Wednesday 31 May 2017

Collision, Pt. 2


The riddle, he says.  When?

There is no riddle, I answer.
Just whispers that eat away at 
denial
not the rotten bitter kind
but the type that keeps the
hopeless alive.
How sweet it was,
that blue sky.
I saw it.
Now I am resigned.
Tell me
is this victory?

There is no winning,
the dragon replies.
There is only acceptance.
Remember the riddle.
It is your only choice.

Monday 29 May 2017

There is Nowhere but Here

We are all quietly sitting in an auditorium.  We are waiting for the presentation—for the balding man to come and turn on the projector and show us transparencies.  He will write on them in marker, circle the important bits, underline words, draw arrows.  We will all sit quietly but make no notes, because notes are not allowed.  We will just hear it again and again until his lecture is all we know.  And it is always the same lecture.  The same lecture again and again, with the same arrows and underlined words.  I have heard it so many times the words mean nothing to me.  They roll past me like tumbleweed on the road.  I will stare straight ahead and hear nothing and turn written words into straws that represent intersecting hallways, each one leading somewhere I am not allowed to go.  Because I am a master.  I am a genius.



Lost


My lungs whisper love songs of 
you 
only to betray them  
with spasms of 
breath


Sunday 28 May 2017

The Problem with Memory


I hear riddles all day long
words but not in 
English 
no one wants
me to know
My heart is a tinderbox
I am not allowed to 
open


Friday 26 May 2017

Fading


Because he was a vision in snow       

the carrier of my fears             he infected you with my reality          he melted you with my tears               he held out his hand as I looked for you             he was the last of my projections                       this hologram I could not see through              the carrier of your rejection     


Wednesday 24 May 2017

Through the Glass



They found it, separately.  Sometimes one at a time, sometimes in small groups.  They all instinctively shied away from each other, accepted without argument that certain hallways would remain locked to them.  What did they want to see each other for, anyway?  They didn’t.  They didn’t, and they wouldn’t.

Once they had all arrived and found their own shadowy corners, the teenage boy appeared.  He went to a courtyard in the middle, surrounded on all sides by brick walls with windows that opened from the inside.  On a white sheet spread out over the concrete ground he began placing red plastic drinking straws.  No one watched him and he paid no one else any attention.

Over time the straws began to form a pattern.  Those hiding in the brick building did not want to look at it, and when they did, they pretended not to understand.  It must be a formula, they said to each other. The kind that only made sense to a math genius.  They were not math geniuses, so they would never understand it.  Satisfied, they slid away from the windows. 

But the group of pirate boys living in the trees overhead did not leave.  They watched from the tree house they had built high in the branches.  They knew what the red straws on the white sheet meant.  They knew it was a key.  A key to a map that would lead everyone in the building to the one place no one wanted to go.  

Tuesday 23 May 2017

The Witch, redux


“I am not a witch,” she told me.  “I am a goddess.  And so will you be, as long as you do what you’re told.”

I looked at her for a long moment.  And then I said, “You were my mother once."

The witch smiled and gave a little shrug.  “The universe is our mother.” 


where did I go to

just to be loyal            
to one last deception
cycles of wishing
no chance to be faithful

the line for redemption
from here to forever
that jail you broke out of
the last portal to heaven

Monday 22 May 2017

Inevitability


The defense has become the obstacle
I cannot give it up
it is giving me up
it is waving goodbye
it has become boring
please please please
it has become boring
I look out of the bus window and I see
houses and a golf course
not ready
keeps rattling at the gate
let me kiss you 
goodbye

Sunday 21 May 2017

After the Rain


We are one day past forever
so let me tell you a
story
full of hope and
recrimination

and yet somehow                   
somehow

            hello hello                    fire in the hole

I wonder
but I cannot get past the bluster
the suggestion dripping down my throat

We tried but
            this is not what I
kiss me good night
            as forgiveness winds around my
could we just
            a lie must never be hunted
when the game is already dead to me

I could tell you a story
full of tomorrows and redemption
but who would we be
kidding
acceptance is the poison

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

Saturday 20 May 2017

Murk


No road led to anywhere safe.  I could never again be either my mother’s punching bag or Christine’s project, to compensate for all of the failure in their own lives.  Nor could I divorce Rick.  Whatever or whoever he was, my soul—my entire being—had merged with his.  It was ludicrous to think I could leave him now.  To leave Rick would require me to kill the last part of me that still clung to life.

And yet neither could I just carry on.  Each choice I made, each breath I took, led to disaster.  I no longer believed in the future.  I wasn’t even sure I believed in love anymore—at least, not the redemptive kind.  All I did know was that I felt like a shattered piece of china glued back together one too many times.  I had no idea who or what to trust, who to blame, or who to forgive.  But the terrified child inside of me refused to be silenced.  She would not leave me be.

The truth could no longer be avoided.  I was damaged beyond repair.  This time there would be no gluing me back together again.

