Around what do we circumnavigate?
Colors, seasons, passions, family
Or perhaps a cornucopia of
Screens
The flow of validation
Where we document the
Colors, seasons, passions, family
Assuring ourselves
They happened
They matter
And why should we feel shame
For wanting to remember
And wanting to be seen.
Let's be romanticLet's stay in bed all day And count countless Stars at night Let's see how much Of my skin Can touch Your skin Let's talk about All of the ways We are different We can tell New secrets And old stories In new ways We can draw Constellations By connecting The freckles Maps of future Lifetimes We can imagine All of the different Ways we will meet And fall in love Whether or not We will ascend Or go extinct We will talk about Everything Anything Except for one thing: What happens If we fall out of It.
AloneWeeping alone Sleeping alone Surrounded by alone
She did it to herself She made the space herself She carved it out with her fingernails Artificial red
Why? To weep? To smoke? To drink cheap wine & expensive cheese without anyone watching? When she's not alone She craves loneliness Her only constant companion
Blood on a page Words stamped in her brain She wants to matter to no one She wants no one to matter to her
She wears sunglasses and overcoats When she steps outside She prefers rain clouds To open skies
The potent sun that burns Her skin Too gauzy to protect her insides From the Evil
Some try to ignore it Until it strikes In the form of dishonest Devious
Heart-breakers As it always does So long as you are not Alone.
The lies came down in sheetsHeavy like someone walking on the roof But it was only the beating of Rain from low clouds The kind that never really lift She mistook your admiration for love You could only love her from afar You never loved her real self Her fractured self Her selfish self Her self that digs holes to love in Her self that wants to be found Her self that fills in the holes without help You didn't have the patience for Her shameful self Her victim self Her self that rises like cream Her self that doesn't know what she wants Only what she doesn't want.
We shouldn't be allowed to love so much We are going to die
We are going to break each other
And leave the pieces still scattered
All it takes is a strong grip
The right set of circumstances
The wrong eye contact
A chance meeting
A kiss that landed wrong
A stretchy good bye
A sticky gaze
A flash of recognition
Serendipity
Hesitation where hesitation means only one thing
The brush of a finger
The glimpse of a shoulder
Saying the wrong thing
Saying the right thing
Saying words you never meant to say but can never take back
Going with the flow even when you don't like where it's taking you
Changing course
Going separate ways
Going home together
Falling apart
Staying home together
Staying together
My girls need me.
They need me to pay attention, soothe, be steadfast.
But I am erratic.
My attention is scattered in piles like fallen leaves in the autumn.
Cayenne crimson, turmeric orange, ginger yellow.
The colors of my temper, spicy like the evil twin
who lives somewhere in my head not heart.
The earth spins and the leaves die and
emotions run like wild horses and
no one can control any of it.
I see it in my daughter.
Four years-old with emotions loud as a train wreck.
She opens up her heart when its bursting and
spills her frustrations all over the universe.
Like fallen leaves in the autumn.
More than I am angry I am glad
She expresses herself with the freedom of a person who is safe.
Wild horses do not thrive in cages or in crowds.
But in wide open spaces
our emotions have room to dance and turn
an ever-shifting kaleidoscope
its beauty a product of all the colors.
For more modern life poetry please follow this blog or subscribe in a reader.
Here.
Where I spent time spent money
wasted time wasted money.
Four blurry years wandering.
Searching. Lost. Finding. Found.
Seven years ago I walked away with a degree
I hope I never use again
Friends I hope I have forever.
For more modern life poetry please follow this blog or subscribe in a reader.
I know enough to know
That perfection is fleeting
Misleading
And things could fall apart
If we turn our backs
For a second too long
Tsunamis start
Long before land turns to sea
Hence vigilance
Warning systems carefully constructed
No one will protect you
But you.
Break away from
A static hold
Set the alarm
Lock the door
Leave the house
Adventure outward
Lose your way
Lose the key
Break in through the window
You know the code
No one can keep you out
But you.
Here
Written for Trifecta. The prompt is to use the third definition of "charm." When we could no longer talk, when comebacks grew superfluous as cheese-stuffed pizza crusts and apologies became lodged between the ribs, we walked. We didn't make contact with accusatory eyes nor spindly fingers. We didn't know how to live apart, and we fought like angry cats while together. We were wine and chocolate, frick and frack, sunlight and water. Together we tasted like divine pairings, we could accomplish so many things and be so many iterations of our best selves, and our worst.
We wrote a screenplay together in a day, each picking up where the other had left off, weaving the plot in ways no one could prophesy. We got high off of the imagined drama. The impossible love triangle, the precise professions made by the man to charm both of the women at once, the compromises each character made for their own unhappy ending.
Our trusted friend was the only son of a Hollywood producer, hot shot and loaded. After reading it, he couldn't speak through his elation. We stared at one another like mutes. I opened a box of wine and we clinked three glasses together. When we'd drained the last of the crimson, our friend moved his lips.
"Brilliant. Fucking brilliant."
We were going to make a movie.
