Shannon, Mariah, Serena, Maria
Meridia, Midian, Sharon, Alliah
Rochelle, Camille, Rose, Halo
Trenna, Jessica, Ashley, Georgia
Marla, Olivia, Sofia, India
Daniella, Diana, Christina, Caroline
Isabella, Amelia, Amanda, Matilda
Nadine, Haley, Bailey, Francine
Eliza, Annabelle, Kathryn, Sandra
Melinda, Audrey, Aubrey, Emily
Tara, Emma, Ginny, Kathleen
Josephine, Helena, Charlotte, Laura
Chelsea, Arkady, Megan, Kelsey
Kayla, Karliah, Moana, Vivien
Kaysea, Macy, Stacy, Lorraine
Theresa, Felicia, Cecilia, Darlene
Holly, Brianna, Alexa, Ariel
Marianne, Miranda, Jennie, Coral
Korra, Daisy, Penelope, Rayne
Zoey, Cassandra, Grace, Stephanie

Yesterday
Last night
And today
I recognized your face
fully for the first time.
I saw who you were
and you are beautiful.
You are a true soul
gravitating to all that is Good
all that is Pure.
Pulling me towards you
I become Good
I become Pure.
I am where I should be.

Happiness enters
me as I gravitate up to
You.

I am in awe of your face
I am falling for your hands
I am breathing you in forever.

and although this train selfishly slices through this humid July night and the long, tired miles that now separate us,
I  smile--for I know the rocking of this train is nothing but you with your arms around me.
You will always be around me.

they are my famiglia
they are italian, polish and maltese,
probably a lot of other things too
we're basically mutts
there are five of us, if you include the dog
they are the best

there's my mom;
i call her "ma" or "woman" or "mom" or "mama" or "rochelle", if i want to irritate her
she's the best cook in the world
she always calls me her "bambina"
and sings me songs and writes me cute notes
she's my best friend and biggest fan (sorry dad)
i'm convinced she can read my mind,
even when i'm 2 1/2 hours away, she can tell when something's wrong
she's the best mom in the world

and then, there's my dad;
i call him "dad" or "daddy" or "bob" because he doesn't seem to care
he's hilarious and actually tells good dad jokes
he loves talking about
government conspiracies and
new health trends he's trying
he calls my mom just to say "i love you" and buys me flowers on valentine's day because "i want you to know what a man should do for you one day"
he's so great, i hope i marry a man like bob one day

and there's my brother;
i call him "bro" or "broski" or usually just, "bobby"
he loves me with all his heart
but cannot hug me
because his ocd clouds his mind
he's funny and loves the oldies
he also loves trips to chipotle with me
he won't tell me about girls
because "you'll tell mom," but will talk to me about everything else
gosh i love him with all my heart too

and there's my dog;
who we all call "boo" and sometimes i call him some random nickname
he's so cute, but super vicious
one minute he'll be curled up in-between your legs and the next?
he's attacking you and biting you in the lip
he's scared of thunderstorms and fireworks and people, really he's scared of everything
he's not perfect, but he loves me and i love him

and then, there's me;
they call me "dee-dee" or "aubs" or plain old, "aubrey"
i'm the first born pain in the ****,
who's dream is to marry a nice christian man, own a cafe, adopt children, have children, and just have a great family
currently, i'm in college, missing my great family
my current dream would be, sitting on the couch with my dog on my lap, my mom cooking in the kitchen, my dad hanging out in the garage building something cool, and my brother playing video games and complaining about me taking over the bathroom we share.

can you tell i miss them?
can you tell i love them?

It is a lonely life we chose;
a keeper and his mate.
We live on Execution rocks
saving sailors from sad fates.
The tower light protects the Sound
from Sand’s Point to ‘Rochelle.
The rocks are cruel, the lives they claim
Doubtless with Neptune dwell.

One day, exploring our domain,
I chanced upon a man.
Unusual, to say the least,
to stray so far from land.
His hair was white, his eyes steel blue,
blue as Ocean deep.
A sudden chill passed over me
Like a terror born in sleep.
He asked me if I knew this spot,
And how it got its name.
How, during the Colonial times,
Condemned men here were chained.
At low tide it was no matter
But imagine their distress
As the tide grew ever higher
until it strangled their last breath.
How horrible a fate they faced;
abandoned and alone.
Their screams were mad and guttural
as they drowned in Ocean foam.
There, down at the waterline
I saw a brace of chains.
When I turned back to look at him-
Only I remained.


It is a lonely life we chose;
a keeper and his mate.
We live on Execution rocks
saving sailors from sad fates.
I spend my off time reading
in our little house of stone.
I seldom venture to that place-
and I never go alone.
But sometimes, when the moon is full
And the tide is running high.
I imagine that I hear the screams
of a man about to die.
Published January 28, 2013
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After reading/listening to Rochelle D'Silva's "There Will Come A Time"

I woke up to a dream,
which we call reality,
eyes wide open, senses intact,
But who can really differentiate?

I opened my wisecracking eyes
to a photograph of father
grinning so wide, I mistook him
for an uncle I thought I’d forgot.

Prints of the past are like
yesterday’s prints of stale newspapers,
you don’t hold onto newspapers for the news
you hold on them to clean car windshields
and protect shelves from grime,
for chat-pati namkeen and peanut containers,
and then you thrown them away,
which probably get recycled;
but the prints of the past stick, no?

You cringe at the things you said
to the right person at the wrong time and in the wrong place
or five other permutations of the three.
You close your eyes hard
and frown while remembering the times
that you slipped your tongue mispronouncing
words which are in your second language,
or said things that you thought were funny,
but no one laughed.

Prints of the past are like laptop kept on for days,
just because you’d opened some tabs days ago,
contents of which might be unnecessary now,
but your mind’s stubborn to read them all.

*

Poets love the past,
it’s the foundation for words,
pain and agony, and also love,
probably forgotten in those browser tabs.

Without eyes looking out far or behind
without a past and a future,
we might feel hemmed between two walls
closing towards each other at the speed
of retracing your steps back towards
where you’re now, in the present.
What now?

When prints of the past and e-zines of the future
come to seize the end or even the journey for that matter,
when you find yourself extricated from the
vicious cycles of love and lust and and pain and hope,
when any ideas or thoughts seize to entice you,
you resort to memories that don’t make you shiver,
a delicious rub against a sack cloth to relieve an itch.

The crash of the milk bottle racks on early morning errands,
the shutting down of back doors of the bread vans,
or something out of time, something that is funny
and embarrassing that you can’t broach about it.

How seeing someone snorting back the mucus and then gulping it,
makes you nauseous but when you have cold,
you do it yourself, because the handkerchief is far,
and you'd rather not use your hand, "Eew!"

Or memories of an old friend, which is a song
by Angus and Julia stones, but also a song
of blissful senility, it’s been so long,
that you don’t remember her face,
but you still remember what it felt like
to play outside, hand in hand, panting.

Home is where the heart is, heart is remembering.

Or instead, you look at things with a blank slate,
where there’s nothing to left to think about,
you shut your eyes, get lost, probably get found.
By someone on the roadside, staring at you with concern,
perhaps that person is you.

Repeat the vicious cycle of cob webs -
love and lust and pain and agony, hope and thought,
intermittently, and then find words to write about it,
before you can’t anymore, again.