My crooked window

Let me tell you what I know about

my broken heart

this is the rhythm of it falling apart

toss the stones in the river because

we are

we are coming up for air again

What did I even know about

guilt and sin

all of the dreams that

I was dying in

it was a curse it was a blessing it

was utter nothingness

until it skidded and came crashing

home

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

Dismantled piece by piece into

a million parts

buried back with Santa at

the Christmas tree farm

what is dead is what is real to

the falling apart

we heard the siren but not the

alarm

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

Now I whisper to the wind about

my broken heart

failing in slow motion

not a subtle art

toss the stones in the river because

I am

I am here alone at the end

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.