to every woman i’ve ever met November 12, 2009
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to every friend of a friend i don’t remember the name of
to my fourth grade desk neighbor who let me cheat off her quizzes
to that girl on facebook, which is probably a fake account but her profile picture is pretty
to the girls i don’t call back
to the girls who don’t pick up
to those girls, those girls who were only about that thing, that thing, that thing
to the wooo girls that don’t know when they had one too many
to those who’ve helped me paint a perfect, prophetic portrait of passionate penetration; giving and taking everything we can take and give on a temper-pedic mattress
to every train wreck of a first date
to every spontaneous conversation you only see in Woody Allen movies
to every headache i’ve ever had
to every heartbreak i’ve ever given
to every subtle smile i’ve gotten on the skytrain
from lipstick on the collar to minor remark
on my hands, in my head or craved right on my heart
positive or negative; big or small; you’ve made your mark
and i’m sorry. i’m so sorry.
i trace back in my mind to this inventory
of everything from slow dances to shared umbrellas to one single sad story
to scented scarf to slanderous hearsay to youtube clips worth five stars
to a small ounce of strength to cold showers to even this very scar
you’ve even made me muffins once. MUFFINS! two kinds! there was a cranberry one but i loved the double chocolate banana one the most
you gave me time and a piece of yourself even if it was just a small dose
and i took it for granted, probably. they were fragile moments, i wasn’t careful with these
i let go of them or they went ear to ear or let them catch in the breeze
to be never seen again
and i’m sorry. i’m so sorry.
Also I want to ask
what were you thinking?
every douche boyfriend you’re still with
every sweater you put on your little dog
every text message you send in mid-conversation with someone else
every time you get completely wasted… on a wednesday… afternoon… by yourself
every tramp stamp
every fake laugh you give because he’s cute
what were you thinking?
i know we’re supposed to strive for equality between sexes
as impossible as it is to define but Uggz and tights combo not helping
and also i want to say thank you
a thank you to every woman i’ve ever met in my life
because i like to think in one way or another, in the end you’ve helped me pick my wife
i still believe in superheroes November 12, 2009
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The idea that I’ve wasted my time as a fan of superheroes has dawned on me. I’ve read thousands of pages about people that can travel at superhuman speed, contact someone on the other side of the world, obtain some sort of environmental control, engineer economies, etc. Haven’t we – we ourselves; you and I – reached that plateau already?
Hypothetically, if I made a time machine and brought someone from merely one hundred years ago to our time, that person would be easily dumbfounded at the fact that there is electricity and plumbing in every household. Arguably, with that persons understanding of the phrase, “human ability” he would see us not as mortals but as gods. Of course, our person from yester-century would be wrong. But he or she would be no more wrong than we are about our superheroes.
Like we are to the people of yester-century, superheroes are not gods but are hope that maybe we can strive to be more than these stained mortals that we are so easily depicted as. Superheroes hold some sort of chance that maybe we can look past our personal gain and simply do what is right. Superheroes are our examples so that we can use abilities we – we ourselves; you and I – have so we don’t shrivel up when the times of injustice arise.
If with that same hypothetical time machine I went to the future, I would be dubbed the new person of yester-century. I would be stunned at my children’s children’s children’s version of Earth and most likely assume that it is Mount Olympus. Of course, I would be wrong. I would be looking at translations of our morals along with our shortcomings passed on from generation to generation. With that in mind, I believe we must keep these stories of impossible courage so in the future, people will still strive to be more than just human, more than mortal.
her goodbye ended with a maybe November 2, 2009
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Everything I’ve ever said to you, more or less, I’ve said before. You’ve probably heard it all before too. In my life, girls exactly like you come a dime a dozen. In your life, guys like me are twelve for ten cents. For some reason it still felt new and refreshing with you. Looking at it objectively, it was the same dance I’ve danced before. Exactly the same; down to ever dip and twirl, so to speak.
I don’t know what we had. I don’t know if it was love, lust, want or the overwhelming notion of being lonely. I don’t know what to call it either. Unfortunately it seems once again I was the traveling salesman to another lonely housewife. Apparently it doesn’t even matter to me. Even if we’ve both experienced those exact moments, those few moments we had, they were very real. Hopefully you have it in you to say that they were not. I’d assume that it would be simpler like that. It scares me a little, to be honest. You walked in like you owned the place and I let you.
Even still, I miss it. All of it. I miss telling you things that would make you close your eyes. I miss the small of your back. I miss having nothing really important to call you about but still calling just to know you were there. I miss looking at you looking at me, in both a crowded restaurant on or just you and I in the kitchen as I cooked for you. I even miss missing you because when I told you I did, you said you missed me right back. Even if we just got caught up at times, those moments were real.
