forgetting
tea made- songs played- task waiting-
outside it stopped raining sometime yesterday while I slept on unawares
I talked to God Almighty, (Isn't that how you address the sole creator of the universe?)
I told him it wasn't fair,
I told him he'd broken my heart,
as though he were pointing out the error in my logic-
or simply trying to prove a point about gratitude-
images of people starving slowly to death came to mind. People walking many miles to a one room hospital where only the basics in medical care were available.
Slowly relaxing as I thought about the comforts I was surrounded by,
it still did not take away the larger question of why-
why-
and then on a breath, on a whisper, as though I'd forgot,
it came to me.
Why not?
Winter
Disappointment is as bitter as a sad sad song
Dad leaves saying "I won't be long"
He's gone out for a cigarette pack,
He won't be back-
And all the tears we weep
follow us down to sleep-
When I was a little girl
I stood before a mirror
and felt the whole world
vast
impersonal
peopled by billions
and was struck by my own anonymity
I've never escaped that fully.
Outrun
we were in her kitchen
(She's been dead three years now, I guess)
(what's more important is that I love her)
She told me something
That she was in a position to know
having lived her life
like a bullet shot out of a gun
all speed, and fury, and fire
and that never died in her eyes, even at the last
though the truth of her had delivered a shining
and that shining was laughter
(someday maybe god will give it to me, if he pleases)
She said
"You can't keep running from everything."
At the time, stupid and young and pleased at any attention I received
It must have seemed to me some sort of compliment.
Age can make some people a student of human nature
Love can make other people students as well
I wish she were here for me to tell
this simple thing,
I've heeded your warning.
Simpler Stuff
watch -watch -watch me
a star rises high into the night
before the first light of dawn touched the skies
birds cries echoing in the air, everywhere, around
stirring inside
hide from everything
but really, truly, don't
anymore
pulled the mask off
rubbed the dirt around in my mouth
look-
A dog leads a simple life
it's something like food
water
love
maybe obedience to what this human says
if their not well trained then there's some spite, they bite
underneath all this shit
(that's all it is , it's shit, shit, shit)
I'm trying to get down to something that simple
that thoughtless.
Underneath the mask
the questions that ask
ceaselessly
I want to be like my dog
eat, drink, love, free to dislike whom I dislike, and hopefully be left in peace and not be beaten or eaten.
My questionable gifts
Cup of coffee, cigarette, 5:00 a.m. waiting for...
That line to blur
that voice I heard-between-
awake and dream
(sometimes, more often than not, it will follow me into the light, the late night hours
where it devours everything except the sound of ...)
Radio songs
and I don't care for love songs
or longing etched in poetic phrase
I want to spend my days
the ways I please
(words and the cadence of them and the rhythm and the ...)
I stop in the middle to thank this thing called insanity
This blind and hateful gift that was given to me.
Who I am
Get up seven times to pee
drink copious amounts of caffiene
wonder what these cigarettes are doing to my lungs
images come to mind of something black and diseased-
sometimes it's better not to think,
listen to Pop top 40 and feel guilty - thinking - I have no taste - I have no taste
and the entire idea that everyone keeps throwing at me
Dad-Mom-various authority figures with disagreeable diatribes
that my life is a waste
seems to disappear in a blurry wondrously bright smear of words.
Said a soft word
Architect of my fate
wait and I'll see
if like sheherazad spinning words against oncoming doom
my words will illuminate the shadows in this darkened room.
Water under the bridge
I don't say words like love
my reasons- because- because
and i'm alone
sometimes i think out of choice
and sometimes i think out of sheer force of personality
baring my teeth at the world
when i should be being something agreeable
all the words start to escape me somehow
when i think of how weak i was
to let you make me weep
and all of it in your name
but all of that's changed
I left town, dyed my hair, changed it back again,
inside still the same
small town girl I always was
my trust once divided
I decided
to place in me.
The Truth
All noise, all light, all fire, and all fury
pain and paranoia shock and certainty
in things that are as insubstantial as dreams-
as the film that hovers around angels- that glow-
All of this,
and you'd still not see
what this disease does to me.
Try to imagine
wrap your mind around
being one person one day, rational, sane
then without a warning, a slow slide down
into a chaos that your ordered ego still tries to create logic around, and how?
How do you logically order madness, and yet it tries.
And you can fall in love with it
the rise and fall
the wave you are surfing on, oblivious of being sucked under
(You're riding so high, so high)
Death was a laugh, we were all Gods, life was a test flight for immortality, I was Isis, and you were me,
And I came back from that, that's my testimony to my own bravery,
What do I want from you?
Only that you see what mental illness is- something that could not in the end, conquer me.
The Good The True and The Beautiful
In between
the glass and the water
what we think and what we ought
what we seek and what is sought
we do all these other things
that reveal the truth of who we are
and those things are not so far
from the good, the true and the beautiful
at all.
A word
Put on the black
tie my hair back
eyes on heaven, eyes on the skies
everything is burning
inside I'm turning, around and around
all of these sorrows, pains, begged off promises
I won't break my back for shame anymore
I've spent nights sleeping on the floor
I won't go back to being wretched, helpless, poor
and this is what I am, and this is what I am, and this, and this
could you deliver me with just one kiss?
I'm Tom Ripley, so scared of being exposed
but everyone already knows
the truth, the lie
the secret why
no matter how hard I try.
