Her daughter's spare key,
slipped
in the lock, to open

A lifeless house

The granddaughter
follows

"Take the shoes, they're of little value."

Obediently,
timidly,
she goes to the bedroom closet.

She tries on a pair
of beige sandals;
understated,
good quality,
and so

comfortable.

These are followed
by two more pairs,
which disappoint
in comparison.

Then,
Oh,
She sees the slippers.
So familiar,
knit
together.

And the
granddaughter
unravels.

She slips them on.
Slips into oblivion.

Do you need a hug?
Singsong from the office.

They meet in the hallway.
And slip into each other's arms.

It is easy
to wear
her literal
shoes

But the slippers
feel empty
on her feet.

Women
are not mysterious.

We are not shrouded
in cloaks made from the night sky.

We are not anomalies
or irregularities in the data.

Our nature has been hidden
from men, by men.

We have not been studied;
Not extensively, thoroughly, over centuries.

Not the way men have been, either.
There was no equal footing in
analyses.

Women were test subjects, when men were patients.
When we were "relevant" at all.

This pattern literally kills us quicker.
In medicine, and love.
In the office and the bedroom.
In the workshop and the nursery.

In the kitchen.

In the kitchen.

Some food for your soul:

Everyone is magical.
You don't need a pointy hat and a ******.

Everyone is intellectual.
You don't need spectacles, white skin, or a *****.

Everyone is environmental.
Just go outside.

You just need to be you.

Subscribing to the binary
and rejecting it completely:
One ties your hands,
the other your feet.

Be all the parts of you. Then you can feel
Whole.

Selfhood:
Strange burden
to be trapped
in perceptions

All the heavier
When alone.

Expectation wraps
her bony hand
around my heart

And squeezes tighter
With every failure.

Overheard critiques
build bad blood

My battered bravery
turns green
and spoils.

Persistence is as twinned as the judge.
Is it necessary for resolution?
Is it self abuse?

Hope is a shattered plate
Sharply paralyzing bare feet.

Do you want to feel better?
Then stop playing the victim
Start acting like a survivor.

Even if your gut
And heart
Are telling you it's hopeless.

Your brain is an ***** and a muscle.
It keeps you alive.
And it works if you work it.

Your heart and your gut can heal
If you eat right and get outside.

Begin taking care of yourself.
Set limits for others,
And be kind when
It's mutually beneficial.
Then sometimes when it's not.
And when you feel great,
Do that a lot.

Soon you will teach someone else
To be a survivor
And then you become
A thriver.

Peace and joy
Together
Comes only
To those who have earned it
For themselves.

Splattered
Like spaghetti sauce
On a baby's white highchair-

That's your inner life.
Red, dried, this is going to stain.

You swallowed bullets, and then they shot inside you.

Like an old broken computer,
You're bigger, and you look fine,
but you whir (and hum) at the slightest touch;
overheating.

Like not wearing underwear under your clothes,
everything is scratchy and a little raw and you feel more vulnerable.

You feel everyone must know. How could they?

Only if they notice.
Or
If they lure you into taking off those "I've got it together" clothes.
Which nobody can do anymore.
Because ******, you're going to integrate that ****.

Wear that rawness like the Emperor in his new clothes.
Be your own mischievous taylor.
Laugh like a baby at the spaghetti stain.
Spit the bullet shards out
at kids so they don't do the same thing you did.

Divergence
Leads to-
Convergence.
James Funke
Told me
I was going to hate him.
I don’t hate you, long arms.
After I read those poems of yours
I cannot- willnot
Believe you wrote them
To drive me away.
Did you really write them?

A wide, wide lake
And a paddler.
Moving in no particular direction,
just keeping
Above the glassy depths.
Paddling,
praying it never tips.

Praying so hard,
And still; the wind picks up.

The paddler turns around
oh, so, slowly
and moves for shore.

Chest burning,
water on fingertips, (tip?)
waves getting higher.

Swallowed lake water
up the nose.
The Paddler
sinks to the bottom.

And kicks off!
Wading Home to the Unknown.

Click
The magic of that line-
Drawn in crayon-
Calms and excites:
Renders everything else
Meaningless and Infinitely Consequential.
Up* I go
In a swift motion-
to float there,
high,
where meaning and representation
are transcendental.
Only to drift back down,
Gently, rhythmically,
Like a fat, fluffy feather
In a barn stall full
Of day old chicks.
A soft yellow glow,
Sleepily chirping.

Dawn has come.
That bad blood
Having boiled
And changed its make up

Permanently.

His Hatred was an ironic gift:
Though love is as far as its ever been
The journey there
guarantees no base use.
No more abuse.

Only worthiness,
each for the other.

Hope is a long country road
under bare feet.

The truth will out!
Said Anna to the Grasshopper.

Whose bladed legs had cut her own
When it jumped into her pocket.

Grandmother moon got cancer
And almost died. Just like Anna.

But cancer didn't do it on purpose.

