Not About Relationships

Hear

See

Touch

Smell

Taste

Extrasensory Perception

The ability to remember is most definitely the seventh sense.

The eighth sense must be the sense of self.

Forgetting is plain ol' common sense.

212

syllables

the thought was simple enough
x amount of words
and the task of structured thought

the times were merry enough
x's in my eyes
reconstructing the night

for weeks I collected words
carried them with me
across my neck back shoulders

organized my memories
carried them with me
upon my sleeve and smile

Once I stole every word
and never felt bad
because no one owns a word

I think the man who spoke first
may have said just this
Listen I want to be heard

He knew no one understood
and he didn't care
he just needed to say it

the first woman to speak said
plainly and simply
you're not saying anything

right up until that moment
she had only thought
why will no one speak to me

Once I found love with a boy
he was delighted
to have me for company

I felt familiar and safe
or I was wide-eyed
seeing things for the first time

Love Revisited

She stands on tippy toes and renewed hope
Believes in one true love
about faces and positive thoughts
Rarely admits to tearing her skirts or being delicate
She simply loves

why gravity is not yet solved

I love the new religion
she says
and I know what we she means


Somehow I feel flattered
as if the religion is me


And I wonder about flattery
and push it back and away
until I am no longer sure where compliments end
and I begin

so I pull the world close and near
disguising belief as coincidence (or confidence)
ease as effort
hope as space

Hurt as poetry

small words as grand notions
the delicate difference

My Tree

My Tree

My roots
Unknown
Grow carefully past stone
Through the core of the world
They reach to the other side of me


My trunk
My own
Stands gracefully, a home
Under the moon and the sun
Grateful for a shower or the promise of one


My branches
They bend
Sway sweetly in the wind
Moving in every direction but down
To the sky they reach, ever further from the ground


All that I am are the three of these
I care not for my flowers, my sap, or my leaves
Though pretty and sweet and colorful for sure
They are fleeting and nothing more
My roots, my trunk, my branches: My Tree
(The bird that perches there when she's not flying free)


Come sit on my bough
Come swing on my swing
Come live in my house
Your axe you may bring


Swing your axe all around
My tree will not be brought down
Swing your axe all around
My tree will not be brought down


When your strength has left you
When you've grown tired from the fight
You can rest up against me
Take leave of the night


When again you feel better
When you've risen from your sleep
You can sit down beside me
Take a moment to weep


Take as long as you need
Take as long as you need
Then bury your axe
Take as long as you need

Bury your axe
Bury your hate
Bury your habit
Bury your gait
Bury your skin
Bury your face
Bury your past
Bury your race
Bury your burden
Bury your sorrow
Bury you yesterday
Bury your tomorrow
Bury your want
Bury your greed
Bury your doubt
Bury your heed


Deep down in the dirt leave all of these things
Wait out the winter, look toward the spring
Don't waste the summer in dread of the fall
Grow a tree of your own, a tree for us all

COUPLET

it seems like it would be difficult
as if research should be done

instead I will just jump right in
awwwwwwww the water is fine

i believe i have told you this before
I am ready I am ready I am ready

this reminds me of the story of Noah
and two one two is my new favorite number

i've been looking for it everywhere
and it keeps showing itself to me

Love is Like a Movie

I am glad for you and will not hurt for myself
Any more than I have
Because I do
Believe
In far greater things than me
But not than you

I could not write you out of my story or thoughts
For I have tried and failed
To be alone
Before
And even after we met
But I am yours

When you sleep in my bed or I lie down in yours
My head rests on your sleeve
My heart as well
Besieged
By the safety of your arms
the home you make

Remember the time I told you I was consumed
By thought and want for peace
I surrender
Belief
To only the thought of you
And me as one

Within the confinements of my words I find grace
And offer grace to you
As fathers once
Bestowed
Offerings of gold and silk
To royal men
(For their one day fatherless daughters)

Do you hope one day you will ask me to be yours
With knees bent and head bowed
Because I do
Be mine
And teach me of forever
Of one true love

parallel lines and mid-air collisions

forthcoming is one way to put it


forth
onward or outward in place or space
coming
approach, arrival, advent


for posterity's sake


advent
a coming into view, place, or being
posterity
succeeding or future generations collectively

I could do this all night.


