I ignore you
You are upset
Snap at me
so I butter you up
Chocolate
"You don't have to do that," you say
mouth watering
I turn to get your treat
Rush down the hall
Feel your eyes
All over me
In all my curvy places
The touch so real

"Thank you for saying Happy Birthday to Shimone"
my mother said and I kind of said oh, no problem
and we went on from there to argue since that is what
we do and she will never know who I am
and I assume she meant Happy Birthday on Facebook because I
certainly don't keep track of her friend's birthdays,
especially not her friends who live in Haifa and remind
me of my X

Upset, I ran off to the pool, hoping for endorphins
after some laps  I rested at one end
and realized in a kind of slow, creeping way,
kind of like fog rolling in over the cliffs at Muir beach,
Not menacing, even beautiful, but a little cold, that
I never wrote anything to Shimone, not even on Facebook
No, I've been too self absorbed to write to my parents Israeli friends who used to
have me and my X over for Shabbat meals where I used to insist
on walking up the stairs since the elevator was small and hot and scared me
but he always wanted to ride in it
and one day we went over there was a sign on the apartments next door
that a woman had died in a terrorist attack the other day--
When a suicide bomber, afraid of the security guards at the nearby
mall, ran into an Arab restaurant conveniently located at a gas station
where all the best restaurants are,
and blew himself and everyone inside up
CNN international came for a day to report and then left the next
like a rude house guest who comes for your best food
and then dissapears, never to be heard from again

With my X, my mother always got cards she loved because he
knew just how to pick them and he'd send them without even telling me
sometimes faking my signature or
I just had to sign and he'd do the rest, in between crank calls to them at all hours,
taking advantage of the time zone.  At once tormenting and caring for them
as he did for me

And now is he a ghost in my account?  
A ghost, a fog, a memory, something ephemeral, not real

I'm starting to imagine him
Who will he be?
The one I let in close

The thought scares me
Close, to love and know
and close to hurt and destroy

This time close will only be to love
Or, he'll stay far, and then away

He's a shadow now
But when he's near, I'll relax
I won't want to work on him, he'll be fine
He won't want to change me
He will respect me

It's hard to even imagine this.
The other he hurt so much
Sometimes I think, that was the plan
His plan
to hurt me so much I will never again
let in another he

I can't let him win

Who has power of me
is an illusion
my father bought me a box when I was maybe eight,
that made a hologram
you could reach inside and try to pick up a rainbow
your fingers smashed together, unsatisfied
He is that rainbow, his power is so limited over me
It's me who gives him more
All the he's and even she's I gave myself over to
skin turned inside out, a ****** offering
and I don't have to do that
I can keep my skin on, and be safe, in the space around me.

I know we'll have a fabulous time together
Next semester at work will be great
I'll be warm and fuzzy for life
I've never actually been out with him
Never been alone with him
It's just, when it comes to men, I'm ******.

Phone rang
Dug around to find it
in my messy backpack

That number

How it used to send a
thrill through me
How it used to prove
my worth
Who was that person?

He called last night
left a message
too tired, I didn't even listen

What is it now?
I wonder
Don't want to go there
again

When he's inside, you don't become one
You only like to kiss in the beginning
It's hard for your ******* to get enough attention
Not to mention the most important part
When you are really having fun
Your body is stiff and
you can squeeze him out
When it's over, you can't wash him off
He stays inside
and drips out
at inopportune moments

You rolled your eyes
waited for us to be duly impressed
Pretended to be beside yourself
I wanted to slap you, but held back for my own health

We all smiled and compliments went around
And fishing for compliments, those you found
And everyone noticed you're looking nice and thin
But with me, you can't win

As you dump your work on me
It's clear you'd rather be somewhere else
Than at your job, giving help
that you're supposed to do
But gotta make it to the gym real fast, don't you?

I should have said, Oh, my God!
You can't let him get away with that fraud
Imagine him, knowing you a month
I'm sure he's played this trick more than once
He's probably with another girl right now
Dump him now, don't be proud

But instead I just sit there burning inside
When you say "I'm so fat" I should say yes you are
Look at your thighs!
You're really letting yourself go
And I didn't want to say anything, but now you know
You should really watch it,
The older you get the more fat won't quit
So worry, girl, and dump that guy
That's what I wanted to say, but instead, I lied.

