-- when I have the tenderness of a writhing dragon,
he will paint flowers across my throat

as though to remind me that fires are indelicate,
and that I writhe in a prison made of open space.
-- this man will not smother me with his skin
when we sleep.
-- this man will unhinge the door of my mouth,
and kiss out the bullets stuck under my tongue.
                                                                ­               ---
whatever thousandth day I awaken beside this man,
realizing I have become the flowers he painted
across my throat, by braving my throat,

I will, unchaining myself from the draconic worry,
bring him his coffee in bed, with a smile.

Sometimes at night

asleep by the firelight

I dream about them

how they died

some are singing

and others saying what

they no longer see

walking fencelines

limping as if in pain

some of them handsome

and some mysterious

silent but not

for long they tell you

men scarcely know

how beautiful fire is

and old stories

they can't remember

unless you can

still look them in the eye.

I broke up with God
at our favorite eatery
in our favorite booth.

We settled into familiar creases
and asked for the usual.

My eyes lazily staring at fingers
stirring the straw around the ice cubes,
God cautiously spoke up:

“Is something wrong?”

“Nothing.” (Thinking about the dormant phone
concealing behind the lock screen
the open Facebook tab
lingering over the relationship status section.)

They silently mused over the laconic reply,
til the waitress showed up with the food.

“Thank you!” God blurted with agonizing alacrity.

I received the sustenance lifelessly
and aimlessly poked at the burgers and fries.

The waitress eyed me with vague inquisition,
popping a bubble in the gum between
big teeth, refilled my water
and pirouetted hastily.

We ate in ostensible harmony,
the silence gripping like a chokehold,
the visible anxiety and subdued resolve
settling like a stifling blanket
over the child waking
from a nightmare—

Til we couldn’t breathe,
and I ripped back the covers
and looked into the eyes
of my tormentor.

“It’s not you, it’s me.”

God, taken aback by the curt statement,
dropped their burger with shaking hands,
silently begging with wetting eyes
a greater explanation.

So I elaborated:

“It’s not you, it’s me.

For your immaculate conception
was created by human hands,

your adages rendered obsolete
by human words,

your purpose and plan for us
distorted by human nature—

I cannot hate myself any longer.

I cannot pretend to know you at all.

Who my mother and father say you are
is not who my friends think you are,
nor my teachers, my pastor,
the president, Stephen Hawking,
Muhammed, the KKK, Buddha,
the Westboro Baptist Church,
Walt Whitman, Derek Zanetti,
******,
and Billy Graham.

I am told you care who I bring into bed (and when),
and what movies I watch,
and what music I listen to—

I have not heard what you say about
child soldiers, the use of mosquitos,
or the increased destruction of the earth
which you proudly proclaimed your creation,
or the poverty and disease and famine
which has ridden so many of your children—”

God interjected,
“But you’re chosen!”

I snorted,

“You say I’m chosen
to spend eternity with you—
why me?

Why’d you pick me among
thousands, millions, billions?

I’ve been told I’m ‘chosen’
since birth
by others like me—

those with fair complexion,
blue eyes,
blonde hair,
a firm overt ****** attraction towards women,
and a great big house
with immaculate white fences
delineating their Jericho.

I’ve already fabricated eternity
here among the other ‘chosen’
and there is a world of suffering
right outside the fence
and I see them
through the window of my bedroom
every day.

Am I chosen,
if I don’t vote Republican

Am I chosen
if I am Pro-Choice

Am I chosen
if I cohabitate with my girlfriend

Am I chosen
if I never have kids

Am I chosen
if I say ‘Happy Holidays’

Am I chosen
if I don’t want public prayer in schools

Am I chosen
if I don’t want a Christian nation

Am I chosen
if I don’t repost you on my wall
or retweet your adages?

I’m tired
being the ubermensch,
for it has not brought me
happiness
and I blame you.

I will not ignore
the cries of the suffering
believing it is I
who is destined to live
in bliss.

