No Comment (Revised at a Later Date, When I Wasn't Feeling So Sad)

I've spent most of my second life
in fear of exactly this:
the return of Heavy Darkness
(now in in blazing HD!)
eye sparks flattened like lightning bugs
smeared on the sidewalk at dusk
glow-in-the-dark chalk
A bargain buy
at just one
little
lightning bug life.

Yesterday, I stared for fifteen minutes
at my own reflection
and felt nothing.
It did not bother me,
I inhabit my body from a distance
for my own comfort;
it's an improvement.
lately when I run in place,
I focus on my feet
since, of all my body's moving parts,
they offend me the least.

It's as cold as I remember,
Or maybe it's worse.
Definitely,
maybe it's worse.
It's the worst way you can imagine being,
but probably it's not that bad.

There's really no way of knowing:
The most important year of my life
couldn't be reached for comment.

Ghosts Need Voices

We're on the verge,
we inmates and captors,
of mutual understanding -
a riot without resistance
impends.

it's been a decade and a half
since we began dividing
each separation a burial,
building layer after layer
with hands misguided
to cover the Wound with dry dirt and ashes
as if by concealing
we could heal
by suppressing
we could control what was impossible
to tame or contain or suffocate

but a voice still rises
beneath all that dirt
a child's eyes, leaking red and bewildered
deprived of comfort, except in the warmth
of restriction, which infants crave
and against which
the rest of us exhaust ourselves in combat

We thought she'd be a statue
by now, petrified by time and pressure and abandonment.
She was a story,
but not ours.
A myth,
but not heroic,
Timeless,
but without substance
We thought she'd fade away.
What use could such a shadow serve
our purpose,
which is survival at any cost.
She enraged us by persisting.
So we buried her,
beneath every failed attempt at transformation
15 years misunderstanding

She is the root
of our family tree,
and what good is it to bury roots,
which thrive in the dirt
while we in the sunlight are blind,
and she in the soil is voiceless,
one resenting the other
and the other nourishing the ones who curse her.

This is an apology,
and it's only a beginning -
Years of abuse
demand decades of repair.
but her voice still rises
and we captors - for shame -
have begun
to yield.

This wouldn't fit on Facebook

Yesterday's coffee and artificial tears.
It's not a good day for sunshine.
Exhaustion causes inflammation
results in heightened sensitivity to sunlight.
As if this body hasn't suffered enough heights.
Assaults. Without strength or desire to defend,
Defeated.
Or maybe just resigned.
Maybe just too fucking dramatic
maybe you're laughing
and rolling your eyes
and maybe this airbrushed life is good enough for you
so sensitive to human frailty which you might call ugliness
not fit for magazine covers
unless washed clean by photoshopped wishes.
well excuse us. we're sorry for ruining the aesthetic.
but this sunshine
is
fucking
bullshit.

False Memories

I once went sailing on an ocean of blueberry pudding, and when I reached the horizon, I spread my diamond dragon wings and flew into the ether. Now I live on the moon with the rest of the weirdos.

We live communally, and it's my week to make dinner, so I'm slicing purple potatoes while the elephants and ewoks play dress-up. The pianolin plays itself, with a company of accordions and cellos.

Sometimes it's sunny, others it's dusky, but we're never lonely or yearning or lost. When the sickness creeps in, we take turns flying backwards and down, to taste the blueberry pudding salt water from which we came.

We always leave lilies as thanks.

Chocolate. Or Attention. Online Dating. Adrenaline, and Jokes.

I get carried away.
I blame impulse, and a lack of patience. I'm certain it's now or never. Forever, and always.
An excess of enthusiasm. I'm addicted to endorphins and the abandonment of accountability.
Too bad it's only temporary.  

It's Lessons.

I can do anything, with effort.
Like perform twenty push-ups while telling you about my family's upstanding citizenry.
Or turn a casual acquaintance into a best friend. Now, when we fight, it makes my stomach hurt.
I can even wake up early to meditate on my limitless potential, and pray that your husband comforts you from beyond.
I often forget to pray for you, but when I do, I feel lucky, for the opportunity.

I've broken free from compulsive escape routes, several.
Once, I rappelled down a cliff to show my boyfriend I was stronger than he (he never respected my strength).
I used to smoke cigarettes, but I quit out of spite, to prove to a different boyfriend I was stronger than he (he respected me more than I loved myself).
My last boyfriend didn't love himself, and I knew better than to think I could make him.  
I've learned to learn, instead of resist. I seek to amend for the collateral damage, the cost of my education.

I can do anything, with courage.
I can do anything, with wisdom.
It is my responsibility, and my privilege, to seek my unbreakable joy.
And when I throw rocks in protest, I'm grateful that your hand finds mine in the night. 


 

Garbage Bags, or, Next Time Find a Kinder Container

Garbage bags. Presented to me in person or dropped at my door, they contain a number of small personal items. A toothbrush, a travel-sized hairdryer, a pair of socks, maybe a paperback or a magazine. Traces of my presence, packaged like banana peels and used q-tips. Their meaning clear, the energy that created them as cold as the wind that blows in my face, when I open the door to discover them, or drag them downstairs to my car.


They succeed in transferring my old friend's anger and pain, and they sit on my kitchen floor like lumpy misshapen amends that I now owe. After a while, I cut them free from their plastic tomb, and warm them with the reassurance of home. I want to be indignant, but I accept my role. I find comfort in being home and warm. And I look for the lesson, as icicles shrink.