Which is why you shouldn't drink and dial
because I tried to call you, turtle man
who has two turtles and 57 unanswered messages
on his phone

I never would have noticed
had it not been for you
who look like a turtle, that unfortunate Caucasion trait
of no chin, though you are thin
is that why you like them?

I saw one yesterday in a nature preserve in the middle of Walnut Creek
So I call, masked call, no answer
you are unavailable, eternally, and I am wild with two Vodkas
and I think it would be so kool to connect with you

And the phone rings and rings and of course you don't pick up
and I can't feel my pain in my back and feet from all the walking
and swimming and hiking
and you will never be what I need
and that makes you the perfect target for me

Sunday night fright,
anxiety
takes me to the phone, to drink and dial

In your past, this past
they weren't valued
no one said they were members of the family
what walks on four legs and is furry and cute is only
to last as long as nature intended and then to be disposed of

Veal calves in crates, taken from mothers on the day of their birth
to make more milk for humans, horse slaughter for glue
and foi gras, ducks and geese locked in a vice grip of their cages
metal tubes rammed down their throats and force fed until a liver disease
develops, painful, but given no respite
and served as a delicacy and
fur coats from animals skinned alive right here in America
still when mink farms are outlawed in the Netherlands and  
two million dogs and cats skinned in China every year not to mention
other horrors and no one cared or looked their way because they are
only animals, and voiceless and helpless and no one cared to give them
a voice or advocacy
"that's why they're there, for our use, people still say" who profit from an industry
of suffering

And today, there are people who try to give them a voice and there are veterinarians who will try to help you with your member of the family, as he suffers, in his old age
a bag of fluids hangs from my exercise  bike, and intermixed with my medications
is the painkiller and anti-nausea pills for my dear old friend
whose pancreas is failing
and father, this is foreign to you
you pretend it is a crime
silence is the only thing connecting us now

I hope you enjoyed your last barrage of unkind words
I think you did. The saddest thing I've learned about people like you
is
you feel better after such an attack, to see me reeling, bleeding on the ground
and you feel better, calmer and purged.
A kind of misbegotten peace settles over you
an exploitive peace from another's tears and pain

And yes, father, there were no agencies to give a voice to children
when you were young
no CPS, to aid my nine year old ***** friend
as a code of silence enveloped her attacker
to protect him, the one who destroyed her

But today there is a small brigade of a modern kind of love
to give a voice, protection, soothing to the ones who can
only suffer at our hands and not protect themselves from
our wrath and exploitation

and it is a better world for that, father
for my furry pancreatic friend and for any other
nine year old **** victims here

They look at you, even show horses, with eyes wild
eyes not meant to look around
because ears look around for horse and eyes see around
but don't move
but they do in a trailer when they wonder
why have you put me in this small box that moves
and you looked at me like that, with large watery eyes
opened up from their usual almond shape
why so frightened?

I can't carry this for you
because this is yours, this fear of me
this is is something I sense but it is not familiar to me
it is not me that is causing it
what is it? what is your projection

a phantom and guilt perhaps
and knowing you did not do the right thing
but suspicion it is my fault you hurt me
silly little man
I can't fallow your thoughts that make no
sense
never did
but I will not hold this for you
This wild stare
and what it means
is yours
not mine

The hurtful one, gone
I am closer to finding that one
who is worthy
who is kind and capable
the books I've read, the five hundred years in therapy
pay off a little as I walk away from one
who can't, maybe doesn't know how
who looked at my pictures and liked only the "comer hither" look in some
and saw nothing else and that is all he can see but I am more than that
and he is gone and I am one little tiny step closer to the one who can love me

If I was then who I am today
I would have left the hopeless hurtful marriage and not
fallen for your words which tell me, over and over, you are too sensitive
you spend too much money, too
and I do,
but I would have left because still, no one deserves to be abused
I always think, I stay, no matter what they say or do
I don't pull out, no matter how much it hurts
but a month ago I did, when I hurt to badly
from a man, and he still wanted me to stay and I said no
I am not having fun anymore and it was over
and no I didn't need help with my script
and no, we aren't friends because we never hang out
and this must be the new me
because I will never be destroyed again by a man I pick out myself
I have changed