*From my novel The Dragon in the Elevator, revised and soon to be re-published.

Thursday 18 May 2017

Closed


You think you know.  You can never know.  You will never know anything other than a name that means nothing to you.  You are trapped in the network.  The hallway has no exit.  The bicycle has no wheels.  If you step outside of the red lines there is nothing to stand on.  You will fall.  You will fall, and you will not even remember how to scream.  But it won’t matter.  Because no one would hear you if you did.  

Witness


time is a monster          asleep under the carpet
so easy to trip up on                   to cover in never
with purples and yellows      not just for pictures

but her yesterday sees
her tomorrow remembers

Wednesday 17 May 2017

Knowledge


For the first time since my marriage, the dragon visited my dreams.  As we stood facing each other in the meadow I could never paint, I told him, “You were right.  I don’t love them.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.  “I hope you don’t feel responsible.”

“The worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves.  But, please—do you know who he is?”

“Of course.  So do you.”

My shoulders slumped.  “I knew you wouldn’t tell me.  I’m just so tired.”

“Then wake up,” the dragon answered.  “You’ve been asleep long enough.”

I opened my eyes.  When I looked over at Rick, he was sleeping soundly next to me.  It was almost morning.

Tuesday 16 May 2017

Shadows


silence a mocking foe
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

Monday 15 May 2017

Debris


were you caught
in the firestorm 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
               
perhaps                 

just as it should be

but in our graveyard of
convictions
one last night
of fading ambition

your promise on the end of my 
fingertips
and it falls
it falls



Sunday 14 May 2017

The Bump in the Night


does it live deep within me
does it breathe alone 
will it break my heart
or just shatter my bones


Saturday 13 May 2017

A Million Miles Away


We are not winners.  We are mantras.  We are encouraging words sent to each other in emails that we won’t really mean.  We are inspirational quotes on posters with rays of light piercing clouds while beautiful people look on.  We are the two-sentence explanation that solves what ails the protagonist.  We are the ones who know, not so deep down inside, that next year will be no different from the last.  We are the dozens of therapists who ran out of techniques to lay siege against our fortress of failure.  We are winning at losing, and you will never stop us.

So he says.  So he says.

Friday 12 May 2017

Stone


Far out of your orbit
spinning in slow motion
Trying to shout louder
than a kitten’s mewling
Will the planets find me
all my silent crying
When now I can feel nothing
only my plates shifting
Into old arrangements
nothing ever changes
nothing at all...

Thursday 11 May 2017

January's Relapse


Most remained here with me

I gave some to the wind                       
the wind that separated my toes

but something 
stayed    crept     poked
inside
whispered
never mind the frost 
outside
inside is just as cold

Wednesday 10 May 2017

History


No telling how the earth 
will record this 
disaster
whistling dixie in
the wind
as if I had the answer
            ballet with fractured form
broken by vengeful rapture
the hammer flung against
the wall

Tuesday 9 May 2017

Over


Here in your believing
triumph is fleeting
from so far away
no tongues left to speak in

Monday 8 May 2017

Untethered



Every sneaking suspicion
every whispering dream
lost
to the pale and 
infinite 
sky

Saturday 6 May 2017

Collision


I wonder how I will know 
when the sky becomes 
my master
when dreams of yesterday 
stop mocking me with 
laughter
tomorrow is today tornadoes
circling my trailer
I was wrong over
and over 
again

Thursday 4 May 2017

Splitting


I thought about the math exams I’d missed, the classrooms I couldn’t find.  Then there were the times I woke up in a library, with only a few days left to write some year-end term paper I hadn’t even started.  I never knew how these crises turned out, because suddenly I would be here, on my way to the restaurant to visit Henrietta.  She never asked where I’d been.  She was my friend.

Between


Oh how I loved you
more than the tides could ever
love the moon
But now silence mocks the faithful
as I ripple with the green grass
go blind from the apathetic sun

Wednesday 3 May 2017

Walls


My head hurts.

Hmmmn, says George.

Yes.

Sorry,he replies, but I can’t 
help you there.  
Have you seen the statue?

What statue?

The statue, he says impatiently.  In the
middle of the courtyard.

I don’t go in the courtyard.

I suppose not.  You don’t
really go anywhere.

No.  Neither do you.

I’ve got the dolls with knives to 
worry about, he reminds me.  
What’s your excuse?

It’s not just the dolls, I answer. 
Everything has knives.


Tuesday 2 May 2017

With the Angels


I remember how something could
break every word you 
spoke
make you sound like you  
were choking
as I
I disappeared 
at least one million miles into
your stratosphere
like a bullet that has no mark
shot stray into a crowded night

Monday 1 May 2017

May Day


Because we can and because
we want to
Because our tired hearts
are begging
are forgetting how to bleed
Stopped dead by the same undercurrent
of jolting disbelief