake
At the single thought of you loving someone else.

Alter ego

I am all burned bridges and broken ceilings.

Between cooking dinner and packing my suitcase
I try my best to paint myself practical and poised.
On nights like this one I am a canopy of trees blocking
out sunlight, I want so badly to grow that I let the smaller
plants wilt without my nutrients. I am the apology you’re not
sure you're ever going to get.
You have to make me up in your head, imagine what
I would sound like coming from their mouth. I am all
moonbeam and rough tides. Tonight I want to dip my feet
in virgin waters but even the smallest state lines feel like
dams. My waves are not getting through.
I have friends who pick up my phone calls when
I need advice and don’t talk to me until two months later.
I have friends who never stop calling me.
The difference between me and someone who’s
always happy is that I never stop asking questions. I’m not
satisfied with thinking I know things. It’s better and worse
to be absolutely sure I am missing all the answers.
The difference between me and someone who’s
always happy is that im not happy, im hateful towards everybody
because when human race came to know that
the compass of my ship was left for dead
they hoped for me to get lost
in the land of the deads
thats when i taught myself
how to find my way with constellations,
My ship is the Titanic, i lose control

and soon I’ll find a pretty iceberg
and destroy myself
but I’ll still have a lifeboat with me
Well, I am full of tears and triumphs and painful
self-questioning, you won’t always understand my string theory
or poetry, and i’ll sometimes be closed off to you,
build walls around anything that could bring me down
to reality, I can make myself cloud 9 happy in five minutes,
but I also ground myself to a world i
don't always want to live in–
I am not practical or poised, I am a cracked balance beam
without the ability to hold anyone up for too long.

I am a book
with a binding falling apart, but even I know I’m beautiful and
worthy and trying to make it tomorrow.

And any structure that can hold itself together
under pressure is a job well done.

Je m’tire

Here we are
At a point were i pity
You,myself,us

Today i woke up with a blade
There where tender and love was
I drink tea like it will drown me
or the heat will numb me

there are a thousand
waterfalls of knives pooling
in my chest,

I am cupid’s target practice
and the arrows hit me in
all the places my soul is weak,

I want to be the iceberg
stronger than the ship

but I’m just the hole
that sinks in

I have always been good at
avoiding love at all costs,
my heart tells me it would
rather jump out of my body
before it would let you
hold it a minute too long,
it says it’s just a safer bet.

I don’t know how to tell you
how terrifying it is to feel
your hand on my skin,

or how terrifying it is
when it isn’t there,
(I don’t know if it will
come back)

I don’t know how to let love in,
find comfort in the way it simmers
in my chest,

when this all always feels like
chaos and broken things
waiting to happen.

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