The broken barbed wire
wrapped around my wrist
like a blanket, not a bracelet.

A beetle catches raindrops
and bathes while hiding from fat clouds.

They are my steady friends,
the thunder booms, sirens at sea,
the watchtower that is never manned,
Yet the light casts blame in the face of a crab, scuttling and cackling
because he pinches past death, and
the fishermen fell overboard,
The net cascaded in slow motion
Deeper past the place they found my matted hair. A seagull landed on my legs.

The papers did not have the story with the name. My face puffy, swollen belly, crackers present on the lips that could not stop smiling.

"write a poem,"

Sylvia Plath commanded summer before last.
Her voice in all places I looked.
Avoided and silenced letters
Crawled in front of my mind and knocked on my skull:
A polite entry into their society with a family,
Other words in Gregorian chant:
You cannot undo insanity in the third decade.

I tell the others, the eyes around me, that these words
Feel like birth announced just now,
With no time to prepare or plan, to nest and caress
The down feathery face, or kiss his tiny mouth.

A poem emerges with a scream,
Bony hands encircling my throat and pushing
Into formation. The existence of new words--
Always the ones in the language before,
Though in this birth the roots twist under the tree.

They stand with their hands in their pockets.
One man adjusts his mesh cap, an excuse.
Something tiny, precious, real bleeps furiously through cargo khakis.
He types expertly with one finger and smiles chapped lips to himself.
Leaning against the uneven coffee counter, he reaches for his latte
and walks out the door with his fashion twin and best work friend:
grown men who assimilate in substandard choices to fit-in
years past high school.

Because you cannot use borrowed breath,
and move lips of another
that are pasted on your face.*

These words swam through
my mind
behind my eyes
and never visited your mind
or saw green swamp irises.

My words wear shackles;
the chain attaches stubbornly
against a cloud of nothingness,
the cloak you wear and the plume that spreads
behind you, where I am--
trailing the ground, dirtying, muddying.
Decomposing.

How nimble the fingers that point at the WomanChild,
the creature who does not learn to grow
because she wants to keep living and borrowing time,
not breaths, not skin cells and DNA and memories
that do not erase without ripping up the cassette and the VCR.

My words were meant to meet yours and touch pinkies.
Your thoughts made your words and body and smile lines
Run, run as fast as you could
                     from a Monster, a Curse, a King.

I am the sword of tongue and the fist that crumbles
when a beetle passes by.

You are scared of me.

I am the voice that crept up the water.
Sleeping, not sinking. My arm hair
stood straighter, not softening in the lake.

Wake up. Open eyes. Gasp for air.
Dark black cool everywhere I looked.
No one tells you that drowning
isn't dying.

their voices pelted spit wads.
their fear launched missiles.
their apathy sank a princess.
I watched with my screaming eyes.

When I sank I surrendered;
shiftless, restful, still.
But I did not die.

Death is the worn wet whisper.
Death comes to those who wait.
Death embraces cell fish.

And I would know.
They swim all around me.
On the land, never the water.

To them the depths of this lake
ensured my silence.
Then I woke and saw nothing,
felt nothing, knew nothing,
except for the last breath that moved seagulls
and drew mermaids near.

Sands slip through my fingers,
sun scorched with dried blood
staining the palm where I wiped the blade.

I did not bleed. I did not bat my eyes
when his severed limb flew past my face.
My eyes opened wider and tasted victory
more intently than my screams
vanquished his memory.

I thought it was but an apparition on the sands
miles past; a haunting, a demon, a scorned lover
back for revenge now that I made off with valuables:
the fastest steed, the cave within me
where he stored his treasure when he pleased.

Thus when he appeared, when he charged by foot
and outstretched his arms (much smaller from my new height)
feebly, weakly to end me first, so he could brag to the village,
"She is like the women who believe they can fly."

I do fly
to my sword,
my hand unsheathes the blazing boiling metal.
With one sharp ting I watch his arm and the tiny dagger
sail across the desert and settle atop the sand,
gently gracefully, unlike his living, boasting words
would have wanted.

To the man who brought destruction in the depths,
where coolness and faithful waters dripped down the walls;
where no one dared near for fear of the One who is near me.

They will say warrior was born of ruins.
If they ask me, I will say, "Warrior is born of defeat no more."

These are the words you will never read.
You will not see them, feel them, or remember
the weight they add to the burdens on my back.
And the guilt. The shame slides down my shoulders
and falls like puddles around my feet,
scorching my ankles with the splash.
My emotions are bubbling lava, brilliant light,
alluring, engulfing,
destroyer of apathetic eyes (rolling ***** of white gush)

There are three words you will never hear.
"I love you" came first, when the bump grew bumpier:
little, softer tummy; deadly force.
"I give up" comes now in tiny exhalations from my
bigger, clumsier fingers than that which we lack.
I say these three words to myself until I stop believing,
and my tears stop falling and my lips stop smiling.
The most fixed point in the wall I find. And stare.
We have a contest, and, of course, the wall wins.
Blink. I blink. I do the worst, the expected.

I try again.

