This Is Not A Love Song

TRICK

2010-02-01T16:59:00.000-08:00

gotcha.

2010-02-01T16:46:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to find the words
I'm looking at the digital universe
and frowning over my resolution.
I'm trying to decipher what it is - to speak
in a lower volume to emphasize meaning,
picking apart etymologies and cadence
to make sure not to understate.
I'm trying to compromise with you.
I'm trying to ignore subliminal advertising
grammatical indifference
disguised racism and homophobia:
who do you really hate?
I'm trying to teach,
to teach myself to worry about my own education
and you yours.
I'm trying to step over my own boundaries.
I can't subjugate every pronoun to fit my needs,
though I can interpret their meaning.
I'm trying to make this as painless as possible,
but pain -
real, acute, preemptive pain is stronger than I thought.
I'm trying to understand myself,
as only I can do,
all I can do is not give up.

2009-10-09T07:32:00.000-07:00

How do you sleep so well
next to me
in the night when I am restless
when my legs kick and I roll
like a lost rock on the mountainside
I am lost forever
I am lost and locked in emptiness
in slumberless space.

How do you sleep so well
next to me
in these times there is bombing outside
someone left the television on
and my mind will not stop
turning off the reality of where we are
where we are headed
we are headed for fallout shelters
just don't leave me behind.

How do you sleep so well
next to me
my love
when I stare at you so silently laying there
wishing you would wake
wishing you would take my breast in your hand
take my mouth in yours
and share this restlessness with me
as we share everything else.

My Unsaid Everything

2009-03-30T10:55:00.000-07:00

Now that his Mother is gone, my Father
broad chested and mountainous is reduced
to broken slabs of concrete.
He was young once, also
developed a complex, also
now yearning to speak what is locked
inside, too
and the Daughter, with the unsaid everything
ringing true
in bones and cartilage looking like
the swollen arthritic hands of the matriarch
in her bed, eyes closed and
unresponsive.

If I love you I will tell you
next time;
I keep saying 'next time'...

He is angry now
at God, when he looks up
scowling and screaming,
if fists could pound a Savior,
he would pummel.
The words have been replaced with fear -
with his boyhood resurfacing
and counting - one, two, three
instances of regret.
I am the Daughter counting
my own
but it is not spacious enough for me
in there.

I am not my Father,
and if I love you I will tell you:
this time.
I swear.

Millennial Youth

2008-11-18T06:58:00.000-08:00

You put us up against
a wall, only affectation used to save us, but
we have all been shot off
our high horse -
we Millennial Youth do not want the horse
anymore.
You think we are disaffected,
you think we are apathetic;
we are really Indigo, and there are more to come:
you have the pleasure of witnessing
the alignment of our stars
with your world.

We are alive with a hopeful rage
that will not stop burning
through our veins.
One by one the institutions crumble,
one by one our fathers' and our mothers'
lifelong work is put out
on the streets - we are not invincible -
but our tide is rushing over
levees built by ill-conceived ideas,
reinforced by false prophets of yesterday,
shaken by the obsequies of today.

We call you out, your bluff,
we have stood firm when your backs turned
on us, only now you make eye contact.
Let this be clear: we will not break.
We will not adulterate the fate
we have taken out of your hands
and put into our own.

2008-10-28T11:50:00.000-07:00

Each night I dream
of you and I in fluorescent.
Everywhere all around us
words trip the light fantastic -
swirling in gold and green and yellow,
like the yellow that burns through my head,
an oscillation of solar flares
back and forth
between skin aflame
and frozen just the same.

Erstwhile memories graze past my cheek,
spinning me on my axis
and you, you are standing still.
Glued to the precipice of the future
you go neither ahead nor behind
what dreams may have in store for you.
But I, I unlike my visions
pale in comparison:
I am tethered by a string
endlessly swinging fore and aft,
fore and aft.

Each morning I wake
the world falls back to grey-scale.
Eyes adjust to light
not filtered through the stars,
feet feel the full weight on top of them
and my heart sinks back down from Heaven
to rest again in the cage of my chest.

