11/30 Dream Reload

11/30

Dream Reload

In the dream

bed affixed to floor

I float above a river

mixed emotions

too many tears to count

she never looked for me

lost me on purpose

a trembling lip

of a lie

then a wave comes

pushes past

no more floating

now the falling begins

a slick steady thing

velocity and hallelujah hands

eyes wide open

seeing nothing

9/30 Strike

(Some of my 30/30 are poems written years ago finally reworked or edited. This is one of those.)

Strike

Wedged against a boulder scraping at flesh and bone.

The pain of getting to know what comes next,

what that look in your eyes actually means,

and what part of that definition will be left with the wreckage.

Wearing silence a halo pierced through with desire with hope.

Little running motions up my spine. Blood filtered through

the promise of forgotten promises.

When our lips first met in that pure place. Wild dogs bayed

at an unseen moon. Our teeth clashed and bit the way we

reached inside of each other. A forgone conclusion an eventual tumult.

We left our innocence wiped it away sweaty intentions.

Pride to proud to mention in that moment.

Clumsy and messy with all the moving parts and I knew I would not survive.

You held me too close, broke me, as if I were a fever.

4/30 Beam

Beam

she smiled at me

and I thought

what a nice smile

disarming in it slow reveal

a slide across teeth

beaming crookedly adorable

hand slapped on thigh

because

actually slapping yourself

in public

could be seen

as what it is not

and is at the same time

just a stinging reminder

that’s all

that  is all you want

in that moment

a reminder of how sliding

into a smile like that could     bite

like how good it might feel    all over

you have fallen into too many

the saliva stinging memories

you wish you never had

some you wish you had again

but you have no desire to time travel

to be somewhere you have already been

so you feel the sting

the slap

the tread carefully

you have a habit of running

chambers first

maybe this time

this time maybe

you want to go slow

recognize your own navigation

lead with something other than

what’s been broken a time too many

to count

National Poetry Month (1/30)

I am attempting 30/30 this month, thirty poems in thirty days, that I will be sharing here and on my 30/30 Blog. The last three years have been hard to unpack, so I am starting to reconcile my disappointment, and emotional duress and the words are forming. Most if not all of these attempts will be rough.

Here's the first one

Vaticination

noun vuh-tiss-uh-NAY-shun

1 : something foretold : prediction

2 : the act of prophesying

the worst

the best kind of lies

are told in the dark

sliding from whiskey soaked lips

slurring platitudes

like they have enough weight

to keep you

grounded

as you float above yourself

a sensation you will not remember

when dawn breaks

when the sun ignites

fumes of spent desire

as the forgetting begins

love recedes

falls back to lust

reclaiming the lonely it always was

even as it pretended

to be what it never

would

the bells ringing

missed intentions  

go unheard

a crashing

a siren singing songs

full of repressed shadows

hand over my mouth

no sound escapes

no utterance of anything solid

a fluttering thing

that holds your attention

holds it

as long as the glass is full

ice reflecting the hues of miscommunication

measured in proofs

in how much hope

you can hold between mutual distractions

when pleasure is so self-serving

it calls out its own name

hoards everything else

See these

these are the best ones

the lies that can only remember

who you are

once you’ve left

the only part

you did not ever think

you would lose again

The Flaw

“When unrequited love is the most expensive thing on the menu, sometimes you settle for the daily special.”
― Miranda Kenneally


A piece of a tooth broke loose today. I am reminded that at the moment I have no real health insurance and while distressing, the tooth doesn't have any real pain associated with the loss of the piece. I attribute the ache in my jaw with clenching my teeth and worrying at what is left. I was not meant to have a mouth full of perfect teeth. Maybe if in my youth I'd have taken better care, maybe if with my first pregnancy I had realized how completely the baby takes everything it needs first, maybe if I had stayed in a relationship built in failure, but rot with health benefits maybe then I would have been blessed with pearly whites that flash against the dark of the not so perfect life I would have been privy to. Pretty teeth, but a very awful existence. Not for me. Not for my children.

This is not the first broken tooth I have ever had and I am fairly sure it won't be the last, and teeth are not the only broken things that have laced my life. As humans we all have the luxury of being flawed. Some will attempt to fix those visible flaws, give the appearance of perfection or physical flawless but it's a kind of band-aid. If looked at in the right light the flaw can still be seen. Some flaws are acquired like debt. Like memory. Like regret. My teeth are flawed but it's my heart I worry about.

Is it possible that denying myself love when it was first presented has doomed me to never have it? I don't want to believe that but there are days when the notion slaps at me and well, it gets my attention. I do not believe that I am in love now, but the idea that I could one day be intrigues and terrifies. I am not so much terrified of being in love but I am truly terrified of being rejected. So my usual tactic is to cleverly, I think I'm being cleaver, run from it. Not in a fast paced, heavy breathing kind of way but more a pretend I don't feel and am not bothered, or hurt but responses or lack of response to any expression of interest or affections I offer. A flaw. This has never worked in the past and I don't disillusion myself by thinking it will happen for the twentieth time, it won't, I know this, but still. I am human and to deny that wanting would create yet another flaw and I am all flawed up right now. No need to keep piling them on when I have a stockpile already.


My son, who struggles with my sexuality, has lately taken to asking me if I am happy several times a day when we are together. So my veneer has cracked and I am no longer capable of keeping the lonely out of my eyes. Another flaw. Seems I'm chock full of them these days. I know it is unrealistic to think that the children I have raised will not pick up on my moods, I mean I raised them to feel, not a flaw. The lonely can be taken care of. And who knows in the pursuit of chasing away lonely I might run into a heart that wants to run into my heart. Maybe, maybe not. I haven't tried because I think I know what I want. But I don't have a great track record of getting what I want so maybe the additional flaw is that I really have no idea what I want. So I will assuage my lonely with the soft skin of another who wants nothing from me, which seems appropriate since I don't seem to know what I want for myself.

This feeling of inadequate, I don't consider a flaw. I am human, and humans all over the globe have felt this feeling. I do worry that I'll get stuck here and lose pieces of my heart but unlike the broken tooth, more breaking of my already flawed and broken heart will be pain I can't ignore and no amount of healthcare can fix that. especially since I don't have any healthcare right now.

hamster wheels

i know better than to expect change in anyone else. people don't change, circumstances do and the person can move within that. what is it about us that makes us crave another just to try to change them? i made a mistake. tried to tempt fate go back in time. for this i will be plagued by what if. i made the decision. one i can't take back, but to end it now, even though feelings will be hurt and i run the risk of being hated by one i used to love, it's what must be done. for a year we tried, and failed each other, and now we must move on.