My favorite cat is very sick
I did, I spent, to find out what is wrong
to help him, my heart is breaking and I walk,
hike around Briones Park, even though I haven't hiked in over two months
and the hills are steep and the anxiety is great and I take quarter pills of clonozipan
along the way as I finally get the courage to call the vet for the lab results
just like last year when I walked three hours before I could stand to call and it was worse
and I know now and walked on, finished all those clonozipan and made it up the steepest hills
adrenaline driving me and I have no more money and I could mess around at the loan place
but finally I get the courage, as usual, at the end of the four hours, to call you
and there is the first shred of concern and then the deluge and you are hurling accusations
at me and this is the price I pay always for your help and I know I am not perfect
and I know I must live within my means but my cat,
I begin to cry and sit down on the mountain side, a child again
and you lash into me, for my huge problem with cruel words that make my psyche bleed and
you remind me so much of my X husband, as I sit and cry and hikers and joggers go by
and you make your point but that is not enough, you must drive the dagger deep
deep into my sternum and twist it around until I am reeling and bash my head
against granite and I know I will be reeling from this conversation for days and why,
why couldn't you ever have this passion against the people who hurt me, at this job,
in my marriage, why did they get such respect and peace when I am bashed against the rocks, blood in my eyes, salt water stings, tangled in seaweed and a wave crashes over me
please stop I beg you.  stop.  you don't have to be so cruel
which makes you angrier and the angriest you ever have been in my life has been
over money, why, such a Jew?  Like your mother, like my X.  This has taken on a meaning
as I drift away from the conversation as one does when pain is so intolerable that the body shuts it out and dissassociates, and I am up high floating now above the city below
an ironicly beautiful landscape and you lie, yes father, you lie and say you are
struggling in your million dollar home with season Opera tickets and trips all over the world
and I think, I feel so at home, just like my X, so much like my X.
And yet, I am changing and a  voice inside me, drunk now from being knocked in the head, I tell you to stop, that this is not the best way to talk about this as I did
to that guy I rejected who hurt me, and my boss, and I feel, I am changing
and I will fight for what I value, what I love
and on the way home, tears in my eyes, I buy the medication to keep my cat more comfortable and he responds and I think, this is worth it
I am worth it, and you father, may never change, but I can
and I can change most importantly, my opinion of you

I got the flu in mid January and it's nearly Spring and still I cough
but I decided to force myself to go out
and get on Bart and go to Berkeley
and I saw things
stared at an ad for "American Idol" on the platform
for an unseemly amount of time trying to figure out which
human representation had been more photo-shopped
Fascinated, coming out into another land other than work home bed

Standing on the Bart platform, with no evil smells like the New York City subway and a breeze
and a polite voice telling me when the train would come
And at the next station an ad for the Jewish Museum and a young Ethiopian Jewish man
has an exhibit there and I felt good, that yes, there is such awfulness in Israel
but even there, like here, some can rise

And then Berkeley and my favorite cafe,
and it so reminds me of Columbia University, only cleaner
but it doesn't hurt about my X anymore
but it reminded me of my cat who was dieing in July and
he didn't want me near him too much because
dieing things like small spaces and not too much attention
so I left him in the closet curled up as cancer worked it's inevitable devastation

And I was coughing and tired, an invalid at the end of the day
but I made it to the Shattuck Cinemas to watch "Lincoln" and they have
a bar, and couches in the theater and you can take drink in if you're over 21
and that was our idea, in my days as a theater manager, we'd
talk about ways to bring more people in and we suggested couches and alcohol
and our manager laughed and thought we were crazy
but here is crazy and people walk in and love it
I sat in the back and took up a whole two seat couch selfishly and
listened to people come in and say how nice it was

Today I was an invalid again and could hardly get up
but the memory, it was worth it
I am slightly more alive again