Last Days

They are penultimate,
next to last
an almost end.

Each day is a cliff hanger...

a script whose final act

never comes.

It seems strange to cling to the next

and beg for the last,

a thanksgiving

quickly folded into an envelope marked

"past due".

How is it that the sun

rises with hope

and sets with disappointment

that another day will dawn?

He thinks me ungrateful

unable to wrap his arms

around the girth of this juxtaposition,

but it's really quite elementary.

The day is so beautiful

but how much more so

eternity.

Window Shop

I’m not much for delicate
but it was dually delicate and hard
like biker wear made of lace
and perhaps it was just these oppositions
that drew my face to the window

I pressed my nose
in oily grease between the sweaty imprints
of my palms
and left my name scrawled
in condensation across the bodice of a dress
I wished to wear

I returned day after day after day
pressing ever closer to the glass
concerned the garment
would find purchase on another frame
and my ruminations became plots to retain
and exercises in endurance

I had no coin, nothing to barter
and layaway seemed the best option
someday to own
someday to pay
but the shoulders already wore dust
loudly stating their need
not for eyes, but
for arms

Truth - always

Don't hide anything from me,
least of all your failings.
For I have whipped recital wings
against my own practiced body...
You have no idea.

You should know that

it's your failings that make you

oh.so.beautifully relatable.

"Perfect" people are just

the bottom step of a spiral ladder,

with lives that just keep swirling

below reality.

There is no profit in the untrue.

You think you weren't already worthy

enough in this heart,

propagated by God Himself?

My eyes have clouded

and my memory has dimmed...

but I know you.

I birthed you and grew you

under the roof my parents built above me

which they taught was THE WAY.

We all have history to dismantle

brick by brick

or to climb

step by step.

I tore it down sweetheart.

There was no foundation left,

or so I thought....

as if the physical removal of heart

could also brain matter

remove.

And so I dig.

And so should you.

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.

The Ashes

When we released the remains of your body into the deep
I expected the tide and waves to take you
where my tears could not.
The tears, as always, were unexpected and unwelcome
but I encouraged them anyway
requesting they name themselves...
sadness? loss? anger? guilt?
They didn't answer
nor did I expect they would. 

 

I cried for you, the same way you lived your life,
distanced from any emotion that might tear the fabric.
One tear and the whole thing may start to unravel,
which apparently was completely unacceptable.
And yet...I unraveled once.
I'm better for it...
certain of it, until
that needle of religious guilt sews up my joy
darning the hole through which I escaped
with a seal of condemnation.

 

We released you into the deep
and you sank into the sorrow you always carried,
slowly...maintaining the shape in which I unburdened my hands of you,
not scattered, not in the wind or the tide
still conformed...
a woman who, even in death
could not break free.

 

I watched your luminescent green ash sink
beneath me
tugging as in life, towards you
away from me.
You harmed me greatly.
I released you gently.
You scarred me for the duration of my life
and I took care of you in yours.

 

Everyone you sought so hard to impress
were without witness
and you left the earth alone.
I expected the tide and the waves to take you
but it was the deep that claimed you.
You went straight down.

Killer Argument

The way we scream,

as if louder is a jackhammer

to the ears.

Our faces, red with effort...

no longer recognizable

as shadows pass across rocky features

now so jagged sharp.

We have surrendered everything to anger,

fueled its fire with inattention

to what really matters.

...surely not this mountain

on which we may now die!

Murder is not worth being right.

Let's cease fire

before our small lives

are etched in stone

above a grave.

Slow Fade

I'm remembering the good times

sweeping others under the rug.

It seems wrong to mourn in anger

to say goodbye in hate

because there will never be another chance to do it over.

Your bones now make their presence known 

through the skin you've worn 

so reluctantly it was painful

to watch you reject your human form.

There's no dignity to be found now

even if you wanted it

but you ask for a mirror

smile into it, meeting an old friend.

Today you were so sweet to me.

I ran and hid my knives

locked away my guns and my grudges,

even knowing they will pick the lock

and find their freedom again

just in time for your funeral

where I will wear guilt as the color black

hating myself for hating you

while you disintegrated.

The Meadow

The bee told me there was nothing to fear.

We could both romp in the meadow.

It was our playground

and if I got stung

it was a mistake.

"Mine or yours?" I asked.

The bee said he couldn't point fingers

as he had none.

I listened to the buzz of his departure

as I considered the meadow,

so drawn to it

yet so afraid.

