and now for something completely different

i want to write about something good.
the way i feel when the wind blows and the tree in the yard rustles.
a good cup of coffee with cream and sugar.
a little mouth calling out "i love you to pieces".
i need to remember the ocean at sunset.
carving names on a bridge.
swimming naked in a stream.
the bike rusted on the fence.
a red dress over a river.
it's important that i never forget.
poems left in secret.
the solitary dunes.
music on the pier.
soft touches on sensitive skin.
so much of what i feel is dark. memories like these and last night, they let in light.
this light is water.
i need it to survive.

...outrun my skin...

go ahead and fall into the night. withdraw. i'll still be here when your eyes open.

i wish i could say "go to hell",and mean it. i wish i could deny everything i feel.
but mostly, right now, i wish i still dreamed of men with sunset hair and cobalt eyes. men with wild curls and nutmeg skin.

this night is shit and i'm sitting in the shadows, trying to remember the last time i felt alright.

you always fall asleep when i'm in pain. i'm watching you toss and murmur and i want to be miles and miles away from here. somewhere i can be small instead of just feel small. somewhere i can be silent and still because there is nothing left to say.

the tattooed woman

i have 7 scars on my stomach.
in the area between my breasts and pelvic bone.
the longest is 7 inches, the shortest is a half inch.
2 of them have mutilated my belly button.
some of them are angry.
all of them are ugly.
lately, it seems like my scars are defining me.
they are my lifes story.
written in braille, across my flesh.

standing in deep water

i am thinking about running away.
there's a train that runs from milwaukee to seattle.
it could be raining there.
that seems to fit.
i could try to drown these thoughts in my head.

anchor

the only thing keeping me here is the salt on your skin.
if i didn't have that, i think i'd disappear.

like a roaring lion.......

the devil came into my work last night.
she ordered a grande, non-fat, sugar free vanilla latte.
she was tall and slender with curves in all the right places.
i mean, God!
i couldn't even mutter "eat something skeletor." under my breath to make myself feel better.
light brown flawless skin, beautifully streaked chestnut hair and large blue eyes.
after looking once i couldn't look again.
i felt like a seed wart next to a delicate, french manicured index finger.
it was just too painful.
i was all of a sudden too much of everything.
too round.
too fair.
too plain.
too short.
too..... too.
i made her drink and she left.
seeking someone else to devour.

looking for yourself among the wreckage

are you waiting to see your likeness?
here? like a canvas?
hear your voice given letters? with my fingers?

tell me how my eyes changed shape!
tell me what my mouth did!

when i saw you.
just there.
and the sexiest thing i could think of was a brown, long underwear shirt.

"i missed you...."

i hate the taste of foot in my mouth.

i don't know how these thoughts get into my head much less what they mean. why would i give voice to them?

"....like a color." what the hell did that mean? i've been thinking about it all day. sometimes i think i might be close. then i don't.

i think that maybe (why not?)...

it has something to do with sunsets.

the way the sky is filled with a myriad of blues and then the orange and yellow of the sun. looking at it you think "that's nice." it's pretty and soothing.

all of a sudden, out of nowhere, bursts pink. and you think, "shit. i never would have thought of that." and you feel stupid. and ordinary. and you wonder at your temporary loss of vision.

...it's like that.

"your absence......like a needle..."

tonight it is a doubled up, physical ache. i'm missing her like hell. i look around and wonder, "where are you?" i don't feel her. i hate that.

strung

something is building. in me. here. now. bubbling up. over.
i'm bouncing off walls. shaking and rattling in these bones. i'm trying to fill up holes. tiny, unforgivable, pinpricking holes. i'm chaining. i'm zooming. i can feel it. any day now something is gonna give. give. give. these bars have some give and i'm gonna take the out. out. out. "your life doesn't come with a laugh track." track. track. track. am i on the right track? i won't blink. i'm just about ready. here i come. i'm cussing and kicking. i'm dancing. it started as a hiss. right here, upper left to my right eye. and it's been getting stronger as i take you down. down. down. furious now. i'll take you down.

i won't blink.

another day down

this evening at work an old man came in wearing an oxygen tube and carrying a tank. i had a strange desire to tell him about my mother. as if he and she could of been good friends just because of this commonality. i could hear myself saying,"oh yeah, you would've really liked her. her tank was smaller and a newer model but she wouldn't have held that against you."

he had a coughing attack and i got him some water. with ice. i thought about telling him how mom had a theory that if the water was too cold it would take longer for the oxygen to get absorbed into the system, but i didn't.

when is it ok to enter into someone else's pain?

when will it be ok to let someone enter mine?