My husband and I made love in the middle of the day and the middle of the night. We climbed mountains, settling upon the highest rock with a picnic lunch, only satisfied with the widest angle of the world. We dined on oysters and shopped using credit cards. We lived the dream like we owned it.
And then I changed my mind. Or perhaps my mind changed me. Changed us.
"We have to fix the ending."
"What?"
"It's too sad. No one likes a film that's ultimately depressing. No one."
"We wanted it to be realistic, remember?"
"What's so unrealistic about happy endings?"
Everything, it turned out.
I sleep not, rest notEat not, taste not Kiss not, love not Unless I'm with You
Take my fingers I know they're cold, let's Travel to panoramic views Where mountains float like Birds
I'll wait while you collect Souvenirs of this entanglement My wings flapping in rhythm With the cycles of the Moon
Once she's carried me home Turn your face towards heaven I'll return as a raindrop I'll caress your face with Water
There is no end to us As there was no beginning We exist as points upon the circle Repeating this infinite Loop.
LoveSits in the corner, holding hands Sleeps in a pile, legs intertwined Comes home each day at the same time Until it doesn't. I'll be back, says Love. So you wait at the same time every night Prostrate in cold empty sheets, tears pooling Inside your ears, swallowing and digesting Fear like sugar. Until it becomes stubborn Flesh clinging to bone. Still waiting for Love. You gaze at images to conjure it home But the feeling collapses lungs, steals Oxygen, transforms blood into salt water And hope into desperate, crashing chance. Hungry yet starving, the only food being Love. You sleep under white sliver of moon, wake up to Infinite black sky, nothing out there but Space, spinning planets, exploding stars Tossing wishes like skipping rocks, waiting for One to land and last. No guarantees, but for Love.
One kiss.Give it away never take it back One kiss can change a life Suck you up like a tornado A force spiraling out of control Spit you out with desiccated lips Lick you up with soft wet tongue Turn you into putty, into something To be molded and mended and Broken. We exist for kisses We cry for them We kill for them. Seeking foreign mouths Though we can kiss Ourselves, hands toes arms legs Every part but the most important. Not everything comes from the inside Not everyone comes from the outside Why don't we write love letters To our own hearts? Kiss our own wounds Lap up our own blood? We would be safer No longer risking our flimsy lips To the abyss of another's.
Written for Trifecta. I tell him before the curtains open. He doesn't flinch.
During intermission, he turns his head as if this limited range of motion requires infinite strength. He looks at me through tinted eyeglasses, and he says, “so you’re rich. You’ve been rich for two years, and you thought it best not to tell me. You let me waste away my life driving that truck until I went near-blind. Is that correct?”
I return his gaze, black glass reflecting black iris. Resentment pressed against aversion like lovers meeting in a kiss, or a blow.
“I’m telling you now.”
He rises, knocking his glass onto the floor with a rogue piece of fleshy hip, my relief as intense as a choir of angels. The lights dim, and I grasp my own wine glass, hollow yet whole, transfixed by the performance and the unfettered existence unfolding at my feet.
Relief relaxes into a giddy, heady, blurry evening. I crush the shards of Leroy’s wine glass with the heel of my boot, and then I introduce myself to the piano player. He lives alone in an apartment downtown, in the top half of a high rise. Before he succumbs to sleep, we share a cigarette and he says I should make myself at home.
I sit, pressed against the cold window, gray plumes curling from my mouth and memories sailing through my head, everything dissolving into the invisible wind that blows on the other side of the thick glass. I memorize the panoramic view, balls of lights piercing the absence of light; I suppose this is all our universe is.
When the sun rises, I do not mourn the end of night, the pastel glow melting the rooftops into one continuous dream. I am ready to start again.
(Adapted from my current manuscript in process.)
Written for Trifecta. When he walked out that door, he closed it behind him like he was sneaking away f0r another midnight tryst with one of the girls, not realizing I awoke every time he cleared his throat.
I wished he would slam it with the same force he used when we were fighting and the fighting turned to fucking, eyes wild and wrists bound. I wanted to run after him and shout the insults I'd written in my head in as much detail as a sonnet. But he didn't disturb the neighbors with their sleeping babes, so I didn't, either. That's always how it was. I didn't do anything without his permission.
He packed his suitcase, which I'd given to him last Christmas, like he was preparing for another trip to New York City, counting socks and matching outfits. Black and black. Blue and brown. The same colors as the bruises on my arm. His dark eyebrows cinched together, calculating his most prized possessions, like a mother gathering family photos and ancient heirlooms before the fire swallows them whole. Except for he had a lot more time. He had everything in the world, including time. Including me.
Though he took with him only what fit in that single thrift store suitcase, once he'd left, the apartment was hollow. Like my mother's eyes after she'd died. Like the two year old baby down the hall who didn't walk or talk. Like the clouds that hovered but never washed our dirty alleys.
I clawed open the medicine cabinet to find it empty; the pills like marshmallow pebbles and the powders like pixie dust were as gone as my husband. I searched in every crack, every shadow, every pocket for redemption. For secret money, for a water-marked love note, for a sign that my life wasn't over.