I will not buy
Joel Osteen’s autobiography(ies).

I will not tithe
you my money
for a megachurch
when another homeless shelter
closes down.

I will not tell a woman
what to do with her body,
or a man
that he is a man
if they say they are not.

I am neither Jew nor Gentile,
and I will stand with
my brothers and sisters
of Faith and Faithlessness,

Gay and Straight,
Black and White,

and apart from these extremes
free from absolutes
the ambiguous, amorphous
nature of Humankind
which I praise.

There is much pain and suffering
in this world,
potentially preventable,
but hardly can I believe
it’s part of your plan
to save
me.

I will not be saved
if we are not
all saved—

not one will burn
for my divinity.

The gates will be open to all—
and perhaps you believe that too,
but I’ve gotten you all wrong
and that cannot change,
as long as there is
mortality, and
corruption, and
power, and
lust, and
greed.”

God whined, growing bellicose,

“It is through me that you will find eternity,
I am the one true god!
I am the God of your fallen ancestors,
it is because you have fallen short
that you need me!”

I replied, growing in confidence,

“We have all fallen short,
yes,
but we are also magnificent.

We have evolved,
we have created,
we have adapted,
we have survived.

We have built empires,
and we have destroyed them.

We have cured diseases,
and we have created them.

We have done much in your name.
We’ve done good,
and we’ve done evil—

And unfortunately it’s all about
who you ask.

Your name is a burden on the oppressed
and a weapon of the oppressor.

You are abusive, God.

You tell me you are jealous.

You tell me apart from you I will suffer for an eternity.

I’m scared to die, yet want to die,
because of you.

You have made life a waiting room
that is now my purgatory. It is

Hell On Earth.

So you see,
it’s not you,
it’s me—
a mere mortal
who has tried to put a face
to eternity
and it has left me
empty.

And also,
it’s me,
for I have learned to love me,
as I have expelled your self-loathing imbibition,
and the deleterious zeal
I have proclaimed
through ceaseless
trepidation
and self-flagellation—

I have learned to love me
by realizing I am not inherently evil,
that my body is not evil,
that my mind is not evil,
and, ultimately, that
there is no good
and there is no evil.

My body is beautiful,
my mind is beautiful,
this world is beautiful,
and we are destroying it
waiting for you to claim
us.

I leave you
in hopes to see you
again one day,

and perhaps you will look
different than I have
perceived or imagined,

and in fact
I certainly hope so.”

Just then the waitress strolled back up
with a servile smile:
“Dessert?”

“No, thank you,”
I smiled politely.

And with that,
I paid the check,
and took a to-go box—

walked out into the evening rain
to my car,
put on a secular song
that meant something real to me
and drove off
into the night—

feeling for the first time
free
and alive.

It was just you and I the moment dawn tinged the edge of the sky with vibrant colors.
Our backs to the rest of the world, we were fighters, two friends battling the rest of humanity though we knew we could only trust each other.
Together we faced the perils of depression and loneliness with our hands clasped, eyes locked, hearts synced.
Questioning reality frequently, wondering if there was another world out there where we knew one another. Another place much kinder, more open to our dreams.
We stood over the shadows in the abyss and shone so brightly we blinded the sun.
I taught you how to dance, to kiss, to exist in ways you were awkward to at first. I can recall moments in time when you didn’t mind the ****** way my hair had turned a fiery shade of orange because that's what happens when you mix plum and blonde.
On the 4th of July in the elementary school parking lot 2 years ago you tried to convince me that this reality was false.
Delivering this ideal with such conviction and intelligence you almost succeeded.

Sometimes I dream that you were right.

I step back to reflect upon your face and the deep pensive blue of your eyes.
I remember how sometimes your hands were clammy and even though I thought that was gross I still held them.
We cuddled close during movies, any opportunity, thriving off the attention and affection, as if a physical touch could possibly be enough to heal our broken parts.
What naive, blind hopeful creatures we were.
I gave the credit of opening my eyes and my heart to someone else when in all reality it was you, with your gentleness and soft uncertain voice and warm fingers twined with mine.

