Impossibililty

when white roses on the table

give clue to the ending

whatever message God meant to send

this girl is not receiving

with no world left to live in                she is lost in the ether

gently floats past         my outstretched fingers

but as the earth swallows me whole

pulls me into never      what I could not control

this one thing I know

this one thing I know

Confession

I see a man
at the top of a hill underneath a tree
I turn to face him
we stand there for a while
the grass is green from the rain
he does not know my name
I turn to him
I open my mouth and nothing gags
he listens
I turn to run I run run run
down the hill my arms stretched wide
I dive between the tall grass
the grass is tall from the rain
he calls for the daydreamer but I am gone
I am back laying in my bed
hating myself for the telling
it is too late
he does not know my name but he knows
there is no turning back

Unafraid

Her glassy eyes drove me mad.  In a fit of rage, I ran into the kitchen and grabbed a knife.  She said something in that dull, mechanical voice of hers as I slapped her down on the counter, but I refused to listen.  Instead I raised the knife high in the air and became a human guillotine as the knife crashed down across her neck. 

Her round plastic head jerked back, separated from its body.  It balanced on the edge of the counter for a long second.  She had time to cast me  one last glassy-eyed look before her head hit the floor.  It seemed to roll forever, until it came to rest underneath the sink.

 I laid the knife down on the counter.  With some uncertainty, I pushed my fist into her dolly stomach, but nothing happened.  She was silent at last.

I had killed it.  I had killed the doll.

Because reality is the toe breaker

is the dance

is the false teeth sitting

innocent in the glass

Special

Did you tell me I would be broken

when you called me special

Did you call me hopeless

when I begged for some forgiveness

Because now I am crawling

waiting for tomorrow

With a today so very desperate

that yesterday is hiding

There is no more point here

I shout into the echo

But I can feel nothing

other than I am special

Special for your weakness

Special for my survival

Special is what kills me

I cannot defy it

But I am sane and you are not

and here we are and there I was

when I cannot breathe out loud

lest you hear me moving

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

Now I can feel nothing

only my plates shifting

Into old arrangements

nothing ever changes

If you could have loved me

let me be ordinary

The world would have opened

the stars would have held me

But now I am so special

the goddess of your nothing

What you hid within me

it was not for growing

It was all for killing

what was only dying

to be loved at all...

Nothing gold

I have been thinking of you

Reminded it seems by

the presence of

something sadder than

you or me

How very long I held on

to something I never had

the gravity to

control

When now I knock against the

hollow inside

the abyss you left in each

part of my whole

So much and so completely ignored

ripping the hinges off of the doors

catapulting me into a world where

daydreams remember

How I would like nothing more than

to feel the cadence of your

pulsating love again

Nothing more than to know it is me who

you tried with your heartbreak

to protect

Instead I am left waiting on the hill

shaking with knowledge of

lost connections

I am left on the pier with memories of the dead

their sorrow pointed toward

the horizon

Under water

was it ever thus?

the clouds mirrored in our eyes

the end of apology

the apocalypse of

us

No one mentioned Debbie’s name at work.  “What happened?” Jonah asked himself in the mirror each night before bed, just after he brushed his teeth.  One moment she had been standing next to the cart, complaining about tropical oils and the avocado Jonah had slipped in with their groceries.  And then he was holding the perfect strawberry in winter, talking to no one.  Only Bill, who Jonah sometimes came across in the cafeteria during their mutual mid-morning coffee break, had said to Jonah, “I’m sorry about Debbie, man.”  Jonah pretended not to hear him.  He just asked if Bill knew who had won the basketball game last night.

The lost room

September 17, 1986

My happier self has returned!  Grey skies are gonna clear up, so put on a happy face...!  Excellent idea!  All I needed was a few hours of moodiness and an ice cream to get me back to my senses...after all, I’m the only person who can make me feel better.

I remember how something could

break every word you 

spoke

make you sound like 

you were

choking