Far away

But the storm came rolling in
the storm came rolling in
a million miles of prairie grass
and your golden-haired girl
exposed once again

Wandering around my mind

The pen bothered me. So I asked him about it.  “Where’d you get this pen again?”  It was fat and full of multi-colored ink cartridges.

The strange animal character on the screen jumped over a crumpled brick wall with an appropriate boing sound.  “I found it,” he answered.

“Oh.  Okay.”  I walked into the hallway.  But I wanted to know more, so I asked, “Where?”

“School, I think,” he shouted from the other room.

“Okay.”  But I still didn't remember.  I knew I remembered at one time—and that was the worst part.

In stasis

And just when I thought I had made

myself old over wishing for

something to whisper

like a kind stranger into

my ear,

            I understand, and I do not

            blame you

I find myself catching the edge of

every movement of

atmosphere even the leaves

have forgotten.

Listening,

waiting...

Tomorrow and tomorrow

Diary entry, April 20, 2014

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 even if you did.  You are a story I sold for a million howls of laughter.  For a million screams of pleasure.  You are nothing.  You were just one more born to serve a purpose, and now you are used up.  No wonder you question living.  You know there is no purpose left for you.  I tore you into tiny pieces and gave bits to any who asked.  I did this because you are useless.  No one cared then, and no one cares now.  You are a piece of lint to be flicked away, blown into nowhere.

Legacy

I remembered watching from behind the door my mother sit on the edge of her bed, the shades pulled down and her body hunched over as if she had no strength to hold herself up, as she cried for the drunken husband who had disappeared once again.  It had taught me one thing:  make sure to close the door all of the way.  So only after I heard the door click shut did I sit on the edge of the bed, and cry for the husband who had forced me to leave him.

Refugee

Mother with child, 2015

Tell it how because of you I lie.
If I could reach between the slivers,
I would spread the dirt across my neck and
arms and cheeks and I
would muddy your triumph.
But I cannot tell yet what
you have done to me.
I must instead murmur little rivers of
fantasies,
rapturous babbling to submerge what we
know, what we fear of you, the dirt and I,
together we have silenced the shouting
angels with tar-pitched wings.

Because I know, 
you are victory and you are vicious murder.
What a strange game, I acknowledge these bruises
and tumors and tragedies as they
mock me through the
ravaged ends of
my hair.

Shadows

This is not how I meant it to be.
This is not who I meant to become.
These are not the memories I
expected to replay in my
head as I remembered who
I once had been.