you’ve told me before,
self-loathing is just
a common cliché,
now everybody’s doing it.

that’s not to say
i haven’t seen how
your eyes roam over
your body like you’d been
stitched together with all
the wrong fabrics
i don’t think
i’ve ever seen you
look as dissatisfied as
when you look
at yourself.

you’ve told me before,
self-loathing is just like
an std, everybody’s had it
at some point.

it’s just that some people
were smart enough to
use protection or are abstinent
and they’re the ones
who sleep easy at night
while you’ve always got an itch
to scratch it was never clear
how they toed the line
between their self love
and hate better
than others and you
were their other,
caught them staring
and couldn’t tell the line
between love and hate

(thought you saw it
split the ground open
wanted to dip your toes
into the nothing between
you were scared
you’d fall in).

but you won’t tell
me what it’s like
when you look at yourself,
and your reflection
is rag-doll ragged
the perfect pincushion
and you pinpoint
all the split seams
moth holes your
smile is just a
loose thread you stop
to unravel

and you won’t say
what it’s like
when your reflection is
all pins and points
and you’re not sure
if the rag-doll face
underneath is still
there, at one point
she smiles
like only girls with pins
in their lips can,
her lips unravel

(you don’t smile).

you’ve told me before,
self-loathing is just
a common cliché,
there’s no way you’d
be caught dead
doing it.

i’ve seen the red-capped pins
you keep with your make-up.

they look so much
like my own.



hey.
are you still there?
i can't see you beneath
all those pins.

Her eyes are the lighthouse of the Pharos,
Alexandrian, bronze-mirrored fire flung round
The gloaming coastal sorrow like sand-glittered spears.

Her praying mantis limbs of light,
Sever-poised for needlepoint strike
At the jeweled glint of wings in dim, rare-seen limits,
Now one with her rasping sea of scarab beetle husks.

Sewn yourself through
not a part left that hasn't
been touched by you
your embroidery is lovely
it colors my face
it paces my hate
it swallows my fate
not a needle I wouldn't take
by you
I'm an addict, I can see that now
happily inebriated
by your loves cloud
indited it'd be, out loud
but captured close and enshroud
of perfect pink dreams
I'm afraid of crashing, stinging
afraid all they'll be bringing
pain, disconnect, heart wreaking
when they canter away
your pictures return
new, beloved, gay
I am pound again and again
by delicate hands
holding needle and thread
love has been like a quilt
where I am your mural
forever colored
by being your girl
and you're covered
hopefully I'm more
than your in love drunkard

We crossed paths after a few snowstorms
And my nerves screeched at the edge of a cliff.
I tugged at my turtle-head hood in an attempt to look good
And a whir of frosted air caked my burning ears.
We exchanged overlapping synonymous greetings,
Your spontaneous recognition and caught-up voice like needlepoint
Left a juicy blackberry stain on my tongue, and I keep licking its
Mystery bittersweet flavor. You fine-tuned your silvery signal
To target the seeds of my darkened pulps
And conduct a lightning strike.
***** minds think alike.

For months my hand was sealed off
in a tin box. Nothing was there but the subway railings.
Perhaps it is bruised, I thought,
and that is why they have locked it up.
You could tell time by this, I thought,
like a clock, by its five knuckles
and the thin underground veins.
It lay there like an unconscious woman
fed by tubes she knew not of.

The hand had collapse,
a small wood pigeon
that had gone into seclusion.
I turned it over and the palm was old,
its lines traced like fine needlepoint
and stitched up into fingers.
It was fat and soft and blind in places.
Nothing but vulnerable.

And all this is metaphor.
An ordinary hand -- just lonely
for something to touch
that touches back.
The dog won't do it.
Her tail wags in the swamp for a frog.
I'm no better than a case of dog food.
She owns her own hunger.
My sisters won't do it.
They live in school except for buttons
and tears running down like lemonade.
My father won't do it.
He comes in the house and even at night
he lives in a machine made by my mother
and well oiled by his job, his job.

The trouble is
that I'd let my gestures freeze.
The trouble was not
in the kitchen or the tulips
but only in my head, my head.

Then all this became history.
Your hand found mine.
Life rushed to my fingers like a blood clot.
Oh, my carpenter,
the fingers are rebuilt.
They dance with yours.
They dance in the attic and in Vienna.
My hand is alive all over America.
Not even death will stop it,
death shedding her blood.
Nothing will stop it, for this is the kingdom
and the kingdom come.