The House On Van Bergh Ave

2008-08-21T05:39:00.000-07:00

There's a memory I have
from when I was small -
my mother's face in the sky,
behind and around her
lightning flashed from black cloud to
black cloud. I laid on the floor of our porch,
in the house on Van Bergh Avenue.

What I recall of that house,
what I knew of that family
is all a blur,
but this rings clear.
This is as true
as the most vital of my organs.
Her face, her heavenly face shining
down over me.

That is the last of my memories
of that time -
lived in dreamscapes.

2008-08-04T13:16:00.000-07:00

Do you feel, some days, as though you are a product
rather than a person?
I myself am pieces of other people -
not a whole of my own.
Are you a walking form of the shortcomings
of your makers?
You should have an identity that is all yours.
Do you instead look in the mirror,
seeing the father's maladjustedness
or the mother's obtuse perceptions as I do?

2008-04-05T05:55:00.000-07:00

I do not water my flowers.
When they have the audacity to die
I get angry -
how could they leave me?
I do not understand
why their buds will not stay
closed, remain how I want them.
I do not whisper to my plants.
When they shrivel,
pull away from me, let go -
I only care to revive them
when they are gone.
I have the daftness,
the supreme blindness to ask
why?

2008-03-02T10:34:00.000-08:00

Lust
Lust
I held you in my arms and watched you
take the last breath
and die.
Some affliction came over you
carried on for years
and you could take it
no more.
Lust from my window
I let my hair down
for you to climb and save me
from my ivory tower.
I do not want to live without you.
I do not want these cold hands, but
Lust
Lust, I will carry you in my pocket,
to rub your lifeless body
between my frozen fingers.

2008-02-10T09:53:00.000-08:00

The leaves broke from their bough
covering lashes looking to the heavens.
Lift this black beast from vision
to gaze upon truth -
that the tree's purport is life.

It can only be marveled at,
that elusive and unmarked innervation;
the relief of yielding blindness.
May those leaves stay distant
from such hopelessly naive eyes.

2008-01-21T16:58:00.000-08:00

The sum of us
is made up
of tiny pieces
which are comprised
of everyone
who has ever lived before us.
We were born
of a trillion mothers
and each breath
we breathe in someone
from far across the earth.
You or I
will never escape
interconnectedness:
that sunlight on your face is
the same as mine.

We Hold These Truths (Letter To Zaftig)

2008-01-14T21:59:00.000-08:00

We all push our way through
seas of faces,
looking for a pair of eyes
that glow for us.
We carve out niches.
Maybe for protection.
Perhaps self-sabotage.
Every once in a while
we all think,
"It does not exist for me."

We all know
what freedom is -
textbook definitions.
I wonder,
who really feels it?
I look at you,
and I see it swirl about you,
the aura you can't see.
But I watch you searching for it.
With your hands in the air,
thrown up in defeat.

Truth and happiness
do not reside in someone else's eyes.
What you must see
is that you hold liberty and love
in the palms of your hands.
It is yours to give,
there is no need to wait
for it to come to you;
you've held it all your life.

We all feel time,
often like a burden
every year that passes,
with every pair of eyes
that turn out not to shine
for you,
that freedom and love
does not diminish,
it encompasses you more
and strengthens the shield.

The truth is:
you are free.
And you embody love.
We all should be so lucky
to look into your beautiful,
shining, glowing eyes.

Awakening His Glory

2007-10-09T20:19:00.000-07:00

Billy came into my office
sat down and crossed his legs.
I couldn't place his expression.
We cast aside formal business
for a few moments
I asked about his family.

"There is none.
I was an orphan."

I became tense.

He swooped in with emotions,
tragedies, poured out to me
details, his hand to his forehead
like it was the first time
it had all come out.

Billy's eyes told a different story.
They were calm and collected,
his voice was matter-of-fact.

