Grieving Mother

Your heart 
echoes the graveyards in your mother's mind-

A constant megaphone to silence

in the beat of a storm.

It yells DOUBT!

DON'T. TRUST.

Learn to PUNISH YOURSELF.

They, too, will eventually leave.

See you post-curtain as you really are,

All sparkle and spit,

Soil ever under your fingernails.

So you make yourself           (DOUBT)

remember lonely late nights,

The way her wine                 (DON'T) 

was reason, 

the darkness drinking up the light.

You                                      (PUNISH)

plant flowers in your high school hands, 

use your tears for watering.

Your mother is a sad charadist.

A broken magician.

Your mother the thin tire tread in threatening conditions.

But don't try and wish your mother

out of you.

It is in cradling a creature it learns 

not to bite.

To understand the empty in its eyes.

And when you argue,

Trying both to love her, and save yourself,

And you only hear DOUBT.

                              DON'T.

                              PUNISH.

Know you must eventually leave her.

And stop searching in her cemeteries of grief

For peace.

SYNASTRY, a pantoum

In the brief moment I notice the sliver of moon

White and small as a fingernail, strong like bone

Her drink spills, rinsing my watercolor memory

The canvas never dries

A small, white fingernail. Strong like bone

My words crawl from inside myself

To paint a canvas that never dries

A lost child is crying

Crawling from inside herself her words

Blend with peppermint, dance with brandy

A lost child is crying

Artwork in the dark of the moon

A blending of peppermint and brandy

Her drink spills, rinses with watercolor memories

Artwork in the dark of the moon

In the brief moment, I notice the sliver

When Past is Present

I've perfected the clumsy tourniquet,
planted grief and hoped it sprouted wings,
neglected to count the rings in my eyes to see
how long I've been lying,
how small the leap between distraction
or disguise.

I've lost count of who to consider lover,
on which nightstand I misplaced my blame,
or what the question even was in the first place.
All I trust is what I feel; all I know is I can't
always trust what I feel.

But then the coffee of echoed words
spills onto the street in front of me,
spells out reason in the rain,
breathes a smoky full
into muddy hollow,
and reminds me of all there is to release
and reclaim.

Ceremony

So this is love.

No distance to sway a sturdy heart

from wanting what it wants.

No time to tempt from knowing

what is true.

Nothing to be proven,

or assumed,

but savored and sketched always into the mind.

For the stars in the sky are pointing in perfect direction,

The night's staccato all in tune,

Intentions in precisely the right places.

And those of us still longing for love look upon you both,

comfortable in that telling shine,

an unsinkable friendship,

the air you hold between your palms

a silent song of praise.

written for Carrie Linke Jackson and Ryan Jackson's wedding 7-27-13

X

I bury a jewel each night inside his chest
where he'll never find it
secret treasures
where my tongue draws salt-line kisses on
forbidden ships,
always sailing away
faithfully


I pirate my own heart from my
very own hands
and send it, thumping
down the plank

X marks the spot

X marks the spot

This Memorial Day Weekend

I watch a little girl at the park
fly a pink and yellow kite
mouth wide, glancing behind her
as she lets the line loose

The kite points to the sky and rises
above her lifted chin
sun-in-the-eye squint
a diamond dancing behind her like a ship sail
the tail of a Chinese dragon

With a few more steps the nylon arrow
nosedives to the earth
barely making a sound

I imagine my own hands as smooth
and quick as hers
as she waits for another gust of wind
and starts running

In the Wilderness

I cover my caves with stones

trying to tame the darkness

resurrect the demons and emerge a saint

in your eyes,
but their hourglass shine confessed

that all wicks are eventually snuffed out
every fire to be taken
with the wind...

