Posts

Showing posts from 2017

Skinny Roosters

Roosters are so presumptive Occupying city with an arrogance typically reserved for white Americans They stippled broken sidewalks inside the labyrinth of tilted shanties Shocked at their diminutive stature it occurred to me afterwards that our roosters at home are far too fed Sidewalks were streets, streets were doorways Gates leading to homes mistaken as exits Dogs, cats, children, roosters, rats- all jostling Roofs overhang, sagging from humid humanity Laundry criss-crossed in peace flags from window to window Rigging of a painted, swaying ship in a Thai slum A bloat-belly kitten struggled under a bench Occupants of this riverside world stared knowing before we did that this was a wrong turn Everywhere winding, roosters stood Quiet and pecking and numerous They watched as we slowly wound our way out They insist their presence this morning Answered by brothers caged on the rooftop next to mine Throated greetings rising from shanties along the water

Watching Her Highlight Her Bucket List

is being on the periphery of grandeur unfolding It's an actual place on a map and I have a personal visa to visit I'm not sure she knows she has a distinctive wiggle when she is this happy So far, I assisted in accomplishing two items In two days, it will be three and her list will be that much closer to done In this adventure novel, I am the plucky side kick with horn-rim glasses and occasional sage advice In the action figure package, I am the shorter assistant carrying the clipboard right before the lab accidentally births the superhero and changes everything They don't tell you about this aspect of love- when you are a member of the ovation when you are bearing witness to dreams when you are standing next to a supernova discovering herself        and it's your job to hold her purse Knees quaking, throat raw from screaming, "Yes bitch! SLAY!" Humbled because your friend is in an act of becoming and you are not only at the show- you a

When (Or Beware the Falling Rocks)

They tell you to say “when” when you've had enough Place your hand over the tumbler and shake your head no It's the universal sign that you are full Satiated Done I wasn't done before you left Body has yet to find its reaches though yours seemed to snap and crackle enough Loosen the ropes you bind yourself with (For your safety or mine?) until you can no longer say with any certainty that you are holding back There are edges to climb and cliffs to fall over Places for your hands and tongue to linger The way your voice lingers- half-asleep, half-country gravel The voice that ground my kneecaps to dust Having me beg before I knew your name Should have come with a warning label "Beware the Falling Rocks" I fear my body may never have a "when" for you but my heart will My heart will screech to a halt right at the edge of oblivion The heart already speeding up and skipping beats Pouring cups of caramel tea (the disloyal hussy) th

Arrows

Took me a lot longer than I will ever admit to drive away Kept hoping you would turn around Cried harder, too, than I will ever tell when you did not You have bookends ready to hold up the novels between us Each story reiterating how much we hate each other in the end- how everything falls part I do not have the stomach to pretend otherwise We both know I could have loved you Not right Not wrong Just my head on your chest The beats thump thump thumping   under my ear are arrows striking the ground in succession One Two Three

Dark Honey Tongues

Snuck through a cracked window Caught me off guard Thought the lights were off in this house but you navigate the pitch sure-footed Eyes sharp enough to catch cracks in the foundation Too kind to mention the fault lines, despite the acid of your tongue You seem at home in this make shift mansion Never knew playing tag in these empty rooms could light me up this way I am not often sated by another but you are an unexpected drink at an unexpected table and I was more thirsty than I knew Watching myself carefully now Afraid after you're gone I may leave the window open Your edges are the kind of sharp I love to cut my tongue on and laugh open-throated with blood in my mouth More of me was born in the night than you know Or maybe you do- and that's why you delight in this uncovered sweetness Our dark honey tongues dripping in smoke

A Stolen Wish on a Red Balloon

Image
I must confess, old friend Years ago, I stole your wish and wrote it on a red balloon There was that moment over drinks where you did the thing that you do- with a faraway look and Cassandra on your tongue, seeming to have all the answers We talked about futures, about dreams, about what we wanted for our lives My laundry list, absolutely in earnest, both superficial and full Yours was one, only one- "May I always have a home wherever I go" It rang golden clear inside me as the truth often does as the pages of my wishes became hollow So, I took yours without asking Stole from our conversation the handful of letters that made it magic Wrote on a red balloon in big black marker, to ensure the Universe would never mistake my handwriting Cast it into the sky without comprehending what I'd set forth Years later, quite beyond what I knew to expect, it has come true exponentially- like one red balloon birthed another every year until my greatest

