I feel mean and nasty.
I cuss out everyone I talk to behind their backs, saying
                                  'That *******!'
Or,
      'What a *****!'

For no reason but that the caffeine wears me thin.

My only child-friend is Bubba the dog, who gives me those eyes,
      'I've never tried watermelon  before, please Jilly can I try it!?'

And, of course I say yes.

Dogs love you even when their food comes late.

He's a pit bull. I feel someone of importance when I walk down the street with him, you know,
       'Move it, coming through with my friend the tan pitbull with the sad eyes! We don't have all day! We have to eat watermelon!'

He lays in the sun and I think of things.

'Why is he afraid of water?

Why does he step so daintily over obstructions in his path?

What does he really think of those
cats he chases...does he want them to sit down and eat watermelon with us?'

I want someone to eat watermelon with us.

Danny is at work, and the sun is high in the powder blue backdrop it calls home.

We want a watermelon friend.

The bright green leaves picked at by tiny fingers
and your mother taking your boyfriend
red blood
it must have turned from her shirt to your eyes
the night you found them drunk.

Now, it is 30 years later,
those same eyes focused on mine,
Shouting at you in the parking lot of the hospital
to take your badge and burn it
'You aren't my social worker.'

Playing with my life as she did yours.
Me, learning.

How we crawl into the crevices of a mind, crouching in wait
to find a dent
a scratch to pick apart
and send screaming into the light.

We only want the best.
Though, is it for us, or for them?
We never know.

Or do we?

At night, I think of  how we are the same
Twenty-four years apart,
still jumping from man to man like dragonflies,
our colorful wings, torn and glistening.

I found mine, but lose his bright orange youth nightly.
And love is never further away than the next place we look,
but always at just the tip of our tongues,
if we use them right.

I remember at twelve,
practicing break-ups in the bathroom every night.

'I'm sorry, I know you love me, but I have other commitments.'

You were the one with the damage, and it crept over me
a tarp over a clear blue pool on a winter afternoon.
Dead leaves crowding the corners,
tiny bee carcasses: my insecurities piling over the top.

'I'm just not good enough, I must do something about this weight.'

All of your ways boiling over into mine.

The morning I got my first period, you laughed with my sister at my excitement, instead of leaping for joy, and I watched the two of you giggle, my cheeks growing red with anger and shame.

'Aren't I now a woman?'
'Aren't I now yours?'

You always pointed at the corners when I cleaned:
'Do You see that dust? It isn't enough...it's just not enough.'

I've had enough, mother.

The wind blows smoothly into the arms you gave me.
As I write, I am met with a penetrating silence.

This is enough.
It has to be.

Its about noon on Wednesday
UCLA had a shooting

Fox news reports
that the kids are still
trapped in the classrooms
waiting

Now that it is contained,
the excitement has died down
from our side,

but the kids there will always be

The guy in the science building that heard the doorknob wiggle as bullets wailed in the distance.
The girl that peed herself because she was afraid she wouldn't make it to her sister's Quincinera.
The teacher who never thought he'd see the day.

We're left with our hands up,

'Is this it?'

Is this what we're left with?

A man, full in his head,
bored at his hands

and a gun?

'Is this it?'

and two sets of parents, who won't see their children grow to be the ones who walked at graduation.

'Is this it?'

35 people in a row
and 2 that go where no one knows
upon a beach of golden sands
with elderly grandmas holding hands

and giant birds
and ferocious sharks
and dogs that leave their golden marks

in vicious depths
dead children play
never to see
another day

and I with you at the very top
floating 'til we never stop
opening eyes to look at stars
forgetting all the mangy cars

and the bars
and the bars

Thinking of the time they did coke in my apartment,
and they suddenly realized
I was beautiful

I would have been before, too,
but you were always worried about your tutor
and the white sludge
dripping down the back of your throat
tap tap tapping
on your brain, that couldn't take it anymore, but did.

Now, you live with a woman who works with children
they hear the tap tap tapping
on their brain
and they would have been beautiful, anyway.

You are somewhere with no answers to questions,

no weeping
no laughter

and the tap tap tapping on your brain.

You are old, and you cannot see the sky.

a dog barks to start a fight with bubba
and he gets
mean like an ant who's
sugars' been stolen and I tell him
             that's an ugly dog
when ugly people populate the planet, I get mad,
but I don't bite their heads off.
                                        He got really calm after that
and I waved at a gardener
as if to say,
                   'It's okay,
                                   it won't happen again.'

I slept with Danny last night. He doesn't know how good he is,
he thinks he has to learn, but I look at him on top of me
and how his **** sticks straight up, how it hasn't been masturbated into submission
and I think, man
I need to learn.