Maya

Your voice whispered to my

voice, Speak Girl - SPEAK

and when you whispered,

I roared

and when your words marched across that

page,

through those years

to find their way to my heart,

you said,

GO GIRL, BE A WOMAN.

You said,

BE AFRAID,

BE LOVE,

BE SOFT,

you said,

BE SOUND,

BE UNAPOLOGETIC,

BE TRUE.

and I did.

Fighting for Air

Not because i drown
i do not falter or cry out for release
Because i want to be caught
In this capture there is peace

I am a wilderness.
I am a wind.

My boundaries give safety to roam within.
Because i have fences i am invited to test the lines.

Do you climb a mountain without desiring the valley?

There will be no mercy without a war.

I spread myself upon the field
And welcome both.

secrets

a wander in the dark,
this time sinister.
shadows breathe slow,
sigh, threaten to give chase.
suggestions of teeth
linger at the edge of the moon.


this is where innocence came to die,
all romantic and dewy, purposeful poses to show regret
like a teenage girl
shakespeare's dream,
meant for death and beauty,
neither of which stayed in that marriage for long.

signs

suddenly deaf, i do not know what to do with my hands.
they flail. no words from eloquent gestures.

i am lost.
not even drowning.
breath too heavy to draw.
my hand cannot lift the pen.

the page is blank because i cannot hear what it says.

only for a moment
and then just air

like the silence before
you know you've dropped it
not even time enough to believe
before it
breaks

water
when spilt, can never be redeemed.
something is always lost.

i felt her go.
felt guilty
because
she was never tangible enough to name

because
i will always carry that broken glass
and
never know what to do with the peices

when asked

i like to say

Oh, yes. I know how to live within a world of hope. A world built by the sweat of my ancestors and painted by the words of politicians. I know how to stuff toothpaste mixed with tissue into the cracks and keep out the fear.

when asked

I can answer with eyes that carry no weight, shrug shoulders that are sun-kissed and unworried. My steps will leave no shadow to illustrate that I have not given a thought to the question. My hips lounge easily, never having been prey they do not ponder death.

i like it this way.

I don't even keep you guessing because that might imply a puzzle. I will open the book and show my sleeves. This is the best defense. To lure you away from the well, I will show I have no broken wings and suggest that you can follow me to an abundant nest. You may rest on my lap, which smells of lavender and jasmine. Restful clouds unfettered. No rain.

this is how

When there are tears, you will know that they are for no other reason but to nourish you.

as you slept i watched you, you moaned in your sleep and turned to hold me the way a man will grasp for a railing as he trips. you were unexpected and unsuspecting. an undeniable combination. the cloud that surrounds you is mostly an ocean's depth of light blue. sometimes though, it is green, and on rare occasions, a dark and sparkling grey. the sort of grey that makes you want to scream out into the open until they come to capture you, put you in a bad novel where you will live melodramatically, and tearfully earnest for the rest of your life. which will be a long time.

this cigarette is telling all of my secrets. it is aggravated and menacing to strangers. it reaches out and leaves tiny, beatnik stains on their cheerful slacks. summer slacks. meant for beaches, and trapped on sidewalks with frivolous sandals for company. and they aren't much company are they? vapid chatter and tiny drinks. a head nod to show she understands. a laugh that only hovers near her eyes, but never truly  goes in. it doesn't have the password. it's only there to be polite.

if you were to wake at this moment, you would capture this photograph of all my truths. there would be no going back and i would be engulfed in your flame.

it is possible that in the morning, i would be beside you still, sated, new. a phoenix beneath the sheets.

it is also possible that you may simply roll over, soot on your body and find the space i once loved you from.

i dream of you and

undeniable truths beyond my reach,
a filthy window too high,
an unsure ladder too low
a suitcase devoid of confidence
packed in a hurry, wrinkled articles of love and hate
still waving from secret pockets
thumbs held across freeways,
hearts holding breath
barns seeking the freedom of old America
factories seeking absolution, they want to abort themselves and to finally be regretful.

i was a teenager
once.
Once for about five minutes i looked at this land from a backseat passenger window and saw with fresh eyes the hope that we planted in between the rows of corn, wheat, soybeans.
i didn't see the planes over head, flying low and precise to distribute our daily dose of misinformation and cancer.

i was just a girl
still dreaming of love - this gigantic, vague thing that would capture my attention, fix my grammar and make me whole.

what i learned later
was that you have to do those things for yourself.
nobody understands grammar.
not even the internet.

and if your windows are filthy you should look at  your hands. choose your most favorite finger and lick it. make art in the filth. draw love, draw hate, draw out every secret desire. someone will understand. somewhere, across this fast food wasteland there is a soul broken like yours, waiting for the art that swerves to the shoulder and brings it home.

t h o u g h t

it has occurred to me that if it weren't for the fact that most people have little or no foresight and little or no compassion, there would  not exist a United States of America. For each of our great accomplishments  there are a thousand faults of even greater consequence.Not even man's most wondrous achievements can eclipse the sins we have committed against nature.I am not entirely sure what that says about us humans but i will bet my last breath that it means there is a superior race and we are not a part of it.

no room for sheep

emotions fall
wet my shirt
wet my hair
wet my soul..
it is a long walk to the makeshift shelter of sleep
and as i count my faults or the possibility of them,
the warped boards creak with the weight of my bitter bones.

haiku

i see your purpose,
for now it is fine, asleep
not knowing itself.

Poem

the sun rises bright
            he does not see our anguish
                             in the bible he noticed our tiny pains
                                                     but now he turns and sets the same time always.


The sky does not cry for us and we only cry for ourselves.

cigarette

he rode it to a stop. seduced the sidewalk
until like the pavement i was worn
nodded ascent
curled my girlish figure in and discarded every notion of No.
"i must to work in the morning"
and that was forgiven
along with the cigarettes and coffee there was nothing else to fear.

a sidenote:
i wore a cross around my heart, a belief held in silver (the same silver traded for Jesus, i guessed) and i thought that this would save me.

later, when asked,
i repeated that only nothing had happened.

hitch hiking is not that dangerous.

it is a thing that is
only if you let it
and then,
who can you blame?

in a remembering dream

you are there,
my helpless love,
the one i tricked
no lies
fragments of truth
supersonic
and folding beneath the fire

do not behave as if you know
for how can you understand
a hunger you've never met?

outside our window i watch this bird ~ a starving beast ~ in your hand ~ in mine. you swift my cheek my hand to yours, we shudder meaning, crook and shade, window light.

calling.
calling.
an acoustic fear - full of tin and pennies.

i remember you forward...hold me, my only love.
i will fold you into the song of my soul,

and surrender
beneath
surrender

if i loved you

i could stand your love
your pain
is my pain
and i hate you.
your easy smile is my greatest fear...
because outside my wine glass window i cursed you with the promise of my love

and you dropped it.

and i am a furious angel, i hold still your memory within my angry hands,
this is no pleading love,
this is no empty sigh
this
is
no
promise
a
wine
glass
fallen
easy
whole.
...
a cello
held beneath her hips,
and as my lips roll through her,
a thread
will
tie
up
our
secrets
torture
them
into
speaking

in this light room

i am the only dark thing,
not a victim, bound only by words
unspoken
threatening to capsize and ruin everything
to pour bodies into an ocean of intention and cold
Do you think the ships who fail carry their last words into the deep? Is that what weighs them down, beckons the hungry to feast? All of those phrases left to murmur in the murkiness of regret, only the eels will find them.

if i had a thousand ways to love you, i would be in debt still, because i have spent all of my words. i have been careless with them, thrown them at the streetlamps, given them to drunken comrades, i have abused them and left them aching in closets. Unfavored shoes. Precious things discarded like Hollywood youth. Ground through the machine in my soul and seeping through my skin to turn me dark.

there is light in this room, and i am the only dark thing. i cannot see to find the words i would use to bring you close.

they may not even exist.

calmer

now - walking barefoot, unburdened
panic waits by the door like a sweater
and this day is too warm for any of that

a rope doesn't need to be wrapped around a body to be useful
an old man will use it to measure time, following the line until it frays
the weight of his life giving purpose to each strand

teacups can hold coffee as well as trinkets~names do not define purpose
the clock is funny, because i can easily put my hand to it's face, smother it
gain days or years
instead i reach over
touch my favorite thread
tie it to my finger
and leave the sweater on the hook as i walk to meet you.

precarious

a picture booth photo, a fresh line addiction sharp
and always a horizon away
a disappointed sail

having never been close friends with normal  - now so intimate i am lost,
a wallflower
unsure of the customs
the sounds an incomplete lyric
like a man anchored by fear
i am drowning
in the anxiety of loss
an unlit cigarette
an unspoken thought
an unrealized dream
nightmare dents in pillows
misplaced keys
or persons
posters advertising my broken heart
and medication
a glance
a meditation
a whisper between strangers
she knows we share fingertip lingers
she has given meaning to mistaken glances
and she carries them around in her purse
she holds her suspicion in front of her
like a talisman

this is an untested bridge, proven by no one - God maybe, with his hypothetical theories - dinosaurs and moon landings

housewife discussions

nothing pertinent

and if i know love,
if i know love,
IF I KNOW LOVE

if i have learned anything at all
it is that we all live our purest truths when nobody is looking...i could touch you like this,
and if you reach for me
...

i may only die once
in my life

after the realization

i pry these pages open and bury my face in the acid smell of dark intent - this is the way you violate a woman, even a woman who answers the door and tells you she wants it, wants it badly, grinning through bad grammar and cheap booze. this is the way you live, forcing your overfed american body through the air, barfing in a language no one understands, text abbreviations drooling over your dials, an underage traveler who lingers in back alleys waiting for a bootlegger, shoplifting opinions from walmart and the quick stop, tabloids covering bruises like sweatshirts over preteen pregnancies. this is the United States of Big Ass Commerce, we shoot everybody, oil for heroin, coach is the poor man's birkin, and political ads are printed on redwood trees, even the natives have forgotten why they are here, they wander the fields they die in and look for the great spirit. you know, the one we all learned about from watching dances with wolves.

we all forgot about the mountains.

the library is a lost art.

i smother myself with a book, a nearly sexual act, searching for penetration and meaning.

