I tripped over
the eggshells
again.

I’m supposed to tiptoe
but sometimes
they are scattered
where I don’t see them
or I didn’t think it mattered;
or they just appear
where a moment before
they did not exist.
So the path that least resists-
is taken.


Sometimes I forget.
(I have not seen them
for so long)
A simple conversation
turns –
There’s neither right nor wrong
but the eggshells emerge.
Decisions are made
on the spot
or not.
Depends.

To walk upon them
or confront them head on;
Turn my back,
(avoid confrontation)
or keep on track,
(Defend my reputation).
What will cause least disruption
in the end.?

I tripped over
the eggshells
again.


I could just walk on top
but then pay the price
of broken eggshells
in my life.

And start all over
or stop.

© 2012 Marlene Dunham

You talk about eggshells
I hear the crunch as I get closer to you
Thought it was glass breaking but it was too soft beneath my shoe
I can't stay out of your perimeter forever
When the diameter grows bigger and bigger
Pushing me farther away
I can still see soft silhouette

Your skin is so frail
Pale white made of the eggshells at your feet
You reach down time and again
When you're pierced by words
Cutting off oxygen
Penetrated by the carbon dioxide truth
You're not young anymore
Age is ageless numerals
You're not old

How many birds flew away from this pile of youth?
Each one once packaged like a gift
Leaving behind stacks of birth to sift through
You gathered them
Scattered them evenly around you
Put your appearance and self worth into them and
Waited for the crushing blow
Marching toward you from all sides
Your insecurities will swallow you and
The stomping will leave you angry and hollow

We are all hippy chickens
Making wishbones out of peace signs
Hoping for unity
Not realizing it's meant to be broken
A lopsided libra unbalanced
The powers that be
Expect you to follow obediently
Stand in line
You can't take just give
'Short people ain't got no reason to live'
Newman must have know
How difficult it is to create new men
One by one we attempt
To tip the scale in our favor
But the bigger Man
Can push it down with a finger
Like a toppling Pisa tower
A slow motion fall to the ground
A single direction agenda
The momentum gained
With each inch leaning

So stop clowning around
Sweep up your eggshells and
Go buy a dozen more grade A's and
Break them all at once
We don't have much time

I'm not all that different
From doctors and surgeons

I search for sharp eggshells
In brownie batter

It's a grueling task
Yet, one I can't miss

Without my extraction
My dessert is displeasing

My grandfather's surgeons
Are similar to me

They search for the blockage -
A distasteful one at that

Hands search
And scavenge

They use medical instruments
I have utensils of my own

Both certain that sharp eggshells
Harm the entirety

There are times I
Come up short

The pesky shards
Are difficult to find

And I am afraid
Of the doctor's similarity to me

I pray they find the eggshells
Inside my grandfather's arteries

here you are
in a tug-o-war with your own hands
heart yanked this way and that
torn between what you wish for and what you don't desire
unfortunately the same thing...

abandoned by the one i love
forcing myself to let go
now all i hold is my heart in my hand
dripping crimson upon the snow

the oxygen is running low
i am starting to bend
like reading an emotional diary
pulled into the shallows
there's still enough water to drown in

i'm like eggshells under fragile ice
like eggshells under fragile ice
eggshells under fragile ice
cracked

here's how it happens
the morning after
you reach into the drawer
where the your t-shirts live
to find it austere
you'll shrug because
you're still drunk
& you can't remember
when last it was
that you had something wet
or how long it's been
since you made the floorboards blush
or why the carpet is upset
who wouldn't be
the contents to the upended ashtray
strewn around the apartment
resemble the aftermath
of the smallest war
to ever take place in norfolk
some midnight thief
must've made off with the lighter
because it isn't in
any of your favorite spots
maybe you chucked it
along with a hundred other things
that make noise when they land
in the neighbors yard
you won't remember putting
the refrigerator's belongings
in the bathtub
or scrawling a buzzard
on the bedroom door
but then again who would
you'll pretend it's spring again
before putting on your winter coat
to go out front with a cigarette
in your mouth
you'll hope for a passing stranger
to *** a light from
or drag yourself to the corner
with couch cushion change
to buy a new lighter
and on your way
you won't bother looking back
this is just another day
on eggshells for no reason
another november
choking on birthday candles
on your way home
you step over beer cans
the kind you fell in love with
and wonder who
had the last laugh last night
or if anyone said a word at all
it might've been another
moment of clarity
it might have been some idiot savant
any adjective that feels like home
anything that keeps you thirsty

Why did you leave your bones
scattered? White
chalk on my floor.

When I awoke in the hazy mourning, doves
laughing at my stumbling.

I tore them from my windowsill,
I buried the evidence in feathers.

I locked the door,
to stalk, alone,
through eggshells,

Searching sticky membranes
for shy muses flaring sparks of
lessons learned.

