The world rolls along like an antelope



with a tiger latched on at the hip,





Hungry with no thought of food.

i am not a diamond with a fatal flaw
i hold no fire
No awe or mystery has been brought to light by blood
in me

i am not finely carved and polished wood
i do not mull my scars
The burns have not been caked by thoughts of time

i am not green
i am not gold
not plastic (i think)
not sound nor shriek
not a breeze
not paint or clay

i am porcelain
Cold that contains warmth
memory and reservation
i have cracks that never change

When the rain falls through the roof
When the soldiers don’t come back
When the dragon eats the damsel
I will not go out

I will not leave
I will shudder tremble sob
I will not go out

When promises break and words crack
My hands will hold your heart though it drips through my fingers and I don’t catch it all splashing on my lap

Hold me in mean pantomime
I don’t care
I will survive without your love
Because someday you will love

me

Once together we were entwined
Twice we breathed into the same breast
Never look back
Present knowledge will distort
Preserve the past and think not about it
Let it be a feeling not a thought

I will be here in your heart
Until you return
Fondly yours
Love

Scars heal?
No, they don't
Pain is not forgotten

I can hear the thunder of the wagon train
Isn't my mouth still full of dirt?
Was it dust or ash, my mind cannot hold the details
It only remembers the pain

Curses on the daisy
Who told the wildflower it could come so far?
Why should it live if I die

Snarling barking
Smokescreen of control
Scars heel they never heal

He is the most wonderful father.
          Haven't you seen his eyes when he holds her?
          Haven't you seen them slowly amble?
He bends again and again so she may tickle his nose with the tattered dandelions she picks one after the other all the way down
...
to the park.

We brought her home in an old Chevy truck.
I cannot speak of his wide eyes sealed on the road that day as his heart was sealed on his girls he drove home.
I know the seal is unbroken I cannot understand but I know.

The pain may now stop his gaze at inches from my pale forehead.  
Separation has begun but He will be a wonderful father.

Their long walks do not inspire smiles anymore this must not continue.
Her heart belongs in the park with the dandelions and the laughter, O Lord, may this journey end!
This morning, they did amble down my path of florescent light past the winding stems of the daisies on the cancer ward wallpaper.

He will be a wonderful, a wonderful father.

Steel and grain let escape,
Settling into the depths of the woven wool,
The citrus dust of the emerging art.

"Roll the blade like an ocean wave."
The regimental wooden curls advance on my vision
As my teacher's eyes take in the familiar sight.

As they fall, my mind wanders
Wonders of the flakes - was there no music in them?
Perfunctory: "You're doing well."

Maybe I would die like that too?
The grace, the courage?
Like an arching rebel of the grain.

He's gone traveling today,
Off to adventure far away.
I labor time as I pine
As he passes pine and vine
That I've never, no not once
Chanced a glance, a look askance.

This evening I will justify
My own choice to poetify
On his absence from his seat
And the emptiness he leaves complete.
For it is near the holiday
And I would rather he choose to stay.

When he returns, I'll make a meal!
With bread and pudding, the whole deal
He will laugh at the floured mess
Of me, my smile, and my best dress.
But, he'll be glad to know to I care
And would always rather have him here.

Where do we stand? How does he know I stand with him.  Does he know I don't?
Commitment unbroken, I do still rebel at his thoughts, his preferences
for me.
I do not want to look like that.
He only wants me free I only want to win my own freedom.

He does not go with a woman or a girl or a gal or a madam
He goes with the bone of Adam
If Adam was a King, so too was Eve.
She was made of King.

I will not sit quiet, I will not be still
I will listen, I will love
I will not behave
I will serve
I will not agree
I will watch

Do you know what I sacrifice?
Never, you blind fool with your face all in muck and your ears full of the dripppppppping candle wax while your fingers scratch in the dirt peeling away your fingernails.
Mirror, mirror on the wall...

Flip the page
What comes next?
Hurricane or Robin's Nest?

Road unwalked
Who can tell?
Tambourine or ringing bell?

Will my footsteps
single be?
Or will he walk next to me?

Will I float
between the stars?
Will I speed in bright red cars?

What does looking
forward bring?
A glass ever darkening.

How long will
my questions last?
How long till my now is past?

Tomorrow
never comes today.
Tomorrow never brings dismay.

Tomorrow is always
out of reach.
Today has so much more to teach.

The future always changes;
It never stays the same.
But I still sing the old songs
And I will know your name.

The future always changes;
It rests inside no cage.
But we have ground beneath our feet
And all the world's our stage.

The future always changes;
No compass points the way.
But roads are in the present,
A present here to stay.

Take the step
Feel the fall
Hit the ground
Stand up tall

So cold, so wet
so weak, so hungry
The weight of the darkness genuflects my soul.

So huddled I shake and I wait
Wait wait for me!
Come back, do return soon!

I can't see.  Thunder flattens my hair onto my scalp but the lightning does no thing to illuminate the path that must, that must be before my blind eyes.
How can I step without light, you call this rescue?

But the greater darkness is deeper.  Deeper than the shine-less drops of dew speckling my skin.
The greatest darkness is within and it stands before a great light.  I am a shuttered lantern of the night.

Speckled brow and gnarled knees
Crooked elbows, yellow teeth,
Breath that floats like infesting fleas.

Run and tear, away from there!
When you see it, its time to clear!
Fly from the rotten bully's lair!

But wait, what's this?
How can it be?
Its not a monster but a mirror..
Its me.

I get it tonight.  I'm lonely.  This time I understand.  Sometimes all I know is that I am sad.  Tonight I have a sweeter word.  Lonely.  Lonely. Lone. lee.
It's beautiful, isn't it?  My friends are getting married.  They have been doing so for several years.  If I had a writing desk and a garden, I could be Dickinson.  I have a brake light instead, but hey, I fixed it myself. Along with the red clock.  I fixed that too.
I'm going to spend time with him tonight.  He doesn't know I will actually stay at my desk while I sit on the couch with him.  My friends have gotten married.
I am not a little girl tonight.  If I were a little girl, I would tell you I do not like not being one like I am tonight.  But tonight, tonight I am not a little girl.  So I don't say anything at all.
Why do I hurt? Not cosmically.  Just what is the cause, not the justification.  That's all I want to know.  When I was a little girl who never dreamed she'd not someday be a little girl, who did not know what a not little girl was, I hurt then too.
I wouldn't know who I was if I did not hurt.  Its burned into me.  He tries to understand.  I want him to run so far and so fast from me.  If he touches me, it will burn him.  If he touches me my burns will light up again I will roll in the flames.  Immolation.  Darkness disguised as beauty.  The dark is deep, not beautiful.  It bites your ankles unless you hold your breath but then you cannot breathe.
Where did they all go?  The children I played with when I grew up in pain.  They are not little boys.  They never were little girls.  They were like trees.  Ageless when I knew them, now taller.  You never meet the same tree twice.

You think I'm tired?
I'm not tired.

My limbs are steady,
my sight is strong but...

I don't want to see anymore.
I want to sleep alone again.

Sometimes what is hard has no voices to mimic(k)
I can't tell you why


I'm not tired, but I want to sleep.