I dream that we fill a pit
with broken branches and dead leaves

spend the night naked
by the flames,

and in the morning

we fan the cinders from both sides

smile as smoke curls into heat
warms our hands another time

When I First Met Sarah

"Where's your bathroom?" she asks me
and I nod down the hall
like reflex
a comfort won from carving nightly rituals
on the walls

"We don't live together," you correct
cut my nerve at the hinge
I've always had a weak neck in
your hands
a soft yoke on your heart
a stubborn ignorance as you
mouth with your gaze when she rises
           
               Do you want to come in?
        and This is my room...
        and I never thought this would be happening.

Infallible

The cemetery was a test of how long
I could hold my breath
How strong a superstitious heart fought
driving past its sword-tipped fence
every black stake a wrought iron second
without inhale
each a private hope to dodge a curse
disarm the haunt

The lines between floor tiles held spells
in grout like glue
so I skipped over cracks down long hallways
stayed clear within concrete blocks
like lily pads over raging waters
cautious leaps on clouds that kept me
in the skies

And I have yet to learn how to press roses in the dark
after wilting in the day
How to gauge the endurance of words
from damaged space

by definition:

v. sur-ren-dered, sur-ren-der-ing, sur-ren-ders

v. tr.

     1. To relinquish possession or control of to another because of demand or compulsion.
     2. To give up in favor of another.
     3. To give up or give back (something that has been granted): 

surrender a contractual right.

     4. To give up or abandon:  

surrender all hope.

     5. To give over or resign (oneself) to something, as to an emotion:

surrendered himself to grief.

   
v. intr.
   
To give oneself up, as to an enemy.

from thefreedictionary.com

FINDING YOURSELF AT THE CLAW CRANE VENDING MACHINE

You forge spare change for the ill-

-usion of

              control.

Dangle metal jaws over

            plush bodies

                      and, with purpose,

                               

                               extract—

                       whichever one

                                               takes.

                                                                    You inhale at the emphatic

                                                                                       dangle,

                                                                  dispense all breath as you

                                                                                drop

                                                                                and deliver

                                                                                         your prize.

Our love was guerrilla warfare

eggshells scattered like grenades
you placed at my lip
exploding at words that wave white flags toward flames

what beautiful chaos

to die in your mattress trench
burned in the crooks of our limbs
in the half-mast sheets round your waist

The Escapist

you tried to straitjacket his heart only to learn you can't lay bricks in a dream you don't own or hang your coat on a star or stop their spinning as you hide away in your astronaut suit tracing tails of imaginary comets wishing for cinder and smoke with a palm full of ashes what a fool to think his mercurial heart would stay that he would draw galaxies on your back for light-years without falling for space how hopeful to believe him worthy of your shine his black hole eyes gave no constellations to your flaws the gravity of his words the confusion of his orbit around her if only he'd taught you the art of escape the art of

letting

go

In the produce section

a revelation is poised
along apple skin and citrus rind
my sour taste forgotten, her fresh bite
to soft core

as eyes glide past to golden, red,
green
and newly fallen fruit
picked in your favor
prove more desiring to tongue

Origins

We were both born on broken promises kissed through bottlenecks

                                           a shaky lullaby to hum in tip-toed tunes

                                                                         I learned from you

                 Generations of grasps confettied injuries

                                                                        we wore like jewelry

                              like sea glass found after being ground in waves

We smile together in the mirror

an uncanny resemblance

both ghosts wearing medals of the dead

Reaching for the other's neck in the dark
hoping to disturb a legacy we only know from outside
looking in

Craving History

drowned early
from days of bobbing for apples
in barbed-wire barrels, never
developed a strong sweet tooth.
avoided forbidden fruit through
sucking salty bone,
tongue tracing questions desperate along
hollowed pores- hungry prayers.
a hunt for meaning clung to
marrow.

to ripened fruit,
flesh full and fragile,
vibrant cores buried under
shields of strange skin,
I wish to witness history firsthand.
to be cast down past's esophagus,
its tributaries of truth, rugged liquor-binge
paved in cement.
dimming lanterns lighting caves
carved by decades-
your very heart hoarded, a fossil
of white headstones cloaking black holes,
a picture-ready rotting
from the inside.

this silent communion, a savoring
starve. a choking of every star
in the universe.

and you, avoiding the core. and I,
spitting its seeds
like a poison.

