Do other couples keep receipts?
Or hide food in the corner of cheeks?
Generous, you stood without me
with
Nordstrom.
DICEY FELT TABLES.
Speed boats.
Inflated male ego.
I wish I could light up enough to
have you throw away your life on me
Security is a ******
I was suckling and full
Only to
lick my licks
and find poison instead of milk
My white bones poke with anorexic love
The runt of
your litter of lovers
Do I try to bark up a different tree?
Or root myself as a solo maple
So my daughter can sip my syrup
There is no sugar
Unless I'm the mamma
Daddy's play and
throw away
Blinking twice and wondering
why
One woman will not accept
the lie.
Jul 14, 2025
Jul 14, 2025 at 6:00 PM UTC
Being your mom is
a sanctuary of stagnant
a Whirlwind Wonder Woman promise
I will never break
Your life echoes
strands of beads on a lake
connected unbearable lights of life
I softly dive in deep,
dare not rupture the reflection
Nothing would exist on my water without you, moon
Before you, my land was rich.
full of watercolor classes. Belaying up dumb mountains
unplanned every days. unapologetic free time. greasy backpacking travel. fleeting lovers. autonomous breathing. degenerative friends. fake smoking cigarettes and sipping shot glasses of cafe in fancy European cities with my cool brothers.
I now have my ocean and my land
My skin is drenched in water and color
Your tears. Your bath time. Your painting masterpieces.
Your temporary tattoos sink into pigment
Sweet hazel eyes swallow me up
I hold your erratic curls and tame them with gumption only a mother could
Your songs are over and over and over again
all I hear are the ripples. the tide. mother child manatees.
Please never let this be temporary
Every day is unplanned dreams you share
a butterfly? a sigh? a reef?
I breathe when I lay you down right next to me
the way I did when I used to fake inhale exhale
along Parisian cityscapes
It is a bit different now
all premised with stuffies
Inhale--please let her never be touched by cruel humanity
Exhale--protect this sweet purity
This love is tangential
Mud turned to clay
Love exasperated by play.
A sophisticated love doting on
my beautiful feral
I now know I do not know a thing and I never will.
May 11, 2025
May 11, 2025 at 1:10 AM UTC
Men show up
In my realm
My dreams
in the eve's apple of my voice
lovers. husbands. boyfriends. transactions. Jesus.
Over and over again
I attempt to respond with words
I can only outstretch hand
They are
Surprised by the strength behind my shake
Queens birth every King
Ancestral diamonds vanished into dust
They try to reign.
matriarchs ascend.
Dance.
Demand.
Please. please. please. can you hear me?
"I am woman hear me roar"
at the front line (as I do everything else)
When I said "roar" it meant
Feast. Bite. Bury.
IMPLORE.
Mar 7, 2025
Mar 7, 2025 at 2:36 AM UTC
I tuck her in at moonlight
Curl onto ground next opened up crib
an end of day ceremony
I hold tiny hand.
My heart sings to mossy dreamland goddess in silence
She often has mercy on me
Tonight
She. answers.
My daughter's long lashes flutter in closure
A soft sigh
Tug of a tuft
brush of a nose with special blanket
She whispers back
"Sweet dreams, mommy."
My days of damage and dread and adulthood are nothing
It will never mean anything.
It does not mean anything.
It means nothing.
Nada.
Her slumber breath
Makes me a saint
I worship
her fingernails. the ceiling. the womb
I beg my brain to
re-write the day in permanent marker
Only to counter the days I have existed
in a trance
stumbling through streets
seeking anyone who can dry erase
The utter demand of existence
How can I as one woman possess
So much love and sanctity
All the while reigning in resistance.
Oct 8, 2024
Oct 8, 2024 at 12:54 AM UTC
The Chronicle carries a Spokane story unreported
I claim fame as a first resident
Two apartments
304
603
A Chelsea hotel
Blank canvases whiskered and primed
9 months of feminine devine
one pivotal girl
Her and I
shattered misogyny
from ceiling to wall windows
a flammable mother daughter force
soaking and smiling
in the gritty face of Spokane
2 floors below us we found our landing
a relationship meant for cinema
Single mothers
laugh and snarl and bear down
skipping hibernation
dark humored and vinyl loving
wiping our kids' noses
and our own
All the while flying above it all
two moons among a jilted sky
Always asking ourselves "why?"
The Chronicles continue..
A farm sink
Mid century modern bar stools
An oversized satirical monkey piece of art
I bought at an auction financing a blind goat
These items were all there
They all sigh
remembering when I held my breath for too long
I survived suffocation from grief
The women in my life suited up
Battled tank into biting coral
handed me their bubbling piece
I decide on oxygen over hydrogen
White over reef
These walls carried me.
