Beyond the Pale

Outside the circle across the tracks
all the ways that I am wrong
peeking in through breaks in the hedgerow that I cannot cross
salt marked lines stronger that any surveyor post and rope
Back to my corner where I anneal with
Furriers, tanners, blacksmiths, scribes and other dressers of the dead
we all live beyond the pale
just visiting this planet
making little scritches where we can
trying to prove we exist
and that we matter

Brave New World

When I was a child, I wasn't afraid of technology
There were faraways to be discovered
moons to walk on
dimensions accessed only through the wonders of light and sound waves.
Now I stare at the skittering phone, black hole life
It falls to the floor, still vibrating
I match it, quiver for quiver, terrified of the other end

Brave New World II

I don't want to see blank pages anymore
They remind me of my life, too much so
and when they're filled,
well, that's even worse
"What are you saying?"
"Is there anything here?"
"Why this particular word?"
Farcical
Going into the kitchen to slice onions, instead.

Shattered Glass

Dunk wash rinse place repeat
I transfer plates glasses utensils from one sink to the next and then to the rack to dry
moving each piece from left to right
like writing the directions for a screeplay
The warm water, the clanging of the pipes, the tiny rounds of water fighting air pressure and losing
Soothing in its simplicity, necessity
I pause, my hand deep inside a long narrow goblet
the edge almost touching the spigot
Have I forgotten?
Has it been long enough for fear-born-of-scar-tissue caution to be lost?
If this glass is too thin, if it taps the metal just right,
will it shatter?
Will the fragments shatter my hand, my precious hand, kaleidoscope it, filet it to the bone?
Will I be able to clamp, glue, stitch, anything
to staunch the spurting blood before it dirties the other dishes?
I pause and ever so carefully remove my hand from inside the glass and put all the rest into the dishwasher.

When I Grow Up

When I grow up I'm going to fly
Except I'm afraid of heights anyway
I'm even afraid when I stand on a chair to change a lightbulb
So I guess I'll have to scotch that idea

Speaking of scotch...
When I grow up I'm going to weave plaids
Except I don't have a loom and I can't stand plaids anyway
So that goes out the window

Speaking of windows...
When I grow up I'm going to have a super delux netbook
Except I'm a bit of a luddite anyway
So I'll have to take another look at that

Speaking of looking...
When I grow up I'm going to see faraway places and in new ways
Except I hate to travel and I can't see without my glasses anyway
So...

I'm going to ride my bike to the top of some mountain and fly down
weaving in and out of traffic trying not to look at my speedometer

how the internet has replaced my address book

i have a tradition.

when ten persons in my address book have died, i replace it.

i have four address books and no longer keep one, storing addresses in my computer software or in my phone.

i was scrolling through my list of favorite blogs just now, scribblings, rants, recipes, poetry, knitting patterns and the like.

three of the authors i follow have died in the last few months.

when it hits ten, do i replace my computer? delete all access to the internet? what?

Rish rush shel ha mayim

Can't understand the sounds, joyous throb in my ears
as I wade into strange waters and dive under,
one last time, reciting al hatevilah, v'kayam b'maahmaro, shehehyanu.

I give up the oceans and climb, cold air pain replacing thermals.
Peeking around the mountain I choose to shield me,
I see streaks of golden dark bouncing off the edge of a broken tunnel.

"Just hold on, baby, just hold on! You close your eyes!"

Close my eyes? That means trust.
It means giving up control,
or at least the illusions I have of control.

Swallow fear, pride, facades and let the stomach acids dissolve them at their own pace.
Meantime, I keep my cadence, clinging to the handles, lean my head on his back,
eyes shut tight and whisper,

I am. I will. I can. I do.

Life Beyond the Blowtorch

Three icebergs float in my veins, sleet attached to steel like white cells attacking virus,
floating there as long as I've been floating here, away from my other life.
Metal worked crosses mark their passage
blood broken glass sheared fiberglass are visas to hostile territory.
Every day for so long I didn't see even them
except from the corner of my eye.
Tonight, three years on, I'm glad the street lights are out.
I'm glad its too dark to see the teddy bear menagerie flower garlands
and boxes of broken chocolates, creme filling removed by various feral beasts,
homage on the median.
But the streetlight comes on just as I hit the underpass.
Spotlight on trois prei deux.
Baby, take a bow and exit stage right

Unclean Title

The hibiscus are in bloom.
There. That place. Where I used to live.
Engine running, Jackie-O sunglasses and scarf, I resemble a 1960's starlet in disguise.
But if they came out, they'd recognize me.
I hope.
I dread.
Its not yellow any more. My favorite house color.
Every house I ever owned was some shade of yellow,
Porch, shutters, gingerbread, window trim, if not all.
The sun bouncing off the clotted red hurts my eyes. I blink a few times to focus.
The crepe myrtle is gone, and the palm
-I don't know what kind it is, I never cared about that-
is so tall it shades the optional bay alcove I paid extra for.
Its just a place I used to store my things and pace the halls because I couldn't sleep,
hornets stinging, subdermal demons writhing,
while the voices threatened to trap me in between the sheet rock and cinderblock.
It was never home.
I put the car in drive and ignore the stop sign at the corner.

