HERE IS MY SET OF POEMS THAT I TURNED IN A FEW WEEKS AGO! HOPE YOU ALL ENJOY! I DIDN'T WANT THIS TO BE UNDERLINED, P.S.!
Untitled Summer
the crickets have kept me company these past couple nights.
the nights when sleep has slipped from the grasp of my fingers
and found it fancies you
warm, thick, humid air circulates around my exposed skin,
the dark, iron furniture’s icy stare is not cold enough
to cool the emanating heat
dreamless days and slumber elusive evenings have left me
void of my emotions and motivations.
at least my insect friends will sing their sweet summer songs
as soon as dusk settles itself in each evening
the patterns of earthly rotation and
appendage frictions
have become the only two things that
i am sure of anymore
the things I can count on to occur
never changing
never deserting me
never afraid of my expectations
their routine is all I have
bagels toast late at night after Belgium wheat ales
swim through my insides
mom has already fallen asleep and cannot be the big spoon
to my little tonight
Grocery List Work Week
1. The last few nights she’d had a recurring nightmare in which she died alone.
2. This time last year, she was dead.
3. Five years from now, he will be, too.
4. As for God, He was neither here, nor there, and
5. The smell of chlorinated skin grafts brought back those humid, suffocating, lukewarm nights (or were they mornings?), stifling, weaving together the threads of familiar appendages, limbs of lust, skin getting caught on skin from morning moisturizers and perspiration combined, something seeming different, her tongue sensing the stickiness in the atmosphere’s surrounding precipitation, suddenly stuck to the roof of her mouth, leaving her voiceless.
6. Remember remembering. Stroll the nostalgic pavements of her mind’s childhood suburbia. “But there was more than just one she’ll say. I don’t have a hometown to claim.
7. When she answers the phone, pressing the cordless receiver to her ear, a seashell supposedly whispering oceanic secrets, she’ll be asked to “accept the charges of a collect call from Soledad State Prison” by a robotic male’s voice. No and it’s always no. She places the hand-held back into its cradle to recharge the lithium battery, the superfluous skeletons of the silent, hollow, shells returned to their sand sender; they never say a goddamn thing; maybe tiny grains give off energy, give tales to tell.
I Left Breakfast & Lunch For You At The Front Desk
I hurry to his hamper
or rather lack thereof
a mountain of mixed materials
a dirty hill of haphazard
thrown laundry
once worn garments
love his skin’s smell
in the same way as I do
clinging to the static electricity
that only skin cells can generate
A ball of undershirts
he uses as single entities
smother my nose with the scent
of his days the days
during solitary confinement
I more often than not
am without his company
the comfort of bare epidermal canvas
an oil painting brushed into being
by his strokes
I dream of the Downy dryer sheets
mixed with a cigarette addiction
and a blatant refusal to
rub a deodorizing stick
beneath his pits
a sea of sweat with waves crashing sweetly
no sour undertow to sweep
an inexperienced swimmer beyond
comfortable zones
A drumstick tucked between rolling plains
cotton anarchy
black skinny jeans
pedometer
metronome
keys singing from the belt loops
the ability to unlock the most secret of doors
hallways spanning in front of us now
where will the maze come to an end?
when will we find the pot of gold?
Why I Write
I turned forty-two yesterday
Two years ago to the day
(to the day)
when the mammography center
called with malicious results,
no sympathy in his tone.
I found my old notebooks
I wanted to explore the things
I used to believe were the most trying,
the things I believed were truths,
my truths
I never imagined chemotherapy cocktails,
radiation waves of emotion,
tufts of wispy blonde strands,
fuzzy orbs falling out
by my scalp’s square inch
What did I know then that I have forgotten to know now?
What have I learned to forget?
(my heart’s survival strategies)
I laugh to myself in the privacy of our guest room,
chuckle softly in an embarrassed,
yet proud, sort of way when I thumb through pages
of penmanship scrawled in flurries of urgent creativity,
series separated for separated love interests,
my youth was never a lonely place
How strange the heart and mind once were
(or are they still elusive in their meaning?)
What connection do they have?
I used to think with my heart
(Now, I’ve forgotten how)
I think, perhaps,
some of the beats were given away,
the majority of my tissues dissolved
once in the hands of my many subjects
(A ventricle gifted in child birth)
(An atria to my husband)
(A valve or two for my household duties)
(I kept none for myself)
But I cannot take back what I’ve willingly doled out
(No, no)
Now, I am left to deal with what is left:
A wig,
An empty nest,
And a spouse who sleeps in a separate bed.
“Ring out the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.”