Needlepoint threadbare caucus with an instant Kodak box camera filled nitrite
Like the sun-kissed barely lit beaches over Normandy
Stormed into the kitchen with a missile and an avalanche to overpower the pirates
With their long-forgotten and ill begotten flagship armada
The flowers hang low and the nooses lower with ever-present danger of going over
The needle hits skin puncture left right down touch your toes uplift like the cross
Arms hung low over the alabaster sky with a long trench-coat and wary eyes
Cloud cover start to blow the cover and touch the roller coaster coffee cup sitting
With an eye to the glass and the telescope lens flare catch like the door latch
Down to the basement with the worn out sofa sit alone like the bedraggled soldier
With his dog tags hanging like a sign of the times down to where his feet locked
To the floor in an instant with the bombshells all around and a seductive twist
The ring and fling the pin out count down begins to the gravity shift consciousness
Like the cancer patient under the knife the tumor’s removed the chemo begun
With the bulb burning down over a hospital bedside and the white sheets lingering
Smell of a machine gone bad turned tail like the redcoats running down the chute
With the mail to the end of the day the laundry’s out to dry on the steel clothesline
Their bolt cutters damage the elderly couple hanging from the tree with the cymbal
Underneath like the gong of the undertaker the dam’s release
The water runs down to cleanse the disease and carries the pathogens to find their caprice and restraint held back on the man in the chair with vacant eyes and half
Muttered prayers to an unknown God with long white beard
Sitting alone under a payphone like the cold-dead wires of a long gone bee hive
Mind pictures play off the words on my tongue like an over-told rhyme
The nursery songs and bells and whistles come together to form an indignant sound
Like the steel clap trap of the boot black against the pale white walls of the by-gone
Era with a viscosity of ancient monolithic capacity
Sourdough rising like the falling red sun over the horizon sit and contemplate the weather-worn-battle-torn visage of man remembered yet never met
Till death and earth turn and burn in the ascending light of the pale moon
Wolf-howl over the distant city lights like the mournful wail of a banished soul
Away from home for ever so long with a comb to the palace in the heart of the beast
It sings for summer and faraway places of the corporeal magic in an elemental fashion show sip the martini glasses ***** and break and shatter like popcorn
In the kettle boil over the levee let it sink down into the visage of a man in the underground coat around the tails of the whipped dogs running like hell.

Eleven to you
Star-crust in de stijl courts
Silhouettes and shadows
Speed boats race around the lake

On and on and on and on and
Guilty pleasures and guilty moldy blues
Sandwiches on the weekends
Pasta and pesto or gnocchi every other day too

Common mysteries follow the bayou
Heavy heads laden in niello swamps
Does acrostics in the daytime
Pleasures herself with crosswords on her days off

Sacks of coffee, potatoes and ivory- beer at 5am
Three fingers lay across the stitch
This needlepoint is something good
No one died but someone could

Heavy on the hops, melancholy Wednesday's
Miracles in wrestling Russian masters
Thwarting automobiles without their governors
Faster and faster they go
Growing faster and faster they show

Head spinning in kaleidoscopic daydreams,
I turn and I turn.
Your tongue traces lines across my skin,
pirouettes and flicks.
I moan the only song we'll ever know.

Needlepoint nails on your bony fingers
scratch against scars,
plays sadness and despair.
Sounds amplify in hollow chest,
echoes in the chambers of my beating heart.

Dance to the record of my broken body.
For tomorrow - just crackles and
silence.

darling, it's all a matter of
perception
how you see it

looking out from
parallel shores
we are glimpses
of more
in the distance
strangers to
burnt-out street lamps
and burnt-out sweethearts

darling
it's all a matter of
persepshun
how you feel it

vibrate in your
fingertips
dance upon your
skin with needlepoint
toes
bells resonating
in your ears,
a troubled storm abrew

darling, it's all a matter of
pearshipshon
how you taste it

another glass, more
*****, please
another burning trail
down your throat
the only kind
of warmth
we know

darling,
*it's all a matter of per-cep-tion

People who are experiencing depression use different words than people who are not



By Elizabeth Bernstein
June 11, 2018 9:33 a.m. ET

Feeling down? Pay attention to your language.

Language changes significantly in both content and word choice in people who are depressed, according to a growing body of research using computer programs to analyze speech and writing. People who are depressed tend to use the pronoun “I” more, indicating a greater focus on self. They also use “absolute” words like “must,” “completely,” “should” or “always,” reflecting an overly black-or-white outlook.

Scientists have long known that people change how they speak when they are depressed—their speech becomes lower, more monotone and more labored, with more stops, starts and pauses. But newer studies, including several published this year, have found differences in the actual words depressed people use.

