The Reality of What It Is

Someone is cyber-stalking me.

I wish I could brag that I’ve been getting a lot of hits on my blog, but I’m not stupid. I’ve had this thing long enough to know the reality of what it is.

The reality of what it is: a release. A pounding of pen twenty-first-century style, my mighty words fighting the demons in my heart, the everyday worries that bog us all down and yet we are afraid to admit, the essence of who I am.

The reality of what it is: a few followers, five or so hits on an average day, and enough likes to perk up my early mornings and late nights, my tired eyes that never seem too tired to read or write.

So when my numbers spike for a day or five, I know something’s up. Someone is trying to find something out about me, something undefinable. I read back over the poems and I think of those moments when they were written, and the words singe with emotion, ache with the longing I felt then, anger over mistreatment, the loss, the desire… more than anything, I look back over my words and I know just exactly what, why, or who I was writing about on that day, even if the emotive distance between then and now has faded.

The words bring me back. They remind me of why I wrote them down. Why I can read over them now and feel the rainbow of emotions that courses through every human’s veins but so few are able to wholly recognize without the God-like touch of art that graces our presence on this Earth.

Someone is cyber-stalking me. Trying to discover what I was really thinking that day on Arapahoe Road. Who those shards of glass were cut for. Why they weren’t on the Brownie List. How I could see beauty in an animal jumping over a fence, a piece of chocolate, or a monosyllabic word.

But the reality of what it is: they will never know my words as intimately as I do. And isn’t that what writing, what art, is all about?

Sunday Playday

a füsbal tag team
even together we lose
but win with laughter

Broken Beyond Repair

how they glistened
cutting into my foot
pretty jewels as bright
as tomorrow’s sun

all the colors of the rainbow
bottles shattered in joy
their beauty too blinding
to feel the pain in my sole

stained glass of yesteryear
sunlight shining through
is lost in Iberian cathedrals
as i carry the pain in my soul

Hyperdrive

us five in a row
we have moved beyond the stars
together complete

Second Language

they speak in mispronounced pronouns
only sometimes do i slip in corrections
language is learned this way
through trust in my understanding
trust in all misunderstandings
words from the heart?
the same in every language

Reins

i can write a ten-minute poem
fingertips touched
with years of hesitation

i am not accustomed
to holding these reins
lost in college years
i never took advantage of

i drive the carriage now
as we gallop across new lands
their realism lit up with logic
while at home we count coins

they know me well
how cautiously i shake these reins
like kings of the same root
our horses will fly us home

In Our Language

all these months later
returning chill, haunting words
i hate that you’re right

Flames Licking Wood

it looks like firelight
i know it’s only light above the stove
tile backing
granite countertops and all
but if you’re walking past
and you imagine you’re someone else
you might think for a moment
that there’s a fire in your kitchen

i’ve always imagined
a room like that
lit up by the warmth
only brought forward
by flames licking wood

it crackles here
somewhere hidden
as i watch her smile over miles
his smart remarks
as kind as the tomorrow
he places like daily gems
for all to sift through

i could count the days for her
she calls me on it
quicker than a Cheshire cat
and it’s the UK pounds
that make our words

you see it don’t you?
have i painted for you
the picture of my perfect fire?
the subtle light
yellow and warm
its heat moving across continents
weaving a smokeless room
into the heat of our hearts

Cartagena Today

church bells ring the hour
the sun brought my afternoon
a holiday, life

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Flow

as loose as these words
that spill over subconscious
we’ll find our way back