I try a thousand new ways, ways I planned
with alternate routes and "just in case" setbacks.
When we meet I extend my hands, and warm my smile
with round shiny eyes. The dimple peers through my cheek,
never shy, always ready for the man I choose again and again.

This time half of my body felt half of his as we stood
in the rain and in the muggy sticky late August air.
In vain, I grabbed his arm, whirled it in an air circle,
until his fingers released and he walked to his car.
I watched. He didn't look back. He walked and unlocked.
and steadily then swiftly drove away.

The clouds grew closer until night spread across the sky,
Music imprisoned my ears and my eyes refused to open.
The car remained on a path, even without my consent.

I walked into the arms of a black skinny creature that whined,
eagerly scratched my arms with her black nails.
She looked as worried as I actually lived, every day
in fear of failing my work, my hopes, myself.

Trash can, wastebasket;
the place we throw it all away.
Used tissues--soggy mascara, dried *****,
or the babies that would never be,
and the heaps of food waste, human waste.

Wasted human.

Why do we take ourselves and the people we used to love,
toss people and our person deep within a hole of shame,
darkness, misery, guilt, worry, frustration, fear?

If someone only said to you, or to me, when we dig deep
into the ground and find the place no one will find us
or them, the people we are burying--
if they only said,
"You are not trash."

Our emotions refuse to become refuse, the remains of
being unwanted, as we perceive ourselves to be.

But we is just me, and even though I can't hear the voice
I long to hear above my own, the sounds reverberate in my chest,
next to my heart, where I heard them last.

The last time we spoke your fingers did not reach for mine.
Your jeans did not rip in the same one spot.
The dog that I picked that you picked after you went back,
his tail wagging all the way on the ride back to his new home,
did not kiss my face and my eyes and ears like he loves to do.
Even though you didn't still love me, you did before,
now thrown hastily, yet decidedly in the trash can outside your door.

I dropped off the last remnant of your physical being,
an old rabbit-eared antennae.
I didn't, couldn't look in your trash can,
or stand in the driveway longer than was needed to drop and run
the hell away from crumbling gravel, a window newly aluminum foiled, and the motorcycle kept under surveillance at all times.

I hope he looked on his camera screen and saw walking,
talking, feeling, breathing human trash gliding
down the sidewalk, feet pattering into a jog.
The grass licked my feet and tangled in my toes on the way
to the one place my sighs could sink lower than my feet,
deep into the warm upholstery of my car seat, the grandma car,
the dented, imperfect, but mostly reliable car

away, far away, to a place where someone would look curiously,
pick up the trash, my trash, me, and say,
"It's beautiful."

When the rain falls
the sidewalk makes room.
The plants sigh and stretch back,
extending their arms, hands, and feet.
Every pore of every possible thing breathes
and remembers a time without a drop to drink.

The people curse and grab newspapers and plastic bags.
Some weather men and women smugly reveal tiny umbrellas.
As if they were tucked in their shirt sleeve.
Like a magic trick for the stupid crowd before them.
but how did you do that? how did you know?

Rain nourishes and devastates in one downpour.

The crazies and the weirdos dance in circles and
someone yells out, "Thanks gypsy!"
to his girlfriend who has a knack for making things be.

All she did was close her eyes and thank the earth, sun, stars, and moon.
And smile so fiercely the Universe thought,
Well I guess we can give her this one gift. She is so awfully strange.

Thank you.
earth.
sun.
stars.
moon.

You know all and you give life to what once was.

Some of us build towers with blocks.
We carefully place dull red block after worn red block
atop the one before, reaching for unattainable heights.
We knew the outcome from before
when some force sent our efforts crashing down.

Force comes way of a terrible brother, jealous gravity, or
the God who sees and knows and cannot have towers made of blocks.

Then why do we keep picking up the blocks?
Why don't we grab a few handfuls of blue light?
Just rip open your chest, dig into your soul with your fingernails,
scratch away the sediment and rock formations.
When you find the light bursting through the gaping wound,
and when you struggle to breathe and to live,
remember you know how to suture the hole.

Only take but a little of the light.
Stick it in your pocket, behind your ears, in the spaces
between your teeth.

And let them try to send the light crashing down. The light builds from beams that are ever connected. It doesn't shatter.

Though if it did, you would just create another galaxy.

"There's a target on your back,"
said the man in striped white socks and flip flops.
He swung his arms freely and slapped his face
accidentally or intentionally--his illness wasn't mine to name.

The trees wrapped their arms around one another in a huddle.
"Quick she's coming near. The target is close."
One. Two. Three. Birds flew by and splashed my forehead.
I looked back and felt one of the trees wink and point ahead.

A man on a moped waited until my back was turn and I bent down.
Whistle. Whistle. Head turn back ninety degrees.
You'll get in an accident, I thought; I secretly wanted,
his helmet-less head splat flat on the concrete, skin burning,
melting, bubbling, pooling in a puddle.

The red doors whined against my insistent grasp.
When I found my white door, I air twisted the **** that was
pushed back to show the open space inside the coolness.
I didn't live that cold. I didn't know how.
He did. And he reached into my freezer and removed his tongue.
I sank onto the floor and felt ice hit me my cheeks and my eyes and ears.
The blankets couldn't warm me. My tears couldn't melt what formed.

