One more stupid obstacle
I tried to share my soul
Tell strangers what I think
And prove you wrong

but my request was forbidden...

this is the place where wires tangle
the birthplace of sneezes
a home for desperate coins,
two balled up tissues, a
****** wrapper (yippee)
a note with handwriting that fingers the page with it's curly tentacles
and a packet of
matches
to start
the fire.

these nights we
hold each other's voices and
wait for the clock to stop staring
before we unravel our sweaters, our
shirts our socks and
start to hum the tunes
we were taught as
children

I was in the car with the mama of the girl I babysit,
her brown deep eyes like whittled wood flicked over mine,
and she asked me what I had learned at school today.

I don’t know, but I think it’s this spring fever
that seems to have burned a hole through my head
letting my brain bounce up into the blue abode
but the blame is not solely on the season

Everything I learn that keeps me living,
lives in the trains of thought,
thought by others.

The mothers I meet with the babies who greet the failure
at the first knock on their wobbly knees
compel me to contemplate further,
because with each waking breath
they are reminded that to live, you learn.

So I tell this fragile woman that today my teachers taught,
but the thought of their subjects
subjects negative connotations,

I want real lessons without plans to hand you wisdom, courage, and consideration

I get to learning in the jaw clinching, artery pinching, eyebrow flinching
awe of the way that woman can sing.
I’ve learned the color of my best friends teeth
because some days she smiles.
Learning to heal is hard enough, but to deal with a scab left raw
is something I will always need improvement on.

With, or without school I’m going to learn.

I’m going to learn cold beverage condensation rings,
percolating dreams,
my little sisters shy smiled wings
and societies racist, sexist, sizeist, ageist, ableist, tightly sewn seams.

Im rattling off my bare brisk list of ambitions,  
of pleading for a voluminous scholarshipped tuition,
as I sit next to this woman waiting for a robust reply
I’m learning, that the whittled wood gap in her eyes
are round with sticky sap.
She will teach her daughter academically, never letting her size our common ground;
The skies.

I want her baby to experience,
and as if on cue,
her yawn brings in the tides of the oceans in her eyes,
something she’s learning to cope with,
she’s grasping my soft word’s
“This too, shall pass,
make sure you look to learn with your eyes not your brain,
dear baby girl, choose water over wood,
and when your mama tells you to pack that school bag,
make sure its zipper barely closes over
tightly stuffed open mindedness, and a few colored pencils.”

rainbows caught
in muddy puddles
makes the children smile.

a pale night

two more estranged
in the passing of time forgotten
promises mistimed

and eternity can end in an instant
a sudden death to tumors long malignant
(let us remember the error of our ways,
the taste of blood when suckling an open wound)

it's new nihility embodied
and shortness of breath
when looking at night's pearl eye

drown out in stillness
double-time, my heart
frantic, my lungs

so beautiful and toxic
our morning flower dies