Here I am

by the sea

Shanghaied

from the mountains

a long ways

from loving

let the record read

I'm ****** if I don't

and ****** if I do

and let the moon

hide in my boot.

i guess all of us get
scared sometimes

some in front of
raging bulls and
snarling lions

and others in front of
crosswalk signs and
slightly raised expectations

either it's the flight or fight
response gone wrong or
worse yet a symptom
of the human condition

i wish my parents had
loved me enough
or just had enough
good sense

to put me on a diet when
i was nine years old

because now that i'm
older i can say with
certainty that i would
have rather grown up
thinner and slightly
worse for the wear

than grow up the
way i did
(fat)
and be the way i
am now
(fat)

because i ended up
distorted and
unhappy even though
they told me i was lovely

and i would rather
have had me miserable
and skinny rather than
miserable and fat

i only wish they had
told me the truth
instead of letting me
discover for myself

it's not me
pushing you
away except
it actually is me

it's the kind of
morning that the
wind is blowing
just right so that
the open flag
flutters in front
of the window
where i can see it

the kind of morning
i don't need coffee
and i try not to
think about

it too
much

(i just wanted to
be the girl in
an owl city song)

pacing back and
forth in straight
lines and gritting
my teeth against
an onslaught of
small town gunfire

(i'll bet annmarie
never had scars
or scratches
brielle didn't cry
and shake for
hours thinking
how to end it all
it turned out
okay for anna
and vienna probably
knew how to dance
between the snowflakes
and underneath her regret)

i've never been good at
drowning out thoughts
they just get louder the
longer time rolls on

good at rolling out
cookie dough and
good at drowning
in dishwater when
the brownie batter's
baking and the bowl
needs washing when
nobody's looking

(i've had moments
here and there in golden
sneakers and navy blue
lace covered dresses
but i'm not the girl
in an owl city song
not something worth
writing dreamy poems
about not so lovestruck you
replace your words with dada)

girls like me wear flannel
khaki too much day old
eyeliner too many day old
scones have half heads of weird
colored hair and spend valentines
day alone watching tv

so maybe why i'm bitter
as the inside of a lemon is
that i'll never be able to change
to someone drenched in verbena
spinning through the sunny
skies between your fingers

Right now
in your kitchen
on the bottom rack of the dishwasher
resides a secret;
a dark spot on your soul –
a malignant little horror
that threatens to destroy
your sense of self worth.

Maybe it’s a butter knife
with an in-congruent rust spot
on one side of the blade…
Maybe it’s a random salad fork,
the final piece remaining
from a long forgotten flatware set,
with a fossilized chunk of radicchio
lodged between the third and fourth tines.

Probably it’s the fork.

There it has sat
without being moved;
without being touched;
just existing as the metaphor that it is
for 8 straight wash cycles.
The result has never varied.
The dirt remains.

Soon will come a ninth wash cycle.
You hope that things will change.
You know that they will not.
Despite this unwavering conviction
that the fork will always be *****,
the next time you run the cycle,
open the dishwasher door,
peer through the gauzy veil
of lemon scented fog
and see the small bit of filth
you will still feel disappointed.
You will grow a little bitterer.
You will be a little more contemptuous.
The world will be a deeper shade of gray.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

You can go
right now
into the kitchen
to the bottom rack of the dishwasher and
reach down
with a trembling hand
to grasp destiny.

You are bigger than this fork.
You are bigger than this fork.

You
are bigger
than this fork.

With a sense of control firmly clasped between your fingers
take that 15 uncomfortable seconds
to scrape away the debris with your thumbnail
and then be free.

BE FREE

Deep and resounding will be
the sigh of relief;
the utter completion;
the contentment absolute
that you experience
when you place that clean salad fork
back in the drawer.

It will never match
the new silver
that your In-Laws gave you last Christmas, but
at least it will be clean and
in its home
safely ensconced
in that wire organizer.

Right now
in your kitchen
on the bottom rack of the dishwasher
is a chance for redemption.