I don’t have faith.  
I just know that I belong to my Savior Jesus.  I met her once when I was 11, at her humble single wide in a cramped trailer park and she made candied walnuts on a hotplate.  I didn’t find out until years later that she paid for my scholarship.  She had passed on by then; I wish I could have thanked her.

He arrived at Juvenile Hall at 7:00 pm looking like Mrs. Santa Claus, to take me into her home for a year.  I made some sarcastic teenage comment about the stupid country music on her car radio, and she tolerated it with a smile; saying ‘its not stupid, its simple.’ She showed me what a caring family looks like and didn’t kick me out for being a smart-***; gave me chores and a curfew to show me I belonged.

When I had no family or boyfriend in my life, I lived in a maternity home until my baby would be adopted.  Jesus was the stranger in the hushed hospital room holding my hand, after the medics couldn’t find the heartbeat in the ambulance, which was confirmed on the maternity floor, and I was taken to another floor so my crying wouldn’t upset the other mothers.  The room was small and dark and alone, and the clock on the wall took an eternity to move two minutes, for the entire night that I was in labor, the longest night in my life.   I didn’t remember someone holding my hand; I was so drugged for pain.  She showed me her arms two days later, so bruised because she didn’t leave me.

Jesus was the woman from Planned Parenthood on the other end of the phone, listening to me when I called the Women’s Clinic asking how I could find a doctor.  ‘ I just moved here, and I work at a minimum wage job, and I lost my baby a month ago, but how do I get a post-partum exam when I don’t have a doctor, or any money, or insurance?’  I was very matter of fact about it, I mean this was my circumstance and what to do?  She arranged a birth control exam because the state would pay for that, by a doctor who would give me the post-partum.  She also referred me to a support group.  I had been alone but she found me people who understood and could sympathize and help me accept grief.   I look back on that now; there were no sign-carrying Christians or Churches arranging the adoption who helped me, she was the only one who cared.

I put a face on to make a place on the night shift for me, but the darkness sees through me into the shadows that await me when the morning breaks into my door.

**** it
I'm sore, been beaten and shanghaied,
cried out to my God and
he did not want to know.

Below me
Beelzebub
in a hot tub
I'm dripping while God's
ripping the contract
apart.

All heart or he could be
if we all believed in the
final solution,
E=Mc
and it's
finally
Squared.

I. Parade Square

I can still feel the blisters from the hotplate ground,
the tar off my marred body,
imagine my acid sweat coercing my eyes
to burn with an perverse, masochistic
fire for this
torture
my tongue could never profess.
Running or sprinting blind, and
then a rumble above, force open my eyes to
watch the undercarriage of the SQ A380
hang low like a
ladder.

II. Swimming Pool

Usually we swim here,
or get cooked by the sun,
but there was once we pumped eighty
because the FT was bored and wanted to go
home,
early.

III. Cookhouse

Pre-dawn,
we sit down half-asleep,
milo in hand,
a lump of oily I-don’t-quite-know-what on my plate.
Every table a section-full of once-boys
taking a glimpse at the outside world through flat rectangular
window panes that hang from the ceiling.
At 0600, Channel News Asia plays the National Anthem,
and I wonder why we don’t sing it
anymore.

IV. Range

It is going on two months in this foreign land
Two months of having not shot a single picture

A single snug trigger-click, snap-shot
Burst of colour – bang! – picture

Tangy black three-point-eight-two kilos that
Hang off me like a corpse-like appendage

Two months of wading through picturesque scenery
Lilac cirrus sky, or the sleeping shadows of silhouetted trees

And no chance to shoot any photos
But the picture of simulated ******

As I point and pull, hear the
Trigger-click of my camera go

bang.

V. Grenade Ground

When I picked up the little
inconspicuous
olive thing, and placed it in the pouch
next to my left breast, beside my
heart,
I couldn’t help but ponder
if that was how the Bali
bombers
felt like, moments before they
died.

VI. Beyond the Sphinx bridge

This is another world;
a world filled with so many dark
memories
I cannot write about it.
I would have saved you from drowning in your
waterlogged grave, except
I was drowning
myself.

On the long ride back
to camp,
I gazed into the distant twilight, thinking,
we may sit in the
same
tonner, but in actuality
we all find our own roads
home.

VII. Coy Line

When I shower I close my eyes,
feel the slow trickle of water from
the broken showerhead, and
imagine myself in a hotel villa, or
one of those luxury hotsprings.

When the lights go off I lie back,
gaze out at the orange floodlight that
shines through the panes,
illuminates my teary face,
darkens my world
to a quiet, uneasy
sleep.

VIII. Ferry Terminal

Every book-out
I let the man scan my card,
puff up my shoulders
and catwalk down the dock
with a sense of newfound authority.
I’m a civilian now.

Sit and hear the low rumble of the ferry
get louder and
louder
like a plane on the verge of taking off;
like a soul on the verge of
escape.

When love sat neatly on the stove
Bubbling with content.
I never dreamt a fuse would blow
And leave such discontent.

When all my cakes were browning well
And soufflé neatly risen.
I never dreamt the heat would cool
And leave me in derision.

For many years my cooker worked
I was proud of all I made.
I never dreamt the power would fail
And leave me so dismayed.

But when the hotplate starts to cool
And pots refuse to simmer
I never dreamt your love would die
And leave without a glimmer.

My thermostat no longer clicks
My tiny red lights gone.
I never dreamt I’d miss them so
And depend so much upon.


The food of love that fed my heart
Is suddenly all-cold.
I never dreamt I’d lose it
Until I grew quite old.

Now I’ll starve and grow quite weak
I’m living on stale crumbs.
I never dreamt we’d come to this
No longer are we chums.

I cannot find the right fuse wire
My circuit breakers stuck
I never dreamt my torch would go
I’ve run right out of luck.

Oh God! Send someone to fix it
Before I’m without light
I never dreamt a love like that
Could leave us over night.

Life is about hands.**

It is about you,
Staring at them
The first time you burned your fingertips
Because you were so curious
and it was forbidden to touch the hotplate.

It is about you
Staring at them
When they are all blue and numb
From the icy touch of snow
After you had a snowball fight
With your best friend from kindergarten.

It is about you
Staring at them
When you are supposed to write an essay
But they won't write anything down
Because you are not at school with your thoughts.

It is about you
Staring at them
The first time you fell for someone
And your burn for the idea of touching them
But you cannot
Because you don't want to be foolish.

It is about you
Staring at them
When they hold alcohol
After you drank your first beer
And it tasted disgusting
But you are one of the cool ones now.

It is about you
Staring at them
In the dark at 3am
Holding your own hand
Because there isn't somebody else who would do this
And you feel so lonely.

...

Every morning,
I made coffee for the people I loved.
A massive *** of brown gold
Perched atop a fiery hotplate,
Waiting to be used.

Hour by hour,
Dozens of cups were poured
As people began to smile
And forget about their worries.
Conversing and rejoicing,
The mundaneness of life
Becoming a subtle blur
As they slurped upon
The nectar I provided
Dutifully.

When all is said and done,
With all the happiness
That I've put into this world,
Tell me why I sit here
As empty as that *** of coffee
At the end of a long day?