People who are depressed “don’t see subtleties, and we can see this in the words they use,” says James W. Pennebaker, professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, who studies how language relates to a person’s psychological state.

The study of computer-assisted language analysis for depression is still a nascent field, but apps and other technology that track language could eventually help doctors and patients identify a depressive episode more quickly. Since there are no biological markers for depression as there are for cancer and other diseases, therapists currently have to rely on a patient’s self-reported symptoms and on their own analysis to diagnose the disorder. Both can be highly subjective. The apparent suicides of designer Kate ***** and chef Anthony Bourdain last week underscore just how challenging it can be to identify and treat depression.

How to Talk With Your Dying Loved One

Conversations about death are among the most important, and difficult, we may ever have. Too often, we avoid them, Elizabeth Bernstein writes.



In research published online in March in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers at the Universities of Arizona, Zurich and Texas, as well as Michigan State and Georgia Southern, gave questionnaires designed to measure depression to more than 4,700 people at six labs in the U.S. and Germany. Participants were asked to write about their lives, a recent relationship breakup, their level of satisfaction with life, or just their general thoughts and feelings. Then software analyzed their language. The results: In addition to using more negative, or sad, words, people who were depressed used more first-person pronouns or “I-talk” than people who were not depressed.

Pronouns show where a person is focusing attention, says Dr. Pennebaker, who is an author on the study. Someone who is really interested in another person will use the third person “he” or “she.” Someone closely focused on a relationship will use “we.” “But if you are thinking about yourself—if you are more self-conscious or self-aware, as depressed people are—you will use the first-person singular ‘I’ or ‘me,’” Dr. Pennebaker says.

Depressed people also tend to view the world in a concrete, black-or-white way, using words such as “must,” “completely,” “should” or “always” that express absolutist thinking, as shown in a series of three studies published together in Clinical Psychological Science in January.

The researchers, from the University of Reading in the U.K., used software to calculate the percentage of absolutist words used in messages by approximately 6,400 members of internet forums for depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation and a host of control forums. They found that approximately 1.5% of words used by people in the depression and anxiety forums were absolutist—which was 50% more than those used by people in the control forums. The percentage was even higher for people in the suicidal ideation forums: about 1.8%.

Why are absolutist words so bad? People often don’t realize they are using them, and they can amp up negative thoughts. (Think about having your barbecue rained out. Saying “this always happens” is a much harsher thought than “sometimes the weather is unpredictable in June.”) Absolutist words also require that the world correspond to your view. (“I must get that promotion.” “My children must behave.”) “If the world doesn’t adhere to what you demand of it, that is when depression and anxiety set in,” says Mohammed Al-Mosaiwi, a Ph.D. candidate in psychology at the University of Reading and lead author on the studies. The more flexible you are, the better, he says.

Psychologists say people can use language as a tool to help them reframe their thoughts. “Very often, what you say is what you internalize,” says Mr. Al-Mosaiwi. Here are some tips:

Remember that the actual words you say matter, not just the thoughts they convey. Even if you are unable to replace negative words with positive ones, try replacing them with more accurate neutral ones. Instead of: “This party is horrible,” try “This event is not for me.”

Banish absolutes, especially in relation to your goals or relationships, where falling short of your expectations can be particularly depressing. These words and phrases include: always, never, nothing, must, every, totally, completely, constantly, entirely, all, definitely, full and one-hundred percent. Replace them with nuance. Instead of: “I can never catch a break,” try “Sometimes things don’t work out.”

Write. Keep a journal. Try a stream-of-consciousness writing exercise. Compose an email to a friend. Then analyze what words you are using. Are they too negative or absolutist? All about you? Tweak those sentences—and stay vigilant for those words in your speech.

Ask a loved one to help you identify absolutist or negative words or sentences and suggest reframing. It is easier to notice someone else’s language than our own.

Create a mantra you can use to override absolutist language. So instead of saying “This always happens to me,” say “This time. This happened this time.”

Put your mantra on sticky notes and place them where you can see them. Make it your screen saver. Have a needlepoint pillow made.

Pay attention to your use of the word “I.” If most of your sentences have “I” or “me” in them, you are probably too self-focused, says Dr. Pennebaker.

