"Those were hard things for me to come by, and I offer them to you for what they may be worth." - Toby Wolff



Friday, February 16, 2024

Pulling Up Roses

It's a wound so old,
covered with years.
You could mow it down
if you were still around,
but there's no closure
with you in the ground.

Where were the stitches
as the blood leached out?
I had to self-infuse
and it isn't about
status quo.
It's just the drug, you know...
keeps you so numb
and somehow alive.

I despise you for your weakness
I despise you for your failure
I hate you most for the reflection
and the way I see me there.

Whatever the conflict...
your daughter carries the anvil
that drops on my neck
and sinks the progress we might have made.
You give her that power
over
me.

Your excuse is fucking ancient.
Haven't you fixed it yet?
But don't point that finger back at me.
My pain is bigger,
don't you get that?
Ha!

Can we ever be to each other
the grace that's so offered
or will we always be the devil
poking fingers into wounds proffered?

We should be the stable,
the picketed sanctuary.
But we're pulling up roses
while the weeks run unchecked
through our unease.


Inhuman

I'm not human
after all you cut from me
the core and emphasis
of what I was made for.
You bent it backwards.
You broke the reed you beat me with.

I'm not whole anymore.
The gaps are wider than the seams.
Nothings comes together
from the pieces
and I can't cover anything.

I'm vanilla fluff to everyone,
most of all myself,
but you see me as power.
Why?
I've never been so anemic
ineffectual
a breath wasted
an inhalation so labored
it can have no reach but life support.

Why this life?
Damn it
show me why?

Saturday, September 30, 2023

When The Glitter Wears Off

I saw a thousand diamonds
rolling across the surface of the deep,
like the shimmer I wore once
when life was simpler
and ignorant ducks all followed in line.

Who knew the smallest breeze
could blow the glitter elsewhere
and I, left rather dull
and naked.

Am I the Emporer?
Where are my clothes?
Had I ever really owned such regalia?
Or was I dull from the start,
wearing you like a charm?

Then I realized how lopsided it all is.
What is a charm without a bracelet
or a bracelet without an arm?
I am the anchor
without which
glitter gathers dust
in a closet of desire. 

It is MY arm
decorated to my pleasure
that meets your pleasure
or it doesn't.
But it's my fucking arm.

I think you understand now,
right?
I choose the charm
and the glitter is the light I shine
on my own skin.

Glass House

What's it going to take?
What pound of flesh?
It's not really what I did...
it's what was done before, that caused the bedrock
of your unforgiveness.

You want me over a barrel
digging out from a deficit
day by day by day,
and you thinking you're faultless.

In the end
you gutted me,
barrel be damned.
I was drawn and quartered
by your need to play God
to make me confess,
to make me pay
for your paranoia.

Your house is glass also.
How will you fare
with all those stones?


The Wind Outside

The waters are agitated,
waves reigning havoc since day break.
They crash against the rocks
the wind bending branches at shoreline.

The cabin is oddly bereft of the storm
although every other instance
wind has howled through like a freight train,
scattering papers
depositing dust.

Why today...
when the storm within me rages
has God blocked the wind?
He's left it for me to see
but protects me from it's consequence.

Even stranger,
I wanted to feel it's fierceness
to know it's power
the strength of my foe.

God whispers
"It's not your foe.
It's not your storm."

Shit Show

Things have gone to shit
as they often do,
and no one is really sure
if we want the show to go on.

The banquet is set
costumes bejeweled
but the magic has left the stage.
The show must not go on
for the damage...
the damage done.

Will it break us?
Will it build us?
May we be renewed?
Or was it a poorly written play,
a show for love
not of love,
a need for applause
not worthy of such things?

What the hell did you do?
I warned you.
You warned me off.
I complied, and
I failed you.

Invisible Loss

Sometimes loss is like dynamite.
It blows a whole so deep and wide
that everyone can see it.
There's a divorce, or a death,
a fire, a flood.
And even with the breadth and width of it,
it is compact...
a measurable thing that can be calculated
and dealt with.

And then there is the other loss
like a fuse that never ignites;
it just smolders and smolders
with the constant threat of doing so.
It's a dud that never was,
and never will be anything but
the perceived power to remove the hope...
that whatever you lost might come back.

Why do they say you can't lose
what you never had?
Because if feels like dynamite
that no one can see.