The Learning Process

Force fields besiege both ears, unreadied
for your words-
words of salvation; words silenced
in plastic casings, in fears
of cracking its shell, self-made.

Averting to pains of well-tracked hypotheses,
only to bore contempt
in forced experiment, in attempts to predict
and control
the variables.
And the pursuit is foiled,
a calculation that only thwarts your
chrysalis-
cradling the embryo of
your words' painted wings.

While, ironically,
in soundless increment,
the plastic shifts to fluid, to vapored
particle.
The orb transforms its own atmosphere-
now permeable,
and less opaque.
Yet such a velocity- both constant,
and slight,
is mistaken as lacking motion.
An axis denied of existing;
an inertia unrecognized
by a turbulent mind.

Until, the moment of perforation:
as unexpected,
ordinary,
indiscernible, even,
but always when alone, stalled in shadows,
Agony sounds instead like
a laugh-
so clear and startling,
so intimate,
so perfect in its endeavor.

And we can acknowledge the beauty found in death,
in inaudible words long heard:
their diligence;
transcendence;
the unfathomable dissolve of a well-guarded bliss.

We will welcome the news, beyond ritual.
Welcome the art in all our failing to simulate
the secrets only told
inside cocoon.

Ode to Sunrise, in memory of Grady Tissington

When the sun set and light slept, no one

was surprised.

When the crickets cried in anxious sighs, we knew

it's as it must.

But when the colors streaked the sky in only 

hues of gray,

We bowed our heads and buried.

We found the dawn too late.

On Relationships

The answer to why I spend so much self,

elsewhere-

spills down the fronts of sweaters,

mars nearly every sleeve, every cuff,

a sweetness that fails to color tongue or thought;

Nothing to digest.

And now, you-

crumpling my garments in smiling fists,

a quick toss into the swirl. Churn.

And I, hypnotized by the cycle,

your chore.

A strategic erasure

of all I crave to mourn.

A Welcomed Distraction

Thank goodness for ADD

for how else would I allow
such aversion
such permission to dive inside
others' scripting
to tackle task-towers all
hours of the night
or skate my way through walls by
osmosis-

just for some time to
forget

this staggering through the crumb trails
my wallow in your wake

Wishing Well

You wished someone would have told you

What you've learned all too well to be true of love

Or of things regarding love

Not quite called Love

But in the same realm-

                That well-kept muscle

                Its familiar abrasions

                The tried treatments that both heal and repair-

But you curse the wise ones for fooling you

For watching you reach deeper into the rabbit hole

Believing you could solve the trick

That you could sustain the glimmer in discovery

Could decipher the magic in the mechanism

that keeps so many scratching their scalps

But no, nobody ever explained

Out of all the things they took the time to explain

How to see past the smokescreens of future lovers

How to keep the scarves unknotted

The chosen card in clear view

How to reattach the half-sawed figure you'd find yourself to be...

I wish when my heart asked to love you

I filled up a carton with twenty-plus sticks of you and smoked them all at once until I was too sick to care

That I'd applied numbing cream and waxed the hairs you caused to stand on end

Or that these walls cock-blocked your calls

And my journals were bound with acid-dipped paper and penned in disappearing ink

Maybe I wouldn't feel so uncomfortable in my own skin

                                                             in my own mind

                                                             in my own bed

Maybe I'd keep better balance on both feet

And stop dodging birds that fly well above head

Or curse uneven sidewalk blocks beside streets

That lead me only in circles

If only the revolving doors of your heart

Had a chance meeting with the shattered mirrors of mine

Maybe the turning would stop

The cracking would clean up itself

Without me having to write a poem in hypotheticals

Without having to pretend

But wishes aren't meant to sustain us

Their coins only collected to clink when we need a

sweet sound echoed back to us

A trigger for our lungs to fill themselves up again

But until then,

                                          You must find some joy in the work of illusionists.