And that's why I gave him my number
and never asked for his
because not that I like him so much
I have deep doubts about that
Not that I think he's so cute
Luke warm here
It's just, for him to call
would prove something to me
about me, and yes I know, it's this kind of thing
you must never need from the outside
In my head I know this
But in my heart? This is why dating is a horrific drag over
brass tacks for
I don't like them, but I want them to want me
to need me, and I don't even want them
And this is how it goes
And he may never call this whole vacation
And what an insult that would be, although
I may have a better time, yes, I may have a better time

I sat there in his office, for our first formal meeting and
I thought: what a strange little man
and I thought: thoughts are private, he can't know
but I've no poker face, so as I watched him look at me silently
I was eyeing him like a stained onion under a microscope
Look at the cell wall, the keys dangling from the faded Dockers from 1982
the pale hands with the small sausage fingers
everyone talked about his hands and those small fingers
that would gesticulate and pontificate and annunciate his power over us
He walked from his desk to the table, and it seemed like it took ten steps
and he became smaller with every stride, in the faded wrinkled shirt, made of flannel
like a used bed sheet
there is the nucleus, the papers in his hand I thought and his faded green eyes darted
over at me, and he knew, he could feel it, he knew I thought he was a dork
At last he settled down at the table and I joined him and the sausage fingers
of power shuffled through my evaluations, which were good
before he had that grudge, nursed over the summer
before he let it sink in that he was never good enough in my eyes
that he was always dissapointing me
I would walk to him, like trying to buy good organic food at a seven eleven
and wondering why every time, it wasn't there
He knew he couldn't do anything right in my eyes
He wasn't up to my challenge
I didn't know that he knew

Or some kind of Countess
Even though she looks like kind of a mess
and my shrink was right
as she is every time
he likes her cuz she's rich
My X and me, my shrink says it's still raw for me
and him
but they fine
My cousins live in Oakland
And they work a day and have a Union
Back to the middle class, on my ***!
As he floats by with millionaires, but they do have cares
I know that now, and how
He lives on his trust fund, and works some
and takes happy pictures in bars
And they seem happy enough, yes they are
but what can you see online?
I saw she's insecure
big surprise, just why
you need to announce your relative?
and I know he's only nice after he's had a few
nothing new, to me
His best friend has a trophy bride
Or maybe he married his daughter
So gross, these rich men and their habits
Sometimes we can't change our outer circumstance
But we do have a chance
if we try real hard
to rake up our little zen yard in our mind

I must ask myself, why this keeps happening and I know the answer
its because I'm afraid of you, my partner, who is supposed to work with me
but we only met a few months ago and I'm already sensing you'd rather feed
me to the dogs than change yourself, which is what they, the company asked you to do
So I said yes, and of course I used to think: this is only a problem in love
In love I get kicked around, but I'm OK with everything else but that's not true
it's the same **** thing with you who I will never be in love with because you are
a woman and just like me
and I don't even know if you know about yourself what I know and that is it is obvious
to me that you feel like you are invulnerable
but I have just survived a battle, and garnered a little respect and some advice from
someone who should know and now I do have a little bit of leverage
oh, how I cried to a stone who could no hear me and tallied it up to me being crazy
but if I'm to keep this job, I can't let you steam roll me again, you see,
because my shoulders hurt and I've been up since the crack of dawn on a day off
correcting a zillion papers that I knew would appear if I agreed with you
but at that moment when you were bellowing at me, to back down seemed the
only thing to do.  but now, with no break and feeling like I'm sick just because I've
been sitting here all day with a warm laptop on my legs and no swimming or even
going out to do anything but laundry and it's still not done I know that
I can't I must I must learn to stand up for myself in my terror, the
terror of a small child inside.

