Entry Wounds

Do you remember the canister of 
fancy nuts 
the neighbours who called us
sinners
they sent it over for Christmas
you held it in your lap and cried
a something drowning in so much nothing
and then the switch in your eyes
but I loved you 
more than snow on my 
birthday in December

Where are you tonight?
I see you sitting on the low-backed 
sofa only a cat could love
discussing Jung and astrology in
the same breath
condemning me in the next
I see you you are so unknowable
I hate one person more and that is
myself

Appreciation

Thank you so much for your interest and support.

I wanted to write about aching beauty
but could only write about the ache
and the anger over aching
at all

The Heat Behind Shadows

This army of

the apocalypse

the taste of water

in my lungs

another memory I cannot trust

but what blessed relief

what blessed relief

at least the

lie is done

In Flames

I wonder how I came to be
paddling around this
atomic rage
I wonder how I could never
see the floor of truth before
In this backroom that smells
like you
I have got to scream and cry
or I will end up searching for you
all of my life

And I could hate myself for
grieving over you
I could bury the make-believe in
a shoe box beside the house
next to the butterflies whose
spasms of beauty are manna
to breathe
Instead I am sinking straight through
right down to the briny deep
You were the oxygen tank crammed
full of butterfly breaths
I so very much wanted to keep

The Migraine

I am not well, I tell the dragon.

Still.

Yes. I know.

My head hurts 

It feels strange 

I don’t know what normal is anymore but

I want to remember

I want to remember what it

feels like to hold my head in place

to not feel as if it was either going to

fly off

or pull me down to the

bottom of the ocean and

hold me there

an anchor I cannot escape

I am not allowed those memories anymore

I am not allowed any memories at all.

Maybe if you asked.

I did.

And?

Nothing talks

only gabbles

claws at my face

Be quiet I said

so here I am

attempting to kill what I

I have resurrected instead

Go ahead and  laugh

there is nothing else to do.

Mapping the System

where you wanted me to go
I could never have been
just another something
I am forced to accept
when you are the vanishing star
a galaxy stuffed into my little heart 
this brilliant beautiful defense
the last obstacle I must now attack

forgive me

forgive us all

Unfinished

Jack was oddly quiet as Kitty laid a bouquet of flowers on the grave.  “What do you think he was like?” he asked her.

“Well…”  Kitty paused, searching for the words to explain the complicated grandfather Jack would never be allowed to remember.  In a way she envied him that.  Her own memories rubbed against her, the hair shirt she was condemned to wear.  “He looked smart to me, but at the same time like someone who could appreciate a joke.  And a little sad.”

“What do you think he was sad about?”

“Maybe that he didn’t have his family anymore.”

“That’s a good reason.”  Fiddling with a blade of grass, Jack said, “I hope I don’t die alone.”

“You won’t,” Kitty told him.  “I promise.”