how do you know (when a broken human can be fixed)


https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2644586/how-do-you-know-when-a-human-is-too-broken/

supermarket checkout line, so lazy broken down dressed,
I’m probably arrestible for disturbing the peace,
my haired piled, and held together by a broken clip,
makeup at home in
a drawer labeled ‘why bother’
my t shirt, don’t please look too closely,
yesterday’s coffee spillage outline
only mostly gone,
and the skinny jeans that felt inappropriate
ten pounds ago,
now looking semi-completely ridiculous

is this a tv show?
wallet, a twenty and a single,
who knew a pound of ground blue mountain
cost the better part of the the twenty
in that case no need for a gallon of milk
and *** a box of chocolate frosted donuts
silently slid far far away,
evidence of a guilty plea of irresponsibility resignation

short $2.42 (cut up the credit cards)
and no convenient pit to fall into
when the teenager cashier snickers,
when a sam elliot voice says here ya are,
stammering a no, a thank you, and thinking getaway direction

truck safely, made it,
knock on the window
sam elliot soundalike is a lookalike as well
standing outside with my wallet in hand,
two heads taller than my ex-petite figurine

more stammering ******* could I look any stupider

but inside a piece of brown shopping bag torn
with ten whole digits
I’ve never seen prior to this disaster
saying call when you want to return my $2.42

turns out he got, no, he is glue and paste,
an eraser man for fine lines and sad times,
and a lasso to keep me held together,
a pocket red handkerchief hanging half out
of his back pocket, never without, calls it his tear catcher

pulled out that too tight blues-blouse
from back of my closet
that still complements my complexion,
wear it ever time that day rolls around

just dumb luck ain’t much of an answer
so I’ll rephrase, dumb luck is in the everything
cause his number was 917-242-2424
and he is a gambler in matters of the heart

bust his ***** when he says he’s a lucky man,
reply he ain’t got no luck at all
compared to me on that daft day

and every daft day thereafter
I glue his lips shut to mine, no escaping,
and paste a new $2.42
into his wallet
when he is sleeping mine,
no erasing our lines,
just redrawing them deeper and finer,
just making sure my
dumb luck is working overtime

Somewhere deep in the skies of Montana
a lonely street corner flickers
casting coded light
upon the distant albino hillside

It was once a great lake
of snow and ice and melt and
unseen by life
It drained and died

and its beautiful lakebed sands
became the hillside
again

to tumble and fall
into valley and time
again

there we built an impermanent road
we pave and pave
maintain
with trucks and slabs of dirt and grain
roaming those Roman roads
again

Somewhere deep in that heartland
the strings that pumped the musculature
of a dying nation
slowly giving way to a violent attack
from within
oxidize and pool
into great tides
to one day see the coast

I am in California
but I see it clearly as a dream
where the great plains meet the mountain face
and the Cheyenne carved their heels into the dirt
for a bit
spirit
eroded into the winds

today the miners spit
at a coffee-town bar
into copper cans
licker than split
Owning the land that shakes
and shifts
redrawing god's lines
with a paper pad and a pen
for a bit

And the dresses the ladies wear shine
lacquered wood and the horses cry
and beside the interstate
the trucks steam and chuff
and their drivers gaze starry-eyed
onward, beyond into the night
beyond those flanking hillsides
to the flat ocean land sponged anew
that left the oil fields in Texas and the tar sands in
Athabasca
set ablaze in the fervor
of a death rattle
American heart
pumping to feed these hillsides
again

for tomorrow we begin.

Stupid white girl.
We are not allowed to do anything.
We're prim and proper, white girls.
We are not allowed to fight back.
Put us in our place, white girls.
We are not allowed real work.
We still want our twenty three cents back.

The child of fair skin and blue eyes.
But with all my female privilege,
Came a nasty stamp on my body.
Like a watermark.
FEMALE.
I have heard that when a woman looks in the mirror, she sees a woman.
But when a man looks in the mirror, he sees a human.

Even with that watermark, our pale skin is used as a canvas.
And everyone else has been handed the tools to color in our curves.
Covering us in blue and black and purple and red.
Redrawing our minds so they cannot process the discrimination,
Painting over our tears so our feelings can be buried,
Manufacturing open legs when you want them,
Closed when you don't.
Erasing the lips we use to speak out,
Erasing the eyes we use to see all of this.

You think just because you held the brush,
Just because you created this monstrosity of a "masterpiece"
You get to claim ownership of this piece of artwork
That you blatantly disregard
Is my BODY.

The "fe" you tack onto "male"
Does not stand for Free Entry.
The "wo" you tack onto "man"
Does not stand for Wipe Out.

Women are barely able hold a pencil.
I was lucky to hold one long enough to draw myself
A conscience, a backbone, legs to stand on, and a mind.
We were only taught how to use the back end of that pencil
To erase our mouth and keep the secrets.
But these days the secrets are keeping themselves.