                                              And find truth in your view of the sunlight,

                                         No matter how far up the well you still have to climb.

Beyond Expectation

I found myself fantasizing about you.

You must have been in on my secrets.

Must have noticed the wanton knees' bend,

aching arms arching towards the headboard.

And it felt good to pretend I was yours.

To feel your nerves quiver questions

you already knew the answers to.

It felt good to conjure something

that real life detonated

in the heat between my thighs,

in the burning, wondering

within my chest.

An Afternoon

I remember being sprawled on the dock, belly down,
tick-tocking my feet to ground, to sky,
and watching as you let the reel turn a transparent thread
into turgid pond water.

With ease you pulled the line back to-
such grace,
slick and trusting.
Intrigued, my eyes bobbed as the lure
dove and exposed itself silently.
Even the reeds leaned in, curious;
even the water's ripples lingered to witness
the catch.

Then, without warning, the line took.
Your hook pierced.
I drew and released
the air.

And I still recall how the creature fought,
how you leaned down and sweetly kissed its wounds.

afraid of the light

she never marveled at mirages
never dazzled at diamonds
because things that sparkle and shine
can singe and blind the eyes
so she painted grey matter
gradients from white to black
light to black
even the good became bad when it wasn't.

and mirages turned to nightmares mid-day
and diamond-edged thoughts pricked her psyche
and bruised her ego with its punches.
it was a violent thought process,
for in the recesses of her memory
his past became part of their present and even prettier than it ever was
in photographs

so when she held these jealous woman-made pictures to
the prettiest face of all,
her lover's,
she hovered, haunted by imagination
hoping he'd ignore the sheen
and glistening photographic memory of them
but he just shifted his gaze in frustration, for he never saw it that way,
never gave the same image the luster she envied
and her tangled green smothered his golden rays
so he left her to burn in the ashes.
to sift through the evidence that never was
to relate the facts that never were
and come to the conclusion that,
he was actually
just happy
with her.

Self-Portrait

Pixelated and skewed you see me.
Like literature, this picture is up to individual interpretation
for there is no right answer
but, even if you lifted the layers
and unplastered this paper-mâchéd facade,
you couldn't decipher the dimensions of
who I am
and who can?
When role-playing becomes reality
and we grasp onto someone else in losing ourselves
where do we go to be found in the first place?
We find comfort in categories
and clarity in binaries
and the divide widens to what would seem to be truth,
but is more truthfully hypocrisy,
and if it's worded prettily, we'll quote it directly
so we use our words carelessly-
I mean, carefully.
And what complex creatures we are-
to be one thing and a simultaneous contradiction
it's like we're straddling identity lines in fear of which side will strike first
the ones our heart calls for, or that others call us to be
it's all quite confusing when you look at it.
But maybe that's why first impressions are so full of fallacy
the eyes playing tricks on the mind on the masses
we've become so accustomed to trusting attractive appearances
and so ignorant of appreciating qualities that matter more
but we can barely blame ourselves...
But we have to,
at some point.
For it's when we keep looking to others to explain just how
fucked up some of our own thinking is
that we truly lose face.
When we truly lose sight of who we are
or,
at least,
who we want to become.
And you're standing at the mirror now.
A portrait of a person painfully painting the picture of someone you're not,
and though it's not a complete forger
not entirely an illusion
and there are parts of the real you underneath that seep through,
you've been buried somewhere so far below since birth
even you can barely notice that
you're actually
an original.
Sometimes your words will spill out onto your shirt
in an unflattering shade
and your lips won't move quite the way the other's ears are perched for
but that's the point of discussion-
it's not always about being agreeable.
But never believe you have it all figured out either
because that's the kind of confidence that truly kills
and stunts the stilts on which you work towards
So sip on words and eat books for breakfast
don't rest until you've exhausted every avenue to walk through
and then move the way you've always wished to
say the things that stir up steam-
find meaning in the search for yourself.
And this includes making mistakes
and feeling like a complete ass
only to learn, and to fail, and then
to fail better.
And, yes, we all play a part.
Even as I stand up here, knowing and realizing there's no other way than being judged
I ask that you challenge every thought in your head and its origin.
Admit just how inaccurate you likely are and find comfort that
it's not about being right.
It's about being conscious.