I am alone
          surrounded and composed entirely of stardust
          and fragments of broken dreams-
it is exactly how I planned it to be
                         neat
                         but not in a rigid way with implied discomfort
                         just in a way where it is obvious I tried my best
The walls- finally stripped of needlepoint prayers
                 and instead layered with every word that has ever danced from my mouth
                   the smooth ones and the ones that taste like acid
                                   nothing is forgotten or laid aside
My body-
              a temple to myself
              desecrated in the most holy way
a sacrifice of skin
                     decorations of valor in a war against myself
     it is quiet
                  every thread I have ever plucked from the seams rips through the air as I come apart
                                                   again
             spilling tar and galaxies across everything
              I have ever known- a mess
I am alone
             but not in the way I am supposed to be

1
Eggshells cannot be
the foundation of trusting
I’ve tried it before

2
eyes that mirror earth
hands that reflect the heavens
you are everywhere

3
You sing silently
I have been known to deafen
our song is the same

4
If I paint my body
colors of sincerity
would you believe me?

5
Look into the woods
and tell me you don’t see it
looking back at you

6
reaching into me
you may find gold or garbage
accept both or none

7
The clouds are empty
the ground is already wet
stop praying for rain

8
then she wants ice cream
I’ve never before tasted
a woman so sweet

9
There are seldom nights
when sleep will trump poetry
tonight is seldom

10
count the syllables
in the God-forsaken screams
of empty poets

11
distance makes the heart
double its normal volume
love is broken ribs

12
Up jump the boogie,
blood dazzler, piano farm,
what will I call it?

13
wind through the branches
spinning its propaganda
trees will always bow

14
brevity, my friend
is grossly overrated
buy low and sell high

15
When clouds are singing
the melody is raindrops
falling on my head

16
Carbon has big shoes
Standing on earth’s jugular
Cause of death well known

17
People always say
the news sounds funny. It’s just
rock and roll to me.

18
A question rises
amid the revolution
Where are the poets?

19
if the sunset tried
to be something beautiful
it would cease to be

20
They found him floating
on the screen of an i-phone
Poor young Narcissus

21
Sleepy hills yawning
Under a needlepoint sky
Just a stitch in time

22
Our hearts and our hands
Are far too often strangers
Unite with passion

23
Dandelion girl
Dancing, amused by the wind
Never taking root

24
Rain on my eyelids
Spring’s pocket always carries
A panacea

25
spinning in the queue
are we escaping the tea
you poured for Venus?

26
Parmesan crusted
cauliflower bites served with
garlic aioli

27
surround sound crickets
each with its electric voice
serenade the dark

28
I will always have
more things in common with a
mirror than with you

29
there is very little
a properly placed sunset
cannot remedy

30
cocksure and wanting
we are blind and we’re leading
this dichotomy

My grandmother taught me to knit once.
but she didn't tell me how to use it.
Now I wonder if I can needlepoint you a cushion,
that has all the right words on it.
If I can cover my mistakes with a bigger pattern,
or if I can cover yours.
I wonder what it would take,
to forget the past,
or to knit a future real enough to drown in.
Do you need mittens for your hands,
Or a sweater for your mind?
Maybe the wool could wipe away your troubles.
or maybe the warmth would take you with.
Now I wonder if I could pull your outsides in,
because I'm afraid you'll try on your own.
If my needles produce a scarf,
will you cover your eyes?
If my needles produce an answer,
will you finally have a question?
If my needles produce an answer,
would you stop pretending you don't need one?
My grandmother taught me to knit once,
Now I wonder if I could knit your dreams into reality,
Or if I could knit your stars into place.
Maybe then they would learn how to shine for you.

My convictions were so strong, I had finally figured out life, my pain had ceased and my outlook was once again positive.
My concrete ground has crumbled; I trip as my feet are caught in the cracks as I walk past.

Before I envied those who had, and despised being the one without.  Then I gained, and stitched my life’s ***** on the fabric stitch by stitch, painstakingly sewing myself my own vulnerability with each day.  There, my greatest strength became my greatest weakness.  When the hand came down and ripped out my needlepoint, it effectively tore out my very life’s blood.

A wraith, I floated though a land no longer my own.  I was a mere shadow of myself, the person I had been a thing to be mourned, but I could not perform even this simple task, for I had no way to generate the necessary emotions.


                               Never trust, for in doing so there is nothing to be gained, and all to be lost.


                                                       ­             But still, I endured.
                    I struggled forth, all of my strength devoted to placing one foot in front of the
                                                            ­                   other…
                                                         ­                  day by day
                                                            ­              hour by hour
                                                           ­           minute by minute.

                                                      ­             And I moved forward.

Like a fairytale princess waking from the enchanted sleep, I opened my eyes and for the first time in months looked around.
                                                        ­                       I was me.
                                                         I was not lost, nor sleeping, nor dead.
                               I was very much alive, and all the wiser of what waits on the other side.

                                                         I AM NEVER GOING THERE AGAIN.