Fossils

i lay my heart
where you lay your head
fossils on the pillow
my body                          
                your soul
my head
                your head
my hand
               your heart
shoulder
       chest
           navel navel
pelvis hip cock shudder
knees
       ankles
              eyelids
words meant unspoken
somewhere within
an archaeologist will study
what we bury here
purposes
promises

intangible things
birds intended to fly
healed
   hopeful
waiting to be thrown      

in the night

a dreaded hand,
and i am small
shivering

gazing at the window
only the hope of morning
and an end in sight

the tangible headlights of passing vehicles
racing across a ceiling, dark otherwise
with no hint of love

a darkness of heart and skin

i cannot pray
i cannot breathe

and the fear is more than i can  voice,
my voice a forgotten whisper
an aborted child

a cloud dismissed
a vaporous smile

nothing is as solid as a lie
that i am fine
you are fine

we laugh in the sun
because
that is how
recovery starts

kill me with this laugh

and the simple truth of a hand upon the strings
of my heart
of my blouse
a knock upon my door

the first moment of you
was the moment of knowledge,
you - the tree
myself - the wind
and i assumed like anyone would that i could move through you without guilt
without the impact of time

a simple phrase
a breeze
nothing so permanent as love

did i trip
did i fail
carve my name upon the sand?

no, My Love
it was the light
a fool
a gesture
my hand on your neck
your lips at my navel
let the waves come
a conquering mist

let me call your name

maybe you have a star

i would kill you myself if i didn't have so much to lose from your murder
some days i can see how people snap, how they plot gently, secretly in closets and coffeehouses
they are ugly on the television - we see them with judgement
and we think they must have always been so.
we do not see the drivers who brought them to this place.
the men with tortuous intent
i wish you would put down the knife and stop killing me so that I can stop wishing for your death in self defense.
because the baby i hold is better than your death.
he is the only remedy to you.
he is my only saving grace,
his existence allows me to hope that maybe you are better somewhere
somewhere deep inside might be a handle buried,
if i could reach it I could unearth it
your goodness
because he has the light of a million stars shining in his laugh
i think that maybe beneath the wicked
you might have just one

i dream of your death

the way others dream of cool spring water when they thirst.
I would rather have the burden of your body to dispose of
than the burden of hating you.
I dream of the relief an officer's voice would bring as he tells me you are gone,
the way a man dreams of silencing the buzz of work yet to be done.

you are a creature unknown, predictable yet always in flux
quicker to bite than i ever think you are
and i never draw my hand back in time

there is nothing of you left

whom i loved.
i see you now,
wedged deep between Jekyll and Hyde
your psychosis waiting to bite over cups of coffee or phone lines.
i cannot tell when you are coming,
like a cold front you appear without warning.
there is no way to coax you out of this,
to make you kind without provoking attack.
out of nowhere bricks are hurled,
the way the earth throws a tantrum
with no remorse or apology, not even a fake one.
there is a difference between suffering consequences
and acknowledging a wrong.

i want to be a Neverland

a pure, green promise

like youth, the greatest and worst

a false hood that lasts your lifetime

i take your skin beneath my hands

hold you close

smother your sounds with my mouth

this is another promise,

the promise my body makes to yours

in the secret night

a question within a question

the plants listen intently to our hearts

and the stars witness everything

Blow

like a drug or secret goings on in the back seat front seat left side brain a blinking light, an idea almost caught, a kite so far high that God might trip or become annoyed at it's presence like a fly, an incessant whisper just out of reach

a dream of bad behavior, murmurs from inside the glass, your reflection the only clue of life, you can be smudged and unbeautiful and someone still might pack you under his arm and take  you home

the sweetest blow to my ego is watching you care for the space around you, the things that breathe your air, your hands moving with gentle authority to accomplish the checks on your list and the realization that i may just be there until the line comes, drawn through my existence

always

like a dashboard with no instruments
i am flying blind catching winky faces
giggles
references
the possibility of a broken heart

falling for it, like an empty high five
the suggestion of a team
i can't wait to hope for

stretch my mind to include this possibility
a painter trying for a larger canvas the one she has too small to hold the kingdom of acrylic flowing out of the paintbrush out of the bucket out of her mind a waterfall of dreams crashing into rocks like feathers into the palm of my hand

always

Left at The Supermarket

as the wind blows in
gathering up our laughter like pennies
or leaves rather

high like wine or mountains
indecisive


in the deep corners of the night
i gasp,
held underwater
to disolve
like freedom
or soap


the road is dark, twisty and full of metaphors

we stumble, words misspent
autistic puzzles left to marinate in misunderstood recipes

hands frantic for a release
and it comes
tidal

to sweep us up
leave us lost
among mangoes and papayas
searching for the meanings of inside jokes

only the self reliant checkout girl knows for sure what we need or where to find it
but she's not dropping anything, groceries or hints she
only looks daggers
at our confusion

in the end

you were always here
kept small
kept remote

even if i scream i cannot drown you
there are no metaphors for the human soul
that don't make me feel melodramatic

don't forgive

the land will fold in on itself and carry you forward
 a crushing river,
a broken cigarette

a torn page

these things do not forgive

scars and tantrums left to marinate in the sun
empty bottles expected to shine
holding nothing of value

folding in together

i don't want to let this go~
i don't want to show you who i am now~
nothing we are is who we discussed, it was all a ruse

every secret you spill
is a ring left on the counter

forgotten in an attempt to escape

it becomes foggy

tea left over night,
or a sky seen through water

and i lose more than myself
an  unexpected slip

like saying fuck during a conversation with your mother

like a bird

or a tree
i have no defense

only everything i am
and not all of it graceful
or captivating
or easy to see

all of it a sacrifice

eager to die
a building without tenants
i am waiting for
renewal

this one is for you

an open jar,
a naked shore
a failing lyric

the palm upon my breast
the breath upon my heart
a savior's nail

and  the only salvation ever sought
when you search,
don't seek here
we only know lies

the only whisper you need
is mine

for you

if my heart would let me go

i could let you fold me in
 and mostly i would love you out of self defense

between the sheets and in your arms
it's a game of who can forget first
this isn't going to be pretty
i fold beneath the weight of expectation

just hold me up
fold me in and tear me apart
let me go
talk to me and hold us together

forever you are my love
i will let you in and withhold the map
this is the undiscovered land you dreamed of

dream of me
i cradle you
you are an unclaimed moment of
history

pure

it was a promise

left like a child at a bus depot...
the words we spoke
standing beside your truck,
 i begged you to shave
 you asked me to stay
and i would have stayed
if you
could have told me
why
i was beautiful

i mostly wish..

we were together...
lying on the beach with the wind still leading both of us
and when you said  we could still be friends....i thought that meant that we would still be friends.. and not that i would receive a picture of you in the mail.
a lost piece,
a conversation forgotten,
your daughter's name, a thought in my heart,
a lost embrace
and you
my friend
 a hopeless name

e.e cummings

said it,
said i carry  your heart, i carry it in my heart
and oh
my beautiful darling and
my most precious heartache,
i carry you with me,
as the moon shelters and draws
as the bird climbs and falters
as the soul travels, connects and travels again
i carry you
though you are not mine
though you walk alone
though freedom is your truest gift
i carry you
your existence is my truest gift

I said Oh My God

inside and stood still, slapped by the words in my head, heart, lungs, liver

Oh My God

love is the potential for pain, a crucifix we carry happily, lightly and grinning to our death

sweetest escape

i dig a fire escape
tangle of metal, creak to give the sense of urgency, cold to show safety
and slight giggles to convey boldness

the fire gives us a reason to leap

i will be a trampoline, a gold star
a fleeting moment of rest

lay your fore head against that crisp window,
lay your dreams on the floor
cover them in damp blankets to keep the smoke
from making his mark

i dig a hole
i rest easy beneath the stone,
because Baby,
it is the sweetest escape

the most tangible thing about belief is the touch of your hand on a shovel

Star Fucker

whatever tomorrow brings, the churning of the seas into butter, water into wine or the death of independence i will cling, a desperate lichen to this moment, this sudden acorn of knowledge burst forth into oak, this sunrise punch in the stomach, a dropped cigarette, still smoldering on end, perfectly balanced on the edge of my mind...

