Verbalizing out her interests
attracted opportunities.

She planned to play with every insecurity,
learning, growing and blooming
with every opening.

She just had to take a chance
for the possibility.
Event hough she was dubious and stuttering.

But soon there would be rhythm and fluency
and there she would find unity in
a community.

Caring about other people when you're sixteen is like trying to complete a long jump from a high school football stadium on Friday night to a parallel universe where heteronormativity isn't even a word in the dictionary and misogyny is nothing more than a scary story told around the Girl Scout campfire- deemed impractical by everyone you know and more terrifying than you could possibly imagine.

         I. When I was in second grade, I became best friends with Hermione Granger. She taught me how to fall in love- with books, with learning. My seven year old self had a newfound adoration for life. When I laid awake at night and pretended to be at Hogwarts, I was free to fly across the night sky on adventures and then sit on my bed and read countless books whose titles I had never even heard before. In my second floor bedroom with the door shut tight, I was free to stop pretending.

         II. Fourth grade was the year I realized I could be good at something. It was also the first time I wrote a poem. It was about math, and I won a contest to have it published in a book filled with poems by other kids across the country. When I figured out how to rhyme math related words with each other to convey how much I hated the subject, I didn't know about the sense of accomplishment that would follow. I didn't know that forgetting about personal censorship was a better idea than listening to the priest who talked to our class every week. No one had ever told me about verbalizing the ink stains under your skin and liking what ends up on the page.

         III. Eighth grade was the first time I felt passionate about feminism. It was also the first time I witnessed the effects of **** culture in my tiny, Catholic grade school. The new boy in our class told girls he wanted to **** them through metaphor, as if objectification is justified by pretty words and a smooth tongue. When we informed our teachers, they promptly ordered us to "be nice" and "stop spreading rumors." Eighth grade was the first time I witnessed the effects of **** culture in myself- a loss of compassion for the boy terrorizing fourteen year old girls instead of learning analogies in English class. Boy is to girl as dog is to meat. God is to disciple as man is to woman- **** culture perpetuated by the word of God and only fifty percent of us knew it was wrong without knowing why. We were never taught to be anything more than meat.

When Hermione Granger was thirteen, she slapped a boy in the face for insulting her friend. Because she cared. Considering my complete aversion to confrontation and irreplaceable, debilitating shyness masking a deep seated feminist rage put into the words of a poet, I derive strength from Hermione Granger. Not the strength to fight on the front lines of an endless war, but the strength to care. It comes from best friends and books alike, but its ability to create bridges of freedom through parallel universes and ink scribbled hastily onto a page filled with ideas brilliant enough to fuel the world for centuries is never compromised. I don't identify with the Catholic church anymore, but I pray you find it too.

Your inferior intellect disgusts me. While I have some trouble verbalizing my own, I know that it is far more than what you display. Your immature actions and juvenile conduct will get you into trouble some day; real trouble. You may not even notice, because you are too stubborn to face the fact that you aren’t a goddess. You have bad intentions and wicked tongue. Your fuel is jealousy and your eyes are blind. But we’re both growing older, and one day you will realize that everything I’ve done has been good.  Or maybe you won’t realize - if not, I will pity you, but I will have no mercy. We all have a choice. We all choose who we want to be, and I’m not disregarding DNA; I know it plays a role, it plays a strong one, but we feed on experience, and I expected better from you--of all people.

You’ve been put through the same evil that you construct. Why? I only want the best for both of us, for everyone. You seem to differ. I’m not sure if it’s selfishness, envy, or determination to make a point, but it’s something. I’m not sure of its irrelevance to our confrontation, but I sure as hell know that it is irrelevant to anything else. So, why? You know as well as I do that we all have our different skill-sets, different opinions, and different incentives, so if you’re trying to prove something, stop. You know the human can’t be tamed once his or her mind is set in place. You’re apparently set in stone. Maybe I am too, so do you understand now? You can’t change my mind. I will do as I please, just as you will. We are a lot alike, you and I. The only difference: yin vs. yang. And you know I’m right. Your inadequate hands, reaching out, just so someone will notice. Well I notice, okay? But I will not submit. Neither will he. So, please stop. I understand your apathy and your care, but is it genuine or is it all a lie? After all these years, I feel that I should know the truth, but now I feel that I don’t know you at all.