I dug through the trash, searching for the remains of my once-beating embroidery.  Between the banana peels and non-recycled water bottles I found the scrap of material, tattered at the edges and unraveling at my touch.  I picked it up, and pulled out my needle and thread, setting to work once again.
This time the task was purposeful.  I took off my shirt and pushed an arm through the sleeve, grabbing hold of the end and then pulling back, turning it inside out.  There I began to sew, using each stitch as a reinforcing shackle, holding the artwork prisoner.  Though confinement is not pleasant, it’s safe.
That’s what matters.

                                                       ­                                 Right?

I was strong.
I went without, and did not desire anything different.
I needed nothing else, and my convictions strengthened by the second.
After all, it can’t be a poor philosophy if it ends the pain.

Why do you look at me like that?
I am right!  I will never again be vulnerable, open to such cruelty.  Don’t say that!  What do you know anyway?  How could you possibly give me advice: you, who has everything?  You, who lives the life my foolish, naïve self once dreamt of?

                                                         What compels you to wield the jackhammer?

Happy Valentine's Day
you lucky *******.
If not for the usual, severe
exhaustion I might have
something to share or
sometime to spare.
Alas, insomnia
suits me better
than dear sleep
that I pray will
take me 'afore I
continue to lose
a few good brain cells,
Or a few more friends.

My world needs dimming,
Turn the lights down low
and stick something on; ****** Bed
Track by The Bluetones. Everyone's
gotta make their mark. Sleep calls to me
and I'm trying to call back
as she strokes
my tired back,
Arching, aching
and shaking with
hysterical, delirious
laughter. Gleaming
needlepoint, sooth me.
*"You're the only friend I need,

Sharing beds like little kids
and laughing 'til our ribs get tough
but that will never be enough".

I had a lover once
Her eyes were wide and
Winter was chilled
Cold and draining
My hair grew dark coarse and flat
Like cardboard in a storm
Of cats and dogs and needlepoint
Pillows quilted with inspiring phrases

I had a lover once
But I spoke too soon so she changed that
With a swift hand and deft arms
Powerful legs made of iron and
Brimstone, holding me down breathless but alive, aspiring

I had a lover once
Who failed me by the heat of dawn
With liquor kisses and broken bones
Her outfits swore she never
Would wear a tomb stone
To match her boots and dresses
******* dangling like matchsticks
Bent from their case
A strong hand could start a fire

I had a lover once
I tried to give her the world
On a platter with a fork and bib
I tried to give her my life and skin
My bones and teeth and things
Made from vitamins and exercise
My soul and headphones and heartbreaks and toothaches
My t-shirt with a torn tag that read too many different sizes for me to wear and
My skeleton made of sulfur and
Eventually
Lies

I had a lover once
Who wanted me but wanted more
Who wanted more but wanted me
Who snapped and said
Leave

I had a lover once
Who is teaching me
That it'll all be okay soon
Just not right now

if there is anything left here
we’ll find it –
dig it out
of the rippling earth,
So we can mold it;
******* –
by the immense pressure
(of the bulldozer)
(of the needlepoint)
pointing
towards our future
(of the system)
caressing the victims
and swaddling the thief’s throat,
                 chest,
straight-jacketed to the depths of
near death
near the light
of the universe expansion
boiling in the brains
of us as human
        and we as human
have worked this earth
to ruin
and died ourselves
from exhaustion

and held in the calm stirring
of waking up every morning—
satin sheets and
pampered hands,
where there’s gas in the car
but it’s not too far
from crumbling
like that bridge that
lost its footing
on a spontaneous
mid-afternoon
swooning,
falling for the
water
being
so….close….
….to flooding.
The dams don’t hold a chance
To the masses
of hands
beating back
I’LL DIE WITHOUT IT
DON’T TAKE AWAY MY MAC; I’ll cry
                 because they’ll die
without swallowing the
puffy blue air
       and breathing the
red diamond
waters.

And the caves
could never whisper
to the drums of those
whose ears beat drums
through their headphones;
the leaves
cant drip on the
                                tongues
that are inside other peoples
mouths

and I wont allow sorrow
to seep in my bones
for all they’ve missed
because while they kissed
the soft bellies
of misfits
I rolled an underwater bull
on its back
so I wouldn’t drown—

if there is anything left here

I’m not sure the soft glitz
would catch the
cones of the greedy
souls diving
for pearls

i’m sure we’ve missed it

Some fingers have this tendency
to crack, snag, and rip themselves
to shreds.  A flurry of something like daisy
petals cling, infinite single cell threads
waiting for the right he loves me
not to fall apart.

