Exit

I felt it

the galaxy moved and I

was seen

an echo lost in

the static

I am cold here

but leave me this sadness

it is the truest dream I’ve

ever known

Backwards

 

I am the servant of time

of a truth I cannot

form

made of wisps and

dirt and stolen pieces of

lung

I tried to breathe around it

that was always my way

until the gasping became a

forbidden scarring in the

mind

do not talk of journeys

of hope without destination

decades mean nothing to me

I am still there

counting the tick tocks of

passing

serving a master who knows

I will never be free

Safe

My head hurts.

Hmmmn, says George.

 

Yes, I answer.

 

Sorry, but I can’t help you there, he tells me.

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.

 

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.

Buried

 

I saw her, once

while everyone was sleeping

the indifference about

made her feel safe

“Show, don’t tell,” I said

and laughed at the irony

she wasn’t amused

after a lifetime of keeping

the pictures in my head

from the words in my

mouth

so in silence we stood

the victim and her warden

the baton in my hand

and a girl

imprisoned by 

doubt

Beginning

They found it, separately. Sometimes one at a time, sometimes in small groups, but not together at once. They had shied away from each other, accepted without argument that certain hallways remain locked to them. What did they want to see each other for, anyway? They didn’t. They didn’t, and they wouldn’t.
 
And yet something had brought them all here. 
 
They lurked, uncertain, in the shadowy corners of the hall that surrounded an interior courtyard. No one spoke. No one moved.
 
At last a teenage boy appeared. 
 
He let himself into the inner courtyard. He spread a white sheet out onto the concrete ground. On it, with meticulous care, he set red plastic drinking straws—one after another, never stopping, never hesitating. He paid no attention to the faces peering at him through the windows.

Soon the straws began to form an intricate pattern. Those hiding in the brick building did not want to look at it. When they did, they pretended not to understand. Was it a formula? they asked. The kind you needed to be a math genius to understand, perhaps? They were not math geniuses, so they would never understand it. 

Satisfied, they slid away from the windows. All except for the one little girl who someone had forgotten was there. 
 
A group of pirate boys living in the courtyard’s largest tree also watched from 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. 
 
No one, that is, but them.

Make Believe

How we hope

craft facts out of

fiction

these little triumphs of

rationalization

only to sing the same 

 old cowboy song

try again, my love

stop looking for wisdom

once again you are

nature’s victim

take a deep breath

carry on

nothing more to see here

you were wrong

Desolate

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

Truth

 

All I wanted was one incorruptible truth to call my own.

But truth is organic, like a strand of DNA. It can mutate, or combine with other strands, until it evolves into something no longer bearing even a passing resemblance to its original self. For too long my truth did just that—twisting and changing, attaching itself to others and then corrupting them, until it became the worst kind of Frankenstein.

One that was always going to come for me in the end.

Under

I saw you then the knife

always you first

it kills in two hits

I would never know

back and forth

back and forth

even once to be close enough

how hard I wished it away

but the lie was everything

to you

 

Burned

 

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

 

Warped

“I’m here because he loves you.”

Megan laughed a little, even as tears of desperation streamed down her face. “I used to think that, too,” she said. “Star-crossed lovers, like Romeo and Juliet, kept apart by warring families. But you know what? It’s bull shit. If he’d really loved me—I mean, really, really loved me—he wouldn’t have left. And he did."

Alturis gave a dismissive wave with his knife. “You don’t know how men work.  We leave what we love.  It makes us feel powerful.”

“That’s ridiculous."

"So you say, because you are a woman."

“You mean sane.”

“The truth is crazy sometimes."  Alturis chewed thoughtfully on his salad, before he added, “Or maybe he didn’t want you to see him bald. A man wants to be remembered with hair.”

“He didn’t know he was going to be bald, did he?”

“Well, look at his father--bald as a pig’s bottom,” Alturis said.  “Sometimes, the fear alone is enough.”

Cold

 

my nighttime disguise         

this ink-stained mystery      

wrapped in broken           

bloodied history

which ring do I hold            which soul do I own            

will the blood in my veins      turn into snow

or should I sink

sink

sink

find a new home

deep in the drink

do I bear witness         can I name the crime             

will I break their hearts                      will they break mine                

only to limp         not to run               will I speak           will I jump

here where we cross

    where I fly fly fly               

         where words lift off the ground                       

open up the sky

I say no more     not tonight

if it wants to live    I will not watch it die

just to see              just to fail        

a tiger once caught

by the tip of its tail

        farewell                  farewell

                        my fairy tale

 
farewell farewell…

Futility

I was back at my mom’s house by 8:00. She was in the living room, watching a Cheers rerun.  “Everything all right?” she asked.

“Fine."  

She followed me into the spare room. When I pulled out my bag, she asked, “What are you doing?” 

“I'm going back to Chicago."

“When did you decide this?"

“Tonight.”  

I stuffed my few personal items into the bag and headed back to the living room. 

“Maybe you should think about it some more," my mother said, tripping on my heels. "It’s not the kind of decision you want to make on the spur of the moment."

“I’m sorry, but I have to go."

 “Angie, please...learn by my mistakes.  Don't make everything I went through worthless.  Make it count somehow."

That was a nice sentiment. And when I was a kid I’d sworn I would never turn out like her—that I would never allow a man to make me into something I despised. But sometimes who you are sneaks up on you so surreptitiously that by the time it overtakes you, there is no will left to change. 