September 20, 2010

for Mandy Meyer

Today, the tin roof sings torrential rain
but the lilies bloom in the vase and
it's my birthday.
But it's your day, too.
Not just because it's a Monday
and Mandy has a similar sound
it's just that September could've been June
and maybe you'd still be in Texas.

My students made me a card.
"Happy Birthday, Ms. M," it read,
and since we share the same initials
that card is meant for the both of us.

I'm twenty-five today,
and, oh, the numbers of things.
Twenty-five years old
and nearly twenty-five days ago we sowed
your twenty-five-year-old seeds into the earth
and covered them with flowers.
Maybe even lilies.
The similarities really are startling.

Like river reflections
I'm in the sun, and you're drowning.
I dodge rocks that ripple your currents
and erode all the rest.
My mountaintops- your valleys,
because, although reflections mirror the same lines,
smiles and frowns are two different entities,
and I'm sorry we didn't save you.
That forces greater than us all
condensed into pebble-sized shape
and capsized all boats in those waters.

And it's true, Mandy, that you don't know what you have
until it's gone.
Until I'm in your living room just next door
eating finger foods and talking to your grandparents about you
in the past tense
And as I sift through river-bottom sand
seeing only sadness
I'll remember your beauty.
I'll imagine you,
standing nearby,
with the weight of your face lifted,
your burdened heart, finally soothed.

Empty-Nesting

Dearest speckled feathered thing
tethered to tattered past
fallen into sidewalk cracks
somewhere far from home
I found you in the back of a classroom
Plumage marked with well-masked scars and burns buried beneath bones, but
you were beautiful
And no one in that room knew you held such knowledge
Knowing the pains of childbirth
and which lines to sign on the adoption papers
Knowing both your parents
but wishing neither's addictions you favored
Knowing the best ways to find drug money success
and the hands of your uncle going up your Sunday dress
You were a fragile bird
a hatchling
with a history far too heavy to be only seventeen
and you looked past me
Glazed-over gaze played shy, but your brilliance couldn't hide
your talents talking for you, your tears reflecting through you
so I collected rocks after school-
trying to protect you from those amused with
shattering glass houses
and it wasn't until I witnessed your history bleed out of you
in a 2 A.M. hospital room and you said
you were afraid to go home
Though home couldn't quite describe the one bedroom you slept scared in
sharing with ten other occupants between jail cells and transition, so
I took you as my fowl
covered you in quilt on my couch
before I could flick the lights you were out
and I realized
This was the safest sleep you'd had in a long time
and in not much time the spare room became guest room
title from teacher to guardian without much guidance
and it was hard
And I was too naive to see the lunches I packed
and purchases of bras and socks in long need of replacement I made
only put space between us
My efforts to nurse built boulders, your heart became stone
living under one roof we both felt alone
and I remember
The image of your mother through the window
We sat in silent meal and she saw you
Stumbling onto the street
the people around us gasped at her, gawked, laughed at her
her limbs flailing in alcohol waltz she called to you
Through the clear she yelled for you and I could see
you were ashamed
So I opened my wing
and tucked you under
and after much struggle
you nuzzled me
And though you left the tree early,
though I'm not the typical empty-nesting story
I still believe I did the best I could
And you've lifted now-
flown into the arms of the Armed Forces
finally found a place to keep safe from the crag throwers
crack owners
those who prey on brooding baby birds, but
I still shift in my twigs
Still hope for the strength of your wings
hope that you when you plunge into the sky
you don't fall but ride the air that moves between friend and foe
and know
I'll forever gather loose stones
and think of you.