There were summers spent indecisively deciding if I wanted to keep you in my life like you wanted me in yours.
Times where I dragged both our hearts through rocks and glass trying to decide what the hell was going on, what I wanted, what was best.
Moments where our friendship caused us more internal stress and agony than it did peace.
As it dwindled toward a drawn out end I had a revelation, knew what it was doing..
had done, to you.
Its a hard thing to recognize your own toxicity when desperately clinging to friendships, what we both wanted was killing us, slowly but surely, closing in with thorns around our throats, hands, hearts,  

I still remember when the sun began to burn us back and our light flickered and dimmed against its harsh rays. The tightness of our  fingers clasped slowly went lax,
I gave you room to pull away, but for some reason you held fast,  clung to my fingers like invisible strings held us together, like you’d die if I wasnt there to hold you.
Your emotional state continued to compromise itself, worsening the longer we were tied to one another.
This left us with a single choice, the alternative was unacceptable
A decision that would flush our exposed hearts clean with a acid fire and erode our hands till they fell apart and broke away.

Mountains trembled and crumbled beneath my feet, I feigned my gaze to different horizons and I hoped, that in time yours would too.
I ruined us.
Ripped our stitches messily out until we bled clear
Our voices cracking like crumbling cities, structures breaking with distress, shaking with the magnitude of the San Francisco earthquake that set fire to an entire coast
How we failed to make something permanent in a time when we knew nothing lasted, how we'd attempted in vain to pursue and maintain something destined to break.

There is an ever growing forest within my chest, viridescent canopies endlessly reaching towards powder blue skies like hands extended upwards in prayer
Vividly mesmerizing flowers of imagination and life bloom in scattered unmarked paths for meandering souls
Sadness flows in endless fountains pouring forth rapidly rushing streams of velvet indigo and starlight
Crumbling riverbanks signal the beginnings of tentative doubts
I’ve become aware of the weight of heavy shackles curling around my wrists like thick vines and ivy twisting over old bricks
Nature reclaiming my insides, society disdaining and threatening to capture and drag me beneath the underbrush
I feel the unmistakable pang of hopelessness nesting its thorns just below my ribcage, etching itself into my skin like stonemasons carving their legacy into mountain faces
My body is sacred ground, a temple of an apathetic deity who’s staked ownership over the emotions that run deep like ocean currents in my veins
My heart pumps opalescent despair, washing up on the shores like waves on new sands of lands I’ve yet to see
My forest lays on an island within the bermuda triangle, unreachable by sea or sky
My emotions act as geomagnetic pulses and methane vents to  confuse your aeronautical and sea faring instruments,  causing your vessels to come crashing down and sinking into the vast expanse of rolling royal blue unknown
I exist for the sole purpose of straining inspiration and failing aspirations
Those inky black buds slowly unfurling in the core of my being, remnants giving way to wilting foliage, petals listless at my feet, eroding with the will of misery and time with vibrant colors burning to ashen corpses
With my lips I inspire hope, yet my own lack thereof hollows me out like rotting jack o lanterns
with light flickering despondently through gaping hole, my eyes, liquid light vaguely sauntering downwards, softly dripping into my hopeful reserves like torrential rain
Drumming like the thrumming of my rushing blood in my ears and the powerful thunder of waterfalls cascading in the distance, returning to earth from their perpetual perch atop towering mountains
A jungle of my own endless shame carves me like a sculpture, eroding me like oceans and cliff faces over thousands of years, with fear uncoiling like deep blue carpets of jagged glass running like rivers, squeezes the paralyzing uncertainty into my blood like an injection. Turmoil joins self loathing, they loom above like my own personal berlin wall, disappearing into the white clouds composed of nervousness and doubt, separation from all I long to aspire to on the other side