a beast unrecognized and hard to catalogue, i don't remember your face, it was dark and solid, eyes like the river at night

i fear the repo man

you gasp and weep

      or perhaps i was the one to cry out...

we curl together through a dream of cotton and tomorrows...
this is a neverending hope,

a dream for lovers and happy people...i fear the day they find i am unsuited for such wonder,

i will come home to lovely flooring and an empty closet

This is a big, huge FUCK YOU.

because you left the light on
a shadow on the wall told me you were here
and every sweetness i had fled when it saw you coming

every raw edge returned
and every truth you never told
reminded me what it was like to look over a shoulder shiver cold with fear

so take it.
take it and know this~
that every darkness does not have an evil hiding in it

every rope that holds forgiveness
is also held by the most fragile charade
an easily tipped glass

do not misstep
do not breathe
karma rests...
but she does not sleep

you

walk through me casually

the echo of your steps ring
through every hall of my soul


you are a gentle murder
leave me dark and gasping
a thousand tiny deaths in my veins
unheard scream reeling in my lungs
my body filled with the need for escape

you are a mad hunter,
my heart is a souvenir
with a smile you take as i give
my blood for life
my life for love

For i

wandered in a cocoon
self absorbed and satisfied to be just one
my arithmetic was off

i could crush you

beneath this weight
a politically incorrect anvil, a tsunami of emotion and bad behavior
swept up in sheets and sweat, legs twisted and bodies folded to reach
for the unknown
love or climax
whichever comes first

if love could be written

it would be letters in the sand
prose on the mountains
a tattoo on the hand of God

the only greatness ever brought out of man is this ~ our ability to write of love with such abandon, grace and hope that we make it real. and it might only ever be a dream. A whisper told from mother to child, promises waiting to be broken, lies whispered between foreheads at that great moment of shared collapse.

as though you are afraid

a nighttime of hours like a train that rounds the bend
only the sound following your footsteps
threatening to unearth your fears with only a suggestion

this is where the whispers of insecurity begin to slip their fingers through the door
the thinnest veil of hope
hiding their fingerprints
decades old birthday wishes anxiously spent
and buried in the backyard

in a flash

the sound rolls in, a silver footed stampede, to litter questions about the future and hints about the past there among the broken shells and translucent bits of seaglass
shaggy men and desperate women gather at the shore
raise their arms, voices, cast their votes, they hope democracy will raise the dead, reinvent the ozone, suck the fat from our bones and set us free.

Vanilla

soft peaks to melt with that first splinter burst of cold
laughter steams on the edges
kisses tell secrets before mouths do
the arch of a back
the palm of a hand
the press of breath
the promise of a blank canvas

the sea

is a delicate song

the power to kill 

hidden in beauty

terrible waves of immense knowledge

your eyes like barrels of fragrant apples

gorgeous and full of death

Thank you.

because for a moment i found trust again.
             like a building warmed by the sun after a long night shivering
                      my eyes were closing, lulled by the silent warmth
                             those tiny kindnesses you drop like needles,
                                     they shine for a moment, so pretty until the blood is drawn from unsuspecting fingers
                                            and i say THANK YOU
because i need the time machine of your venom to  shake me awake, to remind me of actions, reactions, and to think quickly, to be a gunslinger, to not be a girl who shows mercy or compassion. To remind me that mercy and compassion will only get you so far - because a snake is always a snake

and snakes bite.

i want to fold myself

into you
      lovingly
like a baker folds in a list of tiny needs
                   gently coaxes them into strength and builds bread

We are like rivers, she says

                                               In the beginning, we are narrow, wild and unfettered. 

We hurry to points unknown and do not hesitate to create death. 

We are teeming with life and answers,

we do not pause to question the impact of our passing, our rages or our indifference. 

  But here in this age, we are unburdened. 

We have given so much of ourselves that now we are secure. 

We are no longer narrow, we have strongholds; deep roots of knowledge guide us. 

We have given life, and because of this we are much slower to anger, more quick to protect. 

The death we cause is purposeful, methodical, devoid of violence and overwhelmed with love.

                                               over coffee she presents these revelations,
                                   like a child coming to terms with some playground fact,
                                                       and i believe her.
                                              because when she speaks, she has my voice.

it is a leap of faith

given foolishly, blindly and wholeheartedly.
    You cannot hold back, she says. You can not wait at the edge of the chasm, letting the pressure build until you simply fall into the void, limbs tousled by the air rushing past you.
                                 When you decide to stand there, you have already made the decision to jump. You must not use the parachute, it is fear. The joy in this is holding the fear unused as you LEAP into the universe unprotected.This is the gift of our creation. To look at death and know that it is not to be feared. This is love - a thousand deaths a day, and redemption at every turn.
        

i have held this seed, waiting

to find the soil that you took from me...in my dreams, in my heart

    i thrust my hands into the deep, into the dark
                                               where love lives
              clothed in intimacy
                              laced with profanity and kisses spent carelessly

they are careless because they are sure of themselves, their ability to regenerate lends a certain...arrogance...

i've missed you, dear reader

turned around and you were not there,

              your silhouette a dream at the window

   i rolled the memory of you, freshly minted
                                                                 around my body

you are a tree
       you are a song
              you are an endless ocean wave
driving forward
holding a thousand secret keys within your body
                                                                        threatening to unlock me with a kiss

this place is a familiar ocean

waves, crisp pages curled around memories left in the sand and love? it was here that it climbed out of the depths and into the world to roam, and it was also here that it came to die, wading out into the velvet deep following some instinctual promise of peace.

how am i supposed to say anything

To you at all? The ground speeds quickly towards me, i feel drown'd by the air, stifled by your hands at my throat although they have not touched me for so long now...and everywhere i look is evidence of the wreckage ...my breast raw with emotion, heaving like the hull of a ship against those rocks, waiting for the final blow of your vengeance. And still, in the rare quiet moments of the day when my restless thoughts turn to you, there are prayers whispered for you... and hope set free on the wind... The stars always were, and always will be, and no one healed me except my Faith, except God. I almost forgot what that hell was until you showed up with the special gift of your smile to remind me.

in the middle

of conversation, he reaches over - and gently

as though it were the most fragile leaf

plucks my heart from my sleeve

places it in his pocket

and walks on

plummeting towards the finish line

the leaves i've gathered for a parachute,
tea left cold on the counter
like a prom date waiting by the door

stepping out the door
hope as tangible as air

and only a song for a prayer

i saw an ad

for a simple man
with easy thoughts
strong hands, coffee and steps

someone with unheard music
tousled hair
and unwavering opinions

a big red circle around it

as though a desperate person had been searching
and was relieved to have found that such a person exists

too many peices

laid over too many miles, bone fine dust curling up through the spaces in between
and too many hands scooping in for the rescue
too many surgeons, faces damp behind the masks, too many instruments prying for a crevice
a way in,
a window
a weakness
and too many pieces to cover somehow, part of me is always bare
raw
exposed
and they don't make band-aids for what is wrong with some of us

sweeping through the clouds

to look for the lightness i left there, i find it odd that the lightness of day and the lightness of weight are spelled the same.

it is a surprise to find that hopelessness does not have heaviness...according to what i've read, it should have weight, it should drag at the heels and pull on shoulders and break down the skeleton like gravity, or cancer

instead, it is strangely light...a wisp, a veil... a haiku

it allows for breathing, or silence

hope requires fight. it requires a tight, unmoving fist and a digging in of heels. it demands a square jaw, an unwavering resilience...and it is exhausting.

so, it is a delight now. to be just a person without the burden of hope who walks lightly among the clouds and dances without the weight of expectation

because i love words

i can't even speak. because how can i use my words, things i love, to speak of hurt, and hurting?

and what would it sound like? like ... drama-mongering. like pity-fishing. and i won't have it.

so
now
i will be silent.


but not here.
because you are my arsenal. you are how i fight off those mean red days, and nightmare ghosts. you are a steady, firm hand when i shake and the blanket when i grow cold at memories or voices on phones. and i need you, and i know i've never said it, but it must be known

payment

you think that just because you have to serve time that i don't have to pay for the mistakes i made. your voice is laced with every hurt i inflicted, i hear it, it hurts and i pay.

i felt stupid

it was foolish, and i knew it, and the police officer knew it, but i felt stupid anyway. because i've seen worse. the bruises he snapped photos of were not as bad as i've seen, and the story i had to tell was nothing compared to the others, and so i felt stupid. because their sympathy would have been nice when i was smaller, when i was locking children in bathrooms to keep them safe, or mapping out escape routes that would keep them safe not from fire but from beasts who drink and bite, but not now. not now when i am successful, and capable and can change my own tires and pay my own bills. what am i supposed to do with that sympathy now? now it's a joke, but they look at me with sad, wary eyes and across the bad office furniture homedepot reject, they push pamphlets and phone numbers and ask if i'd like a nurse or a counselor and where is my baby, is he safe and now i say "ifeelsostupid" and they think it's because i'm afraid of you, and i am afraid of you but that's not why i feel so stupid, i feel so stupid because i've already been through this blender, i already know better, i already know better i already know better ialreadyknowbetter and when i saw the signs, i didn't see the signs, i just walked back in and let you push the button and blend me up again

because i love words

i use my voice. i am clear. when i speak, i do not speak in a language that you do not understand. and when you ask me, i tell you.

