I thought the older we got
the more the age gap would close
52 - 35 = 17

But
You're forever old now
52
and I'm the age you were
35
When I was
17

Time
you enchant
beg for hours
                        endless

Every minute
you never waste away
like all the things in your grace

You are the only one here
who will see the sun explode

Beyond that
even

Relentless in your thirst for endings
because you can't end

She woke up
Red
Swollen eyes
Like she'd been in a fight with Ali

How?
This started the investigation
An interrogation of her long summer days

Alas
A few days before she was playing
She said
Out by the tree island in back

Laying on the ground
There she found
Her Adventure Stick

To poke and **** her enemies (brother) with
"It worked much better", she said
"With a garland of leaves wrapped around it"

Her father and I let out a collective sigh
He reminded her slightly
"Leaves of three, let them be."

I myself could only say
Looking at her puffy little face
"But you sure did have an adventure!"

I woke up so early
To rain and darkness
Counting on my fingers how many hours I slept
two, three, four, five, six
Preparing for the mundane day to come
Motivation for the weekend
For work and school to break
For my family to be home with me
I tread thickly through habits
Smoking several dozen cigarettes
4 pots of coffee
I'm the American housewife
I exist to help every one else progress
Searching for purpose
In being the home you come home to
Stagnant for the greater good
There's beauty there

With little hands you crawled from my womb
But you're not a baby now
You could be anyone
You're made of stardust and dinosaurs
And people I've never met

I gaze at you looking for some resemblance of anything I know
And you raise your brow and give me a dead stare
Because you find it weak of me
To love you so matter-of-factly

You can see
I don't know anything
Or  you

She figured me out by 15

Mother's creation
That she despises

You
My dearest
Try to Love

Oh darling
Can't you see
My own Mother can't love me

Lists and errands
I'm not lists and errands

I am here
I am today
Mounds of feelings and fibers

More than a mother

My head is a checklist
It's all a checklist

Are these quick words
even written
right?

It won't ever stop

To take my first puff
Because they didn't understand
And they smoked! Hypocrites.

To hop in back and not buckle
Like I envisioned years of PTSD
And my cat stuck in the seat

To make you a daddy
Not one time but three
Like I could envision this zoo

To undo number  four

Struggling to quit, brave, deal, forgive.

Darrell
Rhymes with barrel
and Christmas carol
and several names
like Cheryl and Meryl

If I was writing a rhyming poem
I'd rhyme your name with "peril"
Not that I'd do it well
But it's better than rhyming it with "sterile"

I could make up nonsense words for rhyming sake
like...larrell and parrell and tarrell
And I could write a poem especially for you
and the impossible to rhyme with "Darrell"

I'll fail miserably at it
But I love you enough to try
Maybe I'll improve on my list of "Darrell" rhymes
and make you as happy as a pie in the sky next to bread made of rye sitting on the plate of a famished guy, tie, buy, cry, lie

Again, I tried.

I will let you inside
Rent space in my head
and I'll take heed and make an attempt
To conquer whatever it is about me that you spend so much time devaluing
And when you're in there, would you kindly mind shutting off whatever longings and needs I may have
Just flip that switch and tie a rope to it that extends to a nail in the ground
And cancel whatever subscription I have to the "Pity Party" hotline
Make sure it is forwarded to you
For you deserve all the pity and sympathy for having to endure me
Go ahead and stab out whatever cortex may be responsible for my behavior towards you
**** it and bury it and don't be manipulated by it like you were in the past
Stuff me full of you-loving and you-respecting ingredients
Fashion me into the sort of a person you could love

I see what you've done
You made me a mother
To take care of a boy

I’m half the girl I was when you met me
I’ve grown up and away from you
And you’ve grown down to me

No funny games today
I have things to get done
Go find someone else to play

Go be the boy that I've been groomed to oversee
And I’ll be here when you’re done
I'll be doing dishes or laundry

I've got surprise for you
I have three children
And you’re not four

Why didn't you tell us
Battled and bruised
Fragile heart
Tell us to leave you alone
Your hard work should have paid off
In the garden or buying yourself something nice
We ****** you dry
It's all our fault
Your heart broke
And then you died