Some fingers shed their tired
ridges in fluttering crescent smiles
peeling from the edges of soft pink nails.
They pull away like feathers ruffled
out of place in a sudden updraft,
bent at too-sharp angles.

Finger skin was always the strongest,
never flaking just because, but for the effort
of work and teeth.  Those hangnails bleed
strength.  They drip patience, hours
of work in restaurant sinks,
needlepoint and dresses.

They bleed music, lullabies.
A chorus of little sopranos sing
to tiny babies in cribs built
by driftwood scratched bone-smooth
and tough as chainmail.

One summer, when I was little, there were wildfires spreading across the mountains and through some unfortunate towns. I remember being very afraid watching them on the news. How they would burn through trees like it was nothing. I remember going to your house with my mom and hearing you talk about it and how you worried you'd soon have to evacuate.

You never did.

And now that you are gone, I imagine those wildfires spreading through your bones and your tissues. I imagine the slow burning ember growing into this uncontrollable force of nature. I saw it ignite your life and reduce it to ashes and I imagine that's how the trees felt. I know that you must have been very afraid, but you never said a word.

In the end, you threw your arms up and cried out for air. You whimpered like a child, throwing your arms up, over and over, trying to expand your chest so you could breathe. It was like watching somebody drown without any water.

Everyone is very upset now. And though the last time I saw you, you were not you at all and I saw your final breath leave your lungs, I still feel you here around me. And I wish that I could see you again, but I know that I can't. I guess the same way that some people never live, some people never really die.

We're trying to clean up what's left behind and it's far from okay. Papa's in the hospital, Casey's living with some other family. Now your home is just a house filled with you. We're trying to take you out of it and I am amazed at how easily we can pack you up into boxes and ******* garbage bags but you are still there, everywhere.

I don't believe that ghosts haunt houses or graveyards. I don't believe that after we die, our consciousness clings to the places we spent most of our time and our favourite shirts, I don't believe that our anger and unresolved stories haunt the halls of abandoned hospitals and amusement parks. I believe that ghosts live inside of us and the things that haunt us are not them but ourselves. I believe that exorcisms and séances exist only for the living.

I do not believe that you are smiling down on me.

I guess, looking at death in an abstract way, holding on is a much kinder consolation than letting go; trying to be okay with someone being here and gone before you can even say goodbye. It's hard not to get sentimental when it's someone you love. So as much as I'd like to believe that what I'm feeling is really you, I know it's only me and your ghost is nothing but a memory.


                                            -----------­------------------


One year has passed and I am full of joy, I am jubilant, and I rejoice to the sky because I knew you, because I heard your sing-song voice greeting us from your kitchen, because I shared 16 years of memories with you and that is a gift I cannot afford to forget. I am celebrating now because your pain is over, I am crying out for joy because you no longer have to be stoic, you no longer have to fight back tears, no more forcing words out through clenched teeth, I am so happy, you do not have to stand bravely in the face of insurmountable fear. I am so relieved for you, I am absolutely giddy that your suffering is over and you're out there somewhere with Papa and you can dance the night away like teenagers again but there is no relief for the selfish mourners still trying to fill the space you once occupied.

I'm trying hard to remember you fondly and not get too caught up in the pain of letting go but some nights, I pray to an afterlife that I have no faith in. I pray in vain that somewhere you are listening and you can hear me saying I am sorry.

I am sorry.

I am sorry.

I'm sorry that I was too young to understand. I wish I had visited a little more and avoided you a lot less. I wish I had taken the time to get to know you then and I wish I didn't know so much now. I wish I had told you I loved you and I wish I hadn't avoided hugging you goodbye on Christmas evening after dinner, when our family parted ways again and we all knew we wouldn't meet again for months. I wish I'd done something before it was too late.

But it's too late.

And now, a year later, I think of you daily. I still sleep with the teddy bear I gave you the first time I saw you in the hospital. My home is littered with bits and pieces of you- your recipe box in my kitchen cabinet, two needlepoint children you hand-stitched hung up on the wall, your sewing kit in the box where I keep my scrap fabrics, and your old trucking jacket with a clean tissue in the left pocket that I refuse to throw out. You didn't live long enough to visit in person, but, still, I find comfort in believing a part of you still lingers here alongside me; woven into my life so seamlessly it almost makes it bearable to know that you never met this version of me.

Maybe it's better that way. I don't know. And besides, it's too late anyway. I am over-the-moon. I am so happy for you.

