i'm clean, i tell them
they smile
they tell me they're proud
they tell me that i'm a fighter

but when i say i'm clean
it implies that the rest of me has always been
*****

that the girl with faded scars
and an empty heart
and a full head
was filthy

Hannah has her cleaning boots,
they're really rather fine.
They match her rubber cleaning gloves
and her yellow cleaning sign.

Today I feel left to the sun, dried and warn
Yesterday I was someone in search of danger
I found it
Melancholy
I lost a friend and gained a skewed vector
Potentially dangerous to paradise
So I clean my soul
Waiting

One final push. Afresh, I tell myself
I’ll make it farther from the starting line;
that clean will mean eternally this time.
I swear I won’t repeat a strike and swell
beyond the bones, stay intact for my health.
When well intentioned vows distort to lies,
the best that I can do is hide the thighs
and keep my body numbed by zinfandel.

I’m doing well. The surface still intact.
Slight murky colorations, senseless goals
in idiotic, broken breaths of angst.
Unsettled by the battle for control,
I might as well give up while urges last.
Afresh, the starting line: tempting me home.

I know I should be sad at the thought of what we had being washed away,
But a clean slate doesn’t sound too bad
And I brought my umbrella anyway.

What do you say?

Smile your Marie Kondo smile on me-
Just smile and pretend it can be done
She is a tank against common sense. Invasion of clear mind.
I never tidy up, my life's a mess.
Marie Kondo though makes me feel even less.
Completely disarmed my will to feel.

I sit on the couch staring at my window
Like a camera lens set at a very low aperture
The neighbor’s house across looks blurred
There on the rails of the aluminum frame
I find spiderwebs that I once thought of cleaning
And a few corpses of dead flies in the process of turning into dust
I am told they will resurrect too someday

Above this rail I see a mosquito net panel
Each square centimeter holds a thin layer of dirt
Not the pride of my living room
But to the photographer in me
A collection of micro art now

As a car enters my driveway
I put away the duster from my hand
And open the door for my old man

I forget once again
To clean those spiderwebs and corpses.

-Jose Valle

i spun you through my life
as you wove in and out
both of us as spiders
making a silk web that destroys when the rain comes.
i wanted to be your permant home
i wanted the storms
i wanted the torn silk, but preferably only on my bed sheets
if you missed our house as much as i do wouldn’t you come back to repair the foundation?
i know you missed the way i looked in a door frame
a silhouette of your grown man’s dream
please when you return
ignore the unmoved lawn
ignore the cracked ceilings
do not feel ashamed
the front door will always be open for you.