What I'm trying to say is that I do not believe in embarrassment. I'm afforded that right because everything I do comes from a kind and conscientious place. My actions are thoughtful. If they are misunderstood, why would I assume the responsibility of disconcert? I do not. I will not. I am happy to sit in my skin and be me.

Me.
With my.

Delusions and tangents.
Soapbox and repartee.
Second hand clothes and first hand experience.
Grand notions and small words.
Big sisters and little brothers.
Dodged bullets and guided arrows.
Blue moon and purple pens.
Stories with no point and points with no story.
Flower vases and sharpies.
Work ethic and a will that will never won't. Or want.

I am undeniably, uncontrollably, typically, forever, always
me.

She's Got One Magic Trick

I pinned my hair up carefully
put on perfume
stared at myself in the mirror
tucked in my tummy
Somehow I looked different
than what I imagined I could offer

to
you

And the wine filled in the blanks
and I crossed and uncrossed my legs
as if you were here
watching me change
positions and postures
prophecies and prose

go
now

so I went

Hidden Track

Words of a feather on a gentle breeze

fail to recognize the gravity

to which this situation requires

say for a moment you knew

exactly as it were meant to be known

what would you really know

I think the feather is just like I

am

trying its best to stay afloat

to have a voice in the wind

say I see you there upon my breeze

but cannot help you upon your way

I hope your path is still on course

can the feather in turn then say

make your path then upon my course

do you think the wind would halt

be caught in the tumble of the feather

kind of lose his self in the fall

Life's Work or Cheap Thrills or Anthology or Finis

Older Children

I think you created a blackhole in yourself
and the light you see
somehow becomes lost in you
you smile and laugh when our paths cross or meet
but say you are sad
holding back tears or crying
we talk of our father
he is handsome royal perfect in our memories
while mom sits between us
seeing us in the same way the light must see the day



Secret

recreating moments
is like copying your homework
down they go
the answers writ
some you know
most you forge



The Price is Right

sold
at face value
and the crowd applauds
wishing forever were a number
repeating itself
at cost



Suicide Doctrine

I killed myself once
and can remember six hundred and fourteen bathrooms
counting the ones in my dreams
I have no idea what I look like
and often prefer the company of strangers

I recreate myself as often as I forget who I am
and try to go to places I have never been
I speak as though I have an audience
and believe suicide is melancholy
I abhor melancholy



TuTu

a vision of myself for when I grow up.
unbrushed hair
a grand piano
floor carpeted with newspapers
hideabeds and holidays
when I was young.
turning five
my family threw me a birthday party
not everyone on the guest list showed up
I locked myself in our car
refused to come out
not even for my presents
I do wonder
wanting to remember
what my cake looked like that year.


Finding Poetry


he sketched scapes of her scarves
mimicking friendly monsters and mornings

she spoke seriously of sure love
mentioning many moments of musings


he suggested she seemed self occupied
so she spoke strictly in third person
alliterally




One Liners

an exception to every rule
leaves some rules without exception

Charms for Altars

Something Old


I remember knowing I was ugly
busy crawling out of my skin
not once did I say I was ugly
but it was easy to see
so I said everything else
in grammatically correct sentences
so many words
so many nights
spent alone
wanting for the arms of another
to carry the hurt
to carry the hurt for me

Something New


hate is an absurdity
but you would rather deny dinosaurs
embrace Your belongings
than embrace humanity
you are an absurdity
and your bones will one day be fossils
heartless thin bones
silhouttes of lesser men
I will deny you
and the absurdity of your hate
you will not exist
I will deny you

Something Borrowed

a mighty king knew before me
only the light can drive out the darkness
I wear his skin
I dream his dream
I sing amen
amen
a mighty men who know better
than to cast shade on the kneeling
when they stand in the light
I stand in the light
I let it shine through me
I carry the dream

Something Blue

My sheets are blue and gray
I imagine them the sea and sky
or the sky and sea
depending upon the time of day
sometimes I would rather kill myself
than fold my hands
or iron my hair
so I dedicate corners of my bedroom
to colors shades and hues
and kneel before them
when I search for bobby pins
or gather my laundry

I Do

occupy your mind with benign thoughts
view life as an opportunity
to entertain one's self
failing to explain poetry in science
explaining science in poetry instead
forgetting what I looked like last year
quantum physics by day
rock and roll by night
impressed by diction
grand gestures complete me
consumed by a whole
greater than the sum of its parts


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