1
When you extend
time changes into words
reaches toward common history

Inspect your saga
motivations for doing
anything

inflating bike tires
handstands on the grass
riding the night train home
scrawling a drunken note



2
surprise registry
sorrow spreading like dank fire
under the skin of your face
the piano calls

"rattle columbo skee-dazzle"
now wave them around
hypnotic and sincere
you must believe

in the something I'm transmitting
up the live wires
into a collective hive
or down by the rustling dumpsters



3
cast off shells
spent nutrition and supplements
inform a blood ooze
"I can't, I just can't"

gurgling on a blanket of blood
one arm waving
half a pincher bug
electricity still making it happen

another loop of living
purely motion driven
without purpose
the body stays and stays



4
the mind burns and slips
another dark portal
born voyager
bon voyage-r

out of cleaner hands
rough with hairy splinters
combine powers
find a way off this rock



5
vortex of hand-woven sediment
chambray and needlepoint
tiny backstitched leaves, flowers
sang a little song while he did it:

"Ol' brown poesy,
something something Alabama"
"Shut up, Kid!"
waving, eyes wilder

his blood comes out
more and more
glistening cough
thick bubbles of dark



6
paint the hard stroke
his pained face
get back from it, step out
of his way

his oncoming fate
panic burned streets
camps springing up
fingerfuls of air

"I just can't, I can't"
a weak wave, he lays back down
other words too far from the surface
he waves



7
his hands tremble
spent impulses
so natural
the soul slips

gears burn out
the metal whines and snaps
the straps are off and he is gone
rabbit's foot bound

now a blur in cosmic space
flashing toward a diamond planet
inference of his purpose
light-years for comprehension

this was once
an empty page
i filled it
wishing all the rage
of another poet's words
upon the paper
since i have none of it

this was once
an empty page
i stole the space, stained it
with my own black-and-blue lines
like small, needlepoint bruises
saying
this will only hurt a little
but still
i'm glad it's not me bearing the burden
of all these words

this was once
an empty page
and i bow down to your strength, dear paper
for taking upon your shoulders
every scratch that i offer
every scene i remember

this was once
an empty page

i filled it
and now i am empty again

There once was a tiny dragon,
No larger than the palm of my hand.
She burned no village, stole no princess,
Her name not spoken in fear throughout the land.
She hoarded not gold, not jewels,
Cared not for such frivolous things.
It was memories she kept in her miniscule cave
She guarded with flickering fire and scrap wings.

I went to her cave in the mountains.
Stumbled on it, by mistake;
As I lay down my head at the roots of a tree,
By an obscure and secluded lake.
She emerged in her miniature splendour,
From beneath a nearby rock.
She let out a yawn of fire;
And I froze: in awe, in shock.
She grinned a needlepoint grin,
Beckoned with one curved claw
Into her miniscule cave,
I followed: in shock, in awe.

I peered through the half-hidden opening,
Only inches larger than my head.
The dragon spoke soft but thunderous,
And this is what was said:
“This is my hoard, young human.
This is all I hold dear in the world.”
And she handed to me a birthday card -
Some edges singed, some curled.

It had writing in a swirling foreign script
That seemed to be etched, not written.
“This is the love of my first ever crush,
In the days when we were still smitten.”
“Is this all?” I scoffed, “Just pieces of paper,
and wrappers and old useless things?”
Her doll-sized body began to shudder
With a judder of claws and a flutter of wings.

No larger than my littlest finger,
She was a smaller version of herself;
But still I froze as she perched on my nose,
To her, a sizeable shelf.
“You hold no value to memories?
Then why don’t you leave yours behind?
Since they strike you as being so useless,
I’m certain you wouldn’t mind.”

Now all my memories are scraps,
Shadows of what they once were.
I wonder if she kept them somewhere,
In that diminutive cave with her.
Notes from a wife I think I had:
About the shopping, the kids? The car?
A card from my parents, a gift from a friend,
A reason for this faint lip scar.
I try to keep letters, tickets, receipts,
Compulsively, I feel I must.
But whenever I reach for that link to my past,
It is nothing but ash, but dust.

Blood on the sleeve of your sweater / you smile when they ask you what's wrong / recorded laughter through scratchy speakers / lipstick on the mirror / mascara on your fingers / soak your tears into the stems of the flowers on your windowsill / you'll never let them see you cry / hands pressed to the window / you prepare for the sting of another cycle / needlepoint sunsets & bleary eyed sunrises / static silence fills the hours / & you can't help but wonder if they'll visit your grave

by: William A. Marshall
10-17-2014

We can only protect
that which we plant,
nothing can stop what comes
rain falls on an endless needlepoint
under a light blue heaven,
yet horror bolts down
from the firm millstone  
that holds still like prey  
it notices the night hunter
and must leave the sun
on his way.