Now Anna doesn't wear pockets.
Or walk in the long grass.

Two things she loved to do.

Instead she paints canvases
Full of green and red.

Sometimes Anna feels worse than dead.
And then she reminds herself

Of all the grasshoppers
Still in the long grass

Who might hear her story
And empathize with the foreigner.

Soon she found herself in a forest
Evergreens planted neatly, but full grown.

And Bear lived there
And made her feel at home.

From there she heard a rabbit say
That Grasshopper would be locked away.

And Anna was afraid.
Almost like the moment

She felt the blood seeping through her shorts.
Before she knew the cause.

Suddenly long grass was everywhere.
And her screaming scared the Bear.

So Anna climbed a tree.
And from there she could see

A little brown bird
who told her
she could
fly.

Between the lines
Is an Ocean
Of Blank Space

Space for

Interpretation.

Get (Be) META

Or not.

Your decision-
You are well come
To my (Im)precision

This is 'sexist'.
It's a well deserved criticism:
In my experience-
And I consider it a wealth of well thought over
Experience-
Men are only remorseful
When they get caught.
And they do
And say...

Not that women are
all altruistic.
All hapless victims of the competition
For their genitalia.
Some are vengeful.
A sentiment I empathize with-
To a point.

I'm no artfully painted cherub,
And you shouldn't believe me when I say
Love is only for the meek, but-

Love
Is only
For the Meek.

I need someone
who won't push me away
at four in the morning.

So I don't get up
feeling unloved,
to write to other

Lonely
Four in the morning,
writers.

I wonder because
of a lover gone by
if I could ever

Fall asleep all night
nose to nose
again

With someone else.
Maybe even sober this time.

I'd settle for tipsy, though.

There is no metaphor
For you.

You lie. And you don't.
You love. And you won't.

You're lost. And you're not.
You're generous.
You're merciless.

You spy. You rage.
And then you're so tender
it feels like home.

I dream about
A you of the future.

That will tell me everything.
That will need my everything.
That I'm ready to give my everything to.

I just want to know him.
I ache with the want.

You now doesn't trust that ache.

You now thinks I am
What you've known.

I'm saying goodbye to you now.

I never
believed
in monsters

Until
some
almost
got me

Now
I am
scared
but
utterly
unafraid

The artistry of protection;
the elegant deception.

Poisons of the mind,
And their bitter antidotes.

If my life is a work of art,
Then it is community theatre.

And I am thankful
To everyone who keeps
The curtain
From closing.

*Thank you

When wavering
Between fury and despair
Hold tight to fury
At least then
You can still feel strong.
Feeling strong turns out
To be vital
For me,
Especially
When the world
Conspires to make me weak-
Plants fear in me-
Tears it down when I build a bridge to honesty.

So I'm furious.
And furiously persistent.
In my mission to live honestly.

I stand
Maybe four years old
At the top of a neighbour's

basement stairs
the dark chasm below my little toes,

Having been told,
"Don't go down there today."
When I hear from the depths
my name is being called--

I got molested in that basement.
On that very day.

How do we teach children
to be curious
when adults

will act out their
own hurts on them?

How do we teach adolescents
that some risk is a sign
of intelligence?

That risks have different species?

How do I teach myself
not to project
those basement stairs

Like an old vacation photo:
faint light onto their bored faces?

*

Do we let our shock moments
sleep like male lions
only to feed in the dark
on that night's hunt,
conducted by our conscious selves?

In daylight, are we
oblivious to how it feeds on our progress?
Or do we wake the beast up?
The sooner, the more complete
the recovery?

Have you ever tried
to wake a sleeping lion
on a hot summer day
at the zoo?

It is not easily done,
without bait.

I did a bad thing.
At least the doctors say
it's a bad thing.
I just took a little bit.
A little
bit.

What's the harm?
Maybe the judgement of my peers?
Physiological disruption?

In a world full of heady pressure
I wanted some release.
To feel at ease- to feel ******.

So I'm back at day one.

Oh well:
Nothing like a fresh start.

My head is full
Of ghosts

Of ideas,
things people have said,
and the way my heart crumpled.

Memories are for people
Who aren't haunted.

Ghosts are for people
who've been driven to the edge of sanity
and back again.

Always back again,
but not without
the ghosts.

Once,
or a million times,
you hid behind your one way glass
or your no way, plastic frames-

And I let you.

All our connection gets refracted;
Split-
Into the many colours of our defence mechanisms
that just reinforce
our loneliness.

Take your glasses off. Let me see you.
I'll take mine off too, so we can blindly make eye contact.

We passed today like strangers
In the street.

You saw me, and glared-

But said nothing.
You are very good, after lots of awful practice,
at saying nothing.

I'll beg you one more time, say something.

I've composed this message a million times
in my head.

But seeing you-
hating the feeling that you hate me
becomes unbearable.

Because I tried my best to love you,
and yet
I am worse than a stranger.

Once the clingy thing you could not stand,
Now I'm blamed for abandoning you.