I’ve watched the change creep up your spine, and I don’t blame you, completely. I know the storm has been rough, but don’t you know that it covers the whole sky? We’re all getting rained on and all you seem to care about is your own umbrella. Sure, you may hand it to me every once in a while so I have a bit of cover, but I know that you’ll be retrieving it soon, just like always. I just hope that some day the sun comes out for you, because I want that for you. I want you to be okay. I want you to be happy. I  want to be happy. I want your interference to cease. From one empath to another: I know you can feel it. You know you can be better. I’m not sure if it’s fear of failure or simple carelessness that’s getting in the way, but something is. You can control it. I would never intentionally disrespect you; you’re almost like a sister to me, an older sister. So start acting older. You have a substantial amount of potential in this life. All you have to do is let go of all the negativity and you’ll be set free. Just like me. I love you, so please understand.

I am searching for my lost shaker of salt…I love salt. It’s true, I add salt to anything. I’m wondering what that says about me.

Sometimes when you’re alone in the middle of the night,it’s okay to distract yourself by singing Jimmy Buffet and blending up some frozen margs….(TIP: if you close the pantry door and put a towel over the blender, you can barely hear it so it won’t wake anyone up when you decide to make margaritas @ 2am– you’re welcome).

I’m distracting myself from the razor calling my name. I’m doing everything I can tonight to not regress into a bawling 5 year old or a psychotically angry teenager. So if that means making frozen margaritas on the floor of the pantry and singing Jimmy Buffet…well then “That’s the best I can do right now…”

I don’t know…sometimes I think I’ll just stop all of it. Therapy, talking, writing, reaching out at all, breathing…I mean, is there really a point in verbalizing your feelings of hopelessness and defeat when you’re just going to be dismissed or trivialized? Is it better to just shut up & pretend, to half-smile till you die, rather than reach out? As I’ve always said, why express needs that will never be met. Childish needs and fears that have no right to exist in my adult head.

Why…why…why…why in the world should I embarrass myself by speaking aloud all of this fear inside my head only to be told that it’s okay to have this need, or that need, but there’s no way for it to be met. I don’t get that. And it only makes me hate myself more for “needing” anything in the first place. Ah, the sordid talk of self-hatred. But is that what this is about now? Maybe…but maybe not. Maybe it’s more like shamefully wallowing in self-pity on the pantry floor.

Jimmy Buffet is singing, “Some people claim that there’s a woman to blame, but I know, it’s my own **** fault.” "It’s YOUR fault, Nita. No one else’s. How long are you going to hold this grudge against the host body, Nita? When will you realize that you can’t change the past…you can’t change how he feels about you now, Nita. Too bad. Get over it. It is time to move on.”

I have completely misplaced my gratitude and love for life and I am searching for it….I am desperately searching for it here in the middle of the night…I am looking all around. I am reaching far down into the bottom of my gut, the base of my soul, the deepest place in my heart… God! This weakness! This weak depressed worthless woman! I can’t stand her! Give it up girl! Stop with the wretched self-pity, the craving for normalcy…just stop with the whining, “Why the hell don’t I get to be like everyone else?” Just stop! I have been brought to my knees, shaken to the core. I have forgotten who I really am.

My whole life, I have been straddling this teeter totter, pressing my feet back and forth, seeking the balance I have never been able to find… God!! ******! I feel flushed and panicked and my head is spinning. I am screaming inside, “Please help me. Please come to me now and stay. Please stay with me in this place of darkness, this place of no hope or light.” (as if)

Nita takes a break to wipe away the never-ending flow of tears, blow her nose, and blend another round of margaritas for one! More salt… Cheers!

Feelings…feelings…feelings. They assault me like ****** fire, the bullets ricochet off of their unsuspecting target and slice open my thighs, my hip, my side…red, angry slashes. I have been hit again. I am walking around wounded, scarred, stunned. I’ve been told not to judge these feelings, or attach to them. They are neither good nor bad, Nita. Open the door to the pantry, Nita, and invite them in for coffee and cookies…get to know them, no matter how hostile they seem. All of them? There’s not enough room here. The guilt, as pure and raw as sugar cane, comes to show me the terrible things I’ve done, the shameful places I’ve been, the faces of those I have harmed. The rage! It cannot be quelled or quieted. The overwhelming smothering rage hits me square in the chest after I have removed my bullet-proof vest. I feel the sharp shrapnel piercing my skin, reaching the very core of me. You self-righteousness woman…you selfish, bitter woman…