All it took
That warm serotonin glow
flooded me, my brain
After all the pain
feeling unappreciated, after I gave blood
with my hours and toil that lead nowhere
wondering how to survive these hours
a conversation continued next to me
I didn't hear it

"He said thank you," I said
I wanted to feel that again
And I did, the ecstasy of it
Of approval
Don't you know how I live for this?
I yearn for it
Pathetically, a little girl abandoned
I don't know what was said, next to me

Shouldn't need this
to live off another's words
like they give me permission
to take another breath
to fill the space and
stay alive

In the same day and it is just like I realize
this is really
totally
stone cold
insensitive
to be rooted out like a pathogen
when in reality the entire place is sick
and I'm only an observer

And afterwards "we" will probably camp
and so there is no movie after all
and when I asked him to go out he said he had a lot of things
to do so I imagined a big pile of papers or something like I have
but really, he's climbing rocks with "we"
and there was no call and only an e-mail when I asked him to
call but he didn't because it was only to tell me that
he was blowing me off to go climb rocks when
I wanted to go see a movie but "we" will climb rocks and he will be
back when it is too late to see a movie so I've been passed over for rocks
and time with "we" who I don't know who it is, but he e-mailed
me this because he didn't want to call me because he knew I'd be dissapointed
and the truth is, I am, and I hope he falls off a rock and gets bruised at least
or even a broken bone wouldn't bother me at this point
and I hope it really hurts and he has a sunburn on top of it
and gets food poisoning from the food
and I think I should leave off of this because it just isn't working

He's not a wolf, but only a mouse now
the man who yelled at me for crying when
I knew he was nailing my coffin with bad evaluations
and planting the seeds of God knows what and what are
they thinking and what are they going to do next to me and nothing makes sense
but he hurries by like his tail is on fire and he doesn't look so scary anymore
but just kind of strange and I wanted him to like and respect me
and give me this kind of good feeling about myself
but now he's just wearing a black nylon jacket and
looking nervous and small and furtive
and I wonder why he ever made me so frightened

One of the world's worst opening lines, ever
Darkness, three or four of them crossing the street to me
My eyes down, trying to ignore
Figures looming, coming closer
My hometown downtown
This doesn't happen here
Wanna get with me?  Hey!
Other things: gross and ******
They're closer and he, who I don't look at
reaches out and tries to grab my thigh
Like he's tearing off a piece of bread

But I'm solid milk chocolate not fudge
His hand hits and grabs
It feels like a wrench as he grips
Digs for a hand hold,
But there is none, just bone and solid me

They walk past asking why I don't say hello
Yelling as I shut them out
And I remember when I was jumped
Carrying a pizza home in NYC at night
Pizza floated down in slow motion
steam in the air
A pile of eggplant and cheese
freezing in the winter cold
And the kid grabbed my jacket
held an exacto knife and demanded my wallet
As the rest stood around
like watching a demonstration
And I pulled free because a puffy jacket doesn't make a good hand hold
And ran away, kids do that, the guard at Barnard said

But this grip was different
Had it caught hold
Had they surrounded
I would have feared for my life

I walked away quickly, from them, from memory

Behind my apartment complex
is a small creek
dry most of the year and filled
with trash
it gurgles this time of year with
brown foamy water
the wash of industrial civilization
at first the smell is foul, but now
is merely murky and there is no
smell and a pleasing sound of water

I look for signs of coziness around me
and I notice steam rising from the laundry
room that is visible in the cold
like a chimney puffing comfy smoke
into the rainy air

And I think of you and I'm afraid
I thought of you in Walmart
My life--this is the real thing
there are no romantic castles, only
a wet shopping cart in a crowded exploitive store
As I passed by the packaged vegetables
and stared at the racks and racks of ugly clothes
I thought, I am in control

The fear wells up inside of me
fear of HIM.  That him who squashed me
who took over my mind
I think of all the books I read, as people pass
by with very important shopping to do and
a homeless man makes a decision about which milk to buy
and he smells horrible, like decay and wetness
and people resent him and I wish
there were no homeless people
I wish there was more caring and less brutality in our world.

The key is not to care about HIM until you know who he is
The key is to keep your distanced mind in judgement
And I must remember this key because I swear
no one will ever hurt me that much again.