And back I am again.
Feeling it is fitting:
We barely knew each other anyway.

Sustainability
An odd moniker
That has come to represent
That we cannot hate and mine and drill
and pillage and ****
the Earth and each other
Indefinitely.

So what can we do indefinitely?
Sustain (not so odd after all).
Sustain our love and kindness and patience.
Reform our economies and sanitation.

Build lives that foster life;
Plant, and nurture.
Harvest, and dry some seeds for next year.

Marching makes a point.
We need to tell others how we feel.
So they can help us
Do what we need to do.

Impeach hate. Kick it out of office.
We have everything to lose.

It's in a strip mall
With a nutrition store, a pharmacy
and across the small lot,
a bank.

Tall screens with trees,
And teeny tiny tables tucked together.

It's where I used to meet with my case worker.

To discuss my case.

Once I went to meet an acquaintance
To be interviewed
For a study on
Strong poets.

She eventually made it about the standards of cool.

I'd go there to study,
but you only get an hour of WIFI.

Still, I love it.

Right down to the rat poison behind the counter.
And just beyond the top of the hand written chalk board.

I'll go there
just to read
from now on.

We all do it.
Videos.
Either it's massive *** organs and bad acting
to hilarious music.
Or it's baby armadillos being tickled.

For me today, it was the glossy pages
Of National Geographic
depicting beautiful, fragile ocean life.
Everything was as it should be in the tiny reserves.

Or was it? Doublethink asked.
Were there really no plastic bags floating by?

The miracle of life
Is so addictive.
But the synthetic version,
In two dimensions on your screen
Or the shiny pages of my magazine

Is no replacement
For the intimacy, reality, or
beauty
that overcomes
without filters.

There is so much value
In asking people
To put something down
Anything-
Whatever they can think of-
Because that's creation.

That's where ideas and feelings
get synthesized
organized
alphabetized
aestheticized.

It's a spiritual go-to-town.
A lovely go-around.
So we gotta offer it.
We gotta!

Because otherwise
we create the undead.

It's supplies, and time, and not just
"look at a painting".
It's make someone feel what you feel.
Empowering, Cathartic, Adventurous.
It's a really really big deal.

How frustrated
Are you
That I'm still alive?

And how relieved
Are the people that invest in me?

I don't want to add insult to injury
But then again,
Who is injured here, really?

So kiss my pink ***.

My smart, kind heart
keeps beating
against the tides
of nihilism.

Mine will be a life well lived.

You left
A bruise.
Purple,
on my
inner thigh.

I don't want to rekindle old flames.
I want to let sleeping dogs lay.
But my curiosity
gets the better of me.

I want to know how you're doing.
What you're doing.
If you found someone to open up to.

Ignore this letter,
If you don't want to hear from your
(whatever I am to you)

Or don't.
And instead exchange
A few letters
With me.
That's all
this has to be.

When it comes to human beings
There is no such thing as a lost cause.

There is such thing
as a human being
which is not my
burden to bear
anymore.

I'm giving myself total permission
To let go of you.
And that means writing you
poems too.

Do not pick sides.
It is not a time to divide.

We need a smooth transition
From constant competition.

When destruction is at our door
We look eagerly to each other.

Yet we all want the biggest piece of pie.
It changes the look in our eyes.

No one is in the foul box.
We don't need another power play.

But the ice is melting,
and no one is that good of a
swimmer.

Stress
Comes up in gassy eruptions.
Over and over,
I belch like a rumbling volcano
While my neighbor's baby
Cries through the night.

Paralyzed by nerves,
I'm so...
not a hero.
Just took two pills
the side effect of which
should make me functional tomorrow.

The main effect should ease this gas-
The manifestation of so much decomposition.
My love of country
is in crisis.
How to avoid perpetuating
a negative cycle?

Like Mary Poppins,
I want to ride my Mary-go-round horse
Off into the sunset
My pupils
gleefully
galloping
with me.

I'm not singing.
But bumbling through.
How to keep afloat
amidst all this well written wisdom
and the variations in spelling
and the power of just telling?

Let alone lead them down a path
That is smooth,
because life is rough.
And rough,
because life is rough.
And honest,
but not despairing.

Fretting over tomorrow
Instead of seeing the top of the mountain
In the distance.

This is a great chance
To ride the wave.
But that nasty undercurrent
has got me.

I need to love my home
In all it's (only recent) diplomacy.

And tell the beginning of a new story
where relations
are just that.

He's a hunter,
But comes when I call.
He was born in the wild.
He's wild still.
But he's always there
When my pain
Makes me wish for privacy.
His attachment
overrules, intrudes
just like his teeth  in my sleeve,
when he cannot
resist
the urge
to PLAY!

Don't Confess
For fear I might leave.
Don't Confess
And I might.

Don't Confess
And we cannot forgive you.
Don't Confess
And I won't know why.

You don't confess
because the timing wasn't right.
And now the wondering
has kept me up all night.