I can’t control it. I can’t think or reason my way out. I can’t figure out how to fix it, or breathe through it. I feel the blood draining out of me, warm and cold at the same time; the bitterness, the anger, the badness, it drains out of me and soaks into the soft cotton of my clothing. The patterns speak to me: You are weak, Nita. You are a lesser person, negative, selfish, dramatic, needy. How I loathe you, girl…

A knock on the door bringing yet another guest? Shame…welcome one of my oldest and best friends. Shame…she is always there for me…there is always room for her. She sits next to me and slides her warm calloused hand over my shoulder and down my chest… just as he used to do. Her hot breath hisses in my ear, “You are nothing without me. You cannot speak without me. You cannot breathe without me, write without me, feel without me. Without me you are neither interesting nor desirable. Without me by your side you cannot cope or deal with anything. You are mine and I am yours. You are nothing without me. I am your secret. This is our secret. I will keep you safe. I will keep your secrets.” My dearest friend. I offer her a drink and she begins to bandage my wounds…our secret, our secret. I lean into her, my oldest friend, and I let her hold me, even as she cruelly speaks my biggest failures aloud to me. She knows what I deserve. She is mine and I am hers.

Here we sit together and alone, my friend and I… Wasted away again in Margaritaville….she is searching for a sign of worth…strength…purpose…will…of anything that resembles life…but she didn’t find it.

muse,
she/her has no master, only a mastery;
she, comes compulsing, a physical pounding,
a throbbing impervious resistant to logic or medicine,
which is the so very ever, the peculiar throbbing
of a principled particular “present participle,”
write of compulsing is her mocking suggestion.

a presence, punishing urging, pas de choix, obey,
submission; write freely but not free, compose or
decompose; is there a difference, no, not, and so ordered,
demand surrendered, how? how? this taking and giving,
can a single act dichotomy be so fulfilling and so emptying?


<>

wake daily to water canvas, the waves, dabs of paint
protruding, irritating. provoking yet presented silenced,
repetitiously calming, motioned framed within the
white edged sand, the bound-surround of the living painting.

eyes alight, eyes delight, this daily emergence unto
a tapestry devoid of human interference suggests
a differentiating reality; now I understand the how of a
world’s imperfections constituting, tooting its own perfectionism.

this is not lake water; no single flat stone skipping nor
a concentric rippling to a slow death; this is seaward-
bound, an oceans subservient tributary, contributory,
a river, bay, sound - precursors to a vast atlantic infinity.

this is metaphor; this a still life of the perpetuation metamorphosis.

<>

the muse exhales; as do I subsequently; what difference?
none, she replies to herself, tween painting artist and
verbalizing poet, the un-still life creation, always, always,
different, the essence of diversity in a singularity sameness


                                                     ­     






7:13 AM Thu Jul 29
2021
S. I. Sound

Jotting down a few words
As I update a journal
Influences of her perfection
Adds a status quo
Marvel by her ways
I put together a sentence
Like a songbird
Verbalizing a perch
No dictionary can match
Her superb dialect
Barriers of longevity
I discovered myself
Doubts in her words with captivity
Lost in a colloquial speech
No woman on earth moves
As if she does
Intriguing to the thoughts
Her grammar
Has many episodes
Which causes drama within
Shall I abandon
What have I learned
Knowing my love
Is just a few acronyms
Can sell no less
In terms of our
Endearment

You see, I want a lot,
but verbalizing
is Vulnerability
and in my head
Cynicism is stronger
than Idealism,
always the big bully,
always laughing in its face.

[Don’t laugh at me.]

You see, I want a lot.

I want art -
all kinds of art,
and not just art,
I want "bad" art,
made with good – the best – supplies,
And I want it up on the fridge
because look,
we made it,
and that means
everything.

I want homemade zines –
Happy zines and sad zines,
food zines and PATB zines,
and everything in between.
I want homemade patches,
homemade clothes,
homemade food.

I want poetry
and essays
and writing anything at all.
I want nice journals
and nice pens.

I want music -
I want to walk into rooms
filled with instruments.

I want nature.
I want Beauty
in all the small things.
I want flowers.
I want a garden,
I want it to be alive with things
all year round.

I want a nice kitchen.
I want herbs by the windowsill.
I want good meals.
I want meals we ****** up
[because we don’t bother with recipes]
but try to eat anyway.
I want frozen pizzas and slushees
and too much candy corn
when it gets to be fall.

