When I was born the theme for the shower was Noah’s Ark, which if you don’t know is the story of hundreds and thousands of People being drowned by their father because He made them in a way that He knew He had no choice but to hate.
And because He had the power.
I always think this is a strange inheritance
To give a Child:
Countless mothers, thrashed against rocks and stones and trees that grow seed-bearing fruit, Grandparents scraped against the sides of cities, Sisters sputtering when lungs burn up with water. Chaos everywhere. Pallid bodies floating over dark depths. Waves bigger than mountains, surging over clouds. Growing with the torrent. And worst by far, Wailing that is louder than the onslaught
of rain in sheets the size of seas.
When I go home I wince at blankets and baubles
Plastered with smiling elephants, giraffes and dolphins, blushing two-by-two.
That is just like my mother
to look at the tempest that killed everyone alive
and see the animals
Jul 8, 2022
Jul 8, 2022 at 6:48 AM UTC
I would be happy to sit by you
for the rest of my natural life.
I never felt like a woman much,
but I'd be proud to be your wife.
Oh, lover, how do you stand me?
You say, "Oh, lover, how do you stand me?"
Dear darling, that I should be so lucky.
No gold is worth a second of your time.
I paid no heed to a marriage oath
when I was only a child.
Loving you isn't a set of laws;
To love you is to run wild.
Oh, lover, won't you unhand me?
You say, "Oh, lover, won't you unhand me?"
No, darling, not while my feet are standing.
No gold is worth the way that you are mine.
I am no master of rhyme or verse.
I'd make no beautiful bride.
But if there is truth in this universe,
I'm meant to stay at your side.
"Oh, lover, do you demand me?"
You say, "Oh, lover, do you demand me?"
Yes, darling, if I am to be happy.
No gold is worth the sweetness of your smile.
Apr 12, 2021
Apr 12, 2021 at 5:19 AM UTC
I am feeling the cave walls for clues in the dark,
Wondering how anyone can do this alone
When I see You:
White hot phantasmagoric spark
Seared into the eye behind my forehead.
(Meeting you makes a noise.)
and we’re off to the races. It’s love at first flash.
You’re a hazy dazy vision,
Pink clouds fuzzy around the edges
Until I wake up plunging, cold wet dripping shocked right out of Technicolor.
How many times have I had this dream?
How many times have we danced to this song,
you and I?
Since you know the steps.
How many sounds does my heart make when it breaks?
Shatters, crashes, crunches, chimes?
Has it ever been like a violin, like a foghorn, like music?
Does it always hurt this loud?
How many lives have we passed each other in like strangers at a train station?
How many places have I run into you, once, and never forgotten your face?
Where I can’t make out what you were wearing but I’ll always remember how you made me feel?
Let me ask you this.
When you grabbed my hand at the movies,
Was it the first time?
Or was it a choice you made eons ago,
When we were wolves sleeping in caves?
We aren’t soulmates.
You are my soul’s opponent hue,
and I cross my eyes to show myself imaginary colors.
It isn’t your fault that I’m falling in love
and falling
and falling
and waking up with a head rush.
You’re not my twin flame.
I just wish you were,
every time
Mar 4, 2021
Mar 4, 2021 at 9:19 AM UTC
Defiled, I
Lay my battered bloodied body at your doorstep.
You cut my heart into 12 pieces,
Perfectly precise.
Am I to be happy that you went to war over me?
Plodding me deeper into the ground with your step.
A cold body isn’t warmed by happiness.
Or by the flickering flames of Gibeah.
No, I remember it was you who threw me out.
I remember. It was you.
Mar 4, 2021
Mar 4, 2021 at 9:07 AM UTC
I can’t remember the first time I did it-
Flashing silver in the place of blood-true red inside my mouth.
To me, that was the worst. There was
no moment I could drag myself to,
screaming crying cowardly, and make it better.
No rhyme nor reason for the
twist inside of me.
At night I prayed for some forgiveness,
but I stopped going to Mass before my Confirmation and even I knew there could be no
True deliverance without repentance—
53 Hail Marys cannot do what crystal lemon AWESOME does to the pistons of my father’s pickup truck, not
when the engine is
Clutching to its grime
Clinging for synthetic, automated life to the decades worth of caked-on dirt and sludge that
Are what it knows.
Unwilling to be clean.
And so I do not step one foot in church,
Yet I cannot keep my eyes from my mother’s wooden carving of the Last Supper,
Wishing he would turn his eyes to me, as well,
Knowing that he won’t.
Gripping the tablecloth at family dinner,
Seeing my own hand as his, clutching his bag,
Iscariot, my brother, whom I know as though another self.
All sins are the same.
In my own way, I too betray the salt.
Mar 4, 2021
Mar 4, 2021 at 9:03 AM UTC