so when i say that you should stop because i am frightened, when i shout that i am dying beneath your anger, WHEN I TELL YOU THAT YOU MUST NEVER BEHAVE IN SUCH A WAY


i expect, like anyone would, that you will understand.

because i loved you,
i stayed.
and then i didn't, and so i left, and i will never again quiet myself.

it's a trick i pull

lucy with the football...this evil little upturn smile,
a withering leaf
mistletoe
pretty, and full of venom

when i wake up or turn around, the memories are there, like my grandmother's silk
waiting for a wedding, or a funeral...or both in one day as the case may be and sometimes is...

this tree, roots firmly in my stomache, has carved memories...electrical impulse branches snake out and beyond. it can't be helped. it's biological. each leaf is a flash, stamp, picture. this is why they call it a family tree. because it never stops growing, and it's roots are great, overbearing, heavy and dependable. It is home, comforting and burdensome - like ownership. Like love or devotion. Two very different things.

in the night

the door opens, and the music begins to play...and i wonder, if its a ghost, or just the echo of my heart...

and it's amazing, how a song can carry so much strength, that i close my eyes as i fly across these keys, the purpose being to bring you close to me.

is too much revealed, like a mountain slope, tempting a fall, shying away...running fast, an avalanche....

or, is it just the wind?

man i

talk some shit, and can't stop myself...and it's the truth what i say, but not the whole truth, and not everything comes out of my mouth, although it seems that after the baring of my soul there could be nothing left, there's more because broken as i am, there are always peices to be found, scattered here in the hallways of my soul...


i need a janitor to sweep them up, save me, sweep me up, put me in a bottle that isn't broken and doesn't smell like it was forgotten

i wish i knew

my heart like i know my face,
it's faults, it's little weirdnesses - like the way one eye squints more than the other when i smile, or the way my mouth is always crooked...
the way i'm only pretty if the lighting is candlelight, or barlight or beer goggled...

if i knew my heart the way i know my face, perhaps i would know enough to see when i'm going to be hurt...

and i would walk away before it's too late instead of always, always, always just smiling my way into the storm.

i would probably walk away...

but i like the rain

i need a poet

jack or ginsberg, ferlinghetti - someone wise...
walt - where are you?
I AM A SCAVENGER, and ravenous for blood
slipping through the television,
through libraries
through muted dawns and hectic nights
filled with booze and gentlemen...

i seek the universal truth,

i need a paintbrush, and a poet

today is a day for Emily Dickinson

and quiet happiness,
which to some, may seem like opposites
except we'll never know.

perhaps she wrote about sadness
to get a feel for it,

like reaching your hand into the snowy drift
until it tingles,
so that you can draw it back and be giddy with warmth again.

in the silence i can see better

and find that as i allowed you to weave this trap about my body first and then my heart,
i committed this one sin...a double edged sword, a sin first of body, later of heart.

it was a secret trap door. a thing i didn't know i knew i would need until, one day - it became clear, like a river clears itself of the debris from the storm, only by rushing forward, through treacherous ground...cutting the land, carving the rocks....until she finds the violence of the ocean, a strange new peace - open, free, wild

and still unknown


and still unknown

a tree grows

in my heart
where you are planted
each season, love blooms
a new color

with every turn of the sun,
each dance of the moon
a new harvest

for my son, my heart

softly speaking greys

they hush me awake...and maybe i prefer them to a lover's arms - no complications, no harm.

if only Romeo died

if only after softly waking, juliet had fled
running with remorseful love
while romeo lay dead

perhaps the tale wouldn't be so dear
and nothing we would pay to hear

still, if only after softly waking, juliet had run
she could have grown into a woman's heart
seen the folly and the wisdom

of what may have been a fiery passion
but no reason for an end

i wait, a letter of love, for your arms like an envelope to fold me back into existence

i lie to myself and by myself quietly, smiling to sleep that it's okay~ it's okay that those whom i've loved are happier now, beyond me...
i lie to myself and by myself quietly, sighing to the window that it's okay~ it's okay i am alone and lonely, finding a path beyond my own...

one day~ yesterday~ i was not bitter or jaded. the memories of who i was are not yet faint enough to delay this pain, the pain a snail must feel as she builds her shell.... an intricate, stone hard case, a beautiful trap whose purpose is to protect, to alienate...i wonder does she weep from behind that impenetrable swirl? does she long to be naked and just... not tense? i wonder if this particular snail remembers naivete like a treasure...the belief that things like love and hate are simple and easy to understand.

i lie to myself and by myself, watching her on the window sill, precarious movements testing the air and the edge... i lay beside her and pray she doesn't fall.

harry connick jr

with his three word name, like an assassin, kills me...his crooked lips
filled strong with conviction and song
i could bend like a reed under his will if only he knew how to reach me

he moves like a wild man, tamed...a thistle in a vase

i wish i knew him

stairs

whenever i am in a stairwell and i look up into that swirl of levels...that snail shell whirl above, like a woman's inner workings, pink and mysterious, no matter the numbers who have traveled there...i find you in my thoughts, our many conversations, held over distance when you couldn't hold me in your arms...you, with your sweet, low, gravel voice...whispering so that your wife wouldn't hear...i thought whispering because it was late....i think of you because the comparison is one you would've made, romantic and crass, one of my favorite traits....your dirty talk, like a poet drunk on sex and cheap wine, threatening me with the deepest love and dirtiest respect....

you were always a lily

in my mind, captured for beauty, almost strong enough to survive, and yet...
still, fervently reaching for the sun, that ever burning proof of love, something eternal beyond yourself always out of reach, just beyond a corner, or a curtain, a bee trapped inside of a window pane (pain), dying from thirst and desperation.

it hadn't occurred to me the strength that it takes to survive a transplant like that...from your link to the earth, cut off from your roots and brought to a glass trap, filled with water unfiltered by dirt, put on display and subject to the cruelest scrutiny of love...the hand of death and decomposition looming ever, waiting for the slightest threat of brown or wilt...

and yet you often run, a child with scissors towards the danger of love, and stand strong in the face of skepticism, my skepticism which is a hard foe to face...and so i see you, my mother and think of the strength of lillies...

the gladiator of them all

Starting over is a messy business like re-painting

I have just painted over an old canvas, and the nude which i had drawn beneath is still visible - head unsure on slight shoulders, knees not quite strong enough to hold the weight of her awkward but gorgeous hips. a poor rendition of a woman, a woman who does not know herself, and who looks to cower from that knowledge, she ducks her head, afraid that it will see her and she will not escape it...but still, here she is, visible to me - as though to flaunt my inadequate skill- as if to say - "look, starting over is a messy business and if you are going to do it, you will need more paint...and probably a better brush."

i lie to your face and in your arms.....

you are much more direct......

"you can't control this" becomes some sort of loud, menacing prayer...you say it so often it is like a blur in my head, a bee that never flies away or dies...


i cradle things more important than you or i ~ i fold them into my body, rewinding the tape until they are protected... my boy, my hope...

i forget to protect my love, and it begins to erode like a rock in a river...thousands of markers, fossils, begin to be rubbed away by the current of words, actions, reactions....

until suddenly~ i rise up from the river unburdened and climb to the shore

day traders

The bruises are gone and so, I think,
the healing is done.

We speak now of what we want~ easy things,
things like love
warmth,
the caress of a beloved hand at just the right spot

they are all the same, we compare score cards of heart and love...

it seems perhaps we are not so easy after all....

i don't even care....

in the morning, i wake up and walk around naked and nobody bothers me or picks a fight.

at night, i come home, make snacks for my son and myself, and lay around reading stories, playing cars and making messes that don't bother any one.

the last nine chapters of my book i read uninterrupted.

when i go out, i talk to everyone - and nobody accuses me of sleeping around because of it.

i spend most of my time smiling on the outside cause i'm doing such a good job....

but i don't even care

cause you're hurting and none of my smiles can fix anything

ain't nobody dope as me

i'm just so fresh and clean

over night, the trees have changed their minds
and gone from sweetly singing green
to softly yellow sighs

and those who faltered with the stress
have gently shed their leaves
a thousand tiny suicides
colorful with grief

the whole wide world is turning grey,
and i am walking lost,
so lay upon the shivering ground
and whisper to the frost

walking the fence

i'm a tightrope walker and a bullet dodger
a killer, a lover, a liar
high priestess and bar fly.
kitten with deep claws, criminal with no pause

i am used and abusing my sight.
done this before like a high school drop out...just trying to get some damn thing right.

i am not every girl

and it's presumptuous and more than a little rude
for me to dance and assume, that every song is sung for me

and so i drive away,
i drive fast so you won't see
that every breath is for you,
like every tear is for me

'cause i am not every girl -
your indifference tells me so....
and it is what it is...

and so the story goes

this new ground...

is familiar, although i stumble.

the bruises you leave are bruises that were already here. and this is no fault of yours, cause you only followed where i led,

and i am trying to leave you alone, but i can't find my way out of your head.

another argument, nothing sweet or simple

i'm drunk and looking for words that rhyme, but all i find are words that are true...that we fucked up, and now...

we don't know what to do.