I want days of too much coffee.
I want London Fog days.
I want rainy days and
“A handful of puddle”
on repeat.
I want days of lying in bed doing nothing
whether or not we’re sick.

I want travel.
I want days of wandering around cities,
getting lost and
letting our feet
find the way home.
I want unplanned adventures.
I want abandoned rooftops
I want heights.
I want intuition.
I want Hope.

I want friend therapy.
I want solitude.
I want connections.
I want trust.
I want closeness.
I want safety.
I want stability.

I want Honesty.
I want vulnerability.
I want communication.
I want patience.
I want consent.
I want accountability
I want active listening.
I want remembering boundaries and triggers.

I want love -
any kind of safe love:
I want all my friends
to be my significant others.

I want shared meals,
shared feelings,
tea parties and tear parties.
I want good days,
and I want bad days -
the calm and the storm.

I want to lay down my arms,
once and for all.
Call a truce with myself.

I want to look upon
the wreckage within me,
clean it up the best I can,
let the broken parts heal on their own
accept the parts that don’t,
and build a Home within my heart,
imperfect as it is,
so it won’t matter
where I go or who I’m with.

I want to say,
“I am not Afraid –
of my parents
of the expectations of capitalism
of the Future,
of growing old.”

I want to say,
“Yes, there are unknowns,
yes, there will be fear,
but I will be Okay,
I do not have to die
because others did before me.”

[I want to say yes.]

I want to say,
“I do not have to prove anything
because the right people will understand,
and those are the people who matter.”

I want you near,
and if not near,
a voice on the phone,
synchronized meals,
these things will do
in the mean time.

Drag me out of bed for cookies,
let me be sous chef,
Kitchen kitten,
familiar,
scientist ****** wife.
[If you must call me that.]

You see, I want a lot.
And Idealism
is sometimes all I have
To keep me alive,
a wildflower that won’t be killed.
And if you want to know the truth
I don’t want to **** it -
I don’t have the heart.

[Don’t laugh at me.]

Written to Matthieu,


Loving

The pain of a doubt .
Seeking.
Perhaps, perhaps, seeking.

Healing

A futureless
Sentimental Wound
Meeting you again


In your words.
Isn’t that just
In real life
Role-playing?

Feeling
In lulls

Your long absences
That’s not a lie

Not getting

If we should take
What’s left to us
What we’re testing.

Remembering

For a few minutes…
Whether we were lovers
I watch you wither.

Thinking

About giving you back

What you thought
You discovered

Seeking, seeking,
Seeking.
Where desire
Has gone



I could tell you

That the past

Must have engraved
What happened


But giving up
Repelling

This memory
Everything is nighttime…

Writing

To know

That darkness
Is hard to drain!


Translated on August 7, 2015

life lies on me like a coffin lid

the investment of a strange ventriloquism

where no one has imagined me

or the existence of my

verbalizing impulses of emotion

the structured knowledge of

chemistry and music

I shall go beyond

beyond the humming bird

beyond the giant stars

way, way past the darkness

in the valley

where the gentle tempest rests

and there I shall enter into visions

and claim a desolate sun

who possesses enormous

silhouetted slices of hell

i shall go far beyond the speaking rain

beyond the whispers that have taken up

residence in my mind

way, way past the living and the dead

where ancient texts have wept

i shall stumble far across the horizon

beyond the jagged edges of the world

far, far beyond all known compass

where cartographies of silence

roam

here i shall be made a suggestive space

a womb with a heartbeat

here, far beyond all that is

in a dark place of peace

Perfect.
Is unattainable.
Or so I am told.
Then why was 100
Written in bold?
On my high school report card.

Courses I tried to perfect
Taking on every extra opportunity
to raise that mark higher
accepting nothing less than one followed by two zeroes

And this, I was able to achieve
In many courses, which you may not believe
Praise, cheers, congratulations
Nobody could see the underlying complications
Not even me.

Because getting one hundred
Or slightly more
Is all that prevented my mind
From beginning to roar

Because I don't make stupid mistakes
Those I'm not allowed
Losing marks is forbidden
Or my mind becomes loud

Imperfection is intolerable.
At the sight of a mark off
My mind tumbles and swirls
How could you do that?
How do you expect to survive in this world?
Unacceptable.