Ego
Synapses
There is something here
It yearns for you
Its thousand year twin
How
When I’m all bundles
Nerves
Wire
Bones
Circuits
Skin

Evolution so much
I can read this
And think this
And feel

Cloned

Forgotten


What ever genius in my singular creation
You
Give me God

I dream in Grands
Granddaddy longlegs
Grand stand
Grand old Flag
Grand jury
Grand slam
Grand mal seizure
Grand theft auto
Grand canyon

Stand beside me
Stand and exhale and
Tower over me
Shadow me

Fold me in your darkest
Where no light can hit me
Speak normal
Be usual
But teeming with me

Shelter me
Not caring
and bearing
it all

Look at me between warm breaths
Amid the frightful
Swat away
Keep my gaze
Steady

In your cover
I am everything
Cosmos Mephistopheles
Cancer
Jesus reborn

Frozen
Under trees and rocks
I know who you were
You are in my clean crisp columns
Names now
Dates now
Indulgent with all I don't know
One life for every stranger
Here you are a wonder
Only defeated at the last second
Blood on your cheeks
Pinched pink
Finding hope
Here you are
Names on my list
Heroes

Hey, I knew you when you had frosted-tip hair
When you listened to The Smashing Pumpkins
When you were lazy and carefree
And you copied off of me.

Hey, I knew you when you aimlessly wandered the halls
looking for a vending machine and a quarter
When all you had was a backpack and angst
When your car had no bumper and chipped paint

Hey, I know you
Not as this sniveling, disaffected perfection-pusher
Not as some right-winged orator of damnation
Not as this devouring greedy pencil pusher on a pedestal

I want to go back and show you the new you
You, the coward.

What would the you of then think?

Home is a collar bone in my ear
Home is smells of polyurethane
And epoxy
Home is a mountainous beard
Lush with soft brown hair
that I can squish between my fingers
Home is two sunken eyes
Cradled by wrinkles
That smile at me
Home is hard-working calloused hands
That when led to soft skin
Work the opposite
Home is skinny legs and a concave chest
And a poked out belly full of fur
Home is seventeen years older
Twenty pounds lighter
Inside of an aging man

On the cold floor I can't go any further
I'm low
I am in it

These days are frightening
I can't see the light
But the floor feels right

Maybe they'll think no one is in here
Or I'm here, but don't notice no light
Or I just am having a mom moment
And I have no place else to be

I don't.

Stabbers take turns
First mom, then sister
Then sister, then brother
Even when I slide myself off
And hide myself in my life
It still hurts
Words that split my ears
And make me question who, what, where
Even when I shut it out
And smother it with verse
It still hurts
It seems like you all get along so well when I'm your target
I'll be the silence that keeps you all together
A common enemy
I know my place

Showering, peeping through the curtain
Waiting for ghosts in striped camp clothing
Waiting for gas
Terror

Back to reality
Me in the rose tiled tub
Music playing
Hot water

Driving, staring at tall trees in the forest
Waiting for smoke to billow above
Waiting for the smell
Eerie

Reality
Three children strapped in
Husband holding leather covered steering wheel
Air Conditioning

This isn't my chosen voyeuristic retreat
Drenched in the ease of today
Still seeing what lurks in the shadows

Why can't songs end at the same moment the engine shuts off?
Don't leave me to go through this day singing unfinished verses
At least let my favorite part come to end
Let's sit
Everything else can wait
This is a moment I don't want to miss

My heart banged on my chest
Beat me from the inside out

It was angry
I tried to please it
Best I could
Old tricks didn't work

Something of you made me sob
My heart
finally calmed

The physical manifestation of my sadness
My drowning heart

I am the cog that hits the cog in a great machine
I'm furthest from the source
Like Neptune

Meet my tears

Here is the blank space I dread
I am prolific and insightful
In my head
Getting it down on virtual paper
Easier said

Our every thought is drizzled
with tots and children and kids
With a cherry on top of guilt
Wondering how we did

Every move
Always momentous
Should we do this, or this, or this

Smiling to peers
Always friendly
Will accept you with warm regard
We're judged mostly as "mom"