He tossed my key on the mat, kicked back dust into my face;
looked me square in the eyes frozen wide open, mouth gaping for air.

"I put a target on your back. See ya."

When I opened my eyes I sat in this body.
The wind ran through thick black hair.
Grass surrendered under my heels.
I didn't hate myself then, or yet, or ever.

Even now, when I part the clouds and look down down,
squinting into the tops of trees that were in my yard.
In the last home I knew, gentle hands fed me food.
We joked and my eyes smoldered for their pictures.
Why did they always take so many pictures?

You probably think I'm angry I had to leave like this.
That with one terrified bullet from two firmly planted hands,
my might and power and God given beauty did not move.
I remember that moment. The air was swept from my lungs,
through my lips, and two angels descended on my animal form.
My soul wound around one of their slender gray fingers,
while the other angel folded up my skin into a cavernous pocket.
We ascended into lush tropical rich radiant paradise--who knew?
Animals are allowed here.

Sometimes I wonder what might have happened if I could have morphed into human form in the right moment.
When I became human, they became animal.
You see, an animal is that which is unpredictable and wild;
terribly aggressive.

But people were scared. Now they have more reason to lock up
their kids behind bright little screens as they push them in secure strollers.
"Look at this game. Isn't it fun? Mommy's here. You're in a belt. You are
safe."

I just heard a sob from below. As I think these thoughts, I can sense
she is crying and missing me, missing a creature she never knew.
She sees God in me. She sees God in everything around her.

To shoot me was to shoot her spirit in the chest, to watch the blood
form in pools while people watched and put away their cell phones
and pushed their strollers to the next set of bars. On to more eyes that hide their secrets from the humans.

[in memory of Harambe the Gorilla]

His eyes gleamed and played in his eye sockets, like marbles on a playground. When he spoke, he waved the arms of a worn windbreaker. Dried ***** pooled down the center zipper. This was a man who stopped to compliment my boots and not my face. Or skin. Or purty smile. The wind encircled us and almost pulled the cardboard with a toothy model on both sides out of his dried finger tips. His niece insisted he carry that thing around. If only she had given him an entire billboard instead.

When I saw the gaunt streetwalker, companion of the sunrise, keeper of the bottle--he had enough to live off the recycling from years--he reminded me of the naked frightening people we are when we peel off the fifteen layers of skin, disrobe, and dismantle our pride.

The veil is yellow. Flashes of teeth and skin and widened eyes. Nails dig into the skin when she turns. Jasmine lingers when her rotations warrant a new face, a new man. The tigers stretch their paws and extend their claws. No one reaches to pet them, even though they are hers. And she is the reason we are here. We watch her skin join our dreams, until the sharp "ting ting" of ankle bells disturb the sleep we try with eyes open and mouths gaping. One man belches and blows the perfume in her face, like a kiss when she bends to pick up the coins. They didn't see her. No one saw the moisture under welling eye sockets. They didn't see the scars on her arms and around her neck and wrists. Her own strength gone wrong.

We only see plump lips and hunger. And somehow we always think we brought enough to feed her.

There's a part of me that wants to die
So that when my lungs are fighting for air
I remember how to live.

And in that moment I'll plead my case
With words I can no longer form,
And whispered prayers I cannot speak

Because I'm dead,
Not just on the inside, but completely
Gone.

People will wipe their tears, throw away
Dry Kleenex tissues and quickly abandon
The memory of my human form.

I'll live in a cramped box with two angels
Who quiz me, run tests on my soul,
The only logic in liquid air, sometimes ice
When the ground freezes, and the moles
Dig deeper, using my bones to dig further still.


When I traced the wires
On the fence between my playground and
The wilderness in my hometown,
I didn't know what it meant to truly die.
Because as a child I felt dead when I was
Unappreciated or unseen

Little did I know, little that I was,
If I died, that's what I would forever be.

This part of my day is called
A Fistful of Muddy Mushrooms

Because I feel like the embodiment of
something edible, yet poisonous;
Pure, yet filthy, putrid, covered
in the refuse of plants that die.

Maybe they should have refused
to die,
Maybe they should have
Tried
to reach their leaves up and up
until
an ant at the bottom felt
like they were BIG ENOUGH
And a giant thought they were just the
right size for dinner salad,

Because when I speak,
My heart strangles my vocal chords,
And my words sound much less of the
perfect
role model I really am.

How could I not be?

I serve young minds and cater to
small minds,
Much smaller than those they serve.

No one told me that growing up would
R.I.P the arms off my former child self,
Dangle the appendages in front of me,
while I watch monster after monster
Eat my flesh. Slowly. Delicately.

Like a dessert.

I wanted to grow up to be a kid.

I got my wish.