In high school I attempted to fix it,
Many times being successful
But that is not how university works.
And what if those tainted expectations
Find a new muse?

Self destruction.

For the anger over percentages
Turned into anger at my body.
How I looked
It never really mattered.
I knew I wasn't particularly pretty.
For the first time in Gr. 12
I stared at my mirror
After make up and hair products
Thought
Wow, if I try I can be pretty.

If I try I can make this failure go away
One more pound and I'll be okay
No fat, no wrinkles
Nothing to remind me of the
Never-ending sensation of not being good enough.

Little did I know
That means not existing.

Through hell and back
Make it to university
Now I'm on track
But wait
Perfectionism lays awake
Right behind my back
And it's ruining me.

Verbalizing my struggles
I've been told
"You don't need to get perfect"
But that voice in my head is old

It can't go away with one person's advice
Or yoga session
Or exercise
Or learning it spits out plenty of lies.

Never
Feeling
Good Enough.

Attending university is painful
But apparently it's the only cure
Avoidance isn't the answer.

But what does that mean?
Hm let me see.
One mark off here?
Work harder.  
Devote more time to studying.  
You must do better.
Mistakes are unacceptable.
You are so stupid.
Unacceptable.
Worthless.

A never ending CD playing in my mind.

I hope that my experiences
Can help someone else
That others won't feel so alone
That I can learn to accept myself.
And find a kinder voice
That is my own.

I can almost remember
the exact force you
used to kiss me when
no one was looking;
when on foot, they
nearly knocked me over,
and when in bed, I
sometimes savored breaks.

I can almost remember
the exact pattern of hair
behind your neck, escaping
below rumpled fabric and
near body parts I would
have used my mouth to
make love to, had folks
turned away more often.

I can almost remember
the exact volume you
spoke in when we
leaned in too close, your
lips fondling my earlobe
and verbalizing
just what I had hoped
you might do to me later.

I can almost remember
the exact length of your
eyelashes that extended to
catch tears you cried for me;
my thumbs were not always
swift enough to form half-moons
under the almond orbs through
which you watched me depart.

she annihilates me
within somber streams
of her eyes,
unclothing my resolve
layer after layer
laying bare my
want to taste
the flesh
of all life's sorrow;
licking the wounds
of her heart
as her elixir'd
brine drips, whetting
my penchant;
to suckle her
pain from
weary limbs,
collapsing
at her feet
as life forces
drain my essence;
awakening
slumbered state
of mind, I lean
into her silence
behind enshrouded
eyes; awaiting
in naked liberation,
unleashing imbibed
shyness that existed
within; as she gazes
upon me, acknowledging
my very existence
in her realm; to whisper
against me without
verbalizing her thoughts;
watching her evolution,
I sigh, gasping inwardly,
as if, she is newborn
from wombed
catacomb; a new day
emerging from
cocooned silence,
erupting into wanton
unabashed passion
as cognizant open-mouth
gazes unleash
untithered moans
of release;
no longer mourning
sorrow's, fore, new
tomorrow's has arisen

Do you love me?

Those four words were once so hard to say with sanity. As if my mother tongue forbade me to know how it meant once. I have sat all day in the empty spaces of us; trying to find an answer without verbalizing it

So I slept on it; I waited on it; I walked on it; I dreamed about it; I accepted it;
And I meant it

And I realized; why should I ask him? Because if he loves me he would tell me. *Maybe he is not the type of guy who wander around and saying I love you—a shy one, perhaps—my mind stops thinking.

Or
He simply does—not love me?

He stared at me in a long pause and kissed me at 2 a. m
‘Do you like me?’ I asked
He stopped and bit my lip; he was not quite there yet  
Loud and clear, I have found my answer in his silence

*It's not even a hard question ******* it!

Grandma's dress at the end was a sling around her
left leg and arm attached to a rope
and pulley we thought, or I did at five, was fun
to pull on
her exercise
she couldn't talk
but made expressive grunts to garner my mom's attention
when she saw me doing wrong
going into a room I shouldn't have
she was all there except
for verbalizing and being one sided
I liked to cuddle with her  
I still see it all

I mourn my past profoundly.

my emotions
deprived of
words –
I mourn my
unwritten
emotional words.

do not stop me,
I insist
it is part of the
healing process and I
am processing-

though pardon the sadness
for it is all I am
capable of verbalizing.