Just the other day
I noticed little things
Were going missing:
Thimble,
Spectacles,
Needle,
Fifty cent piece.

I found it particularly queer
How these objects disappeared.
I don't think I misplaced them
Perhaps my mind erased them.

[Later that week]

Today is my birthday.
Tilly, my granddaughter,
Presents me with a
Needlepoint magpie.

My heart finds incandescent joy.

Tapestry
By
Jude Kyrie

The summers flowering blooms are fading.
In the meadows and the lee.
I wonder as I am daydreaming
Have they bloomed their last for me?

The mass of blossoms at springtime
filled my heart with summers swell.
But now as I see them wilting.
Am I fading with them, as well?

My eyes have seen the twisted webbing,
that life’s needlepoint has done.
The light and dark of tiny threading
it has mingled one by one.

I wondered if the darkest thread
as black as deepest night.
Served only to make the pretty colors,
more vivid and sunshine bright.

My tapestry is almost woven
My strangely patterned web.
Perhaps this very moment
I am holding its last thread.

when i don’t pay attention
or smile at her every second
because my self, absorbed in her ways,
is fueled by fumes and preoccupation
with the remnants of my reflections
adversities in the shape of shattered fragments
at the hands of the menace who disparaged
with flying colors
my preconceived
notions of beauty
its existential crises
or lack thereof—
or extinction altogether
that day calamity
struck my ignorant mother
allowing me to stomach her
and with conviction
mimic a life-conviction-struck robber
and weasel my way out the tunnel


her presence never fails to tear
in parts unequal and unfair
my distraction her haughty air demands
******* mine but this time i have trained
or so i have dimwittedly led myself to believe
to maintain sanity soon to be by her relieved
i rapidly pray on my way to met her
in the needlepoint spot on the planet
marked by mere millimeters

but once again as i foolishly dismiss
simple common sense because haughtiness
has always far outweighed the myth
of other qualities we believe are bliss
running the same film strip i relive the same scene
and wonder astoundingly as to how i could be
so obscene
and ignorant
with no happy
to accompany
only misery
and consequential calamities

i only dream
in my wake some day
to see crocodile tears
of lizards’ deep green
as the envy they feel
and the currency they steal
and the grass underneath
which i will soon be at ease
one winter day when priests
sit, sympathize and believe
that anyone for me
could truly bereave

at her sight, i leave
and what’s left
knows what the other feared to hear
    we’re meant to be.
for her i ferociously fall
and the high as i soar in her presence
is far more potent
than the feeling of blackness
i saw back when i crawled out the tunnel
and suddenly saw nothing
unsure as to whether
my sight had abandoned me altogether
or the world was so devoid of light
making my eyes as likely to see
as the hope of those it had massacred
to come back once more and restore happiness

i only see in her vicinity
and no deity or creed decreed
feigned, fabricated, false, factual, fined or free
has or will be near me or nearly
as close to the tier of the invincibility
i currently perceive
i fall for her
and i fall for her again
and i never understand
how something so revolting
could be so coveted
and cunning
and contradictory
but such is you
and such is me

c’est la vie.

- end

The seasons blooming flowers are fading.

In the meadow and the lea.

I wonder as I am daydreaming

Have they bloomed their last for me?

The mass of flowers at springtime

filled my heart with summers swell.

But now as I see them wilt

I am fading with them as well.

My eyes have seen the magic webbing,

that’s life’s needlepoint has done.

The light and dark of threading

it mingled one by one.

I wondered if the darkest thread

as black as deepest night.

Served only to make the pretty colors,

more vivid and sunshine bright.

The tapestry is almost woven

My strangely patterned web.

Perhaps this very moment

I am holding its last thread.

The world is composed of things I will never understand
Disparate, uncolliding flows envelope me in nausea
Globalized apparatuses peaking in a way lost of me
What I hold
What I desire
Is a Frankenstein amalgam who’s purity was supplemented for progress long ago
Everyday we stray further from the light that birthed us

Entropy be my metronomic master
Lacerate my back always
Hedonism divert my will
The void of that allows only the whipping pangs in
You exist without pause
Process tells me I’m one with you
Diamond compressing isolation tells me no
Is all it says
No to all
Nothing exists but finer needlepoint disparity
Shirk false logic
False unity, emancipatory potential
All that’s known is mourning
Before your own funeral

Tear my soul
Again
Gaping wound laid open for the sun to pour inside
Hands to pour inside grasping deeper
Past guts
Pull the incision wider
As wide as you can, your ghoulish hands
What do you find?
Tell me there’s something!
You won’t tell me
Yet you look
You’ve left me
Wondering

I’ll lay mutilated