Poetry, Searching, Episode 34 Olivia Wade Poetry, Searching, Episode 34 Olivia Wade

Poems From Episode 34

13,000 stories. 

And all of them I built for you. 

In search of something. I don’t quite know what.

Olivia Wade 10.25.21

If you want something done 

right do it yourself.

Better done by yourself, she thinks loudly. 

But your hands reaching for mine in the 

dark.

Foreign travelers. 

Speak of distant lands.

Crush of leaves,

Autumn in her splendor. Or maybe the 

ocean. I’m not quite sure yet. 

Basquiat, 14-horses-worth of heartbreak &

study of the male torso. 

Your roadmaps of lines. Palms up. Facing mine. 

Sigils, alters, and the chronology.

Fields

of 

thyme.


I wonder, will I make my way back to them? 

Ship with hull hewn. 

Cherrybright mapleready. 

Or will I grow old in the houses of my 

childhood. 

Alone, on a couch in a room, with eyes 

closed staring 

at the everynothing. 

Breathing one more drop of verdant peace. 

Variations on a pondside shore. Your skin 

pressed up against mine. 

Blades of grass bent, under the weight. 

The wind

Made love to us. I swear it. 

Olivia Wade 10.25.21

“Please confirm 

that you know where you are going.” 

Well you have me by the heartstrings. 

But say it in broken Spanish. 

It will be easier for me to understand. 

Although not my first language, or my last.

But a lady should never kiss and tell. 

I think I’ve forgotten. 

Does the journey inland have less waves? 

May I offer you a trolly car?

Or an uncomfortable silence? 

I am nothing, if not reverent, of confusing vignettes. 

 

A stranger offers me directions. 

A reconstructed cameo of my own name. 

All you must do is live.

If only fate weren’t such a touchy master.

It only works when you are paying attention. 

All of my invisible cities for every ounce of 

your understanding. 

But I’m still waiting. 

For some epic spark that hasn’t seemed to 

have found my lips yet. 

I think it’s lost. 


The stars think I need to make a choice. 

How can I choose if you can’t find me?

How do I make fate my bitch?

I’ll carve your imaginary name into stacks of notebooks. 

Impractical.

Over

And 

Over

And 

Over 

Again.

One step closer. 

Careful, drying leaves give your feet away in the forest. 

Maybe a crunch but  

I can’t hear 

You. 

Yet.

But I have never been called logical. 

Couldn’t find your boots, laced-up-drawstring ready,

ahh of course you never showed. 

I know. Somehow. Somewhere. 

You can sense me. 

The lines forming on my face.

My breasts never quite as hefty as I want them to be.

The water over my skin.

Your fingers run across my cheeks.

Ephemeral. With just a hint of morning. 

Mourning?

17 lovers, 3 scarves, 14 new pairs of shoes. 

Armies of methodical, meticulous, plates of food. 

Crushing pomegranate seeds 

in search of vast understanding. 

But darling, she says… “where have you been all my life?” 

I don’t know, 

please confirm that you know where you are going. 

I haven’t dreamt in 3 months. 

My psyche is tired, of trying to…

I’m missing a number 2, 

Out of the Fibonacci sequence 

of my impenetrable existence. 


Once I find it,

I can make use of the rest? 

Or these mixed metaphors,

For idealism. 

13,000 stories. 

And all of them I built for you. 

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