In elementary school you learn about the importance of the 8 parts of speech. That with these essential bits and pieces of the English language you can grammatically slay dragons, build empires upon prepositional phrases, and verbally split wigs with hammering conjunctions.

Spitting flexible adjectives in general directions with a chance that someone might listen. I wish you could still listen.  I want to tell you. Verbalizing verbs with vicious vernacular. I shipped it. Wrecked it. Mauled it.

I want to fix it. I can't. I'm waiting. For the day I can hug you again. To apologize for the lack of complete. In life you complete stuff. Like when your mother tells you that you can't quit clarinet in the 5th grade, because once you start something, you finish. We never finished.

You left before we could complete. I didn't say goodbye or even hello. I guess I could blame it on pronouns. I could say well she didn't let me know, he was lost in his words. We didn't want to intrude on the walls they built with words that I never spoke. But without them I would be so much better off.

Or That we need to talk. We need to figure my **** out because some days this iceberg set of lungs I have, only melt when I don't need then to. So pass through me. Across the tremendous skin across my body in order for me to feel again.

The skin is tucked under this hard shell I learned to build after being poked all too often. Poked with things like goodbyes or when I can't tell time on analog clocks. Numbers are hard to compute when all I see is you. I want to quickly get over the slow process of slickly sliding into a hole I'll never figure out.

I'm in a directional pull towards who knows where with nothing but my brain space. We all know how dangerous things get in there. Like that time, when I was 7, I was convinced you were kidnapped by the bandit in my dream. Sleeping is hard these days.

Chapter One: Bozo & Bonzo

The Goatman was a fat guy who lived in the old part of town where everything looked tired. No one around there cared very much about anything.
There were two bums who liked to hang around the train tracks over there. We started calling them Bozo and Bonzo. Bonzo didn't mind because he loved The Who and Bonzo happened to be his favorite drummer. Bozo did mind and would curse and spit at us whenever we'd say the word. He told us to call him by his real name (Charlie) but we liked Bozo a lot more.
Anyway, my friend Lawrence and I would give Bonzo and Bozo a quarter each for a recounting of a recent sighting of the Goatman. One day after school we decided to drop by the tracks to see if they were around. They were, and they were both **** drunk and stunk like wet dogs do after they come inside from the rain. Bonzo asked me if I wanted a swig from his flask and I shook my head no.
"******' *****, I knew you weren't the real deal," Bonzo muttered as he swirled his flask in a circle, as if it were an expensive martini.  
"I don't need your nasty backwash, thanks," I shot back.
"We want more information on the Goatman," Lawrence broke in.
"We have quarters," I added.
Lawrence took the 50 cents from his pocket and extended his arm. Bozo quickly snatched up the coins and laughed.
"You two hot for the Goatman or somethin'?"
"We're not gay for the Goatman," Lawrence says. "But we're definitely gay for finding out who the **** he actually is."
Bozo laughed some more but it came out as a hearty, borderline obese and drunk gargle/scoff.
"We saw him yesterday, believe it or not. I was takin' a **** in a bush across the street from him and he came amblin' out. I was too drunk to care much at the time but lookin' back, I shoulda been more scared," Bozo looked down at the worn boots on his feet and kicked the dirt. "He was carryin' a tiny plastic shoppin' bag, all neatly *******. After he went back inside I crept over and took it and just ******' ran, man," Bozo seemed distressed just verbalizing his encounter.
"So what was inside?" I knew he was getting to it, but I needed to know.
"Just some candy wrapper. Nothin' but candy wrapper. Butterfingers', 3 Musketeers', Pay Days. You name it, he ate it," Bozo completely broke down laughing this time. I'm coming to realize he is the sort of person who thinks he's funnier than anyone else seems to.

