Waiting

I have been pining for you, old friend

I have been searching my organs for

clues of your existence

I have been listening to the buzz of

the lamps, my friend

I have been understanding that we

are all without evidence

Fear

March 25, 2004, California

Today I saw Dr. Winston and then Carrie.  They are all on the same page about the Lexapro.  I have four boxes of free samples sitting on my counter.  I am told that this is not a failure of strength or will.  Hopefully one day I’ll believe it.

Recovery

In a bold moment

            I said it had been worth it

            but knew you did not believe me       and neither did I

                        my black and blue hope you were hearing     

                                    to come

                                                to fight

                       

I am so tired of death

            please

                                    let it just once be life

Conversation with George, Pt. 3

I’m sorry, George,

I reply.

I didn’t know.  I wish

I could fight them for

you.

They would slash you to

ribbons,

he says.  You, who

can’t shout, who

runs in slow motion,

who can’t dial a

phone, or remember

our mission.

I wish you were interested in

our mission.

I have to stay here until

you set it in

motion.

That isn’t going to

happen, I tell him.

Are you or aren’t you

my friend?

Friend, he repeats,

sounding surprised.  Why

would I be your

friend?  What would the

point be in that?

We have a war to

fight,

and I am your weapon.

The boys are nice

enough, and I could do without

the dolls and their

knives, and sometimes

my thoughts echo.

But there is no love

here.

Look somewhere else

for it.

Acceptance

Not for the first time the King felt a fit of rage that he’d even met Kitty.  How absurd that she would just stumble into the Interior when he, and not someone else, was monarch.  And through the Arizona window, when the Last Window was located mere moments from her home.  Why?  Why couldn't she have fallen through some other window, realized her mistake, and retreated again to the safety of her own world?  Why had Kitty stepped through at just the moment she would nearly run smack into him on an extremely unusual scouting mission?  If only he could understand.  If only he could turn back time and make it so that he never knew she existed.

A child's dream

Go ahead                               

say it was supposed to be so

                That the color of light would blind me

                And the mystery of this starry night would deny me

the reason why I loved you

more than snow on my

birthdays in December

Hidden

1994, Diary entry

Erica calls me a couple of days after Thanksgiving.  We talk for a while about work and debts and boyfriends.  I thought I knew everything but now I realize I know almost as close to nothing as you can get without having fallen here on accident from another planet.

Abandoned

This one last time                    come along with me                you run so slow I lost you centuries ago                     now is not where you said you would be               leaving me alone and out of breath                    this breakdown in the making                        where are you love      where are you sleeping            I am awake I am all aware      that I am here and you are there                         you do not belong to me         you do not belong to me

Yesterday's storm

There are many ways to die.  She died believing she had survived.  But all that survived were her involuntary functions, like breathing, and hoping.  Everything that moved under direction was murdered.  There can be no free will.  There can be nothing left that opens all of the doors in the hallway.  There can be no way through the red straw network.  There can only be walking.  Walking and walking and walking.  And there must be acceptance.  Her life was forfeit.  It was never meant to be practiced.  It was meant to be sacrificed to the greater cause.  If only the buffoon hadn't been such a buffoon.  The great buffoon who accidentally saved them all by being so very useless and weird.  It does not matter who you are or where you came from if you are weird, and, therefore, unpredictable.  Close counts in more than just horseshoes and hand grenades.

He was a fool.  Even with fools he could not fit in.  He was a fool who fools despised, because he did not know he was weird.  His genius brain betrayed him.  Everything and everyone betrayed him.  It was a family full of nuclear silences.  The bomb has yet to go off.  Instead the leaking radiation is killing us all.

Memory selection

                                                                                               

This is my heart in denial
the scratching of the diamond

against the vinyl

I was young once it seems

and I spun your etched

reflection inside

of me

But reality is the toe breaker

is the dance

is the false teeth sitting

innocent in the glass

Unwound

January 1, 1983

Dear Diary,

Yesterday my mom went to the hospital for 2 weeks.  My dad came to stay with us.  He’s a little too organized and clean.  I love him a lot though.  I miss Mom already.  Today me, Steve, and Dad went to get Dad’s stuff.  Grandpa was a little grouchy.  I haven’t seen Joan since last night.  She’s always with Brian.  I like Brian, though.  I called Mom today.  She made 2 friends and is doing better.

Waiting

No telling how the earth will

record this disaster

whistling dixie in the wind

as if I had the answer

            ballet with fractured form

tripped up by vengeful rapture

the hammer flung against

the wall

Fire Dance

            “How charming,” Alturis said, laughing.  “But now you must come out from under there.”

            “Why should I?”

            “For a lot of reasons, most of them mine.  And for some of your own as well.  Aren’t you a little bit like a fish in a barrel right now?”

            “You’re just going to kill me anyway.”

            “But you won’t have a chance to escape unless you come out.”

            Megan frowned.  That was a good point.

            “Besides,” Alturis added, “you are much too old to be hiding underneath the bed.”