and i am eleven again
feeling like tomorrow
is a couple yesterday's ago
smothered in cayenne pepper
hot enough to take off taste buds
and tonight i am eating a meal
only worth burning
it tastes like my parents anniversary
it tastes like a zinfandel
left on the counter too long
it's a bad story, see
there's no silverware
'cause my mom sold it
to keep the lights on
and somewhere in heaven
somebody in a suit
doing commentary
on this fiasco
is telling someone else
in a suit that
"you have to eat love with your hands"
so we sit, four plates on the table
for the two of us
my brother's long gone
dad's even further away
& he's not the one who's buried
i carry both their names like anchors
that i cannot unmoor from
while she looks at the empty table
and says something about the news
she says something else
but she's not talking
we aren't proud of this, see
my dad likes to wax his car
he's proud of it
and my mom says
she sees a lot of him in my hands
says, i touch the things i find
like they didn't belong
to people sleeping in the ground
she says i touch photo albums
the same way-
you know,
i never used to believe
that history could repeat itself
not until i could
fast forward seventeen years
and still wake up to smoke alarms
how i would go into our kitchen
to find it empty
and the dinner smoldering
& my mother in her bedroom
looking through family photos
like it's a just another summer day
and the sirens are just the birds
i don't ask, i never say a word
in this moment
i am an archeologist
afraid to dig up the past
cause history repeats itself-
you see
my brother is dead
and my father is gone
they have been for some years now
and my mother
sometimes forgets
and sets their place at the table
like they're still here
and in the confusion
ends up ankle deep
in pictures of how it used to be
she let's dinner burn
and douses it in red pepper
hoping i won't know the difference

Is there anything as special
As a sister's love?
They are right there with you
When push comes to shove!

They fight for you
Have light for you
To show you that they care
They grow with you
And sow with you
The mem'rys you both share

Sometimes they may not agree
Sometimes even fight
But that's because they want the best
And they know what's right!

It's my sister's birthday
And I want her to see
She is near and she is dear
In my memory

So here is a story
I remember from her past
It tells of her character

She's a fighter to the last!

~~<♡>~~

When my sister was still going to the University of Arizona here in Tucson, she had a motorcycle. Which had a proclivity for breaking down. Well, it was getting on toward summer. And the bike broke down many miles from where her mechanic was located. She had no money to get it towed. So my hundred and twenty pound sister pushed that heavy motorcycle all the way to the dealership! The mechanic was agog!
He couldn't believe she had lugged that motorcycle all that way! He told her, "Honey, you have some *****!"

This is the way my sister is. Beautiful, brilliant, and brave!

I am very proud of her, and I'm honored to be her sister!

♡ Catherine

reposting a poem from 3 1/2 years ago, when I knew how to write
  
<>
organizing the day,
while the baby room renter in the adjacent,,
makes dreamy rock n' roll noises,
siren calls to stay~lay in bed,
tho status of semi-alert,
ready to relieve Ernie and Bert,
who have the first shift covered

soon on guard duty,
scheming about dis n' dat,
you are sleeping, dreaming,
wide awake seeing,
multitasking with eyes closed simultaneously.

lesser of a poet, more a notate-er,
list keeper, note taker,
arguing with yourself inside the head,
actually feeling the thoughts
coursing, lurking, seeing both sides now,
parentally, washing the dishes
of the hours and years ahead.

while the woman-mother
makes her soprano dreaming noises,
you laugh at the orchestra of
*******, sighing somnolent noises,
a cadenza of love dancing in your
irresistible wide awake dreams.

paying the bills, lying in the dark,
you wonder-worry about the agenda
unknown that will overgrow you,
fast creeping up the grain of your skin,
ivy on stone skin walls.

lala lala
you borrow baby's lullaby,
yourself for to calming,
keeping time, silly rhyming,
organizing the days ahead
in you head, while,
recording the harmonies of
sweet sensory inputs.

the dark provides the cloak
where you alone
feel and hear the worry
and laugh lines knitting
into a single stitch of parenting.


1/20/2013