We hate each other
Only because we cant seem to understand

We're speaking different languages.

Your nails bite the skin across my face.
My palm reaches out.
Swing and a miss.

But yours connects.
And they say we don't try
To interact

But we're on opposing sides
Gunpowder
Flame
Scratching and biting to the surface
An explosion of heartbreak and abandonment
In an effort to escape.

Its sad
But we can't seem to understand
We're just the same reflection born two different moments in time.


*Copyright 2011 Monica Figueroa

A part of me, set in stone
But cast away, reasons unknown
A piece of clay, molded to slow
A tree with firm roots, not allowed to grow
With blood comes knowing
But lack of understanding
With grace comes showing
But lack of a purpose
I see no pain, but a settle to score
I see no wool, but the wolf's at the door
I want no conflict, just live and let live
I need no lies, just the right to forgive
Have I let down, with my worries and woes?
Or have I pleased, with my constant lows?
In revealing, there's always light
But not when you're blinded by the dead pleas of night
It isn't something I would wish for just anyone
It isn't something I can control
While others aim to strike at what's coming
I yearn to grasp what's already known
You can't expect a fool to change overnight
But you can't expect a soldier to stand and watch their plight
If you could only get inside my head
You'd see I'm just like you, just a little more dead
Do you wish I was gone? Will that fill the void?
No more blank stares, green eyes, questions of why?
Would you rapture all I had, just to feed your crop?
Or would you sow my memory in a place that never rots?
People change, or so they say
But I can never feel like me, when a day's a year away
I'm sorry for the burden, I should have left a time ago
But when seeds are sowed, heaviness bears so, that time doesn't forgive

Sisters can be difficult creatures,
The towels left transforms me into a preacher.
They combine and plead that it wasn't either- of them,
Defending that they are benign and not leavers.
But I do not accept their lines, I rebut them and decline
What they are feeding me and a desire to confine them- overwhelms.
But instead of convulsing into a seizure or giving in to something malign and of a devious nature,
My words become fiercer as I deliver my "bottom-line"
To those rascally creatures that I wish to refine.
Yet I can hear features of mine, in their voices, before I was their keeper and only nine,
And it made me realize that I, too, once was a creature and not fully defined.
Calming down I enshrine myself and become a wistful dreamer.
To have things I've made stay made would be sublime, and so much cleaner.
And so- in my confines dreaming of refined sisterly creatures, I recline.
Alas, being a teacher makes me want to lie supine.

listen

I don't expect a reaction,
sympathy,
empathy;
a solution.

I don't need your love,
care,
devotion;
or shoulder, even.

I just need your ear.

Perhaps only for a few minutes.

While we're sitting at the bar,
waiting for the bus,
riding in a cab,
or even standing in a long line.

listen.

You may not change my life,
heart,
soul,
or even my mood.

But you will have changed the course of one day.

ONE day          of          MY life.

If only you could understand the significance of just one day.

Cities have been leveled. Towers have fallen. Ships have been sunk.

And though I may not be a Hiroshima, a 9/11, a Pearl Harbor.... I matter.

You don't have to tell stories about me to your grandchildren,
follow me,
attend my funeral;
or remember me, for that matter.

You just need to take a couple of minutes out of your day...
while you're sitting at the bar,
waiting for a bus,
riding in a cab,
or simply standing in a r e a l l y   l  o  n  g   line...

whether you be a stranger,
friend,
lover;
or mother.

listen.

my baby sister

she is searching , reaching for something she may never find.  That will never stop her from beating her head against an imaginary wall. I do the same which is why it hurts me so to witness.

Her soul is lost,
love she yearn
Her mind is set,
but her soul burns
her journey is short,
but her fight is long
Love she wants,
but pain is her song
she lust for happiness,
but endure hurt
She needs a hand,
but to mine she will turn
She wants the truth ,
but knows only lies
she shows she strong,
and alone she cry's
she loves him yes,
but needs him not
she blames her past,
but admits shes lost
she prays to god,
but sin is easy
I am her brother,
but she doesn't need me

Or rather what she needs i cant give
and the comfort i give she doesn't want
I try to be guidance but she is to blind to see
The path she is traveling is just down stream

good weather
is like
good women-
it doesn't always happen
and when it does
it doesn't
always last.
man is
more stable:
if he's bad
there's more chance
he'll stay that way,
or if he's good
he might hang
on,
but a woman
is changed
by
children
age
diet
conversation
***
the moon
the absence or
presence of sun
or good times.
a woman must be nursed
into subsistence
by love
where a man can become
stronger
by being hated.
I am drinking tonight in Spangler's Bar
and I remember the cows
I once painted in Art class
and they looked good
they looked better than anything
in here. I am drinking in Spangler's Bar
wondering which to love and which
to hate, but the rules are gone:
I love and hate only
myself-
they stand outside me
like an orange dropped from the table
and rolling away; it's what I've got to
decide:
**** myself or
love myself?
which is the treason?
where's the information
coming from?
books...like broken glass:
I wouldn't wipe my *** with 'em
yet, it's getting
darker, see?
(we drink here and speak to
each other and
seem knowing.)
buy the cow with the biggest
****
buy the cow with the biggest
****.
present arms.
the bartender slides me a beer
it runs down the bar
like an Olympic sprinter
and the pair of pliers that is my hand
stops it, lifts it,
golden **** of dull temptation,
I drink and
stand there
the weather bad for cows
but my brush is ready
to stroke up
the green grass straw eye
sadness takes me all over
and I drink the beer straight down
order a shot
fast
to give me the guts and the love to
go
on.
from "poems written before jumping out of an 8 story window" - 1966