Sleeping is good for escaping
The world outside
Worlds beyond a comforting emotion

I would have given anything
To start yesterday night over again

Concentrate, she told herself
Step away from the problem,
And that’s what she did

Tree in front of a window
Facing a street
The wind was making leaves twinkle green
At the street
The house across from hers
In which a stranger lives

Wanting the phone to ring,
Unable to concentrate,
She told herself:
Yesterday was a bad way
Sleeping sounds like a good way
To escape

Wishing that she could
That she hadn’t ignored him like she did

Hands smell like mango
The soap was a tropical fruit
Sitting on the sink

She wants to vacation in Hawaii
She doesn’t want to think about yesterday
Doesn’t want to cook in the grease of her guilt

She wanted to make the boy hurt
Make him feel the way the needle pierces skin
Wishing she could stick it in the hollow cavity
When a human heart is
Located on the corner of Ford and Canton Center
The house she is living in, sitting in
The room with the window

Trees wave sweet, little, green hands at her

And sleeping is a wonderful escape route.

The idea of all this to myself
And only to myself

To think it would be only my eyes,
That I would sigh, and only I could hear –
The space, the vastness of the dark,
The room for nothing,
And Nothing itself –

Terrifies even the sun,
Which explodes at the thought
Over and over and over

If this truth is only meant for me,
If I am the only one to know
And the only one to feel and remember
Like this

I am almost selfish in my need to share
So that there might be some understanding
So that I wouldn’t be the only one to record
Such responsibility in these emotions
(No more -- these secrets I can’t keep!)

The idea of all this to myself,
And that this life would only be known to me –
Oh, such destruction!

Someday the world should feel this, too
I wish it so desperately.

Sometimes I wish I were an oven

If I were an oven,
I could not wake for work
I could not wake at all
I would not sleep.

If I were an oven,
I would not pray to God
I would not pray at all,
Nor know what God is,
Nor how tragic that might be.

If I were an oven,
You could not be angry with me ever,
Nor make puddles of my hurt,
Now know that I existed in any other form,
But only that I now exist,
And that I am useful,

And that fact would not make me sad,
Because I would know no facts.

If I were an oven,
I would cook cake and Thanksgiving turkey,
And you would notice my heat
Just as you notice the hum of the refrigerator,
The smell of my meatloaf,
And the glow of the stove as you make breakfast.

If I were an oven,
I could not love you as a person does,
Nor love you at all,
And you could not hurt me as you have before,
Nor hurt me at all,
Though you might break me.

If I were an oven,
I would belong to you completely,
And you would appreciate me as something that you need,
And nothing more,
And you might feel privileged to have me,
Or at least, more than you have.

Sometimes I wish I were an oven,
Because ovens know nothing more than food,
And they do not bother with deadlines,
Or arriving to work on time,
Or how much they are loved.

But mostly I just wish I were an oven
So that you would pay attention to what you put into me
And leave lingering for hours,
And so that you would concern yourself with me when I was broken,

So that I might be made new again.

I give you back the things you gave me
Take all of them; they were no gifts.
You called them Truth, but no truth claims them
Like weeds, they drain -- like wood, they drift

I give you back the words you sang me
Of tendriled judgment and tangled praise
Up the heart's walls, growing skywards
Like vines, they creep -- like stalks, they sway

I give you back the self you sold me
Shaped by deception and no sacrifice
You called it the core, but the roots were too shallow
Too dry was the soil -- too high was the price

I give you back all of your garden
The seeds that sprout and buds that grow
I have seen the true sun, and how brightly it's shining
Like Heaven, I rise -- like God, I now know