"One must have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star." -Neitzsche

her lips contain the memory of our first kiss.

she is my covenant.
she is my trial by fire.

"yet them, not prince nor peer can buy......"

i remember my first kiss. his name was randy. we were 12. he invited me to go with him to a dance and i said yes. i had a new shirt. white with fringe. i thought i looked nice. like someone special. i don't remember much of the dance except singing along too loud to a gloria estaban song while we swayed back and forth, his pre-teen hands around my waist. afterwards, his mom drove us home and he walked me to my door. my back porch was hidden from view by a large,red,privacy fence. on the porch i turned, smiled and started to say something but i never found out what. he grabbed my arms and leaned his head down to mine his eyes squeezed shut and a desperate "now or never" look upon his hairless face. his lips were surprisingly soft. i remember thinking "oh god, i'm being kissed. this isn't so bad, but what am i supposed to do with my hands?" just as i had decided that it would probably be safe to put my hands on his shoulders i felt his tongue pushing against my lips. i think i was so startled i gasped. i stood there for i don't know how long, arms at my side, with his tongue in my mouth and then...i giggled. poor randy, having giggled once, i was incapable of stopping. i'll say it again, poor randy. he dropped his hands and took a step back his face blank as i continued to giggle and grasp blindly for the screen door. i think i might have even given him a couple little pats on the chest with my hand before i went inside.

he never spoke to me again.

funny, how i remember that. it's so clear.

last night i lay in bed trying to remember our first kiss. i remember where it was and i know that we debate about who actually kissed whom but other than that....nothing. a complete blank. was it short or long? was it passionate? was it hesitant? full of longing? were your hands on my face? my arms? my waist? did i close my eyes? did our tongues meet? did i suck on your bottom lip the way i like to do now?

i can't remember.

i mourn this loss as if it were a death.

...who is able to keep me from falling......

i have just enough faith.
just enough faith to pray with my daughter before she falls asleep.
just enough faith to sing with the congregation.
just enough faith to believe you'll return to me in the fading light.
just enough faith to know there is more to life than what i can hold with my two hands.
just enough faith to keep me from crumbling to the ground.
i have just enough faith.

poorly shod

i think i am, mistakenly, living someone else's dream.

my sleeping disorder

one of my earliest memories is waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of my mother coughing. not the light, dry coughs that accompany the changing of the seasons and not the frantic coughs of fluid going down the "wrong pipes". these were body wrenching coughs that came from the deeply hidden, black places in my mothers body. black and bloody these coughs would leave my mother shuddering for days and desperately gasping for air between outbursts. in the tiny, pink room next door i would pull my blankets firmly over my head and wait anxiously for the sounds to stop.

there was a screaming face etched in the wood grain of my closet door. nobody else could see it. i couldn't stop seeing it. always watching me and waiting for the right moment to push itself out of its two dimensional world and pull me in.

there was a trap door hidden under my cotton candy carpeting and beyond that, short, nasty creatures with yellow teeth and cancerous breathe. my father told me many times that there was nothing beneath my carpeting but he didn't really know. after all, i had dreamed about that trap door. repeatedly.

just before morning a light would appear in the corner of my room. it was a small light but bright. it would zoom quickly up to the ceiling and then start zooming maniacally around the room in tight, quick circles. i never knew what it was. it just came and went every night and left me, scared and unsatisfied.

these are things that i heard and saw when i should have been sleeping. one hand beneath my chubby cherub cheek, the thumb of my other hand held tightly in my mouth.

this is why i haven't had a decent nights sleep in 25 years.