At the cost that I
Do Not
Belong
to the good graces of the Good People
around me

and all of us

scattered like leaves on the ground.

when your mouth opens
and my eyes close,
I cannot tell you who I see

because I am not sure if I am dreaming,
dying, or desperately waiting
for the Hands of God and
the hands of time
to kindly rewind to the point when something tiny,
quite small,
took hold of my blood supply,

when someone measurably loved me
six weeks and four days;
someone I knew less time than I knew
the blood stain before him.
or her. it. a clot.

but it was never that to me. right now
two tiny invisible hands, residing in my residual pain,
the recesses of my mind,
took us, you and I, separate entities now,
and pushed us back:

my eyes brimming with tears, your sighs coercing the silence.

someone's satisfied sky cloud moon sun stars wind earth fire
smile.
laugh.
tears that flooded the ocean where I stand,

reaching for what was once mine.

the birds didn't tell me.

pushing back your covers, wiping away sleep;
seeing me, or the absence of me--
a virus inhabiting a body, sharing a bed,
a house, a life, a marriage, but
refusing to share that which makes a woman
truly and utterly a woman.

not with you.
because I gave you my posture, the bounce in my stride,
the grin so wide it hurt every time I smiled.
I put on a coat of pounds that warmed the feeble bones:
shattered confidence. broken girl.

would you see me if I listened better?
if I shut my mouth and closed my eyes?
if I let pain push deep within and make the blood
stop the bleeding?

what manual tells a woman how to love
someone she always had, but never really did?
for that young, naive take on romance,
on starry eyed place settings at dinner parties
seen in movies and in upper middle class society--
were those not the conventions for us?

when I said goodbye to my family home,
when the man who gave me my wit, my sharp tongue,
my fast feet, when he closed the door, and I left,
sobbing, pleading to go back in,
where safety cocooned my childhood,
tucked the memories in cardboard boxes,
stacked precariously high in the room that raised me,
trading tears for dance displays in a smudged mirror,
dust settling still.

a new man, a relevant man, he took me away
and educated me on good: "be good."
a good wife is
one who obeys, submits, cleans, cooks, opens, closes,
hungrily, dutifully, like a fish with flakes of food
as invisible companions.

no book taught me to fear self-destruction
or to sense the tide that crashes into fledgling happiness,
not two days old--to rip ripe peaches to a meaty pulp,
letting the juice spread at my shoelaces.

dear __ , I loved you entirely too true.
I lost my heart in strands of your hair, pieces of dead skin
engulfing my pillow case and our old sheets tangled
around sweaty legs, feet, arms scratched raw.

I didn't see that when the papers were inked
you put the parts of my heart once yours
next to your name--signed it away
to some better life,
one with a good wife, a good life,
a child, yard, and a three car garage.

I only got to see briefly what was not
meant to be mine.

I took off my sundress,
dipped my toes in the water,
and submerged my body,
embracing yours steadily,

remembering I am already good,

in the then and in the now.

I say I'm a Muslim, but I can't tell anymore.
I can't tell from what goes in my mouth,
what comes out and hits you on the cheek
worse than a slap, harder than a mere insult.
I'm outraged, but what reason do I have?
On the outside I could be anyone,
and I usually am.
Sometimes I am Puerto Rican, Lebanese, or Black--
a child asked me once, and I just smiled back.

How sweet would it be to take every crayon from the box,
even now that the numbers have multiplied and
what was once simple 8, 12, 24, 36,
has exploded into a million colors with a million names,

to crush them into bitty pieces and swirl the mixture with water;
make it all into One.

so that if we hate another
(what other?)
we just hate ourselves.

I say I'm a Muslim, and I know I am
because when I give up all my frustrations and
my toddler tantrums, and I even give up yoga,
or rather it gives me up, thankfully so,
when I injure my back: I'm grateful for that.
What a knowing presence God is to take away that which harms
and restore that which fulfills.

But even to those who are still hurting
(and I often am)
there are these small remembrances that come
between this onset of tears and the next.
Whether the sun peers through the dusty blinds,
the ones you need to clean again--so soon,
and you see the light stream through, faintly at first,
until you are forced to open your eyes,
to remove yourself from the hate you've stewed in:
how simple is that?

I say I'm a Muslim, and it's a choice
I make every day or avoid until the next day,
even though that day may not be easily given.
And I forget that.
But when I see life slip away from young lives, old lives,

lives not yet born

then I have to remember
that I do not have the answers,
and every time I try to be dictator of my destiny
I fail miserably, miserably, miserably.

And now that I wrote this poem
and I felt myself think, no, truly feel for the first time in a week,
that my robotic expression has melted into a frown that stands
a chance at becoming a smile.

Now that I am human I am a Muslim.
Not perfectly so, but decidedly so.

(In memory Deah Shaddy Barakat, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha)

I walk into a narrow entry way
where the curtains are closed in the room beyond.
I extend my hand, see their eyes, and convert it
into a pleasant, not at all unsettled wave.
hello, how do you do. it states more than asks
because no one wants to share
(even though I really did want to know)

Let's look at my strangeness,
what they call odd,
and I call "different,"
the compliment kind,
like when your parents reward your eccentricities
with boxes of crayons and plenty of paper.
color outside the paper, if you want

What happens when a little girl loved by many
grows up
and becomes a swan smeared in mud with ballet shoes,
untied, ribbons dragging behind,
occasionally tripping not only herself,
but, even worse,
all in her path.