I took a stack of bills from my wallet and set it on the end table. “Thank you for everything."

My mother lowered her head. I left without another word.

Earthbound

 if you can you see where the universe extends

maybe you can explain what I cannot comprehend

trapped under the weight of this

atmosphere

Adrift

                   when I am the snow without 
            the season
        made to believe in the riddle
but not the reason

 

Crash Landing

 

Every sneaking suspicion 

every grand fantasy

locked in the pale and

infinite sky

but me 

on the ground

broken 

from all the

times I came 

plummeting

down 

Hindsight

 

“You are such a moron,” Jack snorted. “Didn’t you ever notice that the building was set way off the road, and in the woods at that?”

Jonah shrugged. “Well, yeah, but-”

“Where do you think the Muellers got all that money from? Selling ice cream?”

“I knew they had a tavern, but-”

“During Prohibition, idiot! They were connected to the mob!”

“You know that?”

“No, but I can connect the dots myself,” Jack retorted. “Don’t even bother asking Mom about it, either. She’ll just bore you to tears with stories about scooping ice cream cones for cute boys from school, and getting bowls of peanuts for her parents’ friends while they played cards in the backroom. It’s a complete waste of time.”

“Well, by the time Mom was scooping ice creams cones, Prohibition was over.”

“Yeah, but she had to realize what was going on before then. I heard from Jenny Schutz that Grandma and Grandpa used to hide the liquor in the basement when Mom was super little.  That was why the Muellers built them that house right next to the tavern. Who knows?  Maybe there was even a tunnel connecting them!”

“I doubt that.”

Jack let out an exasperated sigh. “You obviously don’t know how the criminal mind operates.  And the naiveté you cling to is exactly why you’re stuck in a dead-end job, my friend.  Because the realists are outmaneuvering you at every turn.”

“Programmers don’t try to outmaneuver each other. We just program.”

"Sure, bro," Jack said, obviously bored with the conversation now. "Whatever you need to tell yourself.”

Acceptance

 

The peace that comes, my love,
                I will find
I will find
It is the peace that comes
it knows its price
and I will find
                I will find
the yesterday visions I have been
misting through with
tomorrow eyes
Lost in this great divide
                something marginally less insane
                drifting into its own undiscovered
                plane
                in time
when I cannot deny
                the madness that roams 
                these abandoned halls
                looking for the
                commandeered ride
tell me why 

I waved the white flag
when the night never bent to hear
my surrender cries
                I will find
                                I will find
this peace
                for the balking
                for the strangers walking with
                knowledge of the blind
the blind
acceptance displaying the
colors of its price
pushing through the ruins of a victim's
daydream lies
ruins blocking the sun the moon 
                the rise
I will find
                I will find
the peace I can send ahead
and slow dance behind
Because this is your peace now
                yes, this is your peace now
fool for waiting
fooled into waiting for
something more
but there is no lock on the door
and now you can shut out nothing
                let alone the memory of
                the war
All bruised and tattered and sore
                as long as it hurts less than the no-peace
                you were forever crashing through
                before
Because this is your peace now
                this is your peace now
and in the end what you will find
is the quiet absence of any power you
once believed built a castle in the sky
                hidden in his golden palace in the sky
cringing on the cloud throne
playing blind man’s buff with time
                his hands reaching for you
                his hands reaching for you
but even the unbroken must learn how to cry

alone.

Exposed

 

Ursula sent Andy long email, in which she denounced him as an emotional cripple.  She also compared him to her father, who had never loved anything but the family dog, and said neither one of them (Andy and her father, not the dog) had no idea what emotional intimacy was.  I’m sure you’ve already stopped reading by now, she sniffed at the end, but she was wrong. Andy read the whole thing. He even showed it to Jake, who had a good chuckle over it.  “Women,” Jake laughed. “Always so damn superior. Talk about needing a psychiatrist, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, whadya want with a chick named Ursula? I’m telling you—stick to the women with normal names. The ones who sound like they should be in a Bond movie are always psychopaths.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Andy answered. But he wasn’t smiling.

Lament

 

The uneven ground brought 
the warm sun 

down
never saw it coming now 

another star 

gone
 
we keep moving on
 
shivers in the night and 

the temperature
spikes
hard on the heels of 

a memory
denied
 
we keep moving on
 
no one hears those 

bells but
you
the brain’s rejection 

of your
truth
 
but we keep moving on
 
the trick is to believe while 

straddling the
grief
jump in that shallow pile

of rust-colored
leaves
 
and keep moving on…

Inevitability

 

the ache that could not be ignored

the hurricane that gave way to the clean up

after the storm

what I tried to cork in a bottle and set adrift

to places unknown…

 

Stumbling

 

I am wondering

my footsteps crunching

punching through the frost

are you scared

are you lost

so am I

 

memory scraping

an outstretched hand humming

warmth from another time

did you believe

did you try

so did I

 

a tuneless buzz repeating

its pitiless reshaping of

the empty sounds inside

do you keep breathing

do you see meaning

evaporate in the 

sky

so will I

Anniversary

 

The huddle on the floor

where sympathy died

the last morning of our life

                not even jealousy could save me

you cried

cried

cried

and I

this decade weighed so heavy

salt kept me from drowning

two doors and now goodbye

goodbye

theft is nothing special but

compassion is a

lie