Cooped within ancient bodies,
this inhabitant dwells amongst an elder net
of crabby, crotchety, curmudgeonly claque
of old folks, only a portion of population I met
which achey, flaky, kooky motley crue
disgruntlement fed as peevish pet
aye be earnest asper my assessment,
but some (quite frankly) getting ready and set
to lay down their limb mitt less lives,
even those who survived harrowing encounters as a vet.
-----------------------------------------------------------
­quotidian gossipers punctuate air waves while:
sitting, riding, quartering, puttering, operating, navigating,
motoring around on scooters (the sole means of locomotion

for many elderly residents),
whose sole occupation incorporates:
zapping, yelping, yakking, whining,
weeping, verbalizing, venting,
uttering, undulating, thundering,
squawking, squabbling, screeching,
rumbling, rattling, quibbling, quarreling,
prattling, pestering, okaying,
offending, needling, nagging, mumbling,
maligning, leering, lampooning,
kvetching, kibitzing, jesting, jabbering,
irritating, insinuating, heckling,
harping, glomming, gabbing, fulminating,
fretting, exclaiming, emoting,
denigrating, damning, carping, cackling,
bragging, begging, agitating, acting  
analogous to bad *** kids itching
for playground foo fight during recess,  

which comparison might be apropos
since majority of energy and time expended
complaining about nobody's business
concerning this, that, or another tenant...
thee management not exempt from
badmouth outbursts), where nondenominational
AARP qualified members congregate
within what constituted former auditorium
of repurposed elementary school,

hence quite some years ago (an honorable
NON GMO gluten free cheerful toast made,
instituting batter use then building standing vacant)
a bona fide unanimous dogmatic, heroic,
linguistic welcome sans titular viz zit head
where alumni of alluded alma mater, ivory fiery,
classy academic solvent atomic structure
became amalgamated, appropriated,
assigned a new life, whereat fob dost
electronically activate innermost recessed sliding doors,
principally, quintessentially, resoundingly availing maw
formerly entrancing students into
Schwenksville Elementary School,
though some years ago repurposed
with barely a trace constituting current subsidized
how zing facility re: Highland Manor,

the residence of thyself and missus
(approaching third month anniversary),
whereat I dune hot give a rats *** if aimless
airless baseless banter, ceaseless chatter,
dubious dabbling, et cetera if this solitary
ruminate thinker the subject de jure
of parlayed people portraying
penultimate purposelessness.

the other day
you asked me
   what I thought about you
and I did not really
   answer your question

we all have our idiosyncracies
they make us unique
   and sometimes
a pain in the neck

being overpunctual
   or always late
staging an appearance
   or fading into the background
griping gruffily
or glossing things over
   with sweet talk
verbalizing everything
   or very little
sticking to long-made plans
   or making your mind up
   again
   in the last minute
swingin wildly
   or staying calm
pontificating on what is right
   or listening quietly
   to what others have to say
   indicating your respect
   for what they want to say
being a control freak
   or leaving people enough leeway
   to find their own approach
worrying permanently
   about friends, children, parents, family, the world
or believing that they
   can occasionally
do without us

there is a fine balance
    difficult to maintain
and more often than not
we fall off on one side

   or the other
   from that narrow ridge
   of mutual acceptance
grow irritated or disgusted
   in wild moments
tell her or him that THIS IS IT
   and s/he can leave
   the earlier the better
   and NEVER come back

when such tempestuous events
give way
to calmer contemplation
we remember
that time is short
   life is precious
   and love is what makes it bearable

and we reconsider

Why do I always stop?
Why do I hold my breath?

My mind is screaming to tell you everything.

How when it's quiet, and the lighting is just right, your hair shines in an almost golden brown halo at the top,
and how when you speak, the sound drifts off into a slight hum,
but when your eyes meet mine I cannot say it.

How when I think of you, I hide my face in my frigid hands and I feel my cheeks run hot with blood,
and how much I've always loved your determined face, with furrowed brows and pursed lips,
but instead I look at you with a meek, silent smile.

How I nearly tear up at the thought of my life leading up to this moment with you,
and that it makes up for every time I have ever felt afraid or broken,
but I never muster up the courage to tell you...

How the reason I always look at you is because I want to appreciate all of you, and I'm afraid I'll miss something,
and I wish I weren't so shy as to always write you love letters and poems, instead of verbalizing it to you,
but I always get stuck.

How I thought today twenty times over that I wished to say I love you,
and that I think your smirks might just **** me,
and maybe your hands are just feathers because they move so gracefully across the piano keys,
but I didn't mention it.

How could I?
I'm a never-ending trainwreck of the mouth.
Once I start, I can't finish; I'll never say it all.
So I don't.

But....
I want to.
I want to look you in the eyes and instead of fumbling with my hands, my ring, or looking down and away from you, I want to clearly say this...

How the only thought in my mind that kept me from shaking incessantly during an anxiety attack was you,
and how in the silence of my room I just knew life would get better, IS better,
and how you keep me from disrespecting myself,
and how I think I couldn't imagine a lifetime where I didn't meet you,
oh I couldn't, I wouldn't.