Hawk

i saw her
she rose above the solid sun river
grace, like a wind, surrounded her

my heart, the betrayer
sang we were the same

and i watched, horrified and fascinated
as she circled and dove
vanished and appeared,
a small creature struggled in her grip,
struggled and tore itself apart as she bent her head to watch

i listened to my heart scream with knowledge
because i know this dream,
a dream of love
of killing the being you need, to survive

of knowing that love may die
if you kill it

things i didn't know

it takes longer than i thought to heal from a broken heart - and in the meantime you can do damage to more than just yourself. i didn't learn any lessons like i thought i would.

and i only ended up slamming my fingers in the door as i left so angry.

the truth is you were perfect

it's just...maybe i'm a broken teacup, and perfect just doesn't fit well with my design. it's not your fault, and it is okay...

we'll be okay, i swear

there has to be something

i don't have much to give - i said looking at my hands - i already gave it all

but i don't think he heard me, and now when i tell him - i have nothing left- i don't think he believes me... he thinks i have the patience to try and make him a better man, he thinks that his love can conquer all...and i cry because i believe that love can conquer all, but there has to be something...

confessions deep and dark

i like to eat cool whip straight from the container. i don't care for dog slobber and sometimes i spend hours in the bathroom inspecting my eyebrows. i think helping someone pop a zit on their back is a sign of just how much you love them. i like football, i do, but i always fall asleep during the games because let's face it, sometimes they are damn boring. i don't care enough about my lawn to mow it. i don't think smoking cigarettes is a yucky habit. it's sexy as hell and you know it. i feel more guilty about not subscribing to NPR than i do about fantasizing about having sex in the balcony of my mother's church. i like to smile at people. i think it makes them happy to see that they make me happy just by smiling back. i eat salad with my fingers and i believe this makes it taste better. sometimes, on Saturdays, i walk around in my backyard in the early morning, before my husband or my baby wakes, i walk barefoot, and i lie down in my too tall grass and i listen to the earth. she brings me peace, and i send my soul out into the universe to find yours, to see if it wants to talk.

beginnings and endings...

to apartment, or not to apartment...that is the question...

we both know the answer, it just stings.

this should have been here

i meant to
start a new blog in secret. you know, so that i would have a place to put these things...so that i could save this new journey for posterity's sake. .... wait. ... scratch that. i don't even know what "posterity" means. but something in me has things to say, and wants somehow those things to be saved, to be placed somewhere eternal...and books...they burn so easily, they drown so quickly in landfills or basement floods. ...the thing is, sitting here - i feel a certain peace... a little bit of heaven is this... ( giggle to self)... you see, i freaked out. Realized some things about the past two years, suddenly found myself falling in love with ... a memory.... and, me? aren't i a fighter for love? don't i believe that you should always leave when you are unhappy, you should stand on the doorstep of the person you need and proclaim your love no matter how doomed or wonderful or who you kill to get there. Why, just step over those corpses, and throw your self upon the mercy of the one person you know you love more than anything and damn the resonance cannons....full speed ahead...because coming home now is never as fun as it was to come home then, waking up with a smile is now hard to do, and "life seems nothing more than a quick succession of busy nothings"....and at the bottom of all of this, man, i just miss my friend. i do. i miss knowing my teammate understood that sometimes i talk some shit. i miss knowing that sometimes he got a little lost in thought. i miss pickle ball. i miss movies we both loved...i miss someone who sang along and danced along and got drunk from tea and didn't mind that i snore a little (or a lot)....damn it, i miss the politeness, the kind words because we both felt that when you love someone you are kind.but isn't that the way it goes? when things you didn't know were wrong reveal themselves too late...and you find that what you thought was a day at the beach turns out to be a hole you dug....and what's this? the walls are pretty high, and it's going to take some time because believe it or not, you DO have to dig your self out...it takes a kick in the ass to wake you up sometimes...because there are mistakes being made here and mostly by me...

giving in

i sat on the bed in your hotel room, green haze and magic brownies, strange tv and somewhere garrett laughing...i don't remember the jokes, but i remember us laughing, i remember the conversation, the hope of your smile, the way i liked right off the bat how your eyes crinkled at the outside edges when you bellowed how funny we were

i remember finding you in the crowd, perhaps you found me, and the gentlest first kiss... a new years kiss... my first one ever, and how at that moment i wished that you would love me, that i would be your girl...and how i felt with my whole self for that moment that i would love you forever...

watching you from the corner of my eyes, trying to be smooth - i mean me, i was trying to be smooth, trying not to let on how much i wanted to be near you, hear your voice, hear you speak my name, touch my hand, sing with me... i buried myself in beer and was overjoyed when your secret spilled onto the napkin on my table...

she in the other room, with you, yelling...my knees drawn up to my chin on the bed in your bed in your pajamas, in your bedroom, knowing that although we had done nothing wrong, we had somehow done things wrong and hurt someone you cared for, but also being so happy to be with you that she wasn't relevant... not yet, not until years later when i understood her so much better...

you in the mirror, biting your lip while you played with your hair and toyed with the idea of a shower before we left, later watching you sway to our favorite songs, there were so many, and i was so proud always to walk in on your arm, to have the freedom and be so blessed as to be yours, i whispered it to myself for years...that i was yours...even later, after the mess and my impending doom i whispered it to myself, that i had had the freedom and been so blessed as to be yours...

i can't get away. it hurts and it kills every day that i am still yours and you are not here, but i can't get away and after three years, now i don't even try to hide it any more...

i was wrong.

i know where the crap came from. you brought it with you. it was tied up in a beautiful smile and tender kisses. remember them? you used them to hide the mood swings and rudeness. all those tiny bullets that have been killing me for years now.

the question that tears through me, tied with love and thought to the bullets as they come is -

what do we do now?

Where did all this crap come from???

i've a sneaky suspicion that it was always here...piled up beside back issues of "Poor Me" and "Green Grass and How to Spot It"...yeah, and that old classic standby "Leaving Your Lover: 50 Ways to Screw Things Up"

Where am i going this fine day?

ah.... where AM i going???

further and further into Grown Up Land, maybe? a place i never, ever wanted to go, not even for a second, not even just to look around...not even if the wine is fuller and sweeter with age...(which it is damn it, it IS!!!) maybe i will look around after all, but damn it i won't ever live here!...i don't think they'd let me anyway... (giggle)

perhaps i am going quietly crazy with this new found love, freshly sprung from the ground and my womb, stronger than any mountain, or wind or sun or beast, or song, or planet - stronger than all of these, stronger every second because all of these created this love and as they turnburnriseblowendbegin, it grows stronger because these things made me and are a part of it...

mostly i think am just going to the place where i knew i would go eventually. the place where i would no longer be capable of denying the cold hard facts of my heart, which are as follows...

1. that my heart is neither cold, nor hard and never was, only hiding for a moment because it got so frightened...
2. the first cut IS always the deepest, and it is the deepest only because it never really heals up, and it never really heals up because as we all know, for things to heal properly they need a kiss and a superhero band-aid
3. you can never go back, but you can always go forward and sometimes...the way forward is also the way back

yes?

The Air Is Sweet and Fragrant.....

And None May Pass Without My Permission!!!


The air IS sweet and fragrant, rebel snow and all -the crisp sky stretches before me like a sheet in the wind... i remember times when most my time was spent three sheets to the wind... or maybe four...sometimes five...and now i live simply - high on life and on a good day Love as well. Thinking of our little stretch of land and the possibilities it holds... i think there is more growing there than tree and faery... underneath the Roses, nestled deep within the still sleeping earth there are secret tendrils beginning to unfurl and sigh towards the light....


my heart hears them coming and rejoices...

in like a lion............out like a breeze...........

the Puget Sound sweeps in with the calm hardworking rhythm of a woman washing clothes by hand...i pretend that they are my clothes she's washing, and that the hands she's using are my hands...my fingers are slender brown icicles anyway, shaped by the wind that blows in, relentless like my future...i pull the sticks out of my hair and it blows into my eyes happy to be free - maybe someone will see how romantic i am and take a picture...i could live forever on a postcard, an advertisement to generations down the road of what the earth once looked like, that there was once a beach so new and wild that even though you took off your socks and shoes to feel the sand, you still wore a coat because it was that cold......

The Poet is the Fool

The poet is the fool always the fool because every one thinks she tells the truth and it’s only the truth sometimes, it’s only part of them she writes about, it’s only a glimpse of the day she sees and brings it to the paper like an offering of love, saying here, here, it is this I loved and have brought it to you because you may just like the taste of it…the paper is the fool as well because he always takes what she brings and sometimes it is bitter, sometimes it is ugly, sometimes it is not filled with the beauty of her soul, he is like every man and does not wish for both sides of the coin, he wants only to have the feel of it, to close his eyes and feel it’s shape lying upon him…but, everyone is the fool because the poet is a liar turning tinsel into silver and selling them a dream, a dream they believe is about them, they think her works reflect something in themselves, as though she placed mirrors in her words on purpose, when all she did is have a drink and become thoughtful.

The Answer Is...

sometimes.


sometimes i turn around and realize i've already been here.
sometimes i dream of a beach in the future where you and i sit and wonder why it took us so long.
sometimes the risk is worth it.
sometimes i cry alone because that is the only way i can cry to someone who understands.
sometimes i laugh this way too.
sometimes i wish it was yesterday.
sometimes toast is actually better after it's been dropped. i think that's because you know what you could've lost.
sometimes the only hope i have is secret.
sometimes the only way to keep a friend, is to let go.

sometimes i still sing christmas carols.
sometimes i still dance alone.
sometimes i smile at the sky and know that you can feel it.

