Haunted

I don't want to follow your heartbeat to my end of the road
My direction contradicts this touch
It's not fair for me to feel so alive
next to you in my dreams
Next to you in tomorrow
Your arms haunt my soul and say goodnight
goodbye
at the same time and I
cannot
handle the power of these thoughts
the power of you
and your memory
your incredible and infectious smell
your reach, my fear
I want to go back, to the touch, the toe, the tomorrow
I want to know that your shoulders ache for me
and your body lays with me
in the dark
The night that is ours
And the end of the walls that bind me
and trap me to my endless vision
of what might have been
if only I'd believed
if only I'd given in to the hunger
believed in myself
spoken the words on the tip of my tongue
Pride is crippling and captivating
and I lost you, I lost you
I lost you to time

Poetry, AMAZING

Please follow this link... I haven't been writing because I haven't been following my muse.  My muse lives here

Echo

I heard you come home yesterday
today
tomorrow
I just prefer the silence of knowing what comes next
to the turmoil that aches in the effort of us
I used to speak with thought, conviction and bravery.
I'm louder now
you prefer the meek and fearful little old me
I suppose I am sorry to disappoint only because I don't want to disappoint you
But.
You disappoint me.

Living the layers of us is
emptying me.

They say you served your purpose
What purpose is that?
I had such high hopes for our differences.
I thought we were adults who understood the sacrifice essential for multi-cultural connection.

Now there is an emptiness I never imagined I would feel with thoughts of you.
The end is the end of an era that was meant to strengthen me
and you
change
you.
It hasn't accomplished anything so what's the purpose?  What's the purpose of me and you?
The truth of forever and never are interchangeable now...
so what for our vows?

All, scripted and framed and hanging so well -
in a house where they are just
words
without conviction.

Mother's Day

Mother’s Day

Over passage sitting

Staring at yesterday

Scorn and bitter

The taste of tomorrow is sacred

Alone

Her bricks peel away layer by faulty layer

And her hands

Magical and breaking

Seduce his memory into a smirk

And then a sigh

If she were here we would be different

We would still know each other

Forgiveness wouldn’t be such a stranger

But the night sleeps with her

And he waits

Upon the bridge

For the trees to bring her closer

2010

This is the first poem I have written in quite some time.  This year was my first Mother's Day as a mom - and I naturally experienced it very differently than I have in past years.  I thought about my mother and my grandmothers and how much I wish they could have known Zaiya.   I thought about what their first Mothers' Days were like.  And this led me to think about my grandfathers... my mom's dad is the only living grandparent I have today.  He is... not the friendlest person you'll meet and he's more opinionated than anyone I think I've ever met.  Sometimes I become overwhelmed trying to figure out why he is the way he is - and on Mother's Day this year I could not get the only image of him that I know anymore out of my mind.  The image is what this poem is about... he stations himself in the middle of the sitting area on the covered bridge connecting the two buildings of his retirement community and watches... and I would give a penny for his thoughts...

Empty Dock

May 2008
There is so much more to this one, but I thought this clip was great.  The rest will be published in my book... someday!  :)


Last night’s dream was the answer to any and all prayers I’ve had in my lifetime.  I was alone, running on an empty dock, looking out at the water, down at the wood, out at the water, up in the sky, down at the wood… running… breathing… smiling… feeling… joy.  It wasn’t just any random falling dream; this dream evolved.  It was a short story of my life.  In the beginning, I was helping my family pack… all of them were packing to go somewhere, anywhere.  None of them were going together or to the same place, but I was helping them all pack.  I was anxious, breathing heavy, rushing, worrying, pacing, thinking… they say I was always thinking.  When the packing was done, I sent everyone on their way and when all was quiet I stopped and felt a surge of fear: I’M ALONE.  And as I began to turn around and see what I was alone with and in, I realized something: being alone is wonderful.  I never thought I would ever think such a thing… that being alone could be wonderful.  It is, wonderful.  I live it now – I believe it now – I love it now. 

 

Dancing in a Haitian Bar

10-9-04

Confidently owning each borrowed tree

taken by this culture’s arms in

between

backward innovations

forward to history’s worst nightmare: 

Forgetfulness

he hears not echoes, but heartbeats

shaking outside a raw determination

He’s all of our insecurities,

washed away

by a god much larger

than can fill a small, steepled

room full of fear

Music

            Lives

                        Inside all of us.

But it is home inside of him.

Harboring Angels

*This was an exercise from a writing class in college on transitions... we were supposed to break down a scene in as great a detail as possible!  I don't think it is not completely finished but I like it so far.  It is based on a true story told to me by a college friend recounting a childhood memory.*

            Jimmy’s eyes were like small wombs harboring angels.  Often the only thing his father saw was the ocean that almost continuously bled from them.  Tears seemed to line up to ask permission before they left each corner.  He wore yellow hair like a crown when he laughed.  His skin was smooth and rounded, as if he could be gently folded together and packed away when he needed to disappear.  He often dreamt of doing just that.   When his skin was bruised from the beating, it almost appeared as if he simply had little moons stamped all over him in a rainbow of colors.

            Hunter’s eyes were like jailhouses for demons; they were red most of the time from alcohol.  His nose stuck out like a wild animal’s craving a kill.  His lips were so thin it hurt to watch him yell.  His skin was dry and flaky when he first returned to the base from an assignment.  By the first few drinks his skin became like liquid lava; he stuck to anything he touched.  What hair he had left stood high and proud upon his scalp as if maintaining attention at all times.  It was jet black, and tended to match his devilish eyes.  He would make himself so hot from yelling that sweat literally poured across his body and expanded his fingers.  He knew he could hit harder when he drank and perhaps this is why he drank so much.  His father abused him as well, but he was determined to learn from it.  He used to tell his best friends how excited he was to be “the perfect father.”  Hunter began losing control when Jimmy turned six and began to form his own opinions about the world.  He never wanted to hit his children, but he didn’t know any better when frustration overcame him.

            Hunter often lost control, of his arms and his legs as he pounded and kicked anyone who tried to stand in his way.  He numbed himself with booze until all he felt was neglected anger.  Jimmy tried to reject his father’s anger and though usually successful, he was also overwhelmed with pain and splattered with bruises.  By the time Jimmy was 15 years old he was only five feet tall and fragile like a feather. 

 *

            Jimmy got home around 4:00 in the afternoon from school the day report cards were handed out.  It was a day he always dreaded, though he especially dreaded it tonight due to the C that was stamped on the section marked “ALGEBRA.”  As his father started to yell, Jimmy’s eyes grew narrow and dark like funnel clouds.  As he listened to his father, he grew pink and hot and began to drip onto the tiles, like his father.  As Hunter picked Jimmy’s frail body up and held him over the trashcan, he began to feel weak and tired even of yelling.  Hunter’s skin ached for color and began to lay down as his grip loosened upon Jimmy’s neck. 

            They both fell to the ground.  Hunter clung to his throbbing chest with shocked hands.  As he lay unconscious on the kitchen floor, Jimmy simply stood tall and obediently over him.  His body seemed longer now, and though he knew he should be calling for help all he could do was sweat off the part of the trash that had stuck to him from the fall.  He did not cry; he only stood still.  His lips curled so thin they seemed to want to break even in silence.  Hunter lay breathless, helpless and scared, unable to move a single limb in his body.  All Jimmy could do was sit and watch him suffer, smelling the alcohol that saturated his own skin now. 

            When Hunter awoke he was living inside of Jimmy’s mind.  Life has a way of teaching the soul to find solace.