Tired

 

I see the beauty

I feel it, I do

but each almost averted

takes its toll on this 

system

becomes its own fist of

punishment

I am still here

still in awe of existence

but I splinter and crumble as

what next approaches

afraid to understand why

hope is a lesson

I am doomed to learn again 

and again

Here at the End

 

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

 

Until we trip across the

recorded line

beaten by finality one

last time

because reality doesn’t give

a damn if it makes us

cry

we knocked the glass over and

now we must say

goodbye

Diseased

 

A thief

this disruptor

killer of tomorrow

predator on velvet

slippers

until the roar

the sudden loss

and then distortion

words become memories

soaked in sorrow

yesterday’s joy felt

a lifetime too

late

Defeat

 

It wasn’t only Bryan’s life that seemed charmed. Julia, still in the throes of love with her first appropriate man, got promoted at Marquette. Melissa announced she was pregnant again (her first baby, a girl, couldn’t have been cuter), and Bob still seemed utterly smitten with Shelly. It seemed to me that some formal engagement between Bob and Shelly couldn’t be far behind.

Yet when I mentioned this to Bryan, he replied, “I don’t think so. She was never as serious as Bob was, and Ted said she rarely goes out with all of them anymore. I’m not sure that relationship is going to have a happy ending.”

“You just don’t like her.” 

Bryan grimaced. "No, I don't, but this isn't about that. I just have a feeling it will all be over soon.”

I hoped he was wrong. The last thing Bob needed was another broken heart.

I hoped in vain. The weekend after exams Bryan joined me in the kitchen, where I was peeling an apple. “I have some bad news,” he said. “I just got off the phone with Bob. He and Shelly broke up.”

The apple landed with a thud on the cutting board. “Why?” I demanded.

“You know how Shelly started that new job a few months ago?”

“What about it?”

“She met someone there.”

“You mean another guy?”

When Bryan nodded, I protested, “Is Bob sure about that? Maybe he’s just being paranoid, because of Cathy.”  

“Well, considering the fact that Shelly was the one to tell him, he’s pretty damn certain.”

“She told him?”

“She had to. She and this other guy are moving in together.”

I sank against the counter. First Cathy, and now Shelly. The nightmare never ended. “Is he okay?”

“Not at all, so I invited him to spend a few days with us—I didn’t think you would mind. He could use some cheering up.”

“Of course that’s okay,” I answered, but it was going to take a lot more than a few days with sympathetic friends to right what Shelly had wronged. Bob was a disaster. Not even Cathy dumping him for a stinky old college professor had hurt him this much, I guess because he’d blamed it on his drinking. Now that he was sober, and working his program with such earnestness, maybe his world view had changed. Maybe he had thought to himself, This time things will be different.

And yet here we were again.

As Bob slumped in the dining room chair, looking aged and defeated, I told him, “There will be someone else—someone who will treasure all of the wonderful things about you.”

Bob smiled a little. He clearly did not believe me.

“It’s true,” I insisted, but when his puppy dog eyes brimmed with tears I could have sworn I heard his heart breaking. “I appreciate what you’re trying to say,” he answered. “I really do. But my whole life I’ve been taken advantage of by the people I most want to trust. And the scariest thing is, I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t know how to change.”

*From The Happy Ending, a manuscript I'm currently editing

Over

Here in this leaving

triumph is fleeting

from so far away

no tongues left to 

speak in

Revisited

 

Despair rose up in me like a flash flood; it had almost reached my heart when I heard a gentle snorting noise.  The small puffy dog who smelled like cake shuffled out from behind a bush.  “Are you real?” I asked her.  “Or are you going to disappear, too?”

She cocked her head and bared crooked teeth at me, as if to say, Does it matter?

I dropped down next to her.  When I wrapped my arms around my knees and began to cry, she butted her head against my leg until I  unfurled. The setting sun was hot on my neck.  “You shouldn't be here,” I told her.  “You should go back into the woods, where it’s cool.”

She snorted and rolled onto her back. 

Tiredly I slid over to the shaded area and laid down on the damp, cold ground.  As I closed my eyes I heard some more snuffling sounds; I then felt her strange fluffy head rest against the palm of my hand. We will be safe tonight, I thought to myself. Tomorrow was anybody’s guess.  

Ask Me Why

 

I pushed the river

found a way over and under

forced the square peg through

the round hole

gave hosannas to snowdrops

breathed in the scent of new

meadows

made vows behind half-closed

doors

 

yet even as I crept into summer

felt the cool pavement under a 

welcome shadow

listened in the mountains to

the coyotes sing

these synapses kept firing 

corrupted messages across 

faulty wiring

believe in me oh I do

I am a survivor

a miracle wrapped in nightmare

another cause lost in

gratitude