Oh, how sweet,

the air,
in reminiscence,
tastes of morning dew.

On soft wings,
a slew of sound:
The melody of spring.

A mourning dove falls
in love with winter's animosity.

A song,
lonely and hollow,
echoes through white snow.

Tiptoe on eggshells
yolk spills onto the floor
where she soon follows.

She's a wind-up toy
spins like a top
unravels at the seams.

You can't fix what's wrong with her.

I caught my mother crying once,
at the kitchen table, face in one hand
dishtowel in the other,
real crying, out loud crying;

I wanted to be anywhere else,
and would have run
had she not heard me,
had she not pressed the dishtowel to her eyes
and said

“I'm just so tired of walking on eggshells.”
like an eight year old would understand,
but I did,
kind of.

When I was little my mother put me in several ballet classes in hopes to bring some grace to my stumbling gait.

I grew up walking on eggshells, wobbling to keep my balance on a tightrope that never really ended.

 My instructor pinched my thighs and shook her bony finger at me every tuesday and thursday for three and a half years.

4 am, I'm still tiptoeing around the creaks in the stairs as if anyone would notice an empty bed.

 This Christmas I came across the broken reminents of the ballerina ornaments my younger sister used to play with.

I never did master the delicate posture I was expected to adopt. My feet fell a bit too heavy, I suppose, on the ice tonight.

I'm not cold anymore, just exhausted from attempting to balance the wrong things for too long.

My life is flashing before my eyes, but all I see is a younger version of myself practicing Grand Battements on thin ice while everyone slept.

The sky resembles the robin's eggshells
                                                      scattered across the ground,

a blue so seemingly infinite                     yet fragile,
cracks running between understanding and madness

       complementing each other

as divine truths in their own right
to conquer my mind,
to unhinge the doors,
making it unnecessary to pick rusted locks

      letting thoughts fly free,
                                       releasing love out into the horizon.

If frozen within caged snapshots of mildewed expectations,
      it will surely die,
                 but even so,
  I was willing to strangle it by holding on too tightly.

    
    Until I saw the sky and eggshells today


      Peppered clouds reflected on the water,
                                            paralleling speckles on the eggshells,
                                    remind me of the freckles on your face.

  We need to be wide-open-free,
                                                we need to fly,
         without focusing too ******* shells of yesterdays.

We need to unclench our fists,
unclench our tongues,
explore the vast blue peppered sky
                                                
                                                      on wings of letting go....

so that we can once again feel with purity,      
so that we can hold each other ever closer.







05.24.12

ϖ↑∅⊕↓☺↨☼♀


The dawn is nigh at hand. The clouds
begin to lift above the grange.
Arise, O Phoebus, bless the crowds—
let poultry roam the range.

I’ll bind a broom of gathered hay
to sweep the hen-house free of hate.
Let roosters hail the crack of day
and chicks with ***** tempt fate.

A fractured self and a challenge hurled:
they left the shell, but found it rough
because our bigoted barnyard world
cannot get queer enough fast enough.

They flutter through the *******’s farm
subverting gender’s useless role.
We feel their pain, and mean no harm—
yet question this progressive goal.

They cluck a brand-new barnyard song:
Gender Identity Obsolete!
(As long as they claim God hatched them wrong,
biology signals their defeat.)

While poultry scratches rhymes for “hen”
and chicks are combing crests for *****
let’s ring the dinner bell and then
we’ll synchronize the global clocks.

Let Mankind’s unmanned race delight
at Jesus’ gender-free return.
Soon Africa shall see the light
and Araby’s sun more brightly burn.

Then dawn shall break o’er Russian plains
to liberate the Tartar races;
loose their limbs from Gender’s chains
to stride with polymorphous paces.

China too, and Southeast Asia
swift shall follow in their train
celebrating ***-aphasia
joining in the West’s refrain.

Hindu multitudes will rise
to vanquish gender, caste aside
and shake the slumber from their eyes
with metro-ambisexual pride.

Carib isles, with Latin kingdoms
From the tropics to the mountains
Shall announce they too are Wisdom’s,
drinking from de-gendered fountains.

Juveniles, raised to simply be
shall pioneer new modes of life;
explore horizons happily
set free from biologic strife.

Then shall our earth, in glad array
***** dirt upon Tradition’s tomb;
unshackled from that dark dismay
to grieve—but nevermore exhume.

Alas, the global dreams descend.
We’re back in the barnyard, gender-queer…
where hens have ***** and eggshells bend
transcending Nature’s reign of fear.

The henhouse still votes hetero;
their eggless chickens cluck for rights
biologists, ex utero
are born to further futile flights.

(Because I was almost one of them
I’ve earned the right to make fun of them.
Time alone will tell if the trend
remains coherent to the end.)