[concerning death]

the fascination

keeps me moving.

lunging into corners

startling silence with musings,

i can't help but wonder.

the unnaturalness

against how natural it is,

the sadness

mixed with the need to know

every. gruesome. detail.

the awe of

blinding, flashing, brilliance,

and the disappointment in anything less.

the desire to conquer the one power

we could never defy...

and why can't we ever find the words?

we use wreaths and black sheaths

to say we're sad

but what should we speak

when faced with fact?

since eulogies are only acceptances

of awards not realized alive,

and obituaries the only details we can bare to share,

headstones just name tags to fallen faces,

words fail us.

and i fail words...

for i can't find the right combination

to offer mourner.

i fidget, lower my head

in reverence of a place

i don't quite believe in.

i send cards with generalities,

and give space that doesn't save a person

any pain.

i don't want to be a

fake friend or family member

telling easy stories when all i wish to do is

take blanket and bury myself

until i am ready.

and i am not ready...

to talk about it.

but when i am,

we can share our hand-sown stitches,

in lazy late afternoon,

in 3 a.m. urgency

for there is no comfortable position

to take the call telling you

someone's gone.

the spaces between our bones and flesh

that keep count of our losses

the ticks and tallies

of the many pricks to our pride

our hope

our faith

are crevassed and cared for, in private.

and we have no words

no way to relate

that we don't know what it means

to never be the same.

so we use music,

affection,

letters,

flowers,

food

to translate.

we all have lost,

and from our own empty

we can read these gestures.

for you are lacking,

and i understand.

Toying...

Paper-mâché  me around your wrist

a cast to call the time, to be your watch

Bead me through your ears

and hear me dangle

Braid my body to beautify yours

your masterpiece; your art

It's a travesty the sign reads "Do Not Touch"

for you stand in a museum now

in a glass case, as memorabilia,

as a token of a love short-lived

and I want to unlock you and

spend the afternoon in play- only this time,

you'd let me win

and this time

it'd only be a game and we'd be okay at sundown.

And I wouldn't have pushed you away

for envy, insecurity,

like the hummingbird

who knows the more honey she seeks

the closer to her defeat she becomes

I couldn't help myself.

I loved, but I never learned a love that

lets things happen as they may,

that hands hearts to fate and feels okay with it.

Sometimes, I think, you have to make things happen.

And I make things.

I create,

and we are a collage.

A couple.

Me- gluing my life

to yours,

cutting my life

to suit yours,

the colors both compliment and contrast

it was a fast project what we made.

And the pride I felt

holding it up to the light,

watching our faces dance

by my hand's movements,

but you can't bring picture perfect to life that way...

Though my memory sees our caring arts and crafts game-

it fails to remember

the quiet rustle of wastebasket

and the scraps that never were

quite contained.

For Taylre

Your hands are elegance, Grammy’s rings
on the right
and left indexes,
Fresh
polish
sheen,
There’s a history in those hands.


Creamed corn recipe,
Repairing of hems,
A perfect back scratching
And Miss Mary Mack (Mack, Mack…)


Those graceful hands,
Those weapons used for good,
You always understood the right thing.
Your fingers paint portraits,
Form families, catch stars.
Your hands do all the things
That in your dreams you are capable.
And I dream of you,
skyline in your eyes,
standing on the overhang,
hands open, palms up,
listening,
waiting,
offering.

with disregard

if only you could read me, in explicit rhyme
the light from the stars would spell it out
the waves in the curtain would say,
"Here's how she feels today!"

if only you could smell it, as stark
as the scent of your childhood kitchen,
of your own week-old socks to see
that you don't understand me.

we are the ears that function without feeling,
the moment that happens without thinking.
i am the passing leaf-
energetic, but unheard in the wind.

and each time i speak in an aside
i wish you wrote it, i want you
to view this scene like an audience,
like a presence that seeks the shift,
that notices the sawing pitch of every sigh.

