if i had
a big red rubber ball
i think i'd be happy.
i think i could
smile.
i could walk down the sidewalk,
and bounce it
and try not to think about
my little brothers' and sisters' faces
try not to think how
little jesse would
love a
big
red
rubber
ball
or how miriam would
try to stand on it
or how john would
kick it as far as he could
or how elayna would
paint it
mid-
air

if i had a big red rubber ball
i could be happy
for a couple of seconds
until i started to
think
...but maybe those seconds
would be
worth it...
if you love me
give it to me
but then
take it away

We watched the world end

basking in the surrealism of night,
The sky awash with wayward radiance
from orange streetlight; their fading luminosity
trapped by the city's persistent cloud-cover,
The soft glow dimly illuminating us
as precipitation gracefully descends
in a fine drizzle, seemingly endless;
The falling mist causing an apparent bloom
as sodium-vapor lamplight spread through and through.
This strange photon blossom,
Intangible and awesome.

My mind intoned one silent word:
Renew.

Urban torches expel their artificial light
and give way to the skyglow of streetlamps in bloom.
We lay back and watched the city breathe
as the floating masses of water swooned.
I felt the sky collapse around us
as surreality became our coupled theme.
Romantic ******'s American dream.

Did you really think I was okay?
  when you saw my nicotine-stained teeth
Did you really think I was okay?
  when the only sound heard from recycling were
    the heavy clank! of bottles
Did you really think I was okay?
  when I only wore long sleeves in the steaming
    summer
Did you really think I was okay?
   when they cut me open and saw my bruised and
   battered corpse?

Yet with every flicker
of my heart (which
mirrors
the flickers of his eyes),
I know that it is not right.
We are not right.
But how could that be so?
He makes me feel loved
and wanted
and beautiful
and so protected.
Everything you
didn't make me feel.

Yet with every flicker
of my eyelashes
meeting his reassuring gaze,
I know he is more
than you could ever have been.

at some point in my life,
a bitter seed was planted in my veins -
or perhaps it had been there all along,
and its roots slowly raced toward my heart?
all i'm certain of is this;
i'm not the person i
used to be.
i've hurt too many people
and done too many unacceptable deeds,
and thought too many negative thoughts
to continue with my life at
this same
pace
in which i exist.

life's a whole lot more complex than
dreams, tea, and poetry.
maybe one day i'll wake up and realise
i'm not growing any younger.

"Why one writes is a question I can never answer easily, having so often asked it of myself. I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me – the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That, I believe, is the reason for every work of art.
...
"We also write to heighten our own awareness of life. We write to lure and enchant and console others. We write to serenade our lovers. We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection. We write, like Proust, to render all of it eternal, and to persuade ourselves that it is eternal. We write to be able to transcend our life, to reach beyond it. We write to teach ourselves to speak with others, to record the journey into the labyrinth. We write to expand our world when we feel strangled, or constricted, or lonely … When I don’t write, feel my world shrinking. I feel I am in prison. I feel I lose my fire and my color. It should be a necessity, as the sea needs to heave, and I call it breathing."
('The New Woman', 1974)