Okay, now to return to the place where I stand,
on the threshold of acceptance and rejection.
No one wins this game, you know.
I will look at the ground, at my shoes,
then at his because what kind of writer would I be
if I didn't look at worn leather sneakers,
black laces frayed at one lace end,
and then write about them?
Who would I be if I couldn't look at a room and a pair of people,
whose curious eyes and glances burn invisible candles
to one pathetic apologetic wick?

In my mind I go back to that moment,
and I blame the clothes I chose
and the words I said and said,
how I fumbled to find a place in the playbook
of How to Please Parents.

I unbuy presents and unworry hours of trepidation.
I unsweat my palms and uncry my tears,
even though I will recry them when I find out
what I am really am,
not even a who,

to those who unsee
me.

once I made a wish.

the penny sent ripples of water circling outwardly,
seeming to spread the potential all around the shallow pool,
when really the magic shot from my lips as soon as I spoke.

I wish for her. or for him. or them.

wishes come true--did you know that?

they always do.

but the pain, their unwanted doppelganger.

it's enough to send me into a sudden burst of tears,
fumbling along the hallway wall, until I reach the doors
of my childhood room.
I grasp at the curtains and collapse,

fallen
forgotten
fallen
forgotten

born again in my sleep.

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.

I.
when she saw the hazy picture on the screen,
dark grays, some blacks, a little white,
she didn't understand until the soft, chubby brown finger
pointed at a speck, a freckle.

how can I?

the soft worn leather seat whimpered
when the expanse of body gripping fabric
clung to the body they housed, and
the nurse reached for the girl's small sweaty hand.
they closed their eyes and prayed.

the adjacent room was a museum of curiously tiny things.
she slowly considered each item in her sojourn,
finally selecting delicate knit slippers, for little feet.
in this tired brick building reality seemed less real.

II.
back home, her mother threw a chair
when Mavel pointed at her stomach and smiled shyly.
when she presented the shoes with trembling hands,
hoping this small measure would appease the anger,
always worst at first--maternal snakebite,
mother glowered and showed her ****** fangs.

III.
the lights drew her, like fireflies twinkling moment to moment,
the icicle bulbs flashing as the wind blew strands wildly
on dark night trees, rooted firmly in familiar soil.

cotton candy clouds surrounded her small thin lips;
the lingering bits crystallized on a pale pointed chin.
as she discarded the unwanted cardboard stem,
its use immediately forgotten in a pile of related *******,
she saw him.

she saw him. and she ran. frayed tongues flapping on her sneakers.
breathless, heart pumping, he came into focus.

by the house of mirrors. reaching for her hand--
not my hand. her hand?

her fingers slipped from her mouth and found their home,
on her warm belly,
suddenly quiet.

blood trailing down her thighs,
a droplet stroking a pure white shoe:
welcomed refuse.

I want to love you, but I'm afraid to feel
the hollow space in my chest--hallowed ground.
I want to kiss your lips and warm your skin
with the vibrations pulsing through your sense of
touching me where I can't reach
in that cavern housing my thoughts,
the "will they see me? will they want to know"
that I cover myself in dog hair disarray,
that I stand with the fridge door open, chewing shriveled carrots;
hoping to shrink what is soft, weak, feminine, emotional,
dangerous.

but you never respond. you match my arched eyebrows
and my tired dry skin, stretched like saran wrap,
keeping my stench our secret for now.

a mirror never lies,
so why doesn't she love me
as I love her.

before I can write, I have to stop
and consider the new nail growth
that has pushed nail paint further up
as my tiny talons become more worthy of their name.

earlier, I pointed at the individual students
one by one; they hesitantly mustered words
to match my unclear expectations;
hoping to avoid my sarcastic cackle,
or the full blown eyes gleaming
like the deepest darkest black marbles
wedged in my eye sockets,
their words trailed off, along with their interest.

I don't try to find a broom that fits my grip.
mine has always been the right fit,
and I've had the ability to travel through time,
and somehow connect one vague memory to the next,
adding detail and sharpening what was dull and lifeless,
so the imagery is mechanically pointed and precise.

My face paint is strategic war paint,
but brown, never green.
At once I'm judged as foreigner,
of foreign origin; young (you're THAT old?)

they will never know that I fear my own image
and imaginings
worse than they fear what power my pen wields.
to bear the weight of an expanse of thoughts--
strenuous, burdensome, careful responsibility--
with relief only once words materialize on a page,
on a screen,
that they will never read.

for no witch was born witch;
she was made so once her dreams shriveled
and resembled the lifeless frogs in her hands.

I'm sorry God, but they've taken you prisoner.

Their words indubitably once streamed from your lips,
as your fingers projected beams of light,
falling from the Heavens:
people dumbly read your signs so literally.

They've closed you in a book and recalled your name
when such mentioning benefited their own name,
hypocrites they are;
for there was never a hypoChrist
capable of making wine a commodity
and bread a demon,
unless it is gluten-free.

How your intentions are clouded in veils.
****** in your name.
To glorify you.
Pushing scared young lovers--two men-- against barbed wire fences
and insisting they are sinful, foul--better off dead.
Maybe the hate is right
because it wins ten times out of nine.

God, they constantly judge each other
when they don't believe in the "right" version of you.
And they represent a new hipper you for the youth:
they want to understand you, when really they just
want to be understood.