When Only Words Just Aren't Enough

Only when words just aren't enough-
When?
Only when.
JUST WORDS.
NOT ENOUGH.
words.
Only words.
Only, enough.

an anxious alphabet

thetemperature
d
r
o
p
sandthebodyreacts
beyondphysiologicalhabits
thistimeyourmindisthecatalyst
thisconVULsionandskinJUMPing
offtendonsthetensionofneck
andelbowstuckedclose
toyourwRiThInGform-
it's panic.
youarecrying
withnocontrolandtryingto
remindyourselfthatnoonedies
fromthisbutyourlipsare
flu-tter-ingbreath s l o w s to
the most
comotose
pose.
Before you know it,
it's over.
And instead of celebration
in its departure,
you linger on fear
of their return.

DRIFTING

To turn the hull around,
to work the wheel against the way
the waves always cycle
is the only choice to make.
The only soothing sail I set
my sights on relies on
my powers of persuasion.
To no longer feed the needs I
breathe upon,
from no lightness of your care
I stay afloat,
a bright-faced buoy, a barnacle on stranded
sandbar somewhere,
bobbing in the same way
as if customary.
Waters rise and falter,
currents propel and lull,
the depths of the ocean known
only by ones who sink completely.
And yet I'm adrift,
ignorant of reassuring shore,
unnerved by nibbles and dartings
I sense beneath me.

A Typical Magician

You read the scripted map-
cryptically attractive words
repeated from the page I reveal each day.
With the movements, the syllables,
you solidify your station
from miles away.

What an inscrutable measure of distance-
close enough to touch knuckles, twist limbs,
yet disconnected deep within
the skin I sweat against.
You've never been living in more remote place while
leaving breath fresh on my face.
It's the best damn magic trick there's ever been.

I remember the game you perfected-
guessing the card I chose after a swift shuffle
and cut
of the deck.
It was impressive, I admit, but
the fact I allowed you
to confess yourself to me in such
obvious metaphor without
enforcing the door ashames me still.
I knew the logic behind it
but didn't have gall enough
to call you out.
No wonder you were so good;
your crowd poses herself
easily pleased.

Fingers flicking like grease
through options,
your eyes remain fixed on the floor.
You read my action,
hid reaction,
answered every turn in deceptive truth.
The correct card.
The exact suit.
The game that does nothing but
awe the guesser into being satisfied
with loss.

Myopia

The pinhole cameras we made in art class-
You perch them on a ledge, on the ground
and allow the sun to set the image,
a timed experiment of what will fade, what will remain.
And from this handheld cardboard box
a picture forms, forms of figures frozen
in paper-light poses.
Your arms were crossed,
your legs balancing on tiptoes,
your face indistinct and underexposed.
And I hold the photo in my hands now,
and I can't recall what the light did
as it hit your transparent eyes.

Not an Occasion for Flowers

His parts fit her holes perfectly,
she, supposing he fills in those missing,
and what would have been if she missed
him kissing the other before her?
Would she have sensed it on him-
the remnants of relations he wanted
neither keep nor throw away?
Though, can he be blamed for his parts
that bring him to the lair but
made the loveless?
But can her gender, her being, her female
believe that a man must lust to be living?
That there lies no meaning in the dreaming
of another woman’s part?
Or that of one much younger,
because doesn’t every male hunger
for the fresh-cut slit
of tender sandwiched meat?
And where does love slide in
when her hollow dip
is just another tip-filled piece
to an unmatchable mystery?
How can you and I,
Stem and Petal,
ever truly be growing in earnest?
And how can we deny the echoes of evolution?
My invisible clock ticking
with your need to tock any body that's fecund,
you want to feel the fruits of your labor
while I just want to sit at the table with
ONE hunter gatherer,
MY homo sapien that craves the taste of only these juices,
a single rectangle made for this solitary circle,
but broken hearts in cyclical loss
turn shattered spokes into sad spoken word.
I may be a realist,
but I want that positive spin.
And the truth is
this rationalizing
is useless-
it's science that has screwed us.
The tides of centuries past crash
leaving you, learning what I yearn for
and perfecting deceptions
while I look in your eyes for sensitivities
never in your possession,
it's senseless.
But I still find myself tearing the spines
of science textbooks
fingering shorn edges of papers
and pretending it's not survival of the fittest
but of the wisest.
The ones who know the truth about women and men
and live happily without harmony.
I know that it's in your nature to stray
that when you smell the fibrous cut of the bone your tongue salivates
that you're battling instincts you never knew existed within you
but I can't accept there is no resolution
from these tragic revolutions of loves lost and found
hearts torn and bound
faith imploding on itself
We hold so much within ourselves
No, this,
is not an occasion for flowers.
You: stem,
me: petal,
we will never truly be growing
together
forever
in earnest.