I don’t even know if you were my first anything even though I’m sure I told you, that you were a first a lot of things. It would be so much easier if you were my first heartbreak. I wish it was as simple as layering every memory of you with nasty labels. I wish I just got bored of you like I did with everyone else. As much as I would like to think that way, I can’t if I were being completely honest with myself.
I wish I could just regret you. I can’t even if you regret me. I mean, I knew what I was getting myself into with you, for the most part. And I’ll assume the same with you; as transparent as I was with you, I might as well came with a cautionary sign stapled to my forehead.
I don’t believe in soul mates and I don’t believe in do-overs. I don’t even believe in tomorrows. I don’t know how exactly but when you said that goodbye combined with that maybe, it gave me hope. A stupid hope. A hope that I’ll be more than a bunch of nice words; that you’ll be more than a set of pretty eyes; that those promises we made once upon a time won’t remain a fantasy. That hope was a hope in something I shouldn’t even want anymore, logistically speaking.
Maybe your maybe will remain just a maybe. Until that day comes if it ever does, you know where, what building and what floor.
your hands September 21, 2009
Posted by jeffreybritanico in poetry.1 comment so far
When I reach out and your hands intertwine with mine
My mind wanders back before this beautiful bind
When you trace my hand’s crevasses all cracked and callused
I assume the places I aimed assured for a feeling such as this
Only to end up feeling bored
Only to fall short
Only to find myself wanting more
I thought I found your hands many times
Their smoothness in the skin of an apple
Their color in a field of wheat
Their firmness in piano keys
Their softness in the pillow I sleep on at night
Their warmth in the golden sun
Their flawlessness in a single falling snowflake
And in the wings of a dove I found the sensation of when your hands make me fly
But now as your hands grasp my shoulders
And make their way down this journey ends
When your hands intertwine with mine
And a new journey begins
things to do when i’m 19 July 20, 2009
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- give blood once every three months
- get a girl to buy me a drink
- get one a plane
- be able to cut down to the 145 division
- be able to do leg lifts for three minutes straight
- don’t get fat during school
- flings, flings, flings, etc.
- buy a grey suit
- learn to make an “old fashion” and make one
- win big at blackjack
- take a lot of portrait pictures
- don’t buy any more jeans
- write more poetry
- go to more concerts
- go ballroom dancing
- develop more pictures
- do the ride to conquer cancer
- upload songs/poetry on youtube
- say, “i love you” and mean it, really mean it and say it before the other party
abstinence is bullshit December 3, 2008
Posted by jeffreybritanico in poetry.2 comments
Abstinence is bullshit
Yea, I said it
Surprise, surprise
I want to look in a goddesses’ eyes
As our beings intertwine
Witnessing her invention of new vowels
I want to go to a place where
The sun, the moon and the stars
Have no idea where she ends and I begin
I want her to feel more beautiful than ever
In just her own skin
I want to make her imagination disperse
As her spasms reverberate through the universe
Turning her dusk to dawn
Her king to pawn
Her ions to eons
But I can’t
I won’t
Not yet
Not out of obligation
Partly because of a Creators stipulation
But mainly out of a promise
To my
One lover
One bride
One miss
To the one who’ll call me “good night”
Then a few hours later “good morning”
The one who makes the worst of my mannerisms to manhood
Her name will never be “what’s your name again?”
She will be my constant cure for eyesores
Until I give up on this promise
Or until my stars are lined up
Or until I actually find her
I’ll be sitting, waiting, wishing
And dealing with
This bullshit called abstinence
take off your cool November 7, 2008
Posted by jeffreybritanico in poetry.1 comment so far
You know James Bond films to Spike Lee Joints
You went cover to cover with John Grisham and got the point
Have you always been this down to Mars?
Can’t imagine how surprising with no cool on, you are
You’ve read between the lines between needle and haystack
You know when the Jedi returns and when the Empire strikes back
For hours, I could watch you decipher between Etta James and Billie Holiday
But what do you speak about when you put your cool away?
