Unsung Heroes

Although I stand on the shoulders of giants,
I fail to see much farther than the bridge of my nose.
The fault in mine. The shame is mine.
For I am unworthy of you, my beloved dead.

Emilio (Maternal Grandfather)
Your crime was literacy,
And the possession of a social conscience,
That made you yearn to see your beloved Spain remain free,
And prevented you from suffering fascists lightly.

You did not bear arms,
For you abhorred all violence,
You did not incite rebellion, though you
Rebelled against the foreign and domestic enemies of freedom.

As best I can tell you were an idealist who,
In a time of darkness,
Clung passionately to the belief,
In the perfectibility of the human spirit.

You would not abide the lies the regional papers carried,
And translated news from American and British newspapers,
About the gathering storm,
Sharing the truth freely with all who would listen.

You gave speeches, and wrote speeches delivered by others, in support of a doomed
Republic collapsing under the weight of its own incompetence and corruption.
You were warned by friends of your imminent arrest and offered passage back to the U.S. or to
Buenos Aires where so many of your friends had already found refuge.

But they would not get your wife and nine children out,
And you refused to leave them to their fate.
They came for you, as always, in the middle of the night,
These cowards with stern faces hiding behind machine guns.

They took you prisoner, not for the first time, to the Castillo de San Anton,
A fortress by a most beautiful, tranquil bay,
Where they tore out your nails, one by one, and those their
Gentlest caresses while they asked you for names.

You endured, God knows what there, for months,
And were sentenced to be shot as a traitor at La Plaza de María Pita.
But the Republic had friends, even among the officers of the fascist forces,
And one of them opened your cell door on the eve of your execution.

You had contracted tuberculosis by then, yet, according to grandmother, you
Managed to swim miles across the bay in a moonless night, to safety in the home of
Another patriot who risked his life and the lives of his family to hide you in
His root cellar and made a trip of many miles on foot to find your wife.

He found your home and told your wife of your unexpected reprieve,
And asked her to send some clothing and some shoes to replace your ***** rags.
You eldest daughter, Maria, insisted on accompanying the stranger back on foot, taking
Clothing and what provisions she could quickly gather and carry to you.

From time to time you accepted the hospitality of an overnight stay
In the attic or hay loft of a
Republican sympathizer as these were not hard to
Find in the fiercely independent
Galicia under the yoke of one of its own. But mostly you lived in the woods, with active guerrillas for years.

You lived with all the comforts of a hunted animal with others who would not yield,
Your only crime consisted of being on the wrong side of a lost cause.
I hope it brought you some comfort to know you were on the right side of history.
It brought none to your wife and none to your youngest children.

As you paid the long penance for your conscience, once a month or so, after some
Time passed, you visited your wife and children. You were introduced to the little ones
As an uncle from afar. They did not know the bearded wild man who paid these visits
In the middle of the night and left wearing dad’s old, clean clothes.

The older ones, Maria, Josefa, Juan and Toñita, all in their teens, told the little ones
That their “uncle” brought news of their dad. The younger children, still wearing the
Frayed cloaks of their innocence, accepted this, not questioning why he stayed in
Mom’s room all night and was gone before they awoke the next morning.

Your grief at playing the part of a stranger in your own home, of not embracing your
Children on whom you doted, one and all, for their protection and yours, as there were
No shortage of fascists who tried to ply them with pastries and candy,
Seeking to use their innocence as a weapon against you.

Your parents were relatively wealthy business owners who farmed the sea but
Disowned you—perhaps for your politics, perhaps for choosing to emigrate and
Refusing to join the family business, or perhaps for marrying for love in New York City
A hard working girl beneath your social station in their eyes.

You lived just long enough to see Spain delivered from war,
Though not freed of her chains.
You were spared the war’s aftermath.
Your wife and children were not.

No books record your name. Most of those who knew you are dead.
Yet flowers have long perpetually appeared on your simple above-ground burial site in
Sada that holds your ashes, and those of your eldest son, Juan, and second-
Eldest daughter, Toñita, who died much younger than even you.

Your wife has joined you there, in a place where
Honor, goodness, decency, principle and a pure,
Broken heart,
Now rest in peace.

I would rather be hysterical than vulnerable
to what most people call love.  
I would rather couple with strange women
on an Amsterdam getaway
than let one more man
try to own me.

I prefer to ignore my own psychodynamics
in favor of endless talking cure analysis
and occasional astrology cult ******
that promise to speed my eventual evolution
from wounded *** object to invulnverable starchild.

I don’t need a Beverly Hills shrink
to tell me my narcissism and depression and squeaky voice
are symbolic of never having the power
to set a boundary between me and my father
who doted over my puberty
with slobbering praise and veiled lust.

