Ain't No Sunshine

I once loved a woman

like she was the sunshine

you know that

early spring sunshine

where you roll your face around in it

like a shower of life

the world felt dark when she left

I once loved a woman

like I was still in love with someone else

like I never knew her

it should’ve been a clue

that first night she slept in my bed

after an evening washed away

with a bottle of sauvignon

that first night she slept in my bed

I don’t remember this but

she said that she caressed my sleeping back

that I turned mouth over shoulder and said

“touch me again and I’ll fucking kill you”

and just rolled over 

and went back  to sleep

I once loved a woman

like I could never love myself again

dead to the touch

unable to sing the song

of spring

and

sunshine

ever again

Monosyllabic

I feel uneasy around pillows without pillowcases. The only time I ever rebated, those bustards denied my receipt of purchase. I failed to leave my body the last eleven nights. I think I may have the wrong Enya album, this one just puts me to death. There are three glue-guns in my art supply drawer, and not one glue stick. My mother's idea of a crisis: waking up accidentally pregnant again. If I lose anymore teeth, I'll just dye my hair sunburst and tattoo "pumpkin" across my chest. I find it funny that writing essays about people that killed themselves makes me want to live. I was five the first time I ate mayonnaise from the jar with a spoon in my underwear. Some habits will never die.      

Save Some For You

save some _____ for you

when you write about what you  ______,

save some for you

hold out on the how you walked, cringing, down the promenades of hell,

how you dug around in the dumpsters of heaven just to get little crumbs of   “_______”

hold out on how sad it was that you never once got  ________

don’t tell them everything about the bruises,

let the bruises speak of the harsh _____ with a smokers cough,

let them speak and let you be silent of _____

sure, you can tell them how it feels to not have  ________

clammy and pathetic like a lonely _______ that goes home every night

to make love to a TV dinner in the soft glow of a sitcom laugh-tracking at the misery,

            you can tell them about the ocean behind your forehead,

how you have sailed across its surfaces,

chasing sky painted horizons,

meeting parts of yourself along the way,

but you should probably save those forbidden _______,  

the ones dwelling deep in those unbeknownst places of your abyss,

for yourself.

You may _____ them someday.

Giving too much

The what-went-before

 gone finally let me go, 

or I let go of it

                  and just fell 

right on by the now

    the just-Be-moment

                 and drifted like a red balloon               high on the winds of the future

Escaped from my burden 

  to only gad about

  painting the frown red

        digging endless trenches 

        looking for meaning and Identity

 I cracked up a bit

    when I saw that sacred 

         yolk running 

                 down my leg

 you’d feel gross too

 if it was you 

                      doing the leaking

 I leaked it all

                       walking, 

                      standing, 

                      talking, 

                    running from the pain of being me

 I showed up wounded

                              and you clapped at my disfigurement

 Let you run fingers over 

        all the stories in my scars

I told you everything.

                                                 and then

                                                                       I had nothing private left 

                                                                                    All this touching

                                                                                all this poetry on

                                                               my private spaces

                                                                       lost to crowds with hungry faces

                                                               pleading peaceably

for some of my pieces back

                                                                                        Maybe I did

                                    stop collecting souvenirs when mom died 

                                                                  but

                                                 telling the whole world 

                                               where I wash my clothes

                                     won’t raise the dead-ends to overpasses

       I shouldn’t have 

                                  let you all voyeur in on me so often

       I shouldn’t have

                                  invited you all to watch me skinny dip

                                                                                  in a pool of my own fears

you were there in goggles 

for my last rectal exam

                                       but we went deeper than that though, didn’t we?

                                                                                maybe I took it too far

                                         when I said you could fuck me with a strap-on

maybe I said it 

just to make you love me                                                  more, or enough

       I should have taken better care of myself

            and thought a little less

                     about 

                   what you thought of  me

                                              that’s why I stopped shaving a face I can’t see

a little step 

in a hard-long-walk out

                               the suicides and slaveries are left behind

I'm not asking for permission

to be me 

                anymore.