Some days I walk past strangers and wonder,
"Who do you want me to be?"
Am I not Muslim enough unless I cover my hair?
Am I too Moz-lim if I say Allah and mean God--
just God, not whatever inane misnomer you'll tell me I really believe
you to be.

I think you tire of our piddle paddle,
how we puff up our chests, only to blow out a tiny breath of air,
that in one instant you can extinguish:
the candle had no choice.

We think we give the world meaning.
We feel so special when we hear ourselves think,
but sometimes, I wish you'd speak instead of all these false prophets.

I'm not afraid of the dark--
I'm afraid of the light,
that stealthy insight that looms overhead and slowly
envelopes my mind:
equal parts consolation and condemnation
of the decisions I've made and the dreams I've deferred
until tomorrow,
always tomorrow.

I can't sleep till midnight
because my mind insists on activity;
my whole being validated by three lines,
or three words,
whatever I write I become; I see.

What would you say
if I told you I count to twenty,
three times in a row after I hit snooze five times,
that I lie in bed, ruminating my failures
and the impending day,
resolute and domineering,
like an aged, hardened war general
who refuses to answer to, "I will not, sir;
I cannot do that, even for you,
or my country...sweet land of tyranny."

I think I find some meaning
and solace
in the minutes that beckon to morning
and hold fast to inevitable recycling of failure come freedom--
for, we are no longer chained by our fears when we forget
perfection.

I'll never reach that star;
I have no ladder that steep,
or hands that far reach,
outstretching past my own soiled skin--

tears that bleed.

black paint slips down a weathered white canvas,
soiling age and dignity: fine lines and discoloration.
but her will wished for the knowledge--
volumes of thick tired dust drenched pages
recorded the deeds from do-good and destruction,
and while she believed the words would cure her,
they rarely did.

My head aches like torrential, relentless rain,
pounding on the rooftops and sending birds
flying away, far away, a little earlier than
what I learned in 2nd grade when I drew three birds
on momma bird's back: I was creative then,
but I can't create a sound now--

the sound of graceful acceptance of a belly,
still a belly, that feels like a graveyard
when I touch defiant black hairs standing straight
against smooth fawny skin; I feel the hollowness within.
Ali Baba would find refuge here, but thieves stole my treasure.

Those in white coats and button downs and sharp shiny square shoes
stroll past my disheveled gym hair, lint covered yoga pants,
uneven pale fingernails: I'm a recovering anemic.
A small frightened girl with cat moon eyes stares around her
and clutches her hand closer to her abdomen for an embrace,
an act of second nature, not forgotten yet.

Remember when they took the spoon and scooped out ice cream,
hungrily, viciously, mouthful overtaking mouthful
until nothingness remained:
an insatiable appetite for something sweet.

Somewhere in some corner a spider releases eggs and dies.

I drew a circle in the sky,
traced the way between
knowingness and truth,
visited uncertainty and full fledged fear,
and somewhere along that way
I found you.
I stopped and stared as I'm prone to do,
and we held hands for mere minutes
until our fingers lost grip
and I lost a bet with Cupid.

I drew a circle on my chest
and I let all the world come near to see.

Why do we cry when we lose?
Why do we laugh at misfortune?
What makes success seem so successful?

Can people hear our thoughts as we interpret theirs,
in judgmental, hyper sensitized vibrations?

I always said you’d break up with me,
(not seeing the power words have over us.)
Within seven months, before May grew pregnant,
you were gone.
You did not leave me as I feared, but you did not bypass my words,
which took over my tears and the gulps and swallows;
regenerating fresh saliva, to form more words, soon lost by the invisible hands on my cell phone,
misdirecting time so that the time spent with you went from now to then.

I spoke what I felt, what I thought to be utterly true
Because how could you love someone crumbling on the outside
and oozing with hot tar pain on the inside?
How could you love me?

You didn’t, you never said it, but I grew incapable of avoiding that metaphorical heart concept:

My heart dictated my hands that formed meals and massages and meltdowns.
You weathered my compulsions and the storms that overtook my countenance and threw you so far from my shore that even swimming to reach me took your patience and your prowess.

But you found a way. You always did. Every week, for months,
from a time when we melded egg white, egg yolk, to a time when oil and water tried in vain to caress.
I was your girl, and you answered my every problem with a solution,
And your eyes sought the truth in mine and we formed our own.
Us two, forever never and then.

I sat across from a man made of millions.
From his shiny black patent shoes to his dolphin patterned socks,
and his slicked back gray blonde hair, a color so elusive
Midas himself would find fault with designating blame,
I saw treachery.
If character were based on dress I would assign worth every time.
But people don't work that way: you must listen to what they say.
When he mentioned God and fate in the same breath as commissions and unlimited potential financially,
I went back to the socks.
Imagining the dolphins desperately trying to find someone else's socks,
someone less driven by green pieces of paper easily set aflame by
a deranged individual, someone like me,
who would not be so ludicrous, but entertained the notion,
would have more idealistic pure thought framing.
While the world runs in bounding strides to freedom from debt, from loans, from taxes, and money....stuff,
so that every "thing" materializes as a personal possession
and retirement happens at the unseemly age of 35,
but who will provide a home for the dolphins?

