Waiting in Barbados,
For him to come to his senses.
The heat makes fools of us all,
Save for those used to its
Fiery caress,
Not much cooled
By the lukewarm sea.

Under the palm trees I can wait,
An eternity it seems,
Sipping *** straight from the bottle
Refusing the beads and conch shells
From the beach boys
By the turquoise sea.

Only when the sun sets, quick, surprising,
Its luminous frangipani
Red, thrown down from peach-colored clouds
And night falls soft.
Music from old Bridgetown,
I can go out and forget.

Then I dance to familiar, foreign beats,
Offered to the passing ear,
Pulling me further away from the northern frost
I begin to lose perception,
The moon and stars realign,
Washing away care for possible pasts.

But, waking up on the cooling sand,
Full moon, like an old woman scolding,
Silver-crowned waves roll in,
Irreverent, laughing at me
And I see I am such a stranger
To the land,
To the absence of him.

One last swim in the sand-bottomed pool,
Beneath the cliff, walls sheltering,
Limpid water caressing and
Crystal sun trying to blind me.
I must arise before I forget,
Leave here before it claims me
And rush back home to wait.

September 22, 2002

I remember with fondness the last worry worth the strain.
It was between the advertisements bookending the
bus stop bench, and I watched a woman no older than I
cross the street without looking both ways.

I panicked despite there being no speed toward her, and
as rapid as no cars were traveling my heart was ecstatic.
At her carelessness. Peered behind turtle-shell bifocals,
and they weren't rimmed thickly; I hate those. They were
wired, and she tugged my heartstrings. With her joy in pacing.

She met my eyes with her glasses and peered strangely toward me,
a stranger watching her with a knitted brow as thick as the scarf
she wore. She paused on the curb a foot about to lift her up, I
think I scared her. Her lips tugged as her hands stuffed themselves
into her tiny pockets. What are pockets used for on women's pants?
Surely not to look nervous and pull away from the world as mine are.

I almost begged the question to ask for her name, or to be a gentleman
and help her cross the stone-few-inch-threshold that seemed to have
stranded her as wide river from her destination; then I realized if she
could cross the raging streets without the help of even reassurance
then I was nothing but another obstacle.

She smiled.
I stared.
And off she went, and I watched her still.
I thought, "If she turns around to look at me, I'll wave her down.
I'll ask her name. I'll pour myself out,
even foolishly."
Her grey knitted cap, of which I am sure hid a knot worth untying,
turned and I saw her profile as her peripheral scoped the last remnants of her
slowly-forgetting-me-memory.
I lifted my hand toward her, and flicked my wrist.
She stopped.
And so did my heart.

If all it took was a look from you to take my breath away
Then I fear what power your words could hold over me

If a lover is what you need
Then a stranger I'll be
Love has made my heart bleed
One too many times to be set free
Now it is decreed
My heart stays with me

Promises deceive us
We confuse love with lust
Comfort for trust
While true love gets lost
We think it's what we want most
Then when it breaks we pay the cost

We are all strangers to love
We don't know her anymore
Her patience, endurance and forgiveness
We confuse with weakness
We want to force her into our relationships
While she can't be so tightly gripped

But we don't know that
Because we don't take the time
To get to know her
Instead we make up fantasies
Of what we want her to be
Of what we think Love should be

So if a lover is what you need
Then a stranger I'll be
Because you are a stranger to love
And falling for the wrong thing
Has left me too damaged
To risk it again

empty is not the right word.
what is the word for
not quite empty but not quite full?
there is a glass on the table-
it is not half-empty,
but it is not half-full.
it is just a glass of water.
i am just a glass of water:
not empty, not full;
not happy, not sad-
not anything.
not anything at all.

the clear blue nothingness
reminds me of the fact.
it’s dotted with cotton candy clouds.
i wonder if they are as sweet.
my tongue salivates at the thought.
it is like a land of dreams
without sorrow or pain
yet i am here,
floating lightly
though i feel like a paperweight,
weighed down by the lump in my throat.

it’s hard to remember
what home looks like.
i can’t see in terms of
“where i belong,”
i only see in terms of
“the trees are like broccoli sprouts-” and
“the cars look like hotwheels-” and
“every single one has a person in it, and
they all have their own journeys, and
i am here.”
i don’t think they know how beautiful it is.
i didn’t.

home to me now is a backpack
a couple books
and a trinket from an old friend.
they are the only ones like me:
strangers in a strange land.
i’d like to find my way back someday-
if only i knew the way.

I don't know how much more
I can find trust ignoring the lore
That I keep on writing til my fingers are sore

This strange heavy book
with an even stranger look
that a stranger once took

I want to think
that it is full of insightful ink
giving me good reasons to always stay close to the brink

But when my heart grows fonder
today when I catch myself, ponder
my mind only recklessly starts to wonder

And I've been reckless before
my heart and soul given to a false poet who calls me a *****
it tinted my deepest thoughts, it might be blue forevermore

I'm an expert on overthinking
still can't help but drinking
Wonderland's poisons up til I'm shrinking

If I could only say
that on some distant day
I'd learned my lesson not to pray

For you can never know
maybe it's only the gardener, just a poet for show
beware of what he might sow

what about all the plans
in the future
we already talked about
what to do next
but how can there be
even tomorrow
when us
don’t exist anymore