Helens

I really, really don't want unicorn frappacinos, tiny dogs, large sunglasses, caramel highlights, and being blatantly, even gleefully, out of touch with politics to be the sum and whole of white girl culture As if it's a badge of honor The faces that launched a thousand memes, with no true concept of our own contributions to the political war raging around us When I say "political" my inner debutante just shudders and swoons and threatens to have a case of the vapors if I don't change the subject right this instant but when I say politics, I mean life I mean Water Land Food Deserts Global Warming  Trans-Rights Equal Pay for Equal Work Statutory Limits on Rape When I say I want to talk politics with you, I'm really saying Can we talk about reality, Helen? Can we talk about emotional labor? About the fact that I was sexually harassed on my way here? The Israeli/Palestinian conflict and US funding? Can we talk about your preferred pronoun?

Downstream

I If you knew me before you would have known that I was wild and unashamed that I hold my teenage self in more esteem than most contemporary adults that the child of me was inundated by internal rivers and rode the rapids with a clarity If you knew me before you would have seen the moment that shame took over the moment I began to shrink You would see the broken oars rushed upon the shore and a pale white hand reaching just above the surface If you knew me before my wild blue hair would make sense now Yet even its vivid hues, so perfectly mimicking those rivers fade next to the temerity it took to keep living So, if you knew me then if you really knew me then You would stand in a goddamn ovation for my return home guiding myself downstream

Not Here Yet

Sleeping like a starfish Spangled limbs akimbo Sometimes waking nearly wrong side up is the joy of independence and autonomy Yet this morning find arms draped across an empty side Hand curled as if holding on to you Half-awake wondering where you went Like you stepped from the room only a moment before But you are not here Have never been here At least not yet Yet I am already making room

the Reluctant Referee

Bro, she blocked you on social media because your temper was as short as your dick (Absolutely minuscule, evidently) 'Cause, seriously? Who is an asshole to the waiter?! A quick smile will not conceal the hatred creasing your features deeper than the napkin he forgot to bring you She left you because you scare her Really, how is this surprising at all? Testosterone pills are not considered a vitamin by the FDA (Just FYI) She cannot explain herself, because you are immune to discomfort and panic Plus, like no joke, she's really, really over explaining herself There's muscle fatigue in her jawline from justifying her existence She will never know if you had sex with her while blacking in and out (Doesn't want to know...) 'Cause what's one more Jack in a full hand already? You are still convinced of your own significance Truly, you ended up being a tiny (Ha! Tiny...) blip in a much more grandiose radar She does not under

The Novel

Today may be the day to give myself permission to walk away forever and ever from The Novel Not sure I can live there, though the Muses hand out enough fodder for a thousand word canons It's just when I sit and sit and sit and The Novel stretches on like a marathon where each runner dies- I find the compilation of words and images and figures more vulnerable than baring my soul in poetry How can a book, full of fiction, require more skin from my teeth and hair off my back than this?

Not Your Pixie

Are you caught in a manic dream? I am not the pixie to save you I will not paint your walls red, or inspire you to live I cannot spare strength to rip you from that drudge-filled tank It is not my problem that your days are hazy slow or trapped in cubic routine Riding the curtail of my impulse will not redeem your mediocrity I am not your pixie I will not organize you, console you, enable the shadows that cling to your shoes There are no excuses in my wet mouth that you can hide behind You are what you have decided to be No more or less I am living my own dream If kissing me rubs light on your lips, so be it, but I'll be damned if I let you eat me alive (In response to Olivia Gatwood's poem "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" )

Besieged

I am lily white, ivory bound Skin the same hue as bones and teeth Casper, whispering and floating, thick-coated snow bunny insulated from the ice Even my silence is vanilla flavored Fingers made of asphalt chalk for outlines of black bodies on back roads and writing on blackboards for white-washed history My lily-liver wants to flock away in a white flight from besieged cities Write from afar with a safety pin in one hand and a latte in the other Atop a crystalline, snow-peaked mountain, an apologetic "color blind" apex predator Gaining purchase on top of black backs, brown arms Looking away from the skin beneath my boot because I have the privilege to do so Vomit in my mouth Aware of my own shame and knowing full well my discomfort is only that... un-comfortable My body is not in danger My involvement is selective and "appropriate" When I tire, back behind those lacy curtains I go My creamy bubble popped when the blood on my hands s