I will not be put in a glass case
You will not charge admission
To have people come and analyze me.
Buy me.
Give me value.
Categorize me.
Preserve me the way you created.

You are no artists.
You are vandals.

Crying in the rain only lasts so long
And redrawing faded sharpie butterflies can't go on forever
Dreading over the pink and white lines that make you look like like a kindergarten art project only causes secrecy
While puking up your last meal only causes travesty.
We all hit the bottom whether it be through drugs or cuts
Burning or vandalism
Alcohol or caffeine
Puking or refusing to eat.
We all have a point that we wish we never turned to
And the meds prescribed to help you
Only make it worse
And seem like a fantasy.
We all hit the bottom but to sip from a different cup
We have learned to fake smiles
And pretend to have our chin up.

It’s a lovely restaurant.

   Lovely.

   There is no artificial lighting. Just hundreds of candles that flicker from recessed niches in the walls and on every table.

   And you’ve done everything right so far. From seating me in my chair, with the slight brush of your knuckles across my bare shoulders as you removed my light jacket, to taking my purse from my bloodless fingers to place it next to my feet, you have excelled. As you knelt beside me and ran your fingertips up my bare leg you lift your perfect lips into a melting smile that promises everything.

   I want everything

   And there you are, sitting across from me. So perfect, my dream, my nightmare, my man of the hour, my choice. The candle light is kind to you and as I stare over the glass rim of a red wine I’m enthralled by your voice. I don’t know what you're saying but you just have to keep talking and I’ll just keep redrawing you in the candlelight.

   You have utterly, beguilingly captured me.

   The candle on the table has lit a fire in your eyes. I imagine the fires of Hell burn there and shiver at the thought of all that wickedness. The way you ran your fingers through your hair has tricked me into thinking that two small (very ****) horns protrude from your head. It’s an illusion, but one that I’m happy to run with.

   As you pick up my hand and feather kisses along my fingertips I feel the brush of the stubble on your face which I’m sure wasn’t there when we walked hand in hand to our table but the ****** hair is unmistakable. Is it possible I’m here with a Lycanthrope? Will our evening end with me running bare foot through the woods while a howl scrapes delicious shivers down my spine? Will I fall to my knees, a victim of the beast as it stalks me, scenting the wind, marking it’s prey, spying me and leaping to devour me? One glance at the full moon suggests I might be in for a wild night.

   In the candlelight you morph into all of my fantasies. But now, I’m just hungry.

   The illusion is just too hard to hold. I haven’t eaten since my last foray into the mortal world and I’m too tired to hold onto the hope that I can make it past reality.

   The restaurant drops away. The candles burn down to one lowly guttering torch and you're just a little boy (next to my 712 years) standing in a cave, where I have lured you and you're more than aware that you're not desert, you’re the main meal and the adrenaline coursing through your beautiful veins have my fangs dropping and my eyes smoldering but don’t worry, I can make it pleasurable, if I want to, it depends whether my fantasies have been strong enough, but I will respect you…

   Of course!

I remember it in colour
A lurid confetti of moments
Made of every possible hue
Most were blown westward
But still I kept a few.

Paper has a fate, like ours
As colour soon turns to dust
Yet we strive to return the lustre
And try again we must.

So we notice fresh new colours
As we paint another sky
Redrawing all those hours
Which went flashing by.

I spray my sun a stagnant yellow
And drown the horizon in doleful blue
But the picture is as imperfect
As my memories of you.

Happiness?
Money?
It's hard to find a
Common ground.
Hard to find
Balance
On a line so thin.

Precariously
Teetering,
Bound to fall on
One side, or
The other.

Slave for hours
Days
Weeks
Years.
For what?
Money.

Or, you will fall
On the side of
Happiness.
Do what you
Dream.
However, for
Most of us,
That doesn't include
An income.

Maybe you like
Piercings,
Tattoos,
Hair dye.
Employers don't.

You are a
Circle, a
Triangle, a
Hexagon,
Trying to get to
The work force
Where only
Squares
Are welcome.

As much as
You want to
Remain true to yourself,
You change.

Take out your
Piercings,
Hide your
Tattoos,
Put your crazy
Hair dye
Back on the shelf
For now.

Redrawing yourself
Into that
Square
Society requires you
to be.

my head in your lap
my thumb on your cheek
and you look down at me
and say, What?
Nothing, I say
and glance away,
redrawing your face in my mind--
the curve of your nose and cheek,
the steadiness of your eyes,
how your hair just grazes your forehead--
wondering what you're thinking.
I ask you what you're thinking.
And you answer, It's like you expect me to say something.
No, I say. I'm just looking at you.
And I remember
head on the pillow,
thumb on the keys
when I miss you.

