Death is not the final word.
Without ears, my father still listens,
still shrugs his shoulders
whenever I ask a question he doesn't want to answer.

I stand at the closet door, my hand on the ****,
my hip leaning against the frame and ask him
what does he think about the war in Iraq
and how does he feel about his oldest daughter
getting married to a man she met on the Internet.

Without eyes, my father still looks around.
He sees what I am trying to do, sees that I
have grown less passive with his passing,
understands my need for answers only he can provide.

I imagine him drawing a breath, sensing
his lungs once again filling with air, his thoughts ballooning.

In the darkness of the living room
the street light breaks through the blinds

He sleeps on the couch
A flannel blanket so small
every night is a decision
Shoulders?
Or feet?

I give him a fresh diaper
and light him a smoke

Tonight
before bed
he tells me a story
the only one I have ever heard from him
about the war

His best friend was named Mike
Mike got sick
Fever and blood in every cough

"I kept telling him everything was going to be okay"
He said
"but he kept asking me to leave him
Said to just send his wife a letter.
I never found any letter.
I wrote one later as if were him"

"I found him one morning
Cut his own throat"

My father's gone through five cigarettes by now

He lays down
covers his feet tonight

"When you're a burden to the people you love
it is okay to give up
That is what I am trying to tell you boy"

Just like that
he gave up

I am not saying my father was a good man
But in the end
I forgive him
for everything

With my father
I would watch dawn
over green fields.

you never expect these words to come out my mouth.
slurs come out as a whisper but to you they shout.
only you and I can understand what this conflict is truly about.
your mind tries to stand firm as a blade of grass in a tornado of doubt.
naturally your physical expression shows your dismay and your intellectual drought.
but for you my verbal assault will never end, you had your chance, you dug your grave for you theres no way out.
I hope my words pierce your heart like a knife.
i hope these words cause you many years of mental strife.
cause God only knows the kind of role you played in my life.
no matter how vague this message might be, we both already know its too late for me.
But this message truly isn't meant to hurt you.
its to make you aware on the outcome of your actions on one child of two
hears my plea, but im not telling you what to do. reach that title called
'FATHER'
grab it, and take your cue.

home is where the heart is
but what if you don't have a home?
what if circumstances out of your control
have forced you to pack up
your belongings in knapsacks
book-bags
and suitcases
where could you kept your heart?
would you nestle it in-between socks that double
as bubble wrap
or in an old mason jar
cleaned of its old bacon grease and
sealed shut from air
i knew a girl once
who was without a home and instead of packing it away
she carried it on her sleeve
and under bridges and squeezed between cloth and a park benches
it got too ***** for her to recognize
and people would nudge up against it in soup lines
and in the winter time it would smell like outdoors and  freezing pines
i would ask her
why not keep in in your backpack
surely it would be much safer there
and she told me
she would never
separate her heart from her body like that
and if she did find a home
she wouldn't keep her heart there either
because houses are temporary and her body would be as permanent
as God would allow it to be

i am not pretty because
p   r  e    t   t   y
isn't an adjective worthy nor suitable to be applied to me
Pretty does not make good
daughterswivesmotherstudentsteachersdoctorsloversrevolutiona­rieswriterssingershumans
Pretty is an inanimate unfeeling thing while
i am a life force--- a tornado or hurricane whipping through the air with riotgrrrrl gale force winds in the background, leaving pretty behind me in refuse
Pretty isn't synonymous with worth or good hearts.
Pretty isn't getting up in the morning and making breakfast for your  hungover friends
it isn't giving someone flowers just because you care
it isn't women in in trenches digging irrigation systems for villages
or building houses for strangers in another country
it isn't the first breathe of a baby in a midwife's arms
or the sound of women being liberated.
It has no sound at all.

I'd like to think that I am that feeling you get in the summer before a large thunderstorm rolls over the mountains
and pretty
                     isn't
                           that.
And in sparse occasions that I am deemed worthy enough a piece of meat to earn this verbal badge of honor-- 'pretty'
that feeling will never outweigh the hate and anguish my body went through to earn that
'compliment'
it will never outweigh the meals skipped
laxatives eaten
amphetamines snorted
or times my fingers have been shoved down my throat until the tips of them stung from stomach acid
my body is weary of me punishing it for someone Else's ignorance and my need to hear this silly word & my throat hurts from putting my fingers inside it
& i will be ****** if i spend another second of my life hating myself and hearing women hate themselves because we weren't told we were 'pretty' as often as we would have liked
So no, I will never be 'pretty' -- I will be much more.