Abuse tried to tell me a different story
"Notice to Vacate" was a friend of mine
603 was my muscle
She gave my daughter and I glory
A vampire tried to merchant our space
in many forms
Little did he know, we only thrive in light
I can be proud to say
I left my glorious gargoyles on my own
as soon as I knew I could protect myself
and my story.
Sep 16, 2024
Sep 16, 2024 at 1:07 AM UTC
“How much do you love me.” She whispers as I wipe sandy uneven bangs off of sweaty forehead. “So much, mom. So much.” Her smile catches her ears. I rarely see her like this and every time it involves a surprise. No wonder, as an adult, I deeply yearn for the people I love to surprise me.
My unrealistic expectations of other people as an adult are to blame for the love my mother gave me as a child, and still to this day. No one can compete with the shock element of my mom.
“Go look on your bed!” she shrieks. I sprint to my quilted dusty rose second-hand comforter. There in the tufts I find the best item on earth as a 5th grade girl—A complete collection of lip-smackers, necklace with attachment for chaps-ticks included. Yes, there was Dr. Pepper. You bet your ***** there was bubble gum. A complete delectable smorgasbord of balm delight. I definitely love her more after this. I forgive her for making me “set a good example for my brothers” the night before.
I rip plastic casing and pucker up for the first waxy stick pushed on pre-pubescent lip. Duh, I chose Dr. Pepper. Who doesn’t want to have their kiss taste like a fast-food refreshment? There she stands, the Farrah Fawcett, Sun-maid raisin queen look alike. My angel of a mother.
She watched as I threw myself on springy bed and layer flavor after flavor of Lipsmacker on lip and throw stick after stick up in the air like a lip connoisseur billionaire. She saw me rip the plastic wrappers with canines. She cringed and told me not to use my teeth, accepting it anyway with glory. That sparkle shows up in her eye and she knows I will be lining those lip balms up from my favorite to least favorite around the shoestring necklace included. She invites the true fact that I won’t sass her back for a month. I will do my homework tomorrow without asking and I will not hit my brother in the ***** before dinner. She knows. All hail Lipsmacker and all flavors. The ultimate collection lending me a heiress at recess. I am eternally beholden to her. I look up at her as she asks, “Do you like it?” I hug her calves and sigh, “I love it.”
Jul 22, 2024
Jul 22, 2024 at 12:40 AM UTC
I, a steal heroine
shielded
by past sorrow
imprisoned by
cuffed misogyny
Softened by you
Just. One. Palm. Holds. Face
All silver and sharpened divider
Erased
skin and tangled hair
no longer armored
Every tear drenched pore
Effaced
I stand bare,
happily unbuckled with love
Pillars shudder at our words
Pointless,
they melt
Surrendering to
The noncompete
of your shoulders
They hold my daughter to the stars
Her head crowned in light
your hands stable small ankles
She is released too
Golden Gates moan
Great Walls invite
Cordially wait for RSVP's
Nets and hooks and barriers all succumb
to you and I
thriving as two and loving as one
We are
moon ocean currents
ancient stone arches
pink chalk on black hot asphalt
stained huckleberry fingers
We are more than love
We are the pulse
of our lives
I will never harden again
Feb 29, 2024
Feb 29, 2024 at 1:01 AM UTC
It is the fiftieth "mamma"
The fourth hour of sleep
a tiny heel drives into chin
it feels deep
a three year old kiss to the elbow
fervent fingers wrap around thumb
before succumbing to slumber
I refuse to be numb
Mamma is all I want
I want to mother
and be mothered
and for others to be better mothered and mothers
My father left me
a cold egg in nest
My mother
like most mothers
forced to
hunt AND gather AND hold
My wings frozen unrest
Forced to help everyone else around me
to learn how to fly
surviving in jest
Jan 28, 2024
Jan 28, 2024 at 11:28 PM UTC
You find out
It gurgles to the surface
bubbles,
pops
You wipe your eyes
of the residue of my ghosts
The later it gets
Every face of pain begins to show
a haunting felowship
I succumb
roll around in graves of
vampire
monster
men
soils of a strangled me
Flesh and all,
you pull me out of shallow ground
Resurrect and remind me
of the before
I sigh in your ear
Thank you,
my dear
I forgot about the her
Who is so near
Dec 21, 2023
Dec 21, 2023 at 2:31 AM UTC
It was in the wait
The gurgling spitting surface
Where I found myself
The alone
The trembling affliction
I salivated and salivated on
until I could finally swallow
Everything has dissolved
Do not get this confused with not having memory
My body has anologues of dialogues o
Dec 8, 2023
Dec 8, 2023 at 6:32 PM UTC