I am a hidden creek, a pristine one, because I would
never hurt the natural world as we have
He cannot see it, or any other he, until
I know exactly who he is.

Are blue and pierce through me, or maybe they are emeralds
and they glow and enchant me, and I look across the table at him
and wait, for him to feel the touch of my look,
to see his eyes turn up to mine, just brown,
and I feel the sting of desire and admire
all the beauty of his masculinity to eternity
it takes me
what is a man
who makes me feel
this good

Maybe "Singing in the Rain" was really first doing laundry in the rain
Easter downpour, as solid as any I remember in Brooklyn, sans lightening
Big droplets, teaspoon size, coming down in successive sheets
like a hall of mirrors or glistening water, reflected further and further through
the misty air, and it's not cold, either, not muggy like Brooklyn
the air doesn't stick to your skin, cling to your body and line your nose
but the ***** water from the industrial sky still splashes on concrete
scattered small boiling mist of filth, oil, the mess of civilization,
the foaming "hidden creek" froths out from a concrete pipe behind this place
running underneath the parking lot, paved over like the river underneath 125th street in NYC
And I haul out my laundry, dragging it first across the ***** carpeting, then down the concrete
stairs, past remains of dust and play and gum turned black
until I reach the empty laundry room because who in their right mind would
do laundry on Easter in the middle of the downpour?
And I am dressed for it in a tank top and short skirt and the ***** rain hits my skin,
invigorates me, and I rush through it, smiling, listening to the remains of the creek
a shower of ***** water from a freshly polluted sky and I know no Broadway
dance moves and there are not street lights to cling to, only the inner ecstasy of
violating convention, droplets of water all over my chest, legs, being and I wash my hands
in icy rainwater flowing over someone's balcony like a refreshing waterfall

that quiet time in my mind
when the fierce voices are silent
and my fear, slides back like a thin
tide receding into the bay

An early twentieth century kind of thing
But sometimes my hope feels like
a battery hen, factory farmed
Nearly featherless, since molting makes
her produce more eggs
Crowded so she cannot move
De-beaked so she cannot defend herself
A slow death for about three
years until she is gassed
in a small container
A product, not an animal
a unit, not a senseate being
Hope is a thing with feathers
But when all the feathers are gone
only the hope of rescue remains

The afternoon sun is deflected
by the shades on my open windows
and the fan
and my cats become longer and thinner
like small mats smoothed over the floor

I advise
A criminal's mind is mine
How it could be done
A secret meeting for two become one

I know just what I'd wear
and how I'd get there
and what I'd do inside of there
to you

And after that  I wouldn't care
Maybe that's the sad part, I'd swear

I surf through the land of ***
A woman in a chat room
flirting for enough money to do a "show"
Men write "nice (), are you doing to do ()?"
She smiles, licks her lips, does **** female things
tells them they make her feel **** and excited
trying to get more money
I recognize my bra
I want to write
"Did you get that bra at Frederick's of Hollywood?
I have one just like it.  Same color and everything."

Why do I hesitate?
Prefer toys instead
They don't scare me
And I'm always satisfied
How many times did I settle for
only what the man
was willing to give
Frustration, dissapointment and silence
I need honesty now
Especially in bed

Mind spinning, thoughts talking to me
like daggers
now I sit in a nook
at my favorite cafe
a quiet mind at last
I got here, found the self
I lost but was there all along
How I want to hold on

I wanted you to respect me and think she is good at her job
and you didn't, but of course
that didn't stop me from wanting you to look kindly upon me
and seem to look forward to seeing me
but you didn't and more and more
seeing me seemed to be a trial for you and now
my mere presence causes you to practically foam at the mouth and
say I'm projecting, which is not what I'm doing
I'm just sad.  That's all. Just sad that we never connected and it was never natural and it was
what it was just not nice or anything and you never got me or liked me or understood me
no matter how much I showered you with attention and compliments and tried to say nice things and was really going crazy with the process and now it's over

So I guess I can stop trying to make someone who doesn't like me, like me and
keep trying to get myself to like me...which in the end, is all I have.