I would not throw my socks away as soon as the threads began to bare.
I would find some cerulean blue thread and weave in the ocean.

Despite your resignation and sudden departure,
shooting in the direction of Not Me as soon as my lips parted
and those fateful words escaped,

you never left.

The refuge of cool bedsheets in bedclothes on a bed too big for me
houses nightmares and a silent love affair,
neither tangible nor real,
but when the sun peers through the curtains and my REM becomes
remember, I do it; I sit up, kick back damp bedsheets and bedclothes
and let my feet dangle from the heights.

A cantaloupe, a fragrant pollen drenched lilly, ginger beer,
these are my companions in a desolate Whole Foods.
I stroke, smell, drink, relive the ecstasy of my own reveries,
the ones I created before I lay eyes on you,
before, when your name was merely a source of laughter,
like some fat obnoxious cartoon on television,
lovable and detestable in one viewing.

I walk to my car and turn the ignition-- that makes my fetal position
in fifteen minutes
significantly more realistic.

Somewhere between the interstate and the inter state of my mind,
the threads unravel and dissolve,
and the knot that stated not, no, never,
says yes, you **** well can, now, and always.

uncovering my emotions,
I sit in a plume of words,
washing over my senses,
clouding them over with potential
and destruction.

you sit in your straight back chair,
legs stretched out in front of you,
before you hesitate and put your feet
firmly on the ground.
my words are like the fan drowning
out your demons,
but providing no extra insight,
just white noise.

I talk in my sleep
because the words don't pass me in my
subconscious.
they rule over me, sometimes guiding,
sometimes hindering.

a pillow, sleeping aid, ear plugs,
conveniently placed on your nightstand
whenever I sleep in your bed.

our fingers touch, and our shoulders lean toward the other,
wondering if we will follow our bodies' lead.
but you roll to the other side and I mirror you.
strangers in a bed built for one,
occupied by two.

when I grew up I became a writer,
and at the same time all other
pursuits faded and floundered,
crumpling and whimpering like
puppies made of paper thin rose petals.

all my time is spent in thought,
warm wet puffy clouds of insight;
when I emerge in the light
of day with the mere mortals
chewing their complacency
like doe eyed, robotic cows,
my hands shake and my words run together.

I am too busy for the nonsense people call the daily grind,
that 9-5 mentality and the routine, oh the routine,
where we do what we hate so we have ten minutes to do
what we love and who we love.

Can't someone propose that we can do what we love
and get paid to do so, paid horrendously delicious amounts of money,
that would make basketball players blush and drug dealers cry?

For now I will take charge of this joblessness and settle into
my thoughts where I am free to roam
past streets filled with people waving at me and cheering me on;
I'll work your 9-5, and I'll spend a hearty 11 minutes
pouring my soul into my writing.

Sorry I'm late to work again.

this is the part where your feet share a slip on shoe
because you felt hot, and now you're cold again,
and one shoe is cozier than two.

honestly, watching a man inch past me with a dull red shirt
and a duller red walker to match,
socked feet swollen in brown Velcro sandals
makes my own legs twitch and my heart sing;
it reminds me to take a flying leap from this table
outside a conventional coffee shop
and kick my legs into a graceful stride
until I trip on a pebble and come tumbling down--
such is the art in my elegant facade,
of which I am only convinced.

really, I'm just here so I can write,
pretend that I'm a fancy published writer
with leagues of followers salivating
at the thought of new words from my finger tips
that frankly do type at hare speed.

I'm writing to the beats and poetry of your songs,
the playlist you created and shared
once you asked for my instagram handle.
enthralled is a good word:
I'm enthralled by you, by your presence
and the tiny amount of ****** hair under your chin,
how you arch your eyebrow and push back your long hair,
shorter on the sides all around.

when I close my eyes your hand is on the smallest of my back,
and you're guiding me in front of you, along a narrow walkway,
until we reach steep stairs, and we laugh at where we are
because we've both been here before, before this moment that
connected you and I and the others around us
who faded once morning grew near.
mocking vampires, we welcomed the sunlight and ran in its wake,
shoulders bouncing, hair whipping in the mist, laughing hysterically.

I visualize a trend
between the beginning and the end
of first meeting and sudden departure.

Remember the gasp,
the intake of air in the inhale?
when you first saw me your eyes widened
and you drove your small red car with vigor,
eager to drive us to the light that would
better spread across my face and dance in my eyes:
fixated on your dark brown beard and your own
bemused green eyes.

I don't think you ever breathed
past the conundrums of our time in space,
pushing past the questions
with pursed pale lips,
a tiny opening.

I am not as difficult as I seem,
and you are not as smart as you feel,
if you feel anything at all
for if someone asks you whether a trouble is really that
and you sigh and nod through the phone and say,
"Yes I believe you are right,"
then I'm sorry to not be wrong this once.

You left me hanging
up the phone,
looking around the empty classroom,
and tears sliding mercifully,
warming an already warm face.

You don't know this, but I loved every part of you
that I knew.
Every glance, whisper, silence.