"The man who owned the farm
liked little boys.
For three years
he used me like a woman."

He had practiced this.

My hands were folded in my lap
the whole time,
grasping the other hand's fingers
so that I felt something
other than the emptiness
the recounting of his life
put inside me.

We finished our transaction,
Billy left.
I turned back to my papers
and could only laugh hysterically.

Letter to Leilani

2007-10-06T08:47:00.000-07:00

Every year we grow stronger -
wiser.
Every breath we take
we sip in greatness.
I have never known
a bridge so solid,
a heart that beats so passionately;
a butterfly so graceful
as you.

Our path sometimes follows
over gently rolling terrain,
sometimes we ride against the wind;
know that I will always sing,
"Oh how I love thee
in times of tribulation,
in ages of adulation,
forever and always we shall be."

The Thing About Flowers

2007-09-21T10:06:00.000-07:00

She's been stammering
lately, I tell her jokes
and she stares
as she does at the television
these days it looks like the light is gone.
Twice misspoken
in one sentence,
her words used to stretch
across the horizon
and now they fall at her feet,
and she stumbles.

On warm Sundays
she is on her knees
in the dirt.
I watched her once out the window
caressing the leaves
her distressed Japanese maple
wilting like me,
she pruned the branches
of her azalea bush
like she was trying
to shape my disasters,
trim them so that it would grow
strong and bloom
into a full life.
Sometimes I see my face
in the poms of her fragrant lilacs.

I wonder if her memories rise to the surface
behind her bright green eyes,
or if they flounder on the rocks.

She used to be so powerful.
She waged all out war
on life
and won, but once she broke her toe
and I saw her sniffle.
I saw her weep
coming back from her father's hospital room;
it had spread all over.
All I could do
was fumble an I'm sorry,
just stare like she does now.

That's the thing about flowers:
you don't speak to nurture,
their strength is not fortified by words.
She can mumble and stutter
to their petals,
she can cut away their sorrow.

2007-08-02T16:57:00.000-07:00

The thought of your body
covering mine
makes my stomach perform acrobatics.
My cheeks flush.
I can feel
your breath against my neck
and know what it sounds like
when you moan,
even if it's only pretend
for right now.
I've thought about your face
when you come:
how your eyes close so tight.

Maybe it's just a spectre
my mind is making love to.
I turn my head
and you're watching me;
I'm undressing you
and you don't even know it.

Open Letter

2007-07-27T15:05:00.000-07:00

If you can make the world a better place,
then do it.

If you can't,
at least believe that someone else can.

The end of excuses is happening.
Adapt or be left behind.

Create:
or you will be destroyed.
Save:
or perish yourself.

A Mirror

2007-07-27T13:48:00.001-07:00

All life is a mirror
held up to another mirror
creating an infinite reflection.

I often find myself
covered in shards of shattered glass;
it must be,
I pound my fists on the mirror
while I sleep.

Can you create for me
an end point?
Somewhere in between?

I would like to occupy that space
where the reflections meet.

When Your Gun Is Laid To Rest

2007-06-20T19:51:00.000-07:00

You'll be placed under the oak tree right next to Uncle Newell
beneath the stand where you set your sights on more than a few
deer walking by, sixteen points, one buck in a million doe.
I will dig the hole myself - all the beads of sweat
every tear dropped
will form a tributary to carry off my sorrow
into the waters surrounding our family's parcel.
Is this what your father wanted?
Is this where your heart rests?
It was never in your chest, judging by the size it could fit four
or five
but you always kept it for the trees fallen across the creek
or over the bridge that you built yourself.
I could never bring myself to stay there with you
it wasn't my world and it wasn't my home - there in the thicket
where the A-frame was hidden unless you knew your footing,
seventy seven paces from the bank
that's where you knew everything would be okay;
even if you didn't make the kill you still took a shot.
I've got my own gun now.
My birds fly differently than yours and my fawn will eat clover
forever with you watching from the tree tops.