Everyone who knows me for more than a week
sees my father throwing me financial bones
instead of apologizing for what he did
and the more I take his money
the freer I feel
distanced by automobiles with dark-tinted windows,
a house with a skull and crossbones doormat,
a silver .45 under my pillow
and not one single ex-boyfriend
about whom I will ever say a kind word.

I have created emotional and psychological invulnerability;
all men are now my father
and all men pay the price
of never being loved by me
and I pay the price of never being able to let them love me.

Now I just play with partners
and when they inevitably start to use the “L” word
I start to run inside
and I bounce off the walls and mirrors
of my own emptiness
and I go on a photo safari to Africa
where I pretend to understand the meaning of life
and I put out restraining orders
against the men who insist that I explain
and I have come to rely on legal and monetary fences
to protect me from
the truth about my deep loneliness.

I’ve never had an ******
never said I love you twice to the same person
and I think
as long as the money’s there
I won’t have to.

What a rash of time we've wasted.
Drunken, displaced it all.
The hiking trails up solemn, summer
ridge lines. Jagged arrowheads lifted
out toward the sky and we feel gifted.

A crack in the rock a millennia old.
The dangers of going it alone;
the spy who came in from the cold.

Two open throated eulogies and scatter her ash.
Two years of time spent together, now memorized pash.

Sifting through sight lines of our mediocre city streets.
Sweating up the summertime together-alone,
and getting twisted as we jam to louder growing beats.

We took our hands and divined a place on the timeline.
Steady rocking for two revolutions until
she set over the horizon beyond the sunshine.
Look for her and see her in every which place.
It's never her figure and never her face, but
shower curtain blurs and the curls in hair of other girls.
She exists as every brunette that I'll never forget.
Not that I'd want it.

They say, "She loved you. That much is clear."
What a romantic gesture to abandon me here.

If you can read this from your heavenly repose. My heart has grown fonder and still it grows. I'm sure you can see me,
the struggle of having to be anything at all.
Your number is somebody else's now. There's nobody to call.
Summertime gives way to Autumn,
I'm sorry if you hurt having to see what I do now.
The glyphs in my mountain roots.
My rotting bark and lost spark.
My constant stops and false starts.
My swelling, my welts, the harm I cause.
You're not to be blamed, darling.
Not a single word from my tongue nor do I entertain
the thought of others who wish you disdain.
I've lost a bit of myself in the guilt and the shame.
Truth be told, I'm not sure I'll recover and be the same.
A jilt is one thing, a turn down is fine.
But I lost who told me she was mine.
I should've doted more and been more attentive.
You fell in love with me because I was romantic.
So where did I fail you and how can I improve?
I just want to make you happy,
I just want to show you.
There was no need to quit the way that you did.
We could have taken a break,
you could have hibernated, hid.
But it's fine you chose the way you did.
Now you're the punchline of my dark jokes.
"Oh, I'm sorry, no, I only kid."
Repeating myself like I've forgotten what I even said.
Loving is hard when you've never felt it.
But it's harder than that when you feel it and lost it like I did.
Do you think you can forgive me?
I don't know if promises will be kept forever.

Somehow, I managed to get to my thirties
without eating a cherry --- a fresh one, anyway,
raw, untamed, unshelved, and forgodssake,
unmarischinoed.

I had them in pies, gooey, sickening, too much
syrup, and in sundaes --- again, not real, a turn-off,
saw people tie the stems in knots,
I had the impression, I think, that if people
had to do all the things they do with cherries
to make them flavorful, they must be really
**** straight out of the bag.  
I made my mind up that they were unpleasant
and I would have nothing to do with them.
Even, or especially, in chocolate-covered cherries,
which my mother loved, so I wanted to love,
I could at best eat the chocolate around that
thick viscous sugary embryonic fluid
wherein lay the embittered, unborn and unloved cherry
and not the coveted prize.

So imagine that day when, careless at a cocktail
party, or at someone's house, hungry, I nibbled
at a fresh one, deep red and whole, gingerly working
my way around the stem and coming awake
to ohmygod what have I been missing all these years?

They still seem brand new now, every time, a delicacy,
something wealthy people indulge in and so not really
belonging to my world.  They beg for the company
of wine and the most delicate cheeses, they ask to be shared
and doted on.  The keep revealing themselves,
on the plate, unadorned, and they keep reminding me
to try something else that I have never tasted,
like complete and utter honesty, or looking at myself
naked, without judgment, even at the innermost
feminine parts, upside down with a mirror until I see why
they say making love for the first time is giving away
your cherry.