I said, to myself.
More than your mother does, or your father
Enough to make you safe
to leave energy for empathy and understanding
Enough to value life,
even through its rough and winding roads
leave cuts and wounds that bleed,
"because you are all I have," I said
My whole life
has been a struggle to not drain out
to stay here and remember I exist

They used to be just days and weeks
I skipped through them
Hopped, jumped, dove

Now, time stands still
The day goes by
Slowly, moment stretched to moment
with time in between

With your glance, your words
I slid through my days
breathed through my hours
Now at a standstill
Cannot go on

There, when I feel my mind flooded with all this honesty
and like asking questions as we stare at data and can only see
details not the big picture and I think about things like why is it
that our school is below the state average in testing but it is so expensive it's upkeep
can't be afforded and we spend so much money on technology
but it's still below the state average and I know
you've told me that teachers moving around 3-4 times a day to different classes
prevents ownership by them but you haven't told me why this helps student learning
and now I hear admin says well in Japan the students just sit there and the teachers move
Japan?
And when I went to apply to the SPED program I told the professor I taught 70 kids in a double wide classroom and I had a microphone she looked at me like I was crazy
and so does everyone else I tell
But really, getting back to the first item, we spend so much money on technology but
the students score lower than the state average which is abysmal
It's like a fog has lifted and I never thought these things before

"I learned in from Oprah.  Every year you put your clothes facing toward you
in your closet, and you put them back facing away from you.
and by the end of the year, you know which clothes you don't wear
and you can throw them away."
I listened to this announcement from my authoritative boss
with a look of horror and disbelief
I must have looked like he just said:
"Every day I forget how to tie my shoes,
so I look on YouTube for a tutorial."
I know now, that look I gave, must have said everything
and I said softly, "You mean, you don't know?"
And he must have felt like such a dork in my eyes
and what man wants to feel like an attractive woman
thinks he's a dork
He must have shriveled inside, first with self hatred
and then furious, tumultuous anger, a tornado of
recrimination and fury, carrying houses and cows and trucks in its wake,
and aimed directly at me
I need a poker face

Only now, with more power
I can own this
I can punish with flirtations that go nowhere
I can needle with demands that he can't meet
I can make him feel like he can do nothing right
Like he is forever a dissapointment and impotent in my eyes
Not always the victim now

He wore a onesie with hearts a floating on pajama day
Hearts all over his **** and hearts all up and down the length
of his lean body and in the inseams of the onesie
and right near his package and the girls
were taking pictures with him, these under age girls who could
now see the entire length of his entire lean body and see it is just a stick
with another potential stick pointing out in the middle
and no one said anything, none of the bosses and his friend
had on pajama bottoms too small with hearts right there and
a big looped piece of fabric to hold it on his trim twenty something body
and the old guys, the bosses said nothing as they admired
the length of the hard bodies
and the girls look and I wonder if one day one will reach out and touch.
and i don't remember it being like that in my high school

My cat purrs
Licks salt tears from my eyes
Sandpaper tongue
Soothes

and sore and explode
and heavy load
and I make it into a powerpoint
and I look at a zillion lol cats
and how to make a perfect flip turn
and Michael Phelps perfect stroke and whale length body
and sweat seeps into the couch
and it is still not done
my work is not done

