poetry

You, Me, Him, Them

/ lovizmytrio / 1 Comment

this is how it would be
you, me, him, them
being all grown up
while the kids
entertain themselves.

this is how it would be
if everything became
what we believed it would
back in the day
when dreams
were still imaginable.

this is how it would be
you, me, him, them
laughing into the night
eating delectable food
remembering our past,
planning for our future.

but it’s not,
and we all know
it never will be.
it will be just you and me
like always
talking about
you, me, him, them
and trying to figure out
where our dreams went awry.

Skin

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

perhaps i wasn’t born for this.
is it etched in my skin,
a tattoo of failure that follows
me wherever my words take me?

they pull me down,
anvils on the dock,
seagulls pecking at my skin,
offering the freedom i can’t have.

i wish my words could be the wings
that could carry me away
from the place where i’m inadequate.
where i could be real, in my own skin.

instead, they’re thrown back at me,
hateful darts into my skin.
if only i could pluck them out
and send them where my heart belongs.

Sarcasm

/ lovizmytrio / 1 Comment

i’m so thrilled to know
that the class i dread the most
has the neediest, rudest students.

i’m so thrilled to see
that every imaginable computer problem
will happen seventh period.

i’m so thrilled to hear
how well my not-quite-eight-year-old
understands sarcasm.

i’m so thrilled to know
that you think i need to read a book about defiance
so i can begin to put her in line.

i’m so thrilled to remember
why it is that she and i were not defiant.
fear is a great facilitator of submission.

i’m so thrilled to hear
the temper tantrums and talking back
that follow me everywhere i go.

i’m so thrilled to be
in this place i cannot escape from,
in this hollow where i don’t know who i am.

let me be thrilled
about something for real:
that you will never read this
(not knowing who I really am).

Carry

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

as much as i hear what you say
i will never understand why.
how in any right mind
could five rooms full of
talking-back teenagers
ever compare
to the jubilant joy
of young children
dashing through the snow?

their voices carry
like songbirds emerged in winter,
shutting out all the
whipping wind’s hollowness.
yet,
you would rather be here,
trapped in our windowless dungeon,
feeding them the lines
you’ve spouted so many times?

i’ll take my two weeks
and carry them in my mind
on my forever vacation.
for now,
i will draw a zipper across my lips
and, for once, be polite.
after all,
this year cannot carry on,
and summer’s sun,
giggling girls,
and road trips
beckon my dreams
from your harsh reality.

Fifty-Seven

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

it takes two sisters
four hours to make
three pies
dessert for fourteen people
when we include
two of six aunts
two of seven uncles.
three platters of lasagna
and forty-two plates later
we celebrate
year fifty-seven of
my father’s life
who with two “old” legs
just rode
twenty-four miles up a mountain
and hiked three and a half
and still carries his four grandkids
wherever the
endless numbers add up to next.

Endless Arrays

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

this is what it could be like:
the drive along the curvy road,
the sleeping baby at home,
the seven of us occupying
every last seat in the van,
the mountains with their
endless array of snow,
our legs working their way
through drifts and down slopes,
the warming hut that
warms our hearts,
the children with their
endless array of happiness;
you here, the four of us together,
just as all families should be.

Dimension

/ lovizmytrio / 1 Comment

i am not here in this moment
of screaming, cussing anger.
i am magically moving my father’s car
into another dimension

here, at home, where i have a husband
who in thirteen years has barely
raised a voice, let alone allowed a cuss
in a world that is love, love, love.

you may pull forward your Sorento
and disappear into your hateful reality.
i prefer to remain in the dimension of love
that shields my heart from your evility.

you will drive home, your elderly parents
unable to determine where they went wrong.
i will drive until he takes the wheel from my
shaking hands, his hands on my hands, my heart.

Underbelly

/ lovizmytrio / 1 Comment

we are here now,
sister, brother-in-law, niece,
grandparents who have filled
the underbelly of the tree
with Wal-mart’s
explosion of Chinese reality.

he and i lie in the dark
on our basement floor mattress,
the tint of the waning moon
lingering light upon his whiskered face.

Santa has already arrived,
stripped down because
the underbelly of the tree
regurgitated its recklessness.

i will never forget,
i tell him,
this time at my own
grandparents’ house,
when my mother,
her measly salary
half of my father’s pittance,
after seeing the
gifts my grandmother
inundated us with,
turned to him and said,
‘I hate being poor.‘

i try to remember this
as we rise before the sun,
set up the camera
in anticipation of their anxious faces,
and spend hours
exchanging money, goods
from the underbelly of the tree
that seems to mock,
wealth, wealth, wealth
with its shedding branches
that drop needles
like tears onto the hardwood.

Snatch

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

i see the words today
hovering over my early morning
they follow me over snow-dusted streets
and evaporate in a cloud of breath
against the blaring white lights
as haunting as ghosts
as they disappear into the sunrise.

they are mine
and as much as i wish to let them go
i crave to snatch them back
for they are forever on the page
in the realms of all who wonder
what it is i might have to say.

but just as the earth turns
to let in the light of day
my words will remain
where i have chosen for them to be.
and me? i cannot snatch back
the pieces of my soul
that i have offered to the world.

Love, Hate

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

who you see here tonight?
it’s the me he dislikes
how i laugh, laugh, laugh
exposing everything
in my (their) disbelief

it’s a standing joke now
(gift card to prove it)
and i will smile all the way
until tomorrow

carrying her hands on my hands
her eyes on my eyes
how i see what others do not
how i know what others do not

everything, everything exposed
just like that night in the car
when it was so, so, beautifully orgasmic

and i swallowed it whole
my love
i swallowed the cool air
the bitter whiskey
the smooth rum
the cream cheese

because it is all a part
of the here and now,
the then
the me whom i love
and hate
whom i love
and hate.