Before and After

The clock

            is a lie that

                        I must keep

                                    unwound

Predictability

a lucky thing

A coin with two heads

or two tails

                        as the case may be

And yet too late

just one second too late

The Queen

              For a moment Kitty could have sworn the Minister was going to explode.  But when he smiled instead, Kitty almost wished he hadn’t.  Nothing about that smile felt like a warm fuzzy.  “You must be a queen in your world,” he said, but Kitty shook her head.  “No.  Only a girl.”

“There is nothing ‘only’ about it,” the Minister replied, in such a way that made Kitty’s skin crawl.  “Well, my dear, I would love to chat and learn more about you, but it appears that I must take my leave.  Until we meet again.”

And the image vanished as mysteriously as it appeared.

The view from here

the story that binds me to you

a balloon floating up into the sky

And then the sun came...

I want someone to trust.  There was a girl who kept trying.  But then she got tired and stopped.  She was the girl who wanted to feel smart and special, except that got tiring, too.  It was just so much work.  Now she isn’t a girl anymore.  She is just another person full of panic and desperation.

Yesterday's dancer

How I would like nothing more than

to feel the cadence of your

pulsating love again

Nothing more than to know it is me who

you tried with your heartbreak

to protect

Instead I am left waiting on the hill

shaking with knowledge of

lost connections

I am left on the pier with memories of the dead

their sorrow pointed toward

the horizon

The waiting angel

Tiredly I leaned back against the damp, cold ground.  When I closed my eyes I heard some more snuffling, and then felt her fuzzy head against the palm of my hand.  We will be safe tonight, I thought to myself.  Tomorrow was anybody’s guess.   Absolute safety would never be mine to have.  It simply didn't exist. 

The view from above

Yes you were a picture in a book                    nestled between a cranny and a nook             where I could close my eyes and see       but the library locked its doors        and I am prostrate on the floor                    you do not belong to me               you do not belong to me

Letting go

It cost me the ravage of an atomic rage

poisoned the air with its smoke-orange memories

maybe it will melt my blistering heart

maybe it will leave me to freeze in 

the drift of its nuclear winter

when the death that crouches in wait for me

crouches close for you, too

The coming frost

She waits for dreams but they are so often the same.  She waits for someone to tell her something.  She is so used to accepting.  Accepting and accepting and accepting.  Some say this is a virtue, but acceptance can be the first stage of surrender.  She no longer fights, because she accepts.  She gives up.

Reflections

Listen to me.

We are the paint peel chipping,
dangling over the prickly
bushes,
waiting with an eye
toward falling.
I wonder who I will be
when I am cut and
bleeding -
I wonder who I will be
when I have
given up.

It is like the blanking of
a color screen,
the bleaching of dark
green carpeting.
Hold my hand for just
a little while.
We are moving
and fading
on and on.

And you have become all
of what is to go.
Once you were the buttercup
dripping,
dislocating the litter
lodged inside of
me,
when now I have
nothing inside
to lose.

Yes, I wanted to hold your hand,
for just a little while.
But we are a love song
moving and
fading
on and on...

What cannot be mended

“Just before your friend Andy came back here,” Alturis said, peeling an apple with meticulous attention, “he shot and killed someone.  Did he tell you that?”

            “No," Meg answered through gritted teeth, "he didn't."

            “Well he did.  Even more unfortunate, that person happened to be my brother.”

            Meg just looked at him.

           Alturis paused to cut the apple into slices.  Once he finished this, he went on, “Apparently your Andy had never killed someone before.  It disturbed him.  So he took a leave of absence and retreated to his family home.  Which is where we found him.  And you,” Alturis added graciously, as if it were impolite to not mention her place in his diabolical scheme.  “Bad information led me to—what was their name?—the Gergens or the Bourbons or whoever.  It’s hard to find good help nowadays.”

            “I wouldn't know," Meg returned, trying to block out the memory of the Bergen's dead bodies lying in their living room.  "I'm not in the market for henchmen.”

            “And a good thing for you, too.”

            “But that doesn't explain what you want with me.”

            “Doesn't it?” Alturis asked--and smiling, he popped an apple slice into his mouth.

Conversation with George, Pt. 2

I could ask what you were made to do,

I reply.

But I don’t think I want to know.

That’s not a secret, he says.  I was

made to think.

And I do think.  I tell you things,

sometimes, when you’re half-asleep,

or not afraid or interested or

desperate.

I wish you were more interested.

I would tell you more.

I know enough, I answer.

But you don’t, he insists.

You really don’t.  I could tell you

about the oceans and why the

rivers flow and what makes

you not want to wake up.

I could tell you so much.

The boys come, scale the walls.

They whisper things to me,

so that I know why.

Sometimes I escape,

but this is my home.

And the dolls with knives

chase me.  Dolls as

big as you are.

I don’t like them very much.

No, I say, they don’t sound

very nice.

They aren’t, he answers.

They shout things at me from

the other side of the

walls.

“You, boy,” they say,

“you shut up, or we’ll cut

you!”

