I think my grandmother is convinced
that my ovaries will shrivel up
if I do not find a man by summer.

She was married by 19,
and has always wanted great grandchildren
she loves buying baby things, children's toys.
Kindergarten is the golden age of life.
I did not date in highschool,
but if she saw me looking at a boy,
she asked if he was single,
and told me to ask him over for dinner.

When I hit University,
I found a sweet, mad, mess of a boy
and she was quiet,
but we went our separate ways,
she started up again.

Scheming, the unwanted matchmaker.
Asking if the piano player at church was single,
(he's four years younger than I)
and trying to arrange play-dates for me
with unwitting high school acquaintances.

She means well, I know,
but despite the hopeless Romanticism I harbor
I know I need time, (there are still open wounds),
to fall back in love with myself,
before trying to fall for someone else.

He was born on Bastille day.
Very fitting, really.
The rag tag rebel with a thousand causes
worn down by hard life,
filled with an eternal fount of passion
that somehow renewed itself
after every failure and defeat
(and they were many).
Courageous heart, leathered and layered by scar tissue.
You'd storm every Bastille within your reach
If you thought there was even a sliver of injustice in it,
you'd even invent your own cause,
charge the windmills with a rusted sword,
screaming battle cries you once screamed over true battlefields.

I sewed my mouth shut with broken heart strings,
A shard of bone to pierce the lips.
A sliver of rib, I think.
My voice was never worth hearing
unless it was channeled in ink.

Let’s pour a little salt,
flavor the Earth,
so She’s the only one to remember
that we were ever here.

2. I painted Care and Sympathy’s portraits,
and (falsely) titled it Love.
And you hung it on your wall to remind yourself
you weren’t entirely alone.
But I’m sure you’ve taken it down by now
and it’s sitting in a corner, under the white sheet of time.

3. And if I faced death today,
I would like to think
I could face him without flinching.
As long as he would strike quickly, in the head or the heart.
I shouldn’t mind at all.

4. He called me tiny dancer
even though I couldn’t dance.
At least not very well.
He still insisted on waltzing
in my parent’s kitchen
despite my stepping on his toes.

I still remember how his dogtags felt around my neck.
They hung over my sternum, armor for the heart beneath.
Stamped-steel identity resting between my *******,
Name/SSN/USMC/O-POS/Christian
a piece of his soul, almost,
the soldier's lover's rosary.
I said more prayers than there were silver beads.
I'm still saying them.

I have luck in all the wrong places.
Right place at the wrong time,
I'm always early for everything.
My head, ten minutes fast,  
My heart, ten minutes slow,
so much for synchronization.
My soul gave up tracking time long ago
Anatomical or atomic.

My dreams are growing darker-
maybe it’s the weather
but my bed is growing colder
despite the extra sheets.

I dream of wars I’ve never been in
And men I’ve never seen,
dust rises all around me
in the distance drunken screams.

And the barren cold is creeping,
seeping deep into my bones
I feel the marrow freezing
will take years to thaw the frost

Where has all the color gone?
All fading grey, no black and white,
I’m tumbling down the rabbit hole;    
at least three dreams a night.

*And the barren cold is creeping,
seeping deep into my bones
I feel the marrow freezing
will take years to thaw the frost