A Promise is a Promise is a Promise

A campaign promise
is not a champagne promise
is high gloss lipstick over veneered teeth
is not a testament of intelligence, integrity, talent, education or, most certainly, sobriety
is a curtain over honesty with hypocrisy smirking around the tiebacks
is not a vow of devotion but a paean to opportunism
is drawn and quartered by all comers in a bukake baccanal
is what I won't make you because you deserve better.

Houses and Homes and Promises

I'll build a home with you and we'll never need a king size bed.
We've both been there. We've learned.
I think so anyway. I like to think so, that we've, that I've, learned.
And I promise to smile when you come in,
no matter how busy I am,
no matter how distracted,
because.

A Roving We Will Go

Jump down turn around, pick a bale of cotton.
Jump down turn around, pick a bale of hay.
Jump down turn around, pick a bale of cotton.
Jump down turn around, pick a bale of hay.

She sang as she picked the roving apart, but it wasn't soft, safe, wonderful cotton, despite her assumption, despite its appearance.

It was fiberglass.

Carcinogenic, full of slivers that weaseled under the skin, shimmied into the lungs and brain, and set up housekeeping, eager for spouse, children, third cousins twice removed to come along ans expand the compound.

Fiberglass.

That miracle substance so pervasive in the housing industry that it was regarded as the lead paint of the new millennia and no one was sure whether the better approach was to remove the contaminant or contain it in walls and spray foam polyurethane.

Fiberglass in toys and drapes and attic insulation, where she sat, fluffy piles around her. She liked the way it glistened, the hologram effect when she held a piece to her eyes and pulled, until the light coming through the tiny window was a rainbow. It was her favorite game, that fall, hiding in the attic and singing, a pretend princess waiting for prince charming to kiss her into forever-never land.

Years later, when the doctors told her she had ‘white lung', the fiberglass version of asbestosis, she wouldn't remember that fall.

Who remembers the innocent games of childhood, anyway?

Random

Time weighs too much. Not a volume measure, but an endless press.
Way back, breakfast bile.
No more. Now I eat happy,
Faith trust pixie dust.

Wrongness is past life.
Wake to joy, right, comfort. No tears.
Love hope charity.

Six points make a star
that lays above my heartbeat
to keep me aware.

Who am I? Not who you think.

He doesn't love the public me,

pinstriped, pinned up, buttonholed me
or the decked out deshabille pimped out me
or even the "I can do anything" uber-competent me.

He loves the baaaad me.
The one splashes in puddles and loses her keys
and rips her clothes and breaks her nose,
and stamps her feet because she wants it RIGHT NOW.
The stuck at eight-years-old, mud-smeared, gap-toothed, scabby-kneed me,
leaving a trail of broken cups and crayoned walls,
hiding under the bed, afraid of the monsters she played with in the morning.
The me who bites her lip so no one will see her cry.
The me who stole a chocolate bar because she was hungry.

Yeah. That one.

Anywhere But Here

"Not everything is an omen. You don't have to ascribe meaning. Let it be what it is." He reached out-oh, that's a symbolic choice of words, maybe I can use it somewhere- and pressed me against him. I was limp. "You have to stop this. You're going to make yourself sick again. Why won't you let me help you? Why can't you trust me?"

Eyes closed, I breathe short, shallow breaths, willing myself away, anywhere but here, anywhere but with him and his ardor. I am afraid. His intensity makes me afraid. It is easier to go back to what I was, to the evil familiar than to believe. He pulls me onto his lap and rocks me, face buried in my hair. I can feel the heat from his palms against my thigh, against the slope of my hip.

"Do I need to get a mirror? You are the only person I know who can lower their temperature at will, still their heartbeat to almost... Don't do this to me. Don't stop your heart beating. Don't go away. Baby, please, you're my joy, you're what I never dreamed of, you're my fantasy girl in every way I know and in ways I didn't eve know were possible."

I feel the wetness on my cheek, where his face touches mine. I used to cry all the time but he doesn't know that. He cries more than I do, at least, more than I do now. Hell, he does everything more than I do. Intense, plunging with his whole self, an adrenaline junky, tempting me with caves full of bats and fool's gold and diamond dust, hairpin turns and double parachutes, while I hang back, hover at the ocean's edge, salt to my ankles and no more.

Until the hurricane force of him drenches me, flays my flesh and leaves me clean, raw, new.

