She asks me
She asks me how I did it,
rid myself of it
Separated him from me like the
milky membrane of raw chicken breast…
I am flattered that she looks to me,
that I’ve been tossed in every flavor of storm to
survive and spit its rainbows at each end.
“It takes time.”
Though not always in that order;
there’s no order in heartache,
just questions in tongues we don’t speak,
in eyes we can’t
see ourselves in anymore.
Yes, time takes it
and loves it till it breaks,
drops shards of it in our paths
to remind us as we try to tiptoe
through the day
unnoticed
or at least unmutilated.
But I can’t tell it like it is!
I am still it
and it takes me
back to the place where that picture was taken
back to that frame that somewhere lost its picture
It is that picture and It is probably in that box you never open It is open and
IT TAKES.
I am still It and It Takes Me.
She asks me
how
But I’m undone,
postdated and exposed,
still gripping his old shirt.
I write
I write.
Call it a stigma,
the real writers do
were they to say it more or less eloquently.
I feel that I can’t compete…
too many perfect words written,
appropriately sung against silence.
Even the cliches have a sacred chicness
that “status quo” sounds like it has.
That my words can’t compare…well,
I just hope that they exert enough energy
to cause notice,
a nod, perhaps a smile.
Were they sticky enough to stay and dance
fitfully in someone’s thoughts…
That might be refreshing.
I can’t keep being so human
if I don’t have a moment to
rip & scream and just Be Uncomfortable.
Not debate the words that simmer inside me or analyze
Sacrifice my what-would-ideal-me-do
I WOULD be free
I could be expressive
I want to feel that rage
if not beautiful, it is HONEST…
and the capacity to despise does not
fill rooms that could house love;
there are kitchens and closets in buildings of stories
waiting for the space to bleed.
no passion will go unposessed, at least within my pages.
We How Fleeting (and Ultimately, a Love Poem)
We
how fleeting and beautiful are we
tactile & yielding,
kneadable, billowing yeast,
wet cement,
a soft spoon.
We are a second in watches
we watch
and wait in the rooms
labeled “waiting”
while thoughts bellow behind
shy skulls and teeth.
Thoughts that are warm
and more real
than the shells that keep them there,
vivid with color, sound & touch
that have no rooms to wait
for senses. Not comfortably, that is
never comfortably.
And yet.
Had we more time–
a sky of a second more to breathe in,
skin of leather that weathers more rain–
would our heads pour forth with such force?
These golden barkings, pink perhaps with singing,
charcoal, itchy whispers?
I would not take that skin, not I,
nor sky,
if it meant feeling you less to last
and recalling less sharply
the subtle curves and searing cuts
of your body.
Even in vagueness,
my mind trails your tawny heels
my eyes, pen, brush, fingers, and flesh
all find themselves to you again…
waiting, teeming with the time they have
to touch you.
Let every day be shorter
that I may love you more.
Untitled #6 (Audacity)
I was starved for a ravenous look
his words, a hook my bitten lip just took
he tugged, as two
intentions shared a smile.
I looked around
his room and found his face
replaced the walls in rather kitschy taste.
He was
just that face,
a body,
chiseled from dark earth
a space in time that
night will swallow
if polite.
It turns out he wasn’t.
So, with my why’s satisfied
feet led and head followed
heart to bed.
I marveled at Audacity–
where he lives with others,
brothers, all thrust in a maze
of their own self-lust
and I pity him–
so undone by my
“dic tion”
’cause he can’t tell his friends
what I said or did not do.
Practicing
She never cried on Sundays. It was her “covenant” with God. She loved Jesus so much that she’d often stay in bed all day, taking lines of my Ritalin to help her focus on the scripture.
I didn’t know anything then, sitting in the smell of lukewarm chicken broth, in our kitchen the color of faded lemondrops. She stirred aimlessly with one hand as the other clutched her morning mimosa.
I asked her why the pages in the Bible were bloody.
“It’s a reminder,” she said finally, wiping roughly at her nose, “of all that He did for us.”
A single tear made rivets in the silence of my soup. She almost never broke her promises.
Best Friend’s Ex
I waited for the call you never made
Smiled and sighed as I turned off the lamps
I try to be that girl
that doesn’t give a fuck
for you
and later I will say
It’s a good thing I don’t like you..
you’d have ended up the subject
of a bad poem.
Marianna 3: 1-8
He called again to say
he couldn’t stay
away
was it
the octave of my laugh
when i laughed at all
the pattern my hips traced
in the air
when he let me walk ahead
the rouge of my nipples
when he bit too hard ?
I quoted a madeup verse
from the Bible
and blessed him as he sneezed
on his surprise.
The receiver never felt so light.
And I thought, the God
that makes the grass blades green
and lives inside an infant’s cheeks,
wouldn’t mind.
I am tired
I am tired
of reading words littered
with the connotation of you
My head is tired
Treading thoughts
till remarks are made
in these margins
I have lit too many candles with your scent
and strategically bathing under tub faucets
that mimic your tongue
takes too much out
that I can’t put back in
I let emotions like blood
as an outlet regretting
letters I left
resenting you unsent
I never meant to be mean
but bemoaning my meaning has
driven me to a Cliff’s note rhyme
edging me closer to the bottom
of a jaded, jagged page wet from the bottle.
movements
to think that there are movements
going on without our knowing
that there are people making changes
in people and things, in ways we know not of
is ever so frightening.
especially since we know those that won’t be saved.
and know there’s many that we don’t
that fare as unwell.
so young. so quickly.
and perhaps more terrifying…
to think they might have been redeemed
through these hands of apparitions
or at least to witness them at work
to know that there exists
some good.
or
to think they might have been the change.