-Leonard Cohen
My Sunday starts when I slip away
from the sheets still warm with my skin’s heat,
I shower away Saturday night’s cigarettes,
cranberry juice,
vodka,
club soda,
step out onto the wasteland of surrounding cement.
Cars flash past on the slick asphalt,
the whirring of buses,
the occasional subwoofer
pounding out the beat of a broken heart,
life surrounding me
and my soul could not feel so sorry for itself
tempos lost
as heels tap ground quartz,
and I used to believe Tinkerbell
had sprinkled pixie dust across the sidewalks
when the sun would reveal their sparkles,
catching my peripheral.
Dear T,
I confess this to you trusting your knowledge
of human fallibility, and your accepting nature:
loneliness has nothing to do with the people
I can count as caring and supporting
my decisions. Loneliness is a sleepless
Saturday night, crickets rubbing
their insect appendages against each
other, causing the friction responsible for a warm,
summer soundtrack, the tick-tock of my Peter Pan clock
tracking their orchestra, a metronome, keeping their tempo together.
I’ve lost my tempo.
Funny, isn’t it, that someone capable
of setting the pace for an entire five-piece
band is the one responsible for this off
beat note that has become my life,
my days,
my sleepless nights,
the absence of your company, good company.
Or, actually, no-
I am the one that catalyzed this dropping of the drumstick
chain of events. And now, look what I’ve done.
I’ve allowed the wooden percussion producing piece
to lay on the floor next to the base pedal for far too long,
so long not only you have taken notice,
but also the rest of the lounge patrons.
“We paid $5 to get in for this?” they’ll say.
And all I can do is retrieve this fallen soldier,
the failed Hammer of God attempt from the dusty stage floor,
and do my best to keep the next melody’s beat.
I hope you won’t leave before I’m given that chance.
Please stay.
Don’t go.
Love,
A
Lost Boys
I.
I wander through the park,
trying to find myself amongst
my rose garden companions,
and why wouldn’t I?
Delicate petals invite me in,
to touch,
to feel,
to experience something else
that is just as fragile and breakable
as a palette of human emotions
I search for myself amongst
this smorgasbord of beauty
blessed to breathe their breezes
As hard as I look,
squinting my eyes to focus,
digging deeper and deeper into the dirt,
I am not here to be found,
I don’t think I want to be found
I will just search for Peter Pan
in visits to follow,
a little girl to my right claims
to have spotted him in the forest
behind my bench,
swears she saw him, dad
Is that not the wish we all bestow
upon the second start to the left?
To be taken away to a place
where growing up is forbidden?
***
II.
A little girl has grown
into adolescence, I gave up
on the promise of a Never, Never Land,
of always being allowed to flee
responsibility.
Bells from Santa’s sash have lost
their ring of seasonal song,
the only rustle of tree branches
stem from spring susurrous breezes,
summer dusk spent searching shadows,
my Pan surrendered to Hook,
was that not too long ago?
No one will ever know,
the devices detecting time’s tally
were destroyed by Shmee,
the Easter bunny’s eggs, trampled yolks,
Leprachaun feet dripping yellow.
“My sweet girl,
you were so sure you saw every young hearts’
desire, but you’ve forgotten the most
important part regarding your end of the deal;
you were told to hold on to your baby teeth.
Did that fairy thief pick-pocket your sockets too?
Did she forget to compensate with silver dollars
so shiny and new, you could see straight down
your throat into your soul, through the spot
in your smile where your gums could no longer
grasp one of its pearls?
Or did your molars lose their babies when you lost your marbles?”
Seven
Isn’t it strange to think one day it won’t be like this;
that one day, we will not have one of those weeks
where every day’s diction is that of a sailor,
where we are pleased with our
perfectly carved out pumpkin roles,
to fill those roles like a tea light,
illuminating the cracks,
the crooked smile,
hollowed out eyes,
from the inside out,
but when will that elusive hour arrive,
when will the plane begin the final decent
into a concrete world of constructed happiness,
where happiness is a tangible thing
that you really can buy at the corner store,
there are 57 varieties
and the formulas keep on multiplying for more varieties,
composed with customer satisfaction on the line,
coming soon, can you believe that
they have found a way to force feed us
endorphin induced smiles without
the pharmaceutical pigs playing mastermind?
