when I tuck her in, sheets tight under her chin,
pillows fluffed three times wide ways and long ways
(we just might have a type A child yet!)

I notice her eyes. wet, round dinner plates.

there's nothing I need to ask. she has nothing to say.
nothing that hasn't been said in the glances we
exchange over a teddy bear we clutch,
arms slowly ripping from the seams.

she grabs my hand and squeezes,
tighter than I did when she was born.

just five years ago, I screamed,
tossed back my head, sweaty hair
clinging to my scalp like soggy noodles.

the doctor held her up, Simba style.
I closed my eyes gently and slept through the trumpets.

now we're here, in this bed, in this fear
that neither of us can speak.

when her eyelids befriend her cheeks,
and the dinosaur music box hits its last run,
I creep to the door, edging one creak against another;
then I hear it,
barely a whisper, but loud and clear:

*why do the good guys have to die?

people who feel like to extend their pinky fingers
when the others have been recently offered
in assistance to greedy children, antagonistic husbands,
selfish friends.

they would never see people that way though

because if they did, and on the few days that they do,
when humanity is tire slashing puppy decapitation,

the people who feel crumble into a *** of sappy person,
resorting to gulping sobs and furious scribbles in
a journal no one will read.

people who feel like to assume they are alone,
that if God wanted to, they might all have been
rounded up, dumped on an island, and left
to offer conciliatory remarks, hugs, and shared
assumptions of responsibility and ethical treatment.

people who feel like to believe people are good,
as good as cotton wrapped tightly
around a small, slender, white stick:
dutiful, essential, uniquely purposeful.

but those people who feel woefully forget

the Ones who Feel

and feel to such a degree
that they create destructions and downfalls,
messily, angrily
like a toddler desperately trying
to make the blue crayon look black.

they are dangerous.
powerfully effective at harnessing the attention
of those who digest and regurgitate what
Society has in mind about the condition of people,

that there are troublemakers and peacemakers,
but the bad apples are more capable of wiping out
the apples who never had a chance,
and merely were in line of fire because they were
apples of the same kind at the same place
with the same name.

people, plain regular people, like to remember this
silly notion from childhood,
the devil and the angel entertaining either shoulder
of people, all, everyone people.

but what I think, me, who feels and feels and feels
until the feeling goes far away
until I beg for it to return,

everyone feels. some listen too keenly. some explode. some are deaf.

others mute.

after I make the test, write the questions,
fill in the correct answers on
my answer key,
I gloat.

if you are the student
who takes my tests and fills in my answers,
the ones you think I want to hear,
and if you could see me when I make them,
when I carefully push number one, parentheses,
enter--the way my eyes narrow and my feet tap impatiently,
while I wait for quiz-like perfection,

you'd think I'm evil.

that my sole purpose in this life,
the one in which I'm confined to an office and a desk,
where I burrow underneath the cave, using piles of student essays
as a teacher appropriate pillow,
is to prove you wrong and say

you'll never be any good.
your work is just not A material.
you pass. you fail.
you're wrong.
I'm right.

what he does not know
(how could he)

that I hate myself when she misunderstands
(which she will)

when you dribble insults,
like stings, little by little,
class by class
until finally my pretty smile face
forms into a scowl.

I tell him to leave.
He sits in his desk,
Big Buddha of such suffering.
Everyone stares at him. at me.
someone says,
"I thought class was supposed to be fun."

but I never issued a lie
or try to imagine they will see me as
ally, comrade, equal one.

instead I am expected to welcome all
******* errors and personalities,
even the ones that sting,
and keep the pageant smile stretched until
my skin rips off my face, and
I'm finally seen.

do what you are made to do.
birth babies, wipe the counters,
wipe your eyes from
the dust that settles in the corners;
the recurring moisture, as loyal as Seattle rain.

if you have dreams, crush them.
you are crazy, manic, wild with
hot air balloons yet to be deflated
because they should have never taken flight.

if you want my advice?
turn back around.
march back to your apartment.
accept the walls around you:
they are your protection.

*a curious mind, with curious fingers, feeling for knowledge; that is a very dangerous thing

you are essentially an object to me.

no one dare invent words that pick and **** and litter our ears
with shards of doubt, dismissive declarations.

the victorious are those who cover their ears and screen their eyes from
someone else's misery: bruised knuckles and a wall that wouldn't budge.

but all I see is a woman crumpled on the floor, her pride
posed like a crow on a branch in the open window frame,
mocking her failing strength and shattered resolve;
someone's fist tingles with accomplishment
for putting that Thing in her place,
close to her true place,
on the shelf
she dusts and polishes fastidiously,
lest he call her out on her "half-assed attempt,"

no one dare invent words

that limit little girls to the plastic boxes
for their plastic dolls
with plastic smiles.

when the seed grows buds,
that become flourishing leaves on a solid stem,
reaching up, up, up
can they see me yet?*
but all they want is the fruit.

I am like the bicycle you let sit in the rain,
turned sideways, wheels still spinning in reverse--
an abrupt split second call once my small SUV showed
its dull red color and token dents, signs of an irresponsible me
(and a still judgmental you).

Once upon a time you prized me,
snatched me from the wall of Grandest Biggest Rewards
for those who throw their money and efforts into
impossible pursuits.

My hair gleamed. My skin glistened. My eyes glinted.
but my legs would not spread.
they could not for fear of Eyes of a Watchful God.

when the day came, the day that no one believed you would come,
not even me,
you closed your eyes; I squeezed mine shut,
as did my doors, never to let you in.

Not even when you begged, bargained, bribed.
When you flung insults like the beagle's feces,
fresh, frenzied, frantic,
I dodged each smear physically, but let the memories
haunt my fading floral youth.

Now, that the doors have opened
to admit those who may be trusted,
and have closed deep within a secret,
discarded like a rush of blood--
just as meaningless, just as insignificant,

Now, you've found another bike to prop against the cool
sheltered garage wall, newly painted--
both the garage and the bike,
and her arms emerge months from now
with baby and baby and baby.

Brimming with baby.

And I sold that bicycle months ago,
the one I fought so hard to retain.

I was never the material, nor the istic.
Just used goods gone sour.

somewhere between silence and a scream,
I live.
wrestling worries, for the sake of my brows--
the space between that shows I have hurt.
but, what you cannot see, you do not know.
I will fix the lines, shave my skin, strip my teeth,
wash my blood
off our sheets with enough bleach to stop my eyes from seeing
what I see when her eyes meet mine.

she did dream once.