Even now, when my voice cannot reach you,
and my hand reaches for the phone,
and then remembers.
Even now, I touch my lips and imagine yours
pressed close against

sharing our breath
and our lives again.

I love that my cat decides when we eat cat food and drink water.
(My cat eats the cat food of course; I just have to put her first
in the sentence because she's cooler than me.)
She looks up at me, lazy green eyes suddenly expectant;
tail twitching and curling into an upright S,
she guides us between thrown pillows and an oversized
Doberman kennel,
door wide open, confusing my path,
but Pasha gracefully darts past, a prr of joy escaping her tiny cat lips.

When we reach the kitchen, all five seconds of our journey,
I reach for a glass, and my cat, she meows,
loudly and loudly-er until I acknowledge her cat bowl.
She insists I stand by it, and she looks at me once more,
waiting for my fingers to materialize on her fur,
petting her neck and her head.
Once she is satisfied, she buries her head and I close my eyes.
And we drink. We eat.

Listen child,
for I will tell you the ways of the One
who knows what you do and what you do not.
For truly you are alone within yourself,
save the divine whispers and the evil beckonings.

Life is not gray as we tell ourselves in comfort,
but it is the constant dichotomy of black and white--
sharp contrasts at war.
This war arose before you were born, before I,
before the first peoples.

You will face many challenges.
You will cry, scream, curse the Name
which gave you life so freely,
with such little to gain
and so much more to seek through
your surrender.

You do not come from me, my love.
I merely housed you, birthed you, fed you,
nurtured the spirit within.
Soon you will leave this place we call
safety.

You will stand on the precipice of the unknown
and outstretch your arms to where they naturally reach.
You will taste the splendid meats and drink from the lush fountains
of wine.

But my darling, my most beloved child,
do not fear the unknown:
it is all around you,
breathing through our skin.
Sing through your lips, through your smile, through your fingertips
the words I have taught you thus, the words you knew all along.

Love does not give what it does not freely take.
Know that life is transient, and all your joys and griefs
will crumble beneath your feet and dissipate and subtly as they came.

Feel of the wind in your hair.
Let the gusts whip you pants against your legs
and away again
until you sense the rhythm of the Universe.

your truck drives by;
blinds me with shiny red paint
that seems much more pristine than when I drove it.
mud aside--there will be mud
because that's the nature of your play:
together you romp in the open terrain
over grassy hills and splashing through
beckoning hot puddles that douse your windshield
where tiny wipers wipe in reverse--
that always killed me.

your truck drives by,
and I look away,
then immediately look behind me
and search in the flash back, the seconds of time
when we were in the same space
at once
because there are no mistakes in this universe,
and I find meaning in this moment:
the red, bright, mud,
especially the sound of my sobs,
drowning out the stereo.

clean lines cut shiny wet skin

cold menacing eel eyes meet
a jellybean nose child's sticky fingers,
calculating; deriving the smoothest way
to unfasten Oshkosh suspenders
in a sun-drenched park, with fierce
protectors, and the wrath of an angry God,
one that judges perverse men and protects
innocent children,
but God must be on vacation;
too quickly, aplomb aplenty,
he slithers past the slide where
a trio of blond ringlet drenched heads tantalize
when the boys hop and jump
their curls excitedly bob, mimicking the children's movements.
the man, he waits, tucked
in a leafy green pardah, a veil.
the sun crawls into the clouds;
thunder bellows in the distance,
and like a mercy, a tiny raindrop
hits his eyes, which he has closed
in respect of this jubilant miracle.
the mothers grab their own sticky handed babies
and run for drier places
and safer
though they only heed the rain
and not the man peering from the soaking foliage

flash of lightening.
darkness.
a scream.
silence.

this is bigger than the end result.
you found a way to hold the papers together:
a necessary tool, matte crimon, reliable by brand,
but what happened to those before?
have you forgotten?
small, ergonomic, stark white against teal--
designed to stand tall and upright on any smooth surface.
it seemed so promising, potentially the one that would
glue together the edges of paper neatly at a crisp corner.
then mishap.
a human error, as every error really is,
and the staples lodged themselves deep within a tiny cartridge, immobilized.
an enigma.
and it was on for the next source of solidarity and office supply strength

I keep them near, every failure, every disappointment, every almost was,
never will be
because when I am alone I am surrounded by family

Standing in front of the mirror,
Particle board painted metal, smudges on the glass,
I stare into my eyes, listless.
The tree branches leave shadows that dance across the faded wallpaper.
I'm bare and completely alone,
in my thoughts and in this room.
I've lost my voice and my right to belong to this skin.
Instead I gave it to you, flake by flake
when I got up, sat down, lay down, got dressed
like a routine, quickly: machine.
But what I want for me
for us
is to slow down the time that flies past our fingers gripping tight,
desperately holding on to what we gave up when we signed our names--
mine changed, but yours remained the same.

Do you sit where I sit?
All alone, shivering, naked skin, furrowed brow, tearstained cheeks.
Bony arms strangling the breath out of your body
until you fall back on the cold even spaced tiles--
predictable, comforting, like a nest I find
after the rain ravaged my old abode;

I am new, restored,
Subconscious.