Big New

Sometimes, at the strangest moment of your life, those times when all you see seems to have been a sick joke, or a bad night drinking full of wrong turns through questionable neighborhoods, sometimes you wake up on a new morning and realize that it *is* a New Morning...and old things are beautiful again, and loved jokes are laughable again and old friends are wished close again and worn t shirts are worn again....and dances - the dances of loved ones, and silly ones and cold and warm ones - those dances are danced again...and no one can take these things. not even if you give them away....

New Favorite Song: Sneaking Sally Through the Alley
New Favorite Snack: triscuits, and cheese
New Favorite Past Time: knitting
New Favorite Movie: Pride and Prejudice
New Favorite Pet: Millie Bean
New Favorite Spot: Beach
New Favorite Favorite:...................................somewhere out there

i know this much is true

a friend said that lately my blog reads like an obituary and i know he's right...it's been a year since i noticed how beautifully the sunlight filters through the leaves in the morning, or truly laughed...


i'm so afraid that i've made the biggest mistake of my life out of spite....or that i'm killing myself slowly as penance for every hurt i've ever caused....there have been so many...i can see them buried in my eyes when i look in the rear view mirror...which i do alot...waiting for the day i make my dream come true

life is like a box of chocolates

you'd better choose carefully because the one you pick might taste like shit.

can't beleive i've stooped to rhyming...

going out of my head and i don't think there's a cure,
might be nicer if you were here, but can't tell for sure.

left behind a pretty nice life - i guess if you don't mind the drugs...
all those hellos and goodbyes, rounds and rounds of hugs...

itching to call you up, see if there's room for beer...
i think it might be nicer if you were only here.

another installment of happy confessions

sometimes i don't eat because i'm too lazy to make anything - even cold cereal. i'm afraid of getting fat feet - which is a major reason i don't want to ever have babies. when i'm by myself in the car, i practice my acceptance speech. just in case i ever win. tom cruise scares me more than cancer. i always look behind the shower curtain before i sit down on the toilet. you never know what might be there. every time you get angry i think about leaving. not because i don't love you, but because i don't know if i love you enough. i still sometimes dream of being an elf. i talk on my cell phone while i pump my gas. the wedding march reminds me of Darth Vader. i love disco. i answered the phone while having sex - it was my boss calling to say he hoped i'd get well soon. i did.

big fat juicy love

i'm terrified of the deep, dark, squishy bottom of the lake, river, ocean...when i wake in the night choking, it's always from dreams of drowning...my hands stretched up towards the green light of the surface, waving slowly ...goodbye sun...goodbye air...goodbye...like a princess on parade.

when i venture in to the cold, wet chill of the ocean, my feet never leave the sand - i cling with my toes to rocks and, i believe, life...

people have joked, myself included, that i am a Cat, fond of drinking it, but never really happy about immersing myself in water..."the only good water, is bath water" i've been known to announce...

on my list of Things I'd Like To Do Less Than Shoving White Hot Pokers Into My Eyes, waterskiing is number three.

and yet - you are a fish...so, i am learning to swim.

i thought there might be something...

some sort of soul changing catalyst - something that made me honest, made me good made me more than i am, something like the hand of God to ring my bell and wake me up - but when i woke up this morning i knew for sure that like my only true favorite ever said "i will only ever be selfish"...

and long ago i cursed myself with the most selfish wish i could find and now i leave behind the hearts like bodies broken beneath the wheels of an unstoppable summer wind....


i thought there might be something...and i think i might have been wrong

i've been in love

i've been in love - each time with a different man, and each man so different - the artist, the musician, the asshole, the irish...

and it's been great

get on the train

taking turns is difficult, even for grownups...we all itch for the bat, we all wanna push the kid in front so's we can be closer to the story book...

staring hard at you, i realize this, that we never really stop waiting for our turn. in my mind, you all revolve through my heart, each one of you waiting his turn for the spotlight. And do you realize - i wonder if you know this - that what you revolve around is just me? My ego is the sun and you are the planets that validate my existence.

if you stopped turning for me the universe would fold in on itself and i would disappear

Crest Whitening Strips

to this day, whenever i use them i giggle, thinking of you - how you left them on my night table... Happy Fathers Day Pooh

breaking the girl

with the romantic slide of a credit card across a hard surface...if i had a whiskey river i might forget i never learned to swim

butter side up

all this love - and always for someone else, for some other time, for something i can't put my finger on...

the ability to settle in and settle down is not a trait i have although, it's too late i think for a revelation such as this. so what to do? in this time of Tucker Max and Carrie Bradshaw - everybody searching for the everlasting but finding the search funner than the end result - what to do?

"If you can't be with the one you Love -Love the one you're with?" i always hated that lyric - it was near the top of my list of "Shittiest Lyrics Ever" ... too dishonest, it reeks of a housewife who dreams of other lives, basement apartments, fast cars and freedom...

not to confuse the issue is the fact that i truly do love the one i'm with....it's just that somehow, my subconcious wakes me up with the pin prick of another lyric i've always hated..."love and marriage goes together like a horse and carriage"

i mean really, how does a horse and carriage compare to a 1969 Chevy Nova SS?

is it okay

that i miss you so much? Those hours and hours of sweet conversation, lying in each others arms a million miles apart. Making love over the airwaves, not phone sex - but building our love in words and confessions. Building a giant, vulnerable mountain one that we would ultimately never even get to climb...and i know that's my fault. Turns out i put all my eggs in the wrong basket, and i know that it was worth it to know what i know now...but oh, i still miss you...

dreampt of you last night, those long hard lingering kisses. the best kisses of my life - it was one of those dreams where you know that you are dreaming and you try so hard to stay sleeping because morning will not be as fun as sleeping. i think i would have been able to keep you at bay if it weren't for your kisses. you surprised me with the first one - i remember that i didn't expect it, and then i knew that no matter how hard i tried to keep you as a friend and nothing else that one kiss would be lingering on my lips like a raspberry stain, to trip me up and make me want more...conversation and kisses...i could have dined forever on your conversation and kisses.

the first hard kill

because your hands are still beautiful splayed across the strings like that they remind me of the way they danced over the buttons on my jeans and the fabric of my shirt, like i was a gift you could not wait until Christmas to open.

i remember the taste of life from inside your mouth, bootlegged beer and cigarrettes - the tragedy of life at fifteen is that you don't yet know that you'll miss those moments, making out in the backseat, on the floor, saying "no", "no", "no" as though it were your whole life you were about to give up and the ache was too good to complete...

and now driving home, the top down and the music loud, i remember years later when we were friends, me still a silly girl, hiding behind smoke and mirrors, still madly in love and hoping, hoping, hoping, hoping that you would never forget the songs you wrote for me ....

and i dreamed of the day when you would pull up to my window and tell me we were leaving

~i'm running away ~ you'd say ~ come with me~

and i would throw out my bag and and gather all of my faith and leap onto the horizon with you because we both knew that the secret is music first

the words will come ...but the music is always first

cheap red wine and a harley

at times it crawls up from somewhere deep inside of me...somewhere close to my liver maybe...spreading warmth like whisky...a tiny smile that tickles my lips with thoughts of...our last shared laugh, a few dirty words, my legs wrapped around your slender hips, together walking the streets of dawn building towers with our words and knocking them down with our drunken guffaws...our egos ringing off the sides of cars as they passed us, swerving at the sight of what we were - a many armed, four legged happily drowning monster with a filthy mouth and a strangulation fetish...for three minutes before the guilt of your cunt-face wife and my dog-face boy caught up with us, we were truly happy...

car dancing

the thing is...at the strangest times...i miss you.

and i think to myself, what a wonderful (fucked up) world...there was something that you knew afterall, that i didn't.

and now, finally knowing it...i'm quite content to let things happen as they will. Because as an angel who may have been a Beatle once said - Let it be.

12:50pm a thousand dreams ago

To sit outside and listen to the silence pour out of these trees like music from an ancient piano.

Few Hours Later…
I’ve never felt soft sunlight before: this sunlight is defiantly soft and it is kissing my neck like some friendly beast with a soft, soft tongue.
There is a tree above me, I am not sure of his name, he has millions and zillions of needles clustered at the ends of his arms like dandelion tufts and he doesn’t squirm a bit when I touch him, he doesn’t reach out to poke or prod.
How satisfying to sit with his quiet company and have a smoke - to watch this smoke curl up through my eyelashes. If I had a lover I would surely leave him. The delicious aroma, this sunshine air atmosphere brings out a personality in me that is so gorgeously dull. I feel as if I could become a mother.

Still Later...
Sometimes when people look at me it’s as though they are peering straight into my naked soul…how dare…

book one

Crawl away, take a moment just one. Take it in and hold it there, walk among the fields today, walk under stars sometime it may set you free. If life is a prison, you’ve got the cell with the view. Get away, from your life, take a vacation from your mind. Anyway you want to take it it’s up to you.