If I wanted to critique your fashion sense
I’d be at your favorite department store
But I’m not. I’m here at your door
I just want to see you
Maybe just once without your cool
I’m not saying style and swagger aren’t endearing
That’s what initially caught my eyes
The right jeans, the right shoes, the right walk are all fine
But I’m exhausted from hurdling over your disguise
I just want to see you
Maybe just for once without your cool
I wonder if your voice rings
I wonder if your hair falls
I wonder your head nods to beat
I wonder if your eyes are as deep
The same way they do now
as when you take off your cool
yet another not-the-one October 22, 2008
Posted by jeffreybritanico in poetry.2 comments
Another disappointment and another discouragement
There were shared laughs
There were shared trivial anecdotes
There were shared appetizers
And that’s all that was really shared
Yet again
As I walk her to her door
I know tomorrow I’ll call and give her
The same speech I’ve given before
I roll my eyes at accepting my current, foolish love theory
I know I’m still young but already I am so weary
I’m not looking for just fun or a fling
I’m tired of that familiar potential love failed sting
I check my pockets to see if I can even afford
This amazing yet, brutal; this beautiful yet exhausting reward
I can’t fight fate and I can’t fight god
So as I huff and puff I’ll ante up to risk another heart break
I can’t complain, can I?
I’m still standing
And I’m still alive
My heart still
Thump
thump
thumps
And
Beat
beat
beats
Setting the pace to find
A lover, a guardian angel, a joie de vivre so sweet
When I finally find her, in my head I’ll repeat in joyous proclaim
Her first name with my last name
Her first name with my last name
Her first name with my last name
We’ll be even more in love after we lift our insecure disguises
We’ll fall asleep on the phone at night, to wake to each other as the sun rises
And I will write to her
“Hold me if you like me
Whisper it if you want me
Say the word and I’ll write another poem
I lay beside you now
as this broken down and weary traveler
finally finding himself at home”
hopefully not one of a kind October 11, 2008
Posted by jeffreybritanico in poetry.Tags: moms, mothers
2 comments
studies on evolution and big bang theories
quiver in the shadow of its complexity
no human made algebra or mathematics of infinity
can even stand with it in equality
this undeniable, annoying, contradictive force is
a mother’s love
it can move you and, in your tracks, make you still
although you cannot get enough, you feel fulfilled
it makes you laugh and cry at the same time
it makes you write down “beautiful” to find that nothing rhymes
a mother’s love can reduce my over idealistic mouth to having nothing to say
her heart can be broken in a million pieces and she’ll still give it all away
her nags always seem to end with a smile to remind it’s all for love
that’s it isn’t it. that’s the big secret to everything she ever does.
All For Love
All For Love
All For Love
not to reach a quota or a goal
those three small words depict that unbreakable motivation as a whole
All For love
All For Love
All For Love
hopefully she’s not, as they say, one of a kind
i’m not one to settle but if so, i wouldn’t mind
marrying a knock of version of Alice Britanico
(wo)Mannerisms October 6, 2008
Posted by jeffreybritanico in ranting about the only thing worth reading.Tags: girls
3 comments
The way you flip your hair; the way you stand on one foot; the way adjust your glasses or your bangs in mid-sentence all drive me crazy as irrelevant as they are. They reveal nothing about what you would be like in a long-term relationship or what you would really think of my friends. The way you bob your tea bag up and down does not give any indication of whether my family would give a stamp of approval but I cannot help but notice. I can’t help but be hooked in by your trivial habits.
I can’t help but convince myself that by noticing those little things you do, I can become knowledgeable enough about you that maybe we have a chance for a real connection. I try to convince myself that maybe I can look past whatever commitment issues that I have and risk being heartbroken just for you. In my mind I know I can’t but honestly it seems I tell myself more that “I shouldn’t have.”
Those silly mannerisms you picked up, probably, from seeing someone do it in a movie or on TV. The witty catch phrases you say are probably previously read and remembered from the side of a coffee cup or in whatever magazine you read. One can make the argument that although these mannerisms are not instinctive nor original, they still are a part of you. I agree with that, to a certain level. Those little habits you do as adorable as they are, only make a minuscule percent what you’re all about. Or at least I hope so.
But are you worth trying to get past that facade? Are you with the time and the effort and the silly games you put guys like me through? I wish there was some sort of risk-ratio-analyzing action that women do because I have no idea if you are worth that sour feeling of rejection. I can look for answers and try to calculate the outcome all day long but I’ll never know without that risk.
For guys like me, it seems the most logical question in this bittersweet search is, unfortunately, a rhetorical one: Is there any other way? It mocks us by answering itself by rearrangement and a big fat no.Therefore I’ll soldier on my efforts with a subtle smile and a clever opening line. I’ll shave. I’ll look for the right cologne. I’ll actually actually care what I wear. Regardless, with all my tiresome attempts to get you to indicate interest, what can I honestly expect? Would you actually share the same risk as me?