The buzzing grew louder and stronger

the bees seeming to multiply before my very eyes,

yet my feet, still only two.

My feet knew fear

had felt sting.

I had always thought to save the feet

but never considered to save the bee.

If I romped slowly

with considerate feet

would it still be fun?

I realized then

that too narrow focus on feet or bee

was the thief of joy

so why go to the meadow at all?

Or...

I could romp through the meadow knowing

freedom and pain play hand in hand.

You can't have one without the other

and there isn't always fault in it...

isn't always intent.

My feet need the meadow,

the meadow needs the bee,

and we will just do our best by each other.

Dissociating

I watch the light

leak through the cracks of flesh walls.

I cannot contain it

and I cannot find more.

I am the vessel of darkness,

it's steward,

curator.

It is the museum I visit

with no placards to explain the awful black voids

where art should hang.

I don't want to visit the museum anymore.

I don't want to keep paying with my life.

I should burn it down...

let the fire be my light

and the ashes

my masterpiece.

Intuition

 

There's that sound,

a hiccup in a world so largely a cacophony

that you strain towards the source.

All is not right.

All is not well.

Your gut takes a turn,

roller coaster of intuition...

trying to gain your attention.

All is not right.

All is not well.

The problem lies in the weight of sense,

a scale too largely favoring want against truth.

So you leap "need" first

while your heart unsteadies its beat,

and only the deepest parts of you can acknowledge

the lurch of decent.

You fucked up again.

When will you start to listen

with your body.

Ego

I'm just a balloon

filled or leaking with the air of opinion.

We are all just latex,

nothing more, and nothing less...

and air

is as cheap as it gets.

And yet with all the fluff blown up our ass

or huffed in our face

we give credence far beyond worth.

What you think of me is worthless

if I value myself.

Your judgement is worthless

if God holds me righteous.

So why do I hold my balloon beneath the spigot

just to feel the weight of water?

Ego.

Colorado Rockies

 

Sitting at the trailhead, I watch youth, vigor, and stamina pass me by, wearing Lulu Lemon tops with matching shorts the color of wildflowers.

The mountains stand stoic and resolute. They know my path and there is no pretending otherwise. We are the same. The weather has worn our edges and though theirs will take longer, we will both die of the same natural causes. Erosion and decay.

They say birth is the one thing everybody dies of. They also say that if you could feel all the pain that creeps up with age in one moment, you would die of shock. Isn't it amazing what we learn to tolerate as long as it's a slow build? The mountain with the climbers on its face and blizzard at its back. Me with my twisted trunk and cracked branches. Both of us at the mercy of time.

I say to my mom, and must to myself the same, "Make the most of the time you have left." To focus on the erosion is to rob yourself of the best it's going to get...for tomorrow the wind will howl again and the water will run across surfaces, creating deeper creases.

Today may be your best day, Annabelle. Get out of your head....

even if being in your heart hurts like hell.

About "These Five Hours"

Have you ever reached perfection?
I did
once.

I took a pain and reduced it for hours

simmering until it thickened

into something that could stand on its own.

It took few words

and less literacy

but it perfectly encapsulated 

me, us, then.

Perfection needed only one ingredient.

Death.

Rude Awakening

God wakes me

deep in the night when owls are prowling

and nocturnal creatures rouse from sleep.

He wakes me to save her.

I call the night humans

who corral her to safety.

They tell her she is not the owl

not one to roam the night.

    "time to sleep dear"

They do not tell her the truth...

that soon she will fly with the owl

and never again touch earth.

Miscarriage

 

The egg is so fragile,

yet holding within it

the greatest of miracles.

the embryo of all our hope...

all that we weren't but wished for,

all that we are, yet even more so 

feel entitled to.

The egg is so fragile.

The smallest misalignment and hope

summersaults into a barren winter

devoid of anything

that matters more.

The Bruise

 

I'm up early

earlier than the day...

black turning to blue

waiting for the yellow of morning,

like a bruise about to heal.

Isn't that funny?

"A bruise about to heal".

It doesn't just heal.

It turns from black to blue

green to yellow

to something just off from your skin tone.

And if deep enough

there is no healing.

Just an atonement through forgiveness

and an understanding that is yours alone

to plaster over the wound.

And yes,

that band-aid makes you well enough to continue the linear direction of life

without a backward glance,

except for those thrown over your shoulder

every day.