How the other day, when I was folding my clothes, I stopped.
I felt a rush of joy overcome me and I just didn't tell you, I couldn't even say it out loud to myself,
but **** it, I'm in love with you.

Of Baseball, Poetry and the Human Condition




~~

From  “The Art of Fielding.”* by Chad Harbach

"You loved it,” he writes of the game (baseball), “because you considered it an art: an apparently pointless affair, undertaken by people with a special aptitude, which sidestepped attempts to paraphrase its value yet somehow seemed to communicate something true or even crucial about the Human Condition.

The Human Condition being, basically, that we’re alive and have access to beauty, can even erratically create it, but will someday be dead and will not."*

~~
  thus, the circle grows ever small,
binding the obvious and unblinding the oblivious

more than the mere, poetry in baseball, for both forms of art,
knowledge intuited from watching the catcher's body weave
this way and that, a dancer en pointe, arms raised in worship,
addressing the heavens with a body's broad brush strokes,
all to catch with concentrated skill, a lazy, towering popup,
climaxing oft with an exclamation point
a perilous desperation leap
into the dugout encampment of the inimical opposition

yeah, you knew that,
tho verbalizing same,
before the age of thirty,
presumed maturity,
was not an act of the sane of heart,
or the sound of mind and body melded

what you dared not admit was that the conditional principle,
was primal and not tangential, though perhaps,
some itinerant fathers foolishly mumbled incoherently
of a life linkage parallel motifs
of
that desperate beauty, the ferric magnetic irony,
that our full access pass to envisioning the finery,
imaging the stuff of our own daily creation genesis,
whether concocting undisciplined disassembled parts, words,
into a line, a stanza that froze your lungs from
the boredom of the regularity of heaving and breathing,
was in no way different
than the curvature of the boy's arm
in desperation outstretched, seeking spectacular safety for
a well hit ball of cork into a worn leather mitten and thus
confirming his humanity to the watching tribal membership

and these momentary moments of momentousness,
will live forever until we die, judged of equal stature,
a soldiers stripes, ribbons of his theaters of service,
medals of the honor and the errors of his own
human condition

Your name filled up the three diaries I have kept— the only diaries I vow to create.
Each of them written from cover to cover.
I penned your name in ink: permanently etching the smooth planes of my notebooks.
Like a **** that turned into a scar.

Your name:
Written over and over and over and over and over again.
Until my hands tremble with weakness— tired of your name.
But my heart still whispered. Then screamed.
My heart still cried out, Begging, and Begging for release.

So my hand wrote till it memorized you. Every curve and crook of your name.
My fingers laced through every tangled lines and placed them carefully side-by-side.
Oh so carefully… so that your name would be spelled out perfectly.
Until the pen I hold, against my own will, scrawl you on every piece of paper I touch.

And with your name came the pain. My poems.
With your name came the tidal wave of emptiness.

I wrote and wrote your name, over and over.
A repetitive chant, an old cycle.
I wrote, caressing your name as I did.
With my whole being.
Heart. Mind. Soul.
Body.
My hand and mouth simultaneously verbalizing your name.

As if by doing so would make you love me.

you ever studied constellations?
because speaking of,
there are more stars in this universe
that words ever spoken by mankind.

the size of astronomical numbers in a
true sense, IS the word itself
there are infinite ways to express this

equate the gravity of dropping one/ness verbalizing stanzas & sentences while deriving the universal mass of the human language.

We've been spending time
Between lines of fine writing
Transcribed by two scribes,
Deciding to type instead of verbalizing.

We'd scrawl on scrolls
And scribble out whole paragraphs;
Laugh at our mistakes,
Providing comfort for each other's sake,
Never was a time we'd make the other person break,
Never was a rhyme to make the other person stay away,
Just a little get-together sort of play date
That I'd hope we'd get to keep for at least a few more days,
Cuz a life in her presence is the type I'd like to take.

I will always be the shadow
Seldom seen,
Rarely heard
Barely verbalizing
Any
Written,
Stutter
Spoken word
But on the mountain
In the fog
I am the ghost
Of mostly gone
I am forgotten,
Undesired,
Disappearing
All along
You cannot find me,
Just remind me
To at times
Make presence known
And should I feel like talking
Only locking eyes
With her alone