(and what will be the next quick fix after this
product becomes back ordered, sold out,
unavailable to the general public, only the wealthy
growing grins the size of their bellies,
the middle class moving back into a mediocre mass,
a bolus of half masticated,
the manufactured meat of 800 animals,
sacrificed for one bite that doesn’t even seem to satisfy,
and the poor, well, they were already Debby downers from the get-go)
Instructions for Finding A Way To Keep Myself Whole:
1. Transfer $20 meant for child #1’s weekend fun into my fun account – get pedicure
2. At 4:00, do not begin planning dinner – observe and record child #2’s mechanism for dealing with this curve ball, and attempt imitation
3. Sleep in, or at least stay in bed, until 9:00 a.m. come Saturday AND Sunday morning
4. Research non-sexual foot massage business listings, and see if they provide tickling on their menu – be prepared for confused responses in broken English
5. Turn your phone off for a day
6. Throw water in your boss’s face when she morphs into monster mode
7. Get a puppy
8. Win $15 on the lottery scratchers from Monte Vista Market to add to fun account.
June I
I long mostly for warm, quiet evenings of dusk, when we would eat dinner as a family on the wooden deck, three years remodeled, now some sort of plastic material not resembling wood whatsoever, all too late, their childhoods fled months ago (though, I can still sense it throbbing inside of one) and my youngest will not get the chance to trip over her clumsy feet, my clumsy feet, sliding into the grain of the splinters growing opposite, as if she were stealing 2nd, her forearms pulsating with the pain brightly, Pepto-Bismol pink with irritation, slivers every centimeter of skin.
The nights where watermelon slices sufficed as a side dish, the corn on the cob Minnie Mouse holders, buttery juices dripping from baby chins, down to bare bellies, washing away the last traces of Coppertone protection. The short grasses still matted from where the small, inflatable pool was constructed, I inflated each of the two tiers myself, then delivered huge pots of warmth from the kitchen sink tap, filling its emptiness, a tepid temperature, beach towels thrown into the dryer five minutes before their pruned, innocent skin emerged from the water wars of splashing siblings.
I didn’t want them to ever be cold. I’d feel just terrible.
June II
When the seasons switch from Spring to Summer, and everyone is fooled by the month, July will be foggy and so will August, the expectations that come with a time of year when my insides are bubbles floating to the top of a Swarovski crystal champagne flute, and dusk seems to last for an eternity, a blissful eternity, more moments to hear infinite infant giggles, the smell of sprinkler heads unloading magazines of glee with machine gun patterns, bullets of water, the droplets dispersing, resembling the exact opposite of calendar month, a precise setting selected for the string of multi-colored lights illuminating a Douglas Fir Christmas tree.
I give it one week. Tops.
And on the 8th day, we will rest, thinking the summer has finally figured out when to arrive, awakening early from slumber so deep and efficient, the heat takes if out of me, even though I felt uncomfortable with the sheets beneath me, exposed and vulnerable without their thin sheath of security. I love the way my skin tingles when she wipes my neck and back with a light blue washcloth and gently blows an air of relief over my landscapes, disappointment growing as the moisture dries and my solace flees. I tried to preserve that sensation by leaving my bed mostly made. I sucked on the corner of the cloth while she was in the kitchen refilling my water cup.
When the brightness with which a summer sun finds a way to filter through wooden blinds doesn’t come, I will not know when to rise and shine, when the ideal time to start slurping down slices of seedless, juicy filled, perfectly textured melons with a frosted and sprinkled Pop-Tart.
The sky will be cement, a hot headache burst of sick shooting up into my head, straight from the belly always right before I vomit, it must’ve been the ground chuck she used to make the hamburgers for dinner on the deck, again.
Just yesterday, the backyard was serving its patio furniture purpose, but today the benches are covered with fancy jackets to prevent the moisture dense atmosphere from ruining their finely lacquered finish, the wood promised it would not rot if those who sit upon it promised they would not, either.
July
I never check to see if the coast is clear, to spy any mosquito eaters or moths, any winged invaders, awaiting my forgetfulness, using my lapse, unconscious behaviors, to rush a door, the door I pull inward, they always seem to seize the opportunity, the minutest of moments, I swear they’ve got special sensors that sound when the door knob turns.
I’ve spent a good portion of my life watching the spectacle my parents become as they chase after a warm weathered guest, even the insects are confused, a flimsy fly swatter, pastel and plastic, slapping unsuccessfully at the precise point of a latex painted ceiling, the crossing of coordinates where a feisty flyer rested only a flutter ago.
Now, there are phantom blinds, these expensive covers that hide inside the walls, pulled from the darkness when fresh air is crucial. I forget to close those too, and my parents do not. I have walked into the tightly woven netting three times already, and when I push the screens back into the depth of sheetrock, fumbling over profane slanders, the pests translate and hear an invitation: “come on in!”.
They laugh when I smack into the blinds. I can hear them, so amused they are crying.