The air is yours, you paid the tab at birth, so take it all in. crawl away, get to your feet and run through this space, everywhere you see that’s where you can be. Never close your skin to this sensation. Around the hill, underneath all this weight, you will find your freedom buried.

Run now, if you go fast enough I’m pretty sure you can take flight. Write a letter to your future self, help you remember what you know now, if you sleep deep enough, I’m pretty sure you won’t need a stamp.


You can go right now. If you run far enough I’m sure things will crumble slower than you can leave...wash yourself with the streetlights till you’re pure again and there’s nothing that some smoke and mirrors can’t clear. Stepping on the razor of this life, the fragile line between happy and complacent , it can never smooth, this silver line... no one you ever love or lose will ever solve this crease. like a river it folds the country of your body in half.

Never beneath any other sheets did my life make so much sense. If ever there was a puzzle i think God hid it under your skin and left me here in torture to find it. And i reach between your eyes with my soul to find what i know must be hidden there. I will it there.. and dreams be damned i know you feel it crawling beside your veins.

I drove all night, I drove all day Up and down passes just to feel like I was running away

For someone’s arms around me, it’s a risk I would take, that when you come, my heart would break. For someone’s arms around me, in the dawn, in the night....

irish eyes

there was a lover once i had,
who with his fingers traced my hand,

and when he lingered at my lips,
it was the deepest river kiss

he took me down and held me there
and when his fingers traced my hips,
i followed like the sand

there was a lover once i had
who shaped my body with the sea
and when my soul was freshly bathed,
he gave it back to me

Metaphor sex but she just laughed and walked away

i didn't know i was so hungry until i began to eat, didn't know that i was so thirsty until i began to drink and now that i am seated at the head of your table with all of your goodness before me... your body a canvas of skin and scent, lit gently through the curtains by a grinning street lamp....
your love is wine and i am drunk, swooning like a fifteenth century Italian woman, bent before your eyes like a cat....
i call out your name across the expanse of our bed, it is empty like my arms but your words lick my soul, your voice makes love to heart, and as my lungs fall into jealous rage, I call your name

there are lines to be drawn and conclusions to be crossed

and in the middle of both lies a pile of memories, good ones - filled with laughter and spaghetti, the tangy smell of beer and the sweetness of sunday sheets. let's leave them where they lay, in their happy sprawl. let us leave the aching ones as well, for they will be like rotting grapes, and add the flavor of good wine to the rest if left alone.

let us sigh, and smile, and let us close the door...twilight comes, and then the dawn - and oh~ the dawn brings songs of colour and light...

and those songs are always the ones to sing

the cryptic song of a relentless heart ( and Oh, How Melodramatic it can Be!)

if i lean, quite far enough, i believe the wind will sweep me up, and together you and i ( you of course being my secret twin, my only truly undiscovered dream) will slip beyond the purple atmosphere ( we never liked purple, you or i) and slide around the rainbow ring of the moon...do you remember drawing a line for me, across a sidewalk in Seattle, bending time around it, so that in my mind, there we sit for always, you, patient like the Dalai Lama, waiting for me to put aside the fears i carried and answer you ... and me - so afraid...so scared beyond even the ability to breathe ... that i never answered you... i still carry the answer, and every day i close my eyes, hoping for the ability to lean far enough into that Yesterday to give you the answer...

you asked me what if, and the answer is it does

a friend of a friend says that the bridge is found within and i believe him because i travel it, even as i build it

can of peas

a can of peas is on the right side of the monitor, always on the right side and lately everything i write seems to say nothing. is it true then that the muse only loves a tortured writer - have i shoed her away then by being so happy?

i look at Can of Peas - a secret reminder....and i wonder....

was it a fair trade?

confucius say: woman who has cat, hates pussy

my cat wakes me up during the night.

she jumps onto my head, curls up like a furry donut and purrs on my ear.

she knows that every single door in my apartment is loose in the jamb, so she walks from door to door and pushes them to make them rattle....until i get out of bed to let her out ( or in as the case may be) once she sees i'm out of bed she runs to my pillow and curls up falling instantly asleep.

i can't sleep on my pillow if she steps on it. i've tried but all i can see behind my closed eyelids are her little paws in the litter box, scratch - scratch - scratching up bacteria and feces......then i have to get up, wash my face and my hair, change my pillow case and my pajama shirt....and...you get the idea.

yesterday i got so fed up with Cat, that i spent a good fifteen minutes chasing her around...then i put her in her Kitty Travel Case, put a blanket on the top ( this is becuase she knows how to open it...i don't know how she does this with no opposable thumbs but she's sharp as Satan) put her in a closet, shut the door and went to sleep....

it would have been a peaceful night except that i kept waking up to press my ear against the closet door to make sure she wasn't crying.....

(sigh)

with my favorite song for a pillow i fall asleep

a dream ago i was running through a feild or a building, chasing myself into rooms where i could see myself dancing, stretching myself over these bones, solving the ache that i forgot to tell you i remember.

every glance backwards confirms that i'm over the worst hurt i ever had, and if it only took this long, could it have been so bad? nevermind that the otherside of my skin is torn with the scars inflicted to aide in forgetting...

"you won't hurt yourself?" you asked
"don't flatter yourself" i said

and i didn't hurt myself unless you count running through the mess you left behind over and over again until there were bruises layered over bruises like thick cloth covering up my heart....

i didn't hurt myself unless you count replaying the memories in my head until i was so delirious with greif that i fell down the stairs and couldn't even be bothered to get back up after i'd reached the bottom...

i didn't hurt myself at all, because as i wandered the streets of my heart, trying to repair the nuclear damage of your actions i was so intent on NOT hurting myself that i forgot to look both ways when i crossed the street and when the glorious beast ran me down, i didn't feel a thing....the thick bruise cloths that covered my heart protected me... i knew that nothing could ever hurt me again...i would never again be on the losing end, protected by the hurt i'd already felt, i could go on and on and on and even when this beast began to swallow me whole, the teeth never hurt...

and i still remember you in my prayers because i know that the correct answer to your question wasn't "don't flatter yourself" but "never as badly as you're going to hurt yourself..."

and i lie in the belly of the beast, curled up on his heart, protected by hurt and love and all the juices of both...with my favorite song for a pillow i fall asleep...

when i think of you i feel like throwing up

it's seven o'clock and the sun is setting...i can't believe it's almost been a year...the sun slides off the buildings across the way, even they shake off the idea of fall...a little melancholy comes in through cracks, and i wish that i could go back...twenty two sounds so good...i remember twenty two was so good...

the wind of the sea still moves me but everything else has changed

i'm being romantic, leaning out and over, watching you on the corner...it's raining and you drove three hours and five hundred miles to see me....to see me flip you off from behind the glass door, to hear me shout that you should fuck off, forget our love, go away or anything else besides stand there in the rain on the corner waiting for me to give...and i wish you would go because i know i will give, i can feel it starting already....deep in my stomache, i can feel the girl in me who wants nothing more than to curl up next to her friend and talk talk talk until dawn and sleep takes them over....the girl who yearns for more intimacy than nakedness can give, the girl who says that a soulmate without speaking is no soulmate at all....my insides were never stirred the way you offered to stir them with your frankness and your honesty.

years later after finding what i was looking for from the back of your bike i can smile about this and make an offering of hope for you.

i hope you find what you were looking for when you were looking for me to let you in.


....


years later and i'm miles away myself now having grown up to hear my own voice

just trying to be friday

it's a good day for spacing out....and after talking with the sun for a while we come to the conclusion that of all of man's feeble attempts at humor, work is the worst.

somewhere in this crazy ass ocean there are rocks to step on and i just might follow them home to you...

there's a mirror pegged to the wall and i stand there dumbfounded wondering who the hell carved out the pumpkin grin reflected there... oh, my if this is who i am when i grow up then put me back now!!damn. all those years i worked so hard to stay alive and this is all i made?i must be angry.i must be so angry because my fists are cutting themselves with nails, and i can feel the furious tomatoes of color bursting on my cheeks. if i turn around to throw some of this emotion your way i know i'll slip on these fragile stairs and tumble backwards to break my will and my neck.But i'm not angry because of who i am, i'm angry because you never see it, you've never heard my voice or cared enough to listen for it. Even when i screamed you offered gifts and silence instead of the only thing i really looked for which was a shoulder for more than crying on.

up into the abyss

every moment that i hold you is a moment closer to death, that ecstasy of climbing the highest peak and jumping off to float into the atmosphere, nothing but the sun to cushion my fall...this is a delicate balance, a fine line like the Rockies from space...a skewed vision, only my perspective of love, of dreams, of finely tuned illusions. kept secret since childhood, and coming to terms with the fact that there is nothing wonderful about me at all except my ability to love...and that's the only quality i need.

and we lie so close...linked by verizon and a wish for intimacy, and you reveal no longing to know who i was when i wasn't yours but that's ok. because i was crushed like an aluminum can, and stuffed in the blender of life, churned until no trace of my soul was left. so what you see is brand new. there is no one else like this girl in the world. i am a brand new invention, built out of trust in blood and sweat and imagination. i've bathed in hurt and come out crystal clear and strong, like china, like lace, like music...and this is it. the only truth that i can present...who i was has been crushed to a fine dust...and as i stand on the edge of God's seat i hold my past out to the wind, ashes to ashes ~ and i know that if i jump there may be more to catch me than sunlight...my soul is out there swirling in the blue ... waiting for me to have the courage to throw back my arms and leap