Please forgive me, but it was so tempting, you see
And I know that doesn't excuse me
I looked them up again, my X and his catch
I found something I hadn't seen, a video they had made from the NY Times
I turned green, or maybe it was a shade of lime 
Of course I had to watch it, I'm in the bar, might as well order ***** and tip a dime
He seemed nervous, professing his 26 year love symbolized by a picture
Said he knew who he was now, mumbled other things a muddled lecture
This photo as a kind of insurance?  Always hidden from me
She was 41, feeling the pressure to combine for the world to see
He made a big rush at her, I guess that's fine
His love based on a brief event in high school 25 years ago, a moment in time
But no one cares what happened then, that's just too old
You're just a kid, your memories by now are covered in mold
She couldn't see through it, and they couldn't have ***
They skyped for hours a day, what would come next?
Just pining and dreaming, a 19th century romance
Waiting, hoping to meet to take the chance
But then her friends said "this is crazy, he's just mooching off of you"
As his father told my parents when they complained, he's a shlemiel through and through
That means a mooch, a user, a parasite
If you've got what he wants he'll be there overnight
So pressured and blinded by a simpletons idea of romance
(she edits dime novels for a living by candlelight by chance)
They met in a whirl in Switzerland
Of course that makes it better, being abroad makes him kin
And quickly he worked and they were engaged
And suddenly they were "an item," all the rage
In the Times video they walk through ***** New York snow,
and stop at a cupcake store and feed each other, you know
And it's all staged so perfectly but somehow doesn't ring true
All smiles, all closeness, but there's greyness, coldness in their hue
and as he speaks I feel like I'm watching a police video where a criminal lies
Says he didn't do it, and he was somewhere else besides
And I shouldn't of done it, shouldn't of googled them, I admit I'm bad
But even through the loss of my own dream with him, her situation looks kind of sad
So in my future, I'm sure I'll seek romance
But I'll take it easy, go slow and listen to my friends
For this man nearly destroyed me, brought me to my knees
And I can't ever go through that again, so other's advice I'll seek

Let me reframe this for you and show you the positive side
After I sit and listen to accusations he believes are so true
and he has the power and he can take this job from me as he likes
and my saying what I think will likely have no impact
But it is the most important thing in the world
It's more important than having the job or not
To live and be here, in yourself and what you know to be true
in spite of attacks from authority, to live in that moment
and know: this is not true, I don't agree with you
Is everything

what you think of me
but I imagine it
isn't much or often

just like I don't know
what my mother thought
of me in my desperate
childhood
but I'm sure it wasn't much
or often

and that's why
I care so much
about what
I don't know

Psychology tells us, that most desperate bond
that one you can see with a child and a parent
is the key to everything in love you see, it's so easy,
If everything there was dandy, and we were warm and fuzzy--
the scientific definition for having a good childhood
We shan't have troubles
But...and it starts in infancy...things weren't so warm and fuzzy
and we were anxious and afraid, without words or memories made
A child can't think a parent is bad
She may run from the cave and become lunch for a passer by
So she puts on those rose colored glasses, and then its not them, it's me
She blames it all on herself, that's science, you see
So as an adult, that little infantile feeling is the model for love
Really, I look at couples and love and I think, that's how we used to feel
about our mommies and daddies, sans ***, of course
I still wear my rose colored glasses when the going gets tough
and I see a guy and he's not my type or not even attractive
and I'm like, wow, he's fantastic,
and off I go, and he hurts me you know, and he says things I don't
like, cuz he's really not my type or he does something that hurts me
and it's like I dropped through the bottom of the Universe
Free falling, out of the cave, totally crazed
When in reality, I feel nothing, for this dude
My only thought is, I am with men, truly crazy
and I have to leave those glasses at home
or throw them in the dump
never to be found again
because only then, will I stop being a loon

it will prove
how smart and lovable I am
not overworked and still sick after
a month of coughing and pain
if he calls, I will be redeemed
not rejected and secure and safe
not nervous and frightened about
what the future holds
if he calls, it will prove nothing
it will be a momentary drug that won't last
because he's have called before
and I feel wretched in this moment,
working on a weekend
still sick
and unable to be at peace with myself.

I think, I would not fear
But you don't make sense
You are
2 plus 2 equals 5
An enigma
The imaginary collar around my neck
tightens as I know you will look
at me in your closed office
vacant grey eyes seeing yourself
or something I don't understand

I can rub off a zit on my cat's chin
it's not even gross, just little black dots
and I get so crazy over men
why can't I just rub this off
of my head or take a pill
or drink a lot of water or
swim in the cold Atlantic
and emerge cured, normal and sane

I don't want to see what's yours staring at me
When I open my drawer
I am dismantling my life
I see the handwriting on the wall
You lied to me, and it hurt
Now I'm supposed to be
endlessly professional and circumspect
after you slashed my face with your tongue
you expect me to remain calm
as you put another lie in your file
as you can't find a single thing to like about me
as I do for you, but you never thank me
but pretend I don't exist
and take it all for granted
and criticize and lie and try to get away
with more
You can tell me lies
You can take from me
and give nothing back
I'm sorry dear
I don't feel circumspect
It's the only thing I could think of doing
to rid myself of your presence
to free myself from baseless accusation
that I'm supposed to take as nothing much
and be maligned and act professional
and still I must take the higher ground
because that is the only thing that will save me
from your confused attacks
if you feel cornered, the abuse will unleash
Why must I fight to get the truth accepted?