for now,  

          sit tight

watch this meteor shower with me

                            like the world is ending 

                                                               all over again

Ever-Greener-Pastures

In the safe zone now
but you can't handle this
dangerouslessness
childhood-inflicted survivor-tude
yet another tin prison
holding your falling parts hostage
holding your hand bent at the wrist
pinching off the tube to your colostomy bag
picnicking so pretty on the other side of this fence
where deer eat from your palm like starving children
and you remember hunger like silence
when no one answered into the night
you still finger the divot-scars
from your skull-staples at the dinner table
still so rampant it is
this uneasiness for selling seats
to a sell-out, suffering, sideshow
now you wear-tight your seat-belt
bedded down and helmeted around
you bore the boring, waiting for crosswalks
and now you even pay for the things taken store to home
you ride a bike that no one is looking for
you have friends you can trust now
lovers that love you
neighbors that neighbor
funny little luxuries of three meals a day
your guitars don't belong to hockshops
you chat weather to uniforms in 711s
as if your not a dangerous criminal
smiling down the strangers you encounter
whistling zippity-fucking-doo-dah
and yet you risk nothing
 
and yet you feel all dead-tree-rotted inside
hear it now gurgling indigestion
and you start to think this
thrilllessness
an illness in us
isn't it killing us
foam-coating this
fabricated phantasm
cardboard cut-outs of the truth
fun-house safe-zone
they're pickling parts of you
in this predictable-stagnation

 

Willing to Look

I woke up this morning and couldn’t find my will to live,

it wasn’t there, paired with cigarettes and a dead lighter,

so I dug through my dirty pants from the previous day,

but all I found unfortunately were fortune cookie fortunes,

telling me to feel lucky and to hold on tight,

I turned on the lamp and the bulb blew out,

so I searched my room in the dark,

clawing around on the carpet,  

wondering now, how does one lose a will to live,

I checked the dish where my car keys swim,

looked near the wallet clamming on the dresser,

where the mirror reflected how lost I am,

See, it said. But I don’t.

I slumped to the kitchen and couldn’t even find my appetite,

I looked under the stack of motivational posters on the table, but still no will to live,

I thought maybe I dropped it coming home last night,

so I retraced my steps out the door and down the silent street,

slowly sinking into knowing,

that I had lost it years ago.

Reincarnation

in the beginning,

just an empty blankness

born on the sore knees of torn trees,

beaten to a pulp, mashed, pressed, pulverized,

rolled flat, forced to withstand the pressure,

of living to be used,

far before glimpsing critical thoughts,

lines stamped blue onto faces and private parts,

convinced worthless without ink,

and the words fill it with meaning

tattooed with its reason for existence,

it knows who, why, where, it is,

then tossed, like so many remnants,

into a yellow bin, destined to be paper again,

stripped of ink, erased life,

but paper has forgotten all the wiggles and points

it once lived for,

no memory of its past lives,

now it waits, empty,

empty waiting,

and we are all waiting, waiting, waiting,

waiting patiently for the words to come

and be born again on the blank page

Grandmotherhood

You were born an infant, rocked in mother's hands,
and then you broke-teeth-in, took a few steps, and then you started dating,

Now grown to the edge of adulthood,
you've just begun to miss your mother's hands,

girl becomes woman,
woman becomes mother,

You gave birth to an infant, rocked in your hands,
and then you lost sleep, gave dead-tired under-dogs, and then they started dating,

daughter becomes woman,
mother becomes grandmother,

and the daughter gives birth to an infant, rocked in her hands,
You tell her to sleep, give better under-dogs, and you already know about the dating,

You hold the small delicate hand, belonging to child of your child,
but you know the cosmic truth, we are all children,

Now the master has her apprentice, 
Great Teacher of Creation,

It's as if you reside in some shrouded, mountaintop temple,
with secret knowledge scribed on crumbling scrolls,

imbued with the sacred wisdom of Nurture
the world should know, how well you mother mothers,

You worked hard, gave it all you had, and enjoyed the years,  
and all you get is a fucking Greatest ever! coffee mug?
 
Grandmotherhood

Faces

Masked

concealed

there won’t be a note

just a leap

just a hollow place

left from the off-ramp

up near those creaking swings

at the edge of beauty

Make-believe

contrived

there won’t be a rope

just a tightening

just space being added between vertebrae

left to gasp and dangle

a suffocating sunset

at the edge of beauty

Mangled

crippled

there won’t be a reason

just a cheap knock-off

just  a handicap shower

where only ornate notions

keep the air in the lungs

at the edge of beauty