you cannot speak
with perfect fluency
the language
that i need you to know.
the meanings
that hide like
costumed schoolgirls
behind curtains
the nuances
of masked words
that shadow the pain
behind your absence.
the many ways
we say i love you
that with your foreign ears
you seem unable to hear.
you cannot listen
with perfect fluency
to silence between the words
of the language
that i need you to know.
the same book that binds us
tears us along the spine
where we’ve fallen into cracks
unseen by words on the page
if we could close the cover
or open up to page one
perhaps we could see
where the story would take us
instead we skim
unable to truly read
forgetting how without the words
we wouldn’t be here
i sent the words
(there were clicks–
not yours)
i spent the time
(there were chips–
dark chocolate)
you didn’t respond
you couldn’t read
the words too thick
the chips already melted
you left them there for me
and i placed new words
under the light
words they shared in your absence
it was strange
having you walk in like that
not quite sure
if you should use your own words
or listen to ours
you waited
i wrote
(i always do)
you flipped off the light
that let them see
what i had written
in your usual manner
you ad-libbed
they laughed their usual laughs
but i managed to
feel less small
knowing they shared words with me
you stood in the back
video on
asking me a favor
(the chocolate
sitting in a back room
unrequested)
i took your center cut
put it in the microwave
and melted it for a perfect sundae
you won’t say a word
you will never know
just how warm
how perfectly cold
it tasted as i took my words
and swallowed them
Riona
Five. FIVE. five…
you wear the pink taffeta dress
(pattern handed down
for fifty years)
a gathered waste,
scalloped pockets and sleeves,
plastic pearls to complete the couture.
you jump in and out of fountains,
climb plastic playground steps,
pretend with perfect attitude
(that encompasses all you are)
to blow the absent candles from your cake
we move from playing with new gifts
on hardwood (you offer me a pillow)
to party number two, where
you surround yourself with
breaking-down children and ask
only that i roast you a marshmallow
in the lightning-flash sky
and circle of warmth
you are five.
you dash to the car in the
pitch-black, too-far-from-city night,
your row of new lip balms in palm,
and before you will sleep,
you divide them evenly amongst sisters,
your generous heart more beautiful
than your perfect pink taffeta dress.
Mythili
it’s been a year, and
baby teeth are gone,
replaced by no-finger-sucking
straight white incisors
that have sent Blankey
to a closeted grave
with their grown-up appearance.
you have school friends now
who you won’t let go.
you know the way down the corridors,
will soon show baby sister,
and, as always,
you speak quite frankly
about the condition of your classroom,
the behavior of other students,
and your ability to stay on task.
how could these two adult teeth
bring deeper wisdom
to the little girl
who, from birth,
could already see the world
in a light
the rest of us can’t see?
Isabella
i find pictures of you
at five, six,
(pudgy cheeks and tiny teeth)
and look into your pale hazels,
your over-freckled cheeks,
hold you against me,
your head now at my shoulder,
and i know
i know
(though i’m afraid to write it now)
you are no longer a little girl.
you are my oldest,
will always be first,
will always move from one stage
to another before them,
will be the one to induce the most fear,
the most intense kind of love,
a kind i cannot describe here
(or to them)
one that is shared from those
moments in our babymoon
to those moments now when
you understand what they don’t,
when you give me the look
a reflection of my expression,
you, a shadow of me
who stands at my shoulder,
ready to grow.
just take three kids,
toss in ten more,
stir up some screams,
splash in a bit of sunlight,
add ice-cold water,
a dose of shade,
and bake for three hours.
pull your party
out of the oven
and serve warmth.
Insomnia, guilt, and a conversation I had today are the inspiration for this post. Why can’t I sleep when certain thoughts creep into my brain? More importantly, why can’t I let things, people, or “friends” go?
It’s all about the brownies. If you had one day inadvertently come across this recipe as I did, you would understand. The scrumptious perfection of these brownies, modified by my specification of Hershey’s Special Dark chocolate chips and dutch process cocoa, make every morsel a delectable experience. When I first started making them, it was an occasional treat, a decadence the whole family could enjoy. But I was quick to discover that they don’t last, that from-scratch bakery items must be enjoyed to their fullest almost immediately after emerging from the oven, or all sense of richness is lost. And so I brought a few to work. The reaction was astounding, and people began to ask about them. I brought in a few more. Soon I was making weekly batches of brownies and bringing the entire 9×13 pan into work, cutting them up, bagging them individually, and setting aside corners for certain colleagues and the coveted “center cuts” for a special few.
So as I lay in bed just now, thinking about the F-bomb and my purposeful use of it under imperative circumstances when the whole FUCKING world ought to agree it is necessary, I started adding up the ingredients of my weekly brownie list. Fifteen brownies a week, four eggs, two sticks of butter, a bag of chocolate chips, one and a quarter cup of cocoa, a tablespoon of premium vanilla, one and a quarter cup of flour, two cups of sugar, one teaspoon of baking soda, fifteen sandwich baggies. What does it add up to? $10 a week, $40 a month, 10 months in a school year, $400 a year.
Now let’s talk about my coworkers, who have two incomes and car payments and student loans and childcare expenses and every other FUCKING excuse in the world to NOT have any money. And me, family of five, ONE income, NO debt (other than a mortgage), who rides my ass up thirteen miles of hills with those heavy ass brownies ON MY BICYCLE and specifically sets aside the best cuts for the BEST people, and I am spending $400 a year so that if I USE THE WORD FUCK ON FACEBOOK I GET DE-FRIENDED??
That’s it. Farewell to the fucking brownie list.
it has seeped out overnight
the words lie flat in mountain noon sun
hidden behind pale shadows
unable to fight back the bright
you say to him what i say to mine
i can feel the oozing out of veins
as the peaks disappear in the rearview mirror
skyscrapers nestling us into our nest
i will be weaker now as in those past pale moments
your secrecy lost upon me
but lighter too with the capillary release
of tiny heart drops draining to the ground
a black snake making its way
curvacious and thick,
scales glistening in early morning,
ropelike muscles ride its back,
snaking our way
slither by slither
amidst shiny pops of dashing-past eyes,
past the ponderosa pines
into thin air above treeline
it snaps its rattle
one last switchback bite,
a venomous sting near the clouds,
but we bite back
bask in the surreptitious sun
that mocks the wind
and begin again,
rattle on top
spiky teeth taking us down
until once again
we have conquered the serpent.
enter title here
gray words on a blue sky day
she crawls into my lap
between three margaritas
fifteen bicycle miles
and half the cottonwood-covered zoo
a boy would never do that
he informs us
letting us know how lucky we are
we are
we are
with three little-getting-bigger-every-day
girls
girls
girls
she is absent but we fill in her space
with life stories as twisted as the branches
on the half-dying ash
(the one holding the tire swing)
and the fajitas pop in our mouths
with songs of spicy Mexico
and we remember
(forget in the same moment)
how we came together
how so easily we could come apart
how we remember
how we forget
you’re right
there are poems
they aren’t nice
but there’s no way
you read them
one slur
one cuss
one moment of frustration
and i’m gone
until you see me in august
right there beside you
or will i be placed
as before
at the back of the room
my own seat
my own misery
uselessness surrounding me?
you
ARE
in
the
nightmares
of
rejection
with that stupid click
of one
cold
button.
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