I've been hiking in the hills for two straight days
It's beautiful out, there is no haze
A ten minute drive from my place
And I'm in a different world, like outer space

By outer space I mean outside
And it takes me for a nice ride
There's nothing to me as beautiful as nature
It relaxes me, maybe someday I'll hike a glacier

I've passed by a marsh and heard a bullfrog's song
I've seen a coyote whose tail wasn't long
I've seen wild turkeys in the mist
And back at work, it's this I'll miss
The bluebirds flitting here and there
Red wing blackbirds on a fence without a care
And always the red tailed hawks circling above
It's their wildness that I love


I remember when I lived in New York City
"We Got Park" was the slogan, and Central Park is pretty
But it's tamed and broken, not at all wild
And I wasn't happy, I liked it, but the feeling was mild

Once I rented a horse and rode through the park
And then when we hit a certain mark
I walked the horse right across a baseball field
You're not supposed to do that, I think the horse thought it was weird

Another time I went riding in the rain
I galloped the horse, can't remember his name
We galloped along Madison Avenue
Taxis going the other direction, we had attitude
And then my hand slipped through the wet reins
And I nearly fell off, and there was a little panic, but hey
I grabbed the horse right by the bit
And then, we finally stopped, but I dropped my whip
And some passers by picked it up and offered it to me
But I said no--really that's the last thing I'd need

And now I'm back on the West Coast side
California, it fits my stride
The wild things are much closer here
And these are the things I hold dear

Because I see things and find things and sometimes they remind me
of sad things that lead to thoughts of other sad things and today I found
dusty dried roses from the first play I did last year at the school
and the girl who gave them to me is very sweet and talented
and now she looks away from me, and talks to me in a guarded way
Because she's just a kid and I'm not her drama teacher anymore
I must get over this, so I threw them all away and then I thought
about my engagement ring and how a therapist told me to have the diamond
reset, to preserve the fact that I was loved and I thought, I must get over
this and mostly I thought about how I needed he money so I sold it
for half of what my X claimed it was worth and I regret that.
I found the leashes for my beautiful black cat who died,
I would take him for walks when he was healthy and he had two different styles: flashy silver
and leopard.  And he looked good in both and what I wouldn't give to
have him back with me, all healthy and shiny and purring with his great roar of a purr that people could hear over the telephone with him sitting in my lap.
Things we have are given, and are taken away.
Even life itself, our own and those we love.
And I went back to the garbage, and underneath
coffee grinds and wet paper towels I retrieved a dry red rose
Because I was appreciated once, and I saved it.

His name is Little Guy
And last Friday his brother died
He's lived with me for eleven years
And when I cry he licks off my tears

He has small crossed eyes and a ****** back
At twenty one pounds, he's too big to put in a pack
He's grey and white and wears it well
As for catnip, he loves the smell

He's raised kittens like a mother
carrying them around and keeping them together
Not bad for the tiny runt of the litter

And now we are closer than ever
With his brother gone, it's only clever
To get closer to this special one
And my heart? That, he has already won.

The other day I sniffed
and it was me that stunk
do I really have that much underwear?
or have a been walking around all bare?
four weeks ago when this fury of busy began
I brought in a couple of fans
and stepped in one and hurt my toe
and still I know
the pain is there
and I sweat still and wonder where
my life has gone

Gone on for weeks now
sapping my strength
giving me pain
nothing but work in sight
and I have little might
left but it's all sapped
and I can't get back
to the health
of me

Gone on for weeks now
sapping my strength
giving me pain
nothing but work in sight
and I have little might
left but it's all sapped
and I can't get back
to the health
of me