"I can't. I'm afraid."

"You've been afraid your whole life. Me, too. Now, with you, I feel right. Please, baby, I am yours, I am so yours, all of me, anything you want, anything I can give you. Let me be yours. Let me give you an iota of what you've given me."
He is so hot against me, hands searing my open wounds. The cynic is back and tells me, "Its hormones and madness, hot flashes and confusion," while the child crawls under the blanket of his heat and falls asleep, safe in his arms. I open my mouth and he salts the cinders on my tongue.

Hobgoblins can be a Good Thing

If I could do something every day,
If I could actually stick to it, a la Julia Cameron,
If I did... because, to be honest, I can. I'm quite capable, I've done it.
I've buried myself in it, in the past.
If I did, still, where would I be?

Sounds easy?
Hardest part is what is obvious.
The time.
Finding the time.
Oh, observer says, you've got time, you've got nothing but time!
Looks that way, right? You, there, examining my life, here.
But think.
With all the time in the world, all I have are empty hours and dripping fangs.
It is at the door, gnawing at the baseboard, prying at the hinges, talons tripping lock cylinders.
Time cedes to terror, passes the scepter and disappears into a tornado,
leaving rubble and shards of vision, shovelfuls of debris.
I bend down, pick up a scrap of paper, struggle to read the faded ink, water smears.
Find part of a CD, a fractured keyboard, another scrap.
This one is blank.

I close my eyes, draw the blade along a vein and leave bloody fingerprints where words want to be.

Modern Labor Saving Life

How did they do it, get it all done, before all the labor saving devices came about?

Did they have a more integrated life, living more fully in the here and now,
different sets of priorities, fewer priorities and calls on their time
or was it the half-empty bottle of tequila on a high up shelf
that got replaced every other Thursday?

Chef Salad

Hunger spills over, wraps around strangers, eager to respond.
Waiting to take a bite, taste, chew, press against the upper palate,
smooth or gritty on the teeth, thin as water, thick as an oil slick, bubbly,
sweeping up to shore, covering random pelicans and otters.


Sauces, meats and tofu and vegetables all diced into interchangeable cubes,
heated surface a rumpled, now-neglected bed wondering who'll be next,
so ready I can see the waves rise up to me, beckoning.


Nursing my drink, I watch the chef, thinking,
He doesn't have to do that. Not for me, anyway.
All I need to feed my hunger is already here.

Pain Killers

The train whistle smears numbing cream on my abdomen, massages it in. Each clack clack clack is a knife.
I swallow, panic clawing up my esophagus from somewhere below my ribcage.
Its coming, its coming, its coming, each clack says.
The whistle blows again and rolls on, crushing me into the railbed.

Night on NOBT

He pushed back his hair, or what was left of it, and admired his profile in the mirror,
the contrast of tanned skin and pale scalp, shining through multicolored fingers.
"I feel pretty, oh so pretty," he hummed.
Another flick of mascara, some metallic eyeliner, gloss.
Lycra tank tucked into shorts, oversized ostrich boa trailing down his back.
Dangling hoop earrings to complete the ensemble.
A double shot of tequila over crushed ice.
It would be a night to forget.

Never Ask a Question If You Don't Want to Hear the Answer

"I really like that purple lace." He reaches over and strokes her thigh, high up, then cups her ass.

"You know, these panties have a story." She wriggles down towards him and puts a pillow under her chest.

"Yeah? You're pulling my leg. No, I'm pulling your leg. Will you tell me?" He bites the back of her thigh. "You never tell me your stories, it's always, ‘Oh that's history, you'd be bored,' or ‘I don't want to discuss it,' or ‘It's unpleasant remembering.'" He bites her again. " Did that hurt?" She shakes her head. "Not even a little? You never tell me anything, you're so need to know basis I wonder if you're actually a CIA agent."

She shrugs, as much as it's possible for someone laying on their stomach with their head propped on their hands to shrug, and turns to look at him over her shoulder. "Of course not, I don't speak Russian or Arabic, I can't be a CIA agent. I just like to horde my words. I don't waste them. Watch, I want to turn over, my shoulders hurt." She flips over and puts the pillow under her head.

He flutters his eyelashes at her, ducks his face into her groin for a second and then looks up. "Please? Please tell? Pretty please with sugar on top?"

"Fine. I went to every Wal-Mart around here looking for my size, every single one."

"You went to Wal-Mart?" He hyperventilates for a few beats, holding his hand over his heart. "You went to all the Wal-Marts? To buy panties? And you admit it?"

"Stop or I'll stop. No, don't stop. Yeah, that's better." She pushes his head back down. "Good. I was there grocering when I saw them on the rack near the umbrellas. So I looked for my size. That purple lace, how could I resist? Of course, they didn't have my size, they only had extra-extra large, if they did have my size there wouldn't be a story now, would there? Wal-Mart, home of the uber-queen-sized. Stop, I'm talking!"