Days Are Driftwood

2007-06-15T16:21:00.000-07:00

I woke up
this morning it's Friday.
Yesterday was Tuesday,
on Sunday
I was a child.

My days are driftwood
lost somewhere
in the stream
around the bend
down the road from my house.

I swam in it once
as an awkward preteen,
mostly knee high;
at the end
I remember a waterfall.
I stood in the downpour -
thought about the water
pulling down my skin
to make me longer,
stretching me out
until I became the length of the stream.
That was two days ago.

Time just trickles
along with the current,
your life tide
ebbs and flows until
you open your eyes
and it's your last day
on earth: it turns out
to be a flash flood.

Next Wednesday I'll be in the ground,
but Thursday I'll be back.

I turn over in bed
and it's Monday again.
Where did the weekend go?

Last Night

2007-06-03T15:18:00.000-07:00

Last night I chased
a fox running rampant
through the woods
behind my home.

I will tell you this:
there is more carnal hunger
that flows through my veins
than human blood.

I caught up with the fox and tore out his throat.
I watched him bleed out and left him for dead.

In my mouth
grew stalactite fangs,
stretched my lips open
enough to encompass the earth --

and from the depths of my cavern
came a howl
that shook the heavens
and shattered the stars.

No Night's Darkness in the Morning Light

2007-06-02T16:00:00.000-07:00

I am most gentle in the morning
when I wake,
if I rise with the sun, you
at my side
then surely
I was a blur in the night.

Something secretive, vicious;
drawing you out and feeding
from your goodness.

I was a fury and now,
drunk with echoing slumber
I, like the tranquilized tigress,
could be your pet.

You may do well to remember
that docile sleeping face,
and in memory
my darkness is not so weighted
as my stolen, fleeting aurora grace.

Three Steps

2007-05-31T17:36:00.000-07:00

First time:
we touched bellies
our hair tangled into the other's
red swollen lips
warm with wanting
soft
with hopes and expectations.

Second time:
jumping off jagged cliffs
into the welcoming ocean below
trusting hands clasped
held tight
our feet brushed the other's
in bed sheets
there were blue lights
cool with calm
smooth
with desire.

Third time:
we let go
revelling in the knowledge
the other will come back
silent with comfort
warm with wanting.

Your Life Is Not Your Own

2007-05-31T16:10:00.000-07:00

Your life is not
your own, it belongs
to whatever is holding you down.

Some tell you:
swim!
Others, drown.

Above all else,
do not trust
the court, they will take the crown.

I was forced to leave the plains.

2007-05-30T21:37:00.000-07:00

I was forced to leave the plains.
Sulked my way back,
what you think you know -
abandon all that -
return to the swamps.
Soak with me once again.

In the middle of the bog,
at the center of all
things dirty and violently drenched
sits a patch of green.
It contemplates life;
it is my beacon of creation,
and death, I have forgotten
what grass feels like
under bare feet. I cannot
swim to it, no not yet.

There was once a constant offering:
unlimited pleasure, unending possibility,
but now - now that offering
instead is sacrifice; it got cold
so very fast.
The plains were slashed and burned.
Now I lay at the bottom of a swamp.

Opposite and Between

2007-05-30T21:27:00.000-07:00

Can things like darkness
and light,
strife and love be born
out of the same place?

Can opposing forces be not really
two separate actions
or ideas
but rather be two sides
of the same coin?

If the outcome of all things
is death,
then does opposition even factor?
If all matter has the same fate,
then we are everything; opposite
and between.

Letter to Emily

2007-05-30T21:12:00.000-07:00

My friend!
My soul-sister!
My bandita freedom-fighter!

O those glorious roads we travel!
O those sights we see
and bridges we cross,
cliffs we scale!

How will my heart become full again?

It is the fresh face,
it is the crooked beaming smile -
one tooth and one nail at a time -

when it is us again
and the steps and strides
never fell out of sync!

It is You and I,
my dear dear friend.

That is how.

How I will miss you.
How my spirits will fly
again someday.