Joyride

I like the window half-way.
I like the way your hand,
the clutch,
the brake.
If only the others knew of these days
we ride with the top down.
You squint your eyes
at passerbys,
my eyes askew at you,
cruising to the beat
of a nameless song-
a melody
to which only young-at-hearts
can sway.
And the summer winds
come.
And the heat
cools the nerve.

MINE

a one-act play

By M.E.

CHARACTERS:
Myself
Me
I

SETTING:
The coffee shop-
(It's local).

SCENE:
An afternoon.

ME:
Man, I'm thirsty.
MYSELF:
And hungry.
I:
for, meat.

ME:
Creep.
MYSELF:
Interesting-
I:
Honest?

ME:
Do you realize
MYSELF:
that everyone you know
I:
someday

(ALL):
will die.

ME:
Just because you quote The Flaming Lips doesn't make you hip.
MYSELF:
This is an organic coffee shop.
I:
And there's live music here. And art. Shi-shi, yes.

ME:
I wonder if I fit in.
MYSELF:
I wonder if I stick out.
I:
I wonder if I would like me, were I not myself.

ME:
So, I was thinking, is there a better way to be, a better version of, myself?
MYSELF:
Always.
I:
And?

ME:
Sometimes, I become this person, this me that's very real, but very compartmentalized. Some parts swell up and others shrink away, if only for a minute.
MYSELF:
Like that science experiment, where you put the balloon on the end of the beaker. It blows it up, it sucks it back. Compression, de-
I:
-pression.

ME:
Well, I just mean I know who I am but I let myself change colors, out of boredom. Out of the need to be perched on a branch, and turned spotted.
MYSELF:
A chameleon?
I:
Scales.

ME:
I sound so Emo.
MYSELF:
SO emo.
I:
Whatever, you.

ME:
(shifts in chair)
MYSELF:
(glances back and forth, between the two)
I:
(yawns)

ME:
I gotta head out.
MYSELF:
Got a date?
I:
With myself.
ME:
Cute.
MYSELF:
Clever.

ME:
Let's do this again sometime.
MYSELF:
Yeah, we could meet here, say, every Thursday?
I:
Can't. Sewing class.
ME & MYSELF:
(in unison)
LAME.

ME:
Too good for us.
MYSELF:
You can't be that busy.
(I casually picks up her books, busses her mug, and walks offstage.)

ME:
I...don't understand.
MYSELF:
Neither do we.
ME & MYSELF:
(in unison) Hmph.

[Curtain.]

The Ability to Live a Lie

I don't know how I acquired such a skill
to live an entire life beyond the one you know of.
And I was born of you; I came from you and grew to what you
think I am now.
If you only knew.
Sometimes when I'm driving I cry over what I'd feel
if you were gone.
I can barely take a breath,
a crooked sink pipe or a frozen flower,
heavy in ice.
My throat buckles, because in the front row
would be a person you didn't know
was part of the family.
Did you know your child had a child?
Not from my own, but loved just the same.
To think- I call you every day. I tell you of the tales,
the happenings, and every night you rest your head
easy, knowing I'm okay.
I want
more than anything
to tell you the whole story,
though I'd rather know you're rested.
I'd rather imagine your eyes at peace
than be free of the guilt
I wake to-