We came here to fly
in the height of our breath
don’t let the plight block the sun
I listened to my hands till silence came
staccato in my words
your flight is my sea of stories

I settle not into sight
tomorrow is a palimpsest
with its wise owls, the birds of fear
while sensuality is pouring down the windows
like rain in December
and there is something breathing,
a self-absorbed flower of flesh
and the tenderness of someone
to carry the “winelight”
for the flamingo me

your lips taste like morning.
I am redrawing  the horizon inside
for you to bring your pulse
in flight in case you might

What if love was invented by mothers?
I have to ask

I've often receded
with these tears, back into
shadows of past moments,
digging into scars,
redrawing the wounds,
lifting a heaving chest
to drag it back down
with the setting sun.

Coming into your light
had been a forged destiny,
but I'll never know
what I ever meant,
when arms are broken,
being unable to fix
what is lost.

When I said to you
I'll never float apart
from your once-yearning
distant heart,
I felt it in the call
of birds in the trees,
as I allowed myself
to walk forward,
even if it led me
over the edge.

Here I am
to drink in stillness,
to remember you
in your frozen state.
I released a hand,
as you are at peace,
as I am here
to let go of a petal
for your cemented,
sealed place.

<>

”What worth, dear man, are thee to me?
Of Brotherhoods eternity,
Esteemed, thy worth, from whence thee came?
In consequence, by any other name.
Whence laughter creased and cracked thy face
Wouldst sadness flee to lesser place?
And wouldst thou rather, not have been?
A thought we all would curse....obscene!
Of what thy vaulting valued prose?
In essence, beyond scented rose.
Perchance, dear friend, that thee should die?
Hot tears would rain from blood red sky”
MARSHALL GEBBIE

<§> <§> <§> <§> <§>

the reconciliatory process, never ending,
one seeks to estimate his worth on this earth,
harmonizing his consciousness with an undated
human elegy, appraising his qualifications on a
malleable but fixed scale;

fixed are the qualities:

kindness, kindness, then courage to be more kind!
honesty, honesty, the honesty of rigorous estimation,
the excess of giving love always more, eradicate selfishness

malleable is the scale!

an instrument that measures more, always more,
the little lines on our ruler, meter stick, are but a
ladder to a ceiling ever visible but luckily unattainable

the highest grade attainable is glorious failure that
says, back to the drawing board, redrawing thy image,
the singular constant, a grail with no final location,
an equation that is a starry palate of moving loci:

we are each an each
formed by all the points satisfying a particular equation
of the relation between human coordinates, or by a point, line,
or surface moving according to the defined conditions of what is
truly human, hands touching, skin to skin

here is the wondrous rub, the most excellent complication!
the human equation by its very conceptual essence can be solved
by numbers of two or greater value, one, is non-viable, worthless,
a zero equivalent, no solution to all you seek to understand

in this then, we summarize:

you can be a successful human, if and only if, you comprehend that
we exist only, we are defined ourself by the plurality of friendships,
thy own worth, is not yours alone, existing only in the grasp of others, and thus we answer the riddling question:

* What worth, dear man, are thee to me?*





5:15 PM Mon Oct 12
2020

Location coordinates are:
Latitude: 41.048513558171045
Longitude: -72.36516056990725

I have sung 365 songs with your name in them butnever have they touched your shoulder. In the dark alleys, holding friends up as they tell me how angry they are. How disillusioned they feel. In the morning hours I lay our all the  evidence on the dirt street like chess pieces over a board not to try to convince but to show them that their  “ ****** up__”  as **** as it has been is also what life has been. No redrawing,undo, no control z but that the  flash of light is also as brilliant and potent as the jet black in their hair, in the alley, and in the hands of who ever hurt them their neglect.

On the chess piece I lay a shoe for times I was dragged from under the sofa and beat for leaving a can of coke unfinished, on the board I leave a piece of hair for the chunk that girls in elementary school ripped off my head after school, on the board I leave picture of a naked Barbie for the times I was molested, and to the corner I leave a small receipt that was left in my bag the night after I was too drunk to say no and did not know to call it **** until a few years later. On the board I leave a flight ticket for the love for a man for which I crossed an ocean, and in the middle I leave a white flower for all the times I willed myself up alone from the floor.

I can only show them. Some days I leave some parts out; some friends only know some parts and some of them have no laid their pieces on the chest board and we all all wept for the things that have been lost


Cried in a living room to Marley “no woman, no cry”


At the end I throw over the chess board and watch the chess pieces fly off in different direction. So what
So what
So what
I still have this life to live

I do not want to keep crossing lines people draw for me

So when my stupid heart want to run passed the painted line I now pull it back

I am not in-charge of redrawing that line
someone else is , the person who put it there is in charge of that

so I hold it, I hold this wild heart and comfort it
at least I am strong to comfort it now

and yes some part of me really wants to be there but there is that line

and I sink back down a little
and sink because I just don’t want to cross anything anymore
I want to feel to roam in someone’s garden
when I am invited
I do not want to invite myself when no one else has