It's Hard to Apologize to a Cactus

There is a nook between your shoulder and neck that I forgot about until you hugged me After we sat on our old bench and you said again, "I'm sorry for hurting you" during that last hateful week between us I believed the apology this time Let it hit home, mostly because I love you more than I'm angry now If my heart was the fragile kind, instead of the prickly hedgehog variety made of gristle and spines, it would have shattered like a teacup on pavement It's hard to apologize to the spindles of a cactus Moving and breathing aches so much more because I am less angry and more in love Life was simplified when I hated you Easier when I forgot all about that damn nook in the crook of your neck and shoulder, where I can breathe you in and it smells like everything we were, and everything we were supposed to be

an Altar

Would that I could build an altar to this pain because you see- this is the only way I have now to quantify how I loved you I cannot express in caresses, or kisses, or shared meals and secret jokes To set this mourning free is the only sane recourse Swallowing and choking disillusionment, like bile, serves no one It is, in fact, a true disservice to how much we were An altar could not contain the whole story, nor could it atone for the pages left blank, but it would be a monument to read quietly again and again nonetheless Yet altars are static, unrelenting and we are nimble creatures Understanding that pains recedes is not the same as believing it, though

Someone's Something

I am no longer someone's something and I have always been someone's something Mostly in the evening, when silence fills this new home, I am frenzied Craving to fill my head, my bed, my heart, my body with anything other than this acute, pus-ridden, rattled emptiness I do not recognize this panicked creature, clawing the walls of the universe in withdrawal, desperate for distraction I want to scream, "But who am I now?" which smacks of histrionics and annoyance even to my ears Cannot articulate that this is so much more than hollow Hollow implies a nature-born intention Trees have hollows This, this is man-made, gut-wrenched, melon-balled, wires ripped unceremoniously from the innards of a broken toy I could pace the floors of this home nightly with no one the wiser No yellow wallpaper holding in the crazy No witnesses if pacing turned to crawling Perhaps, there's the crux More than not being someone's something is that I am

a Crab

Heart shuddering sidewise Scrambling backwards like a crab The culmination of change upon change settles, a murky cloak Surroundings miraged Hunker down in its shell, pulling limbs in close Waiting out the pain in duration Eventually, always, the shuddering stops

Small

Her shirt looks small It's already in the closet, on the side that used to be mine Something I'll never be- small I take up space with voice and hips and words and expectations I could swallow the world whole, and plan to It bothers me, though, that she's smaller than me Skinny, young, the type of sliver I always longed to be Impressionable enough to believe whatever you promised in the throes of your pain This is the bridge you've chosen to ford the pass I can't judge you for it much, except that you paraded her in front of me Which makes you small Smaller than I'll ever be and smaller than I've ever been Right now, I am grateful for my own multitudes

the Great Editor's Tome

Clumsy, cantankerous tome Bowing the table before me The weight of life gracing each page and oh... it is ponderous indeed Chapters for each love affair All shorter (or longer) in duration than intrinsically necessary considering the amount of spine occupied Snippets and tidbits in margins and dog-eared corners Compliments and enticement (so noted) Criticisms and excrement (absorbed or ignored depending) Each swallowed with grains of sea salt or spoonfuls of granulated sugar The foundation of childhood is the first quarter of the book, at least The reparation of said childhood is double that again in length (with footnotes on various therapeutic practises in the index) Yet, where is the pride? The lightning-born words? Where are the odes to the battle? Where are the frantic journal entries? Hopefully not undersized compared to the Editor's arrangement of fate and chance, nor lacking in vulnerable illustrations and doodles Large and cumbersome, it look

The Midnight Hinge

The door creaks close behind me, I can feel the wood drawing near Space to step back shrinks for every hesitant step that toes its way forward The doorway is different this time I can smell it Air as unfamiliar as the choices being made Were a mirror before me only inches past the precipice, a stranger would stare back, unrecognizable They are wrong They are always wrong This is no two-pronged wooded fork in a golden wood This is a solstice choice A decision birthed as the sun disappeared and darkness descended with crooked, insisted incisors in its smile A faith-bound step, taken when the road was already rough Made at the hinges of midnight with only whispers lighting the way to that God-forsaken door The door closes and every instinct screams to return to light and arms and familiarity and love, holding all the teeth at bay Before, I always turned back The stranger in front of me, the one on the other side, is waiting now