"Mmmfffle mmmfffle. I thought you didn't want me to stop."

"Men, you're all the same. No, you're not, you're actually surprisingly competent. Anyway, I looked the next time I was there. And the next. And the next. It became an obsession, a quest, a purple lace Holy Grail. Oh, god, that's good. I looked for these panties every single time I went to Wal-Mart, every single one of them, and there's how many around here? Three, four?"

He sighs, sliding his fingers under the lace trim, sliding his fingers along her thigh where his lips had been moments before. "Three in a five mile radius, four in a seven. That's devotion to the cause. So much trouble for a pair of panties, but so worth it. They're really nice."

"Yeah, they are. It's kinda almost a pity." She reaches down and strokes the cotton covering her lower abdomen, snaps the lace band a few inches below her navel. "It is."

"Oh?" He walks his fingers to the hipband and starts to tug them down.

"Only wearing them for maybe an hour. They're so comfortable, too."

He pauses in his ministrations and smiles. "I'm sorry, but much as I like them on, I like them better off. Maybe next time?"

"That would be a first. I've worn them lots of times. I've had them about two years now, but every time I put them on, before I know it, they're off." She smiles a dreamy half-smile, eyes almost closed. "The color's stayed so true and the elastic still has snap."

He does a rapid calculation. She's had them two years. They've known each other for about eighteen months. He's never seen them before although she's worn them ‘lots of times.' How could she have worn them ‘lots of times' and he's never seen them before and ‘before she knows it, they're off'? When did she wear them? Where? Why? What memory put that smile on her face? And most important, who? He starts to open his mouth to ask, but clamps it shut again.

There are some questions you don't want to know the answer.

Fifteen minutes of Fame or Maybe Less I Hope

She has this ‘thing' for vegetables. No, she's not a vegetarian or vegan or, god forbid, one of those weirdo raw foodies, smug in their disdain and ecoclaims, driving miles and miles in their itty-bitty hybrids to pick up ugly organic produce.

Segue: I don't care how ecofriendly your car it, driving eighty miles round trip is not green except for the auto industry. You might get 55 mpg, but driving still releases fluorocarbons and rubber particles and emissions, nocturnal and otherwise, and causes wear and tear on the asphalt/concrete/dirt roads way in excess of walking to the corner grocery store. You just doesn't see the bigger picture, but why should you? Your telescopic mirror reflects the narrow sanctimony of your own world, which is fine, just fine, and excuse me for screaming.

Anyway, she has this ‘thing' for vegetables. She likes to find heirloom breeds, what was lost and now is found. They're knobby, colorful, deformed when compared to the usual supermarket beauties, but she arranges them on hand thrown plates or wooden canoes or in blown glass bowls and drizzles them with bottled low fat bleu cheese dressing, pasty, chunky inedible crud that it is, or sprays them with imported first press rapeseed oil. Then, she snaps photos of her ‘art,' like those food porn writers everyone is so fond of, oohing and ahhing over fruit waxed to a tenth of its life, instead of the free website blogger she is in reality, ignored even, no, especially, by her friends and family.

Until she switches from bottled drek to handmade aioli. Aioli, made from garlic mashed with a mortar and pestle, whisked with vinegar, an egg yolk and a pinch of mustard until light yellow and thick, transferred to a blender and the olive oil added one clear, green drip at a time, finished with a dash of sea salt and one single grind of white pepper.

She plates her garden glories and this delicate mayonnaise variant, kicks that food porn up to notches previously unknown and hooks herself a book deal, with the requisite guest appearances on Oprah, FoodTV, followed by interviews in Cuisine and the New York Times Style Section. Carrots; new red potatoes; eggplants Italian, Japanese and white; various gourds and squashes; alliaceae from shallots to leeks to scallions to vidalia; broccoli rabe and all its cruciferous cousins flexing their muscles; mushrooms, bold and dreamy. All these, anthropomorphized into a triple X of desire under the cornstalks.

Man, I hate that bitch.

Too Close for Comfort

She doesn't understand what is right in front of her
How could she? She's too young too small too innocent
but they are ... distracting
It disturbs her, the way they fall into each other
heads almost touching, an intimacy thick as buttermilk
their voices softer than the fall of her hair
eyes flickering in the ambient glow of respective laptops.
He shifts his legs so they encase her knees, leaning into him.
She squints, absolutely sire there are sending little bitty tentacles out,
and she doesn't understand it at all.

Victoria Falls

He hears me calling in the water rush, door very deliberately left unlocked
Translating the storm to ‘help me', he breaks my solitude, appearing through the steam mist
Knowing he'll find me fetal curled, scalding the lunatic day off my skin