A house as fragrant as pumpkin pie
With pictures on the wall
Something to dust
When we remember to forget who we are

If there is any crazy beast in me
It comes out onto you

And you stay anyway

I look back and see all my wrongs
Yet I do them again and again

You still don't go away

I don't know how you deal with me
I'm batshit crazy
I'm unstable and unclean
I can't cook and I'm bossy

I fly off the handle some days
At things I don't mind the next
I don't make sense
But I can convince us both that I do

You're growing weary of me
I can tell
And I don't blame you

Oh John
How far we've come
You'd be marching, so much marching you've missed

Oh John
We're not yet done
So much to do, so much to change still

Oh John
Your anthems still lead us
Power To The People battle cries
Give Peace A Chance to try and make things right
Imagine cops not killing innocent people
Working Class Hero is not something to be John

Oh John
You'd know what to do
I wish you were here to champion this through
Or hold one of your obnoxious bed-ins to prove
That it's okay to look ridiculous for a cause

You'd have egg on your face over all that's gone on
And truly be the Egg Man
Oh John

We're all waiting to die
Some of us just have more distractions than others

Black
The smell of nightmares
Melted
Frozen in time
2:00
November
Sixteeth
We left it all there
And there it still sits
Motionless
Black
Melted
We can never go back

We left it there like normal
It was all so normal

Now

It's over
All over

We're all infinite
And doomed

I want to ball you up
Stick you in my pocket
Keep you there
Denim and warmth
Intermission between sets
Of sticky heavy breathing
Bring you out again for air
And for sneaks of whisky

When you're absent, I'm myself
Perhaps a bit lonelier version
No less fitful and bored
But capable of happiness

When you're here, I'm unbearable
I live for whatever piece I can get
I switch from human to pet
I'm a dog scraping leftovers off of your floor

Living for others is what I do
I'm half-dead when it comes to you
I'm a vicious, thirsty version of me
And you love it

Nothing we see here is real
It's all filtered

First through our eyes
Reflected light
Sending signals to the brain
Where an image is produced

Then we must perceive it
All of the thoughts and feelings
From years of life
Decide the reaction to what is seen

Nothing is objective
We're our own propaganda machine
Extinguishing what hurts
Letting in what's clean

Yet
Some people are so sure
In what they see
And feel

They can tell you
Exactly how it should be
And what was once here
What is real

You see different than what I see?
Sinful? Wrong?
Broken? Incomplete?

Repeat after me
All that you see is
All that you see
And that's got nothing to do with me

Let me live in my sin
It's.mine.
Like when you remove your glove, finger by finger, plucking the tips with a pull. Freeing each finger until all are freed. Pulling  your hand out, cupping glove to glove and laying them on that end table you love. The one with the lamp that appeared when your Mom died. The only thing you got from her because you hated her.

When you die
You have to pick who dies next
To secure your place in heaven

That's why death
happens in threes.

I will follow you down
Your grave bent and furrowed
If I keep up my ways
Golden brown my lungs

What's down there
You'll show me
You will know by then
Dig mazes for us to follow
And we can build a life in the dirt

When I visit you are still
The ground falls under my feet
I know you have tunnels already
You can show me decay
Stash away our jewelry
In hollowed out dirt shelves

Like every great
You had to go first
To dig us tunnels
And make us a mud house

Dying alone here in my Thoughts Of Dreams of all things I should be doing.

Useless and Careless so much sometimes to care and use myself. My abilities.

I need people to understand or I'll always be stuck here inside myself wondering what the hell I'm doing

It has stopped raining now

In my memories you're just a sillouette
Your outline smudged and grayed
I can't see your face
Your voice is muffled
Void of  gestures
I've known you the longest
but I can't remember
"She lives on in your memories"
No, she doesn't

When there is no God and no memories
What do I have left?

I'm hips and lips
******* and legs
Atop two unsteady feet
Always
Treading oppression
Tiptoeing past resembling her
Balancing on a beam
Dangling from poles
Wading through clothes
Skipping with children
Kick starting
Moving forward
My *******
Against heavy gravity