in city blooms, petals drop
falling to pavement to be smashed by tires
ground into the street our souls walk on
their soft, lilting perfume gnawed by exhaust
just like your lack of denial
as fragile as a flower in mid-spring
silence swallowed up by gray skies and wind
clear mountain view blocked; exhausted
no matter how many miles i walk
you’ll never quite capture the right moment
when they blossom fearlessly, ready to stay
exhausted only by blue skies and sun
burst from these dark days
of post-holiday winter
news to change a life
(or ten thousand lives)
cause that’s how many she’ll touch
in her tenure here
this comes full circle
(the young-mother sacrifice,
the risky Spain year)
to work with passion
to be led with compassion
to love, love my school
it’s all i’ve wanted
thirteen years waiting for strength
to be my leader
second thoughts run deep
two hundred dollars later
and him always mad
my bestie takes blame
(her kitten was first, she claims)
but this is my fault
how deep does love run?
for my oldest: no-phone prize
for us all: pet love
sometimes i wonder
how hovering hurt runs deep
to pick our pockets
if i could keep her
(and keep his heart with me too)
we’d run through the depths
i haven’t written
and you call out the whole truth
(love my introvert)
i know you hate her
and i know you–you’ll love her
shit in car and all
just like you loved me
threads falling from my buttons
(you just resisted)
shit on car and all
you fell head over heels, Love
in love with this mess
(and look at those eyes)
true as the cat is black, Babes
true as hard core truth
It is Sunday night, and I haven’t thought about you all weekend. You have been sitting in ungraded piles on the tables by the door of my classroom. You have been unread and unmarked emails that I have chosen to ignore. Because I am raising three kids. And I am raising thousands of kids. And I have to have a balance between the two.
Because Saturday was running from store to store to party to party to house to house to out to dinner to home/friends/love/hate.
Because Sunday was more running (to the Lego store) to appease my middle child who always feels a bit left out. And another party, and another set of meals to make.
Because I need to breathe for a moment and think about what is most important. Is it my administrator telling me she’s tracking our usage of tablets that don’t work half the time so she can send the data to the district? Is it the kids in my first period who have been pushed into lockers and called faggot/whore/freak/thot [that ho over there]/cunt and causing me to stop the entire lesson to beg me to listen?
Or is it my girls, who beg me to teach them cross-stitch and ask me to stay at the advisory party and want me to skate with them and want me to wake them up at 6:15 so that I can make pumpkin spice bagels and vanilla chai tea and spend a moment before work with them?
You tell me. Tell me how to decide. Tell me how I am supposed to carry the weight of a thousand students inside the hazel eyes of the three girls I gave birth to.
Because thirteen years in, I am still not sure.
Because it’s Sunday night, and I am sitting in my dream house, that, thirteen years in, I can afford. Because the candles are burning and the music is playing and my girls have gone to bed. Because I’ve had a few glasses of wine and I have thank-you cards to write and grocery lists to make and weekend plans to destroy and a thousand kids, including my own, to raise.
Because there is never enough time.
And that is why I write. Why I love them. Why I hate how much they take from me. Why I live for how much they GIVE me.
And why I will not live by administrative threats. By school district doomsdays. Why I choose to live by these small requests that pile up around me like leaves falling in autumn. “Do something, Miss.” “Listen to us.” “Take me to the mall even if you hate it.” “Stay at my party, please?!” “I need you to cover me up.”
Because we all need that soft touch. That quilt of love wrapped around all that is evil in the world. That mother’s love. For all the thousands of kids who have it, who will never have it, who long to have it.
That is why.
what angers me now
is her quick accusation
that we just don’t care
bullied confessions
took control of my first class
(undocumented)
yet, she’s tracking us–
collecting district data
to prove we’re worth it
you cannot track kids
who’ve been shoved into lockers
with tablet data
one day she’ll see this
or continue on her path
of domination
either way, we win:
My lesson’s lost, i tell them
—but we needed this—
i actually hear
the harsh words they say to me
i truly listen
but she can’t see that
it’s not in her statistics
and therefore i fail
what angers me most
is how i love, love, love them
and how she doesn’t
unpacking my life
an ever-endless ordeal
that stops here. purple.
because dreams are made
from last-minute purchases
that enclose our lives
too perfect for truth
this house, this home, surrounds us
here i’ll live till death
Location:S Kearney Way,Denver,United States
through cycling
in and out of neighborhoods
brick by brick, i fell
love lost, and then won
bungalow to bungalow
my city wooed me
the wheels spun me back
(sold my heart to Cheesman Park)
from bad-boy breakups
all along back streets
Park Hill, Cole, Cory Merrill
like love at first spin
bikes are trendy now
(they’ll dress like freaks to prove it)
but my bike love lives
in this uphill ride
with mountain sunset backdrop
my girls guiding me
i see them falling–
street by street, scraped knees and all–
in love with my love
my first orgasm
given to a boy now dead
life’s too fucking short
my childhood park
lit under a cloudy moon
is what calms me down
i’d walk the world
to find my way back to you
eighteen years in, love
we’re all grown up now
me a woman, you a man
let’s let bygones… be
there’s no other moon
to shine city-bright tonight
just my love, your love
she wants an answer
and i want a solution:
not an easy mix
i stare at Wash Park
paddles, crayfish everywhere
and think of that day
when we were problems
we were each other’s problems
and that was okay
she’d never been there
and we pedaled that huge bike
each one disabled
we ate what we ate
we chewed what we chewed: bitter
yet: so fucking sweet
and why i hate now:
because i have everything
(nothing without her)
money doesn’t buy
that once-in-a-lifetime love
trapped inside boxes
so what’s my answer?
there’s no easy solution
to a broken heart
but let us fix it
pedal away from Wash Park
be wholly ourselves
Step Write Up 