Little Penelope Persnicketty was a girl that grew up down the lane.
Her Mother doted on her so much, you would think her insane.
She took such care of her prized daughter pet.
Father never mentioned in the picture, a World War II vet.

Penelope Persnicketty was rather peculiar.
Every single thing she owned was pink, even down to her school ruler.
Petticoats, lace and stockings all a flamingo hue.
The dresses seemed so old fashion, never saw anything new.

She always seemed like a damsel in distress
Mother Persnicketty hand sewed every dress.
When she wasn't sewing , she held Penelope tight.
We rarely saw her out of her mother's controlling sight.

There was one thing Mother Persnicketty couldn't control.
It was puberty ravaging Penelope's little soul.
Hair appeared places it shouldn't.
*******? Penelope wished for them but couldn't

Finally, the secrets began to unravel.
The Persnickettys packed up for some European travel.
In the fuss, we saw the forgery and what else her Pandora hemmed.
Made a daughter just by writing in the letter F instead of M.

In the office he was the Lion King,
The king of his workplace,
Highly respected and revered by his staff.
His personal secretary doted on him,
All his staff  looked up to him.
His motto was simple,
"Be happy and make others happy."
At home he used the same motto,
His wife was a *****,
But she called him a *****.
She tried to manipulate him,
Rolled her eyes if he had flaws,
Did not expect him to help around the house,
In her eyes he always ended doing the wrong things,
He was happy to be a *****  for his wife,
He had peace,
They had three smart children whom he adored,
He didn't want to distrupt his family life and bank account,
No divorce for him,
And his beautiful secretary was there to love him.

I'm Tired of people telling me that I should smile in photographs
My resistance has got nothing to do with
An Attitude problem
or my attempt at
Appearing acutely fashionable
This is just the way I look
Most of the time
Shouldn’t what we choose to record
At least strive for Authenticity?
I'm just not interested in selling myself
Into the acceptable family comfort mode
Having my split-second cheery face sink in
Against The kitchen wall's
"calming" comfort scheme
To be doted on by ageing female relatives
and jovially mocked by visiting casual friends
If anything I don't want my past to be
Looked upon at all

Maybe it's the old story
of leaving home and the urge
To re-invent oneself
To Block out the old experiences, the old embarrassments
Freeing yourself to embark on a fresher tirade
of critical self-assessment
To be finally and victoriously
Free from the unsettling confines
of childhood
To engage yourself completely
in the waking,walking,working
Nightmare of maturity, responsibility
and devastating ambition.

i always knew i would never be
"girlfriend material"

maybe the gods forgot to cut me carefully from the same cloth they doted out to everybody else

a thicker and more claustrophobic material

one that overheats and suffocates you

my mouth is a forest fire that ignites at the first sight of thunder ahead

other people use their words to heal and comfort their significant other while i'd always had a natural disposition of wielding my tongue as a freshly sharpened knife

i wanted to learn

i wanted to teach myself that in order to be in a relationship you have to treat the hardships like delicately gauzed wounds

changing them out every few hours and applying ointments to soothe and mend the broken flesh

but i don't know if it's because of my mother
who was never very nurturing
taking emotional withdrawals from me throughout my entire childhood

teaching me to cultivate my isolation and find comfort in my loneliness

i'd see the signs of her packing up her bags and departing from a mile away and the only survival method i knew was to let her go before she let me go, again
and again
and again
and again

i tried to mend myself for you
to be less broken down for you

i promised myself i'd be healthier and fight my depression like a true viking at battle

i knew i was never girlfriend material

i don't have the patience or understanding to learn how to nurture wounds

my natural instinct has always been to throw salt in them

to slit my throat and slit my throat and slit my throat until i bled out all of you entirely

it's not that i never knew how to love
but that i never knew how to love properly

caring too much and showing too little
displaying my fear of losing you with an anger that destroys everything in my path

instead of affection and vulnerability

my lovers never know if i love them
i display my feelings  in watered down sentiments that take shape in the way i allow my body to mold into theirs under bedsheets


the love i carry though, suffocates me
it drowns my internal organs
and floods the entirety of my body
leaving me speechless and incapable of articulating how i feel or why i feel the way that i do

in turn i appear cold to the touch
and that is how i knew i was never girlfriend material

i want to lay down on train tracks and sacrifice my body
again
and
again
until i get it right
but i fear it only leaves me in poorer condition than the last

i'm sorry i don't know how to love you properly
i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry

you see, i'm just not "girlfriend material"

No, I don't want a kiss.
I don't want to be attached to you all of the time.
You knew what you were getting into.
Or did you think you were special,
Because you are.
But that doesn't change my nature.
You see me as a belonging to be doted.
I see you as a pest,
But your devoted.