You wouldn't think a doll

with blonde hair and

pig tails could be so

vicious.

Alive

In this lexicon of sorrow

I am too tired to speak for myself

if you saw miracles spring from darkness

I saw only memory

swathed in charcoal dusty

dream

Hiding in plain sight

“Where are we going?” Kitty asked him.  “The King just said the Window was nearby, not where it actually was.”

“It is in a field next to an extremely large building,” Jaguar replied.  “Beyond that I am afraid I cannot be more specific, as I confess I have not taken the time to learn the building’s function.”

“Huh,” Kitty answered, puzzled by where he could mean.  Her town was not exactly a thriving metropolis: the only large buildings next to a field she could think of included the police station, which bordered a meadow on the other side of town, and the liquor store, next to a vacant lot about 5 miles away.  She was desperately hoping the King hadn't miscalculated the distance and that she wouldn't need to walk there when Jaguar came to a stop.  “We are here,” he said, but Kitty had to do a double take before she trusted herself to answer, “The high school!  You must be kidding!”

“I am afraid not.  Is this where you are receiving your education?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Kitty said, stunned to think she had been this close to the Last Window all of these years and had never known it.  Her mistake in trying to guess the location from Jaguar’s description had been in her interpretation of the word field, because Jaguar hadn't meant the kind with wildflowers and hornet’s nests.  He had meant the kind the junior varsity football squad practiced on.

“Do you see the Window?” he asked her

Kitty peered into the darkness.  “Oh my god, yes,” she exclaimed, because there it was, shimmering in the moonlight, just in front of the goal posts.  She wondered how on earth she could have missed it before now…until she remembered that she hated organized sports and avoided all practice fields like the plague.

What remains

I slipped inside of the

oily puddle today.

Even though I knew it

was there.

The twig you threw was good

enough to save

itself, barely.

Still, it was the strangest thing.

While I was waiting,

suddenly I had this tree.

Not much moves me,

but I had to move for the roots.

They were so big.

It burned inside, I know it.

The petrol had to burn the

branches inside,

had to leave scars that

never turn white.

The explosion would have

horrified you,

had you waited to see.

Oil does that—

it explodes.

And then there is nothing left.

Not even a twig.

Convictions

were you caught

in the fire storm of a million

conversations

or lost

in a dying admission

because just one thing I can show

and that is I am here

without you

alone

Committee Meeting notes, March 4, 2008, 12:25 a.m.

All members present and accounted for, except for the monkey, who is already bored and feels his presence is not required.

Melvin would like to point out that Marissa still looks very bulky yet ate several sweets today.

Marissa responds that she is quite aware.

Melvin is also worried that Marissa is a bit full of herself at the moment, which, he believes, is never a good sign.

Mike suggests that Melvin is a jerk.

Mirabella, as usual, has nothing to say.

Minnie is tired and wants to pet the cats.

Melinda is sure the world is about to come to an end.  Not even the monkey is interested.

Melvin gives his permission for certain stories to be told.  Marissa is fine with that.  Melvin remarks yet again on Marissa's bulky appearance and on her "loose" grasp of reality.

Marissa is annoyed and calls the meeting to an end.

Elegy

Now our half-truths ship out

under cover of a cloud-filled sky

the sun you once spoke of

never any friend of mine

can you feel it rain

can you?          

The sleeping bear

All of the followers had gone, sucked up into the girl’s funnel cloud and carried off to god knows where.  What remained lay on the ground, broken.  The restaurant would not be serving again.

I was wondering with a pang of regret where Marietta had gone when a dishevelled figure with a lopsided purple hairdo and an old face limped over to me.  The cruelty in her expression had now become mingled with resentment.  We just stood and looked at each other for a while, until she said, “You think you have won.  But the spell is broken for you, too.”

“I know,” I answered.  “But at least I can live with myself.”

“We’ll see about that,” she replied.  She then disappeared, rather against her will, I thought, into a cloud of foul-smelling smoke.

The enemy within

silence a mocking foe

shrouded in hope

I was waiting where did you go        

you cannot say and I         

I just do not know

from way over there

you do not echo anywhere

I am so

lost

the deadliest place is no place new at all

Haunted

Restless again, Megan wandered over to the window.  Outside she saw a man standing on the corner.  He had thinning blond hair, and he was gazing up at the hotel with a look of inexpressible sadness on his face: Andy.  Megan stepped back into the shadows, not wanting to embarrass him.  She wondered why he had come.  After all of his determined effort to avoid the traps of their past, what would he say to her?  What would she say to him?

With a little frown Andy lowered his head.  He then turned around and walked away.

Megan let the curtain fall back into place, as an overwhelming sense of loss inside of her did bloody battle with acceptance.  It's okay, she told herself.  Or at least it would be.  She just had to hang in there.  Tomorrow this, too, would all just be a memory.

Innocence lost

a triumph but for you 

my one truth worth deceiving

a child’s dream for tomorrow so good           

it deserved to be buried

behind the wall a red she had never seen