Rhyncovanda Herbert Kurihara

this very moment after days of thinking perhaps i really will go insane, i realize that it has been hundreds of hours since i last wrote anything and i remember lying there with you, words tripping over my drunk lips trying to tell you just exactly how i came to be this maniac two faced lyrical soothsayer...thinking i was so genius, thinking that i had things that mattered in my heart, that there were so many ways that i could confess to bring you closer....

and reading here, i find that every word ever thought, every poetic dream ever shared between the sheets, every moment of thinking i might really go insane was made so much better because underneath it was the knowledge that i would use whatever was passing through me in those seconds to write....nothing else makes me whole....this is the sand pit i dig under your feet, to suck you in and hold you close to my heart, i think that if you could just see every bone beneath my skin, if i bared my teeth and my soul you could never leave, you could never walk away from such vulnerability... you would be mesmerized by my unfolding orchid, like the most beautiful opening in the world

throwing rocks at santa

another jonas day and this one brought on by nothing except happenstance...this is a day that brings out the dark, where you understand why people climb to the top of the building and jump even when there's no fire...this is a day for tailgating and mailbox baseball. it's a day for every mean kid to triumph.

this is a day for eating all the candy in front of your friends....


but after five, it'll probably get better

Haiku for Beer....(kudos to ethan watters)

a simple statement
breeds a thousand words
outside it still rains

i walk beneath trees
possibilities shake them
and their seeds fall down

every footstep sound
reminds me of another
who makes the same sound


soul mates tumble through this life on parallel strings
waiting for the breeze to intersect them
sometimes the lines are closer to spiders web than silk,
lines get tangled and time won't stop to help them

sometimes you must do your own reaching, across space and time - you must throw yourself across that distance - see if your line is strong enough to carry you towards your love...sometimes the only breeze blowing is the breath of faith that comes with hope

i admit...i like to confess

i dropped my sandwich on the floor face down and still ate it. i'm scared of the dark. every time i get in the elevator with a group of strangers i wonder what they would be like in bed. actually i wonder that about every person i see at least one time or another. sometimes i turn my phone off when my friends call because i just don't want to hear anything they have to say. i feel like crying when i see road kill. i still dream that one day i will be famous. i believe in magic and faeries and the goodness of mankind. when i was four i saw a woman with boobie tassels on Taxi and begged my grandma to buy me a pair- i was mesmerized by the way she made them twirl. the day i heard my step-father died was one of the happiest days of my life. i know it bothers my girlfriends when i don't wear a bra. sometimes this is the only reason i have for not wearing one. i burnt my hands in the fire because i was trying to scoop out a moth before it died. i didn't learn to ride a bike until i was 6 and i was ashamed to tell anyone that until just now. i read the last chapter to see how things turn out. when people say i'm sweet or pretty it makes me happy. i ate an entire sheet cake every day for six months. i can tell when people are lying and most of the time i let them. when i eat apples i eat the core too because there are starving people in Africa. i think babies smell like bleach. i never wanted to get married because i didn't think i could love someone for the rest of my life. now i know i was wrong.

honey is sweet sweet poison

dreams are for reading, for diving into like cold icy waters and fishing around in...sweet dreams are made of this...of a car on the freeway blowing south...trailing clothes and responsibility like exhaust...once i sat at this machine and was a golden child, people walked beside me and waited for the next amazing insight or terrible wonder to appear, i gave birth to them like a tireless branch gives birth to grapes and they rolled forth, fat juicy babies ripe and bursting with promises and water...

it's been a decade almost and i know you follow me like rabid bees because you can smell my fear...

you're so vain, you probably think this blog is about you, don't you?

i miss my friend...and when he wasn't, i missed him then too. is there a way i wonder to make cookies out of these crumbs? let's not be rash, i have no expectations, no desire to jeopardize anything we've gained since our path was split, just a hankering for some one who thinks that dead girls dressed as bunnies are funny and the best throw up ever is rainbow sherbert. but harry was right when he said that there is no room for a platonic friendship between a man and a woman. and i was right when i said that you can't be friends with someone you've seen naked...no matter what happens there is always that awkward knowledge of someone else's private parts lingering about your brain...like a guest who's worn out their welcome.

but it's funny because now there's room for truth, it came with the room for friendship and perhaps is only here because we both have someone else....and i don't want any shying away because there's no reason to run from truth.....but there are so many truths, what to do when they face each other instead of walking side by side?

kiss my filthy mouth and love it

it sounds cliche, but i walk through the night, under, beside and above the rain - feeling it soak me, knowing i should wear a coat, get out of the road or put some shoes on...my body convulses with the cold, and i know i'm catching my death in sneezes and coughs...but this is too pure, this rain is the blood of the lamb and because i walk with my face up to God, he blesses me...

am i some sort of hypocrite i ask myself? am i a liar when i feel pure? if i love the way you throw me on the bed and hold me down, if i love the curses that come whispering out of my lips when we reach the top, if i caress the bruises left behind when i shower am i less good than i thought i was when i thought that i was innocent?

smiling up at the silver horizon i thank God for daisy chains and daydreams, i thank God that i have sweet lips and a wicked tongue, i thank Him for my halo and the fact that it's a little bit bent.

jumping off

i hope it's as beautiful for you as it is for me...this sky...it aches and sings with a clarity i feel i don't deserve...i'm choking over this desert, it crept into my throat during the night and no matter how much water i drink it's there, vicious sand tripping up my breath and holding my lungs hostage...this is what it's like i know, once you dive into love you sacrifice everything and you have no right to ask for any of it back. all you can do is the best you know how and pray to God you don't fuck up.
so now i pray...i close my eyes and i trace the shape of your memory....i bruise my knees with prayer...don't let me fuck up...but right now it's not God i'm asking, it's myself. i walk away from myself, eight, nine, ten paces out i turn and look at myself. i count the scars, i count the gravel under my feet, i count the notches on my belt and i ask myself if all of those marks of growth were worth it...


so here i am, on the chopping block, waiting for the song the air makes as the axe cuts through on it's way to my heart....

altheasong

the window beckons across Formica and bad indoor/outdoor carpet, fluorescent lighting turns me a light, buzzing green and as i follow my heart to the edge of my seat and lean to see the trees, i remember dreams of pushing you out this very window...pushing you to your death and being happy at your fall...life is odd

Confessional Forum III

Subject: Is this the confessional forum?
Text: Well where to begin...My life's goal is to
travel the world. I listen to classical, jazz, rock, and ragtime. I dance uninhibited while fantasizing about Tom Cruise in Top Gun. My IQ is something I will never reveal so people won't be jealous. I can't eat off a plate if there are any weird smells in the room, or if the food looks funny. Sometimes I like to walk on the beach in the pouring rain, run around town with my braves #1 foam hand, hug people, dance with my cat, and watch movies that make me cry. Sometimes I really miss the rain. I do believe in God and science, and firmly believe in evolution. I like to look in the mirror and practice my award acceptance speech but only if no ones looking. I have a big ego. My mouth gets me in a lot of trouble. I am proud and humbled by my parent's sacrifices for my well being and education and have many fond memories of my childhood, but I am happy for the most part and a very loyal person. I work in a hotel while finishing college, and have dreams of being an advertising/PR exec. ......

Confessional Forum II

Below are confessions sent to me from friends and friends of friends. i'm sure there will be more..

Text: This is how I will respond….. I don’t have a life’s goal because that would mean I was committed to life and I still haven’t made up my mind. I really don’t listen to music anymore it’s too loud. I tried National Public Radio but it was way too fast paced for me. Instead of music I listen to the neighbors fight while wearing my princess Leigh out fit and eating bon bons. I think there is a disease called IQ but I don’t have it. I pick the gum off from under tables and chew it. I tried to insure my elbows because I believe I have the sexiest elbows in the world. Fun is building my statue made of eye boogers and adding to my collection of belly button fuzz while humming the French national anthem all at the same time. I feel that religion should be replaced with the words of the “Lizard King” and everyone would be much happier. I like the way a wind bath feels on my naked body just not sure why my neighbors have to call the cops every time. I like to think of several different ways to do the same thing. My eyes tend to cross when people drive me crazy. I am dorky and kind, but silly most of the time and a down right upstanding citizen. I work in the mailroom, but have dreams of becoming the new purple dinosaur that kids love more than Barney…….
................................

Subject: Is this the confessional forum?

Text: Well where to begin...My life's goal is to own a piece of the moon. I listen to rap music wearing a huge Mexican hat and often dance around my house in nothing but a tutu and gorilla slippers. I have an IQ of 163 but dyed my hair blonde to counteract all that intelligence, so now it is 129. I can't eat off plates that have pictures of horses on then. Sometimes I like to chew fun, run through the house with scissors, eat whip cream straight from the spray nozzle and compose piano symphonies in my head all at the same time. I am agnostic, but I follow the Ten Commandments anyway and I do pray and often I use the chat rooms as confessionals. I like the way a q-tip feels in my ear. I have a very long tongue. My eyes get me in a lot of trouble. I am weird and geeky, but I am happy most of the time and a dang decent person. I work in IT, but have dreams of being a Vegas showgirl......