This week we talked over beers,
and my mother told us a ghost story.
We each have dreams that plague us
again and again, over years,
threatening to creep their way into our realities.
(these are our ghosts.)
My dream was always deep blue and black,
of my body surrounded by water, though I did not drown,
or even gasp.
I was ensnared in moving parts that I had no power over,
held underwater in this churning machine,
not quite a victim but certainly not a hero.
Sunshine was my eventual respite, as was the cushion of my bed,
but the morning always seemed like a fragile gift, then.
My mother dreamed of her teeth, over the years.
She dreamed that they were the traitors inside her,
decaying and betraying,
perhaps cackling as they fell to the floor or
just lying there like bones.
My mother’s delayed trip to the dentist promised her a bridge,
or an implant, but also some calm.
NPR and This American Life pulled my dream,
my ghost,
from the shadows, too. The story of a diver
ensnared
at 900 feet below the sun,
who would never see it again.
I’ll never be at the bottom of Bushman’s cave,
but, the ghosts say,
you never know.
Dec 29, 2014
Dec 29, 2014 at 11:48 PM UTC
The smoke sputtered
sizzled
stank as the dying fire brought their furrowed brows to shadow.
The wide skies faded too
curling around the edges of their vision
and the desert rushed
threatening chaos in its white noise
and vacancy.
Two sets of set shoulders and two bare backs
began their night’s work
grey canvases heaving under a weeping sky.
By the time they were done
the rain had stopped.
Jan 14, 2014
Jan 14, 2014 at 2:53 AM UTC
My anxiety is the dream of a knife
almost a romantic fantasy of something physical that
could cause me the pain or discomfort that really
is just coming from my self
from some thought that I’ve swallowed or stumbled into or onto and now it’s mine
I cannot escape it.
Now it’s my burden and the choices are
to feast on it
or to ignore it until its white noise boiling on the backburner is all but a noose around my neck.
The laughable, socially acceptable third option is of course
the bottle of red or
the little white pill
from the purple bottle
exchanged from the pink slip
handed over by a worried lip.
Jan 14, 2014
Jan 14, 2014 at 1:42 AM UTC
I lived in a metaphorical house for a while,
called it love and locked the door.
Now, the ghosts leave cold tea and trinkets in the corners of rooms and
memories layer like soot
from a drafty floo; a mid-winter affair with history.
I wander barefoot to disturb the accumulating sorrow,
To stir it into the air and hope for gentlemen callers
like the broken man I’ve tried to find new warmth in.
He is broken where I am bent,
and I am bent most places.
Apr 5, 2013
Apr 5, 2013 at 1:42 AM UTC
Dignity, Arrogance, Apathy and Absolution
I feel as if I am singing your ode to your back,
quite silently. I am mocking you,
the girl who knew you best, who
wanted to be the constant entity on your
occasionally slumping shoulders.
Fool.
Mar 9, 2012
Mar 9, 2012 at 12:10 AM UTC
Yesterday
a friend reminded me of my own story,
a fable of youth, love and
hard won wisdom.
It was meant as a cautionary tale
to a girl standing on the precipice of herself
examining a razor’s edge
and playing a game on silver scales;
balancing catharsis
and longing
and that ******
wisdom.
Mar 7, 2012
Mar 7, 2012 at 12:43 PM UTC
At the end of the road she lives alone
a too-thin woman in a too-thin blouse
all silver hair and ancient creaking bone
the leaning presence in that leaning house.
Mothers rush their children past with warning
"a lonely victim of our fathers' war"
the widow they call sick with old yearning-
drinks wine and eats dust, her grin like a scar.
Always alone, she hums quiet songs and beats
with tapping toes all while spirits sing songs
to her about our futures, quiet and neat
in sturdy little homes, safe where we belong.
At village funerals, dressed in all lace
she looks prideful, a wide grin on her face.
Oct 25, 2010
Oct 25, 2010 at 1:11 PM UTC
I'm a little, little teapot, full of secrets.
I'm a girl, all wet eyed and this morning's
careful ministrations are now my
vengeful war paint - dark eyes
like I haven't slept in days.
Slept till noon in a blue T shirt - it's
so much harder to wake up to an empty bed
even with all my sheets exactly where they belong
Me-fucking-ticulous, perfect, all mine, stellar.
I'm a normal girl, a girl, a girl,
a twenty-something brunette who
just doesn't know how to turn off
her ******* attitude. I'm all flesh
and bone and I just spent 30 minutes
ODing on my own adrenaline,
martyring myself secretly like some
glorified, glamourous ******
trying to stick it to the world that
hasn't done me any favors!
But I don't really believe that.
These days I'm dancing like I fight:
all tight fists and closed, wet eyes.
I'm rage and *** and I'm ****** as ****
and you don't know anything about me.
I'm a girl, a ****** ***** a
twenty-something brunette with
no excuses. I'm sad and I'm angry
and I'm so sick of having absolutely
no reasons why.
Oct 21, 2010
Oct 21, 2010 at 12:11 AM UTC
I lay my head
Down.
I lay my head on mountains of thought and unwoven material.
It weaves itself together and apart in my dreams.
In knots.
I lay my head on uneven, fragile branches and my ankles hang across into the air.
I lay my head down on rough, open water
And icy memories lap at my closed eyelids and frost over my sight.
I lay my head across your wrists and I try to memorize your pulse and the hum of your life
Because it sounds so different from mine.
I lay my head down on the sound of bumble bees and honey.
I can the smell the sunburn and it echoes on the shell of my ear.
I can hear the ocean.
I lay my head down on railroad tracks and my thoughts go loud and flat.
They stretch themselves out into silk.
They loop and strand themselves together and now I think a spiderweb.
I am very glad that I am not afraid of spiders.
I lay my head
Down.
I lay my head across the wings of a bird.
We move the sky and the world falls over itself beneath us
Again and Again.
I am wearing spider silk and birch bark.
There is ice in my thoughts
Even though they are not frozen.
For the first time I can hear honey and bumble bees in my blood
And as I hold my wrists to my ears I can’t help but thinking.
I lay my head down on the Idea of Creation.
Down
And I rest.
Oct 14, 2010
Oct 14, 2010 at 6:18 PM UTC
Birds in cages are immortalized in poetry,
in wordy melancholy and round top cages beside
windows tauntingly open to the mountains, the
earthy smell of wheat and the breezy ocean air.
Hundreds of perturbed human eyes press close against brass,
mooning with open mouths and dry lips
cooing baby-talk bird-calls in hope of a
crying return, like a blessing,
or a soft forgiveness.
Outside,
Lovebirds are doves and songbirds.
They commune with owls and storks
and perch on branches, all the better to coo
and cry to the loving, glowing moon.
Anger, jealousy, and fright are all stones. They are heavy
and they have no place in the bellies of skybirds.
Caged birds have jealousy and clipped wings,
brass bars bent into tiny atmospheres, but canaries
carry bile in their beaks, beady black eyes watching
changing seasons with singing spite.
I am and have always been a swallow,
all creamy white belly and a thousand
creeping kinds of brown.
I wish to stay up, up for a thousand hours
in the realm of thought. In your thoughts,
I wish to be the voice whispering stories to you
from inside your precious head, curved
lovingly above me like an unending sky.
I am wings and feathers and I am full of things
that I desire much much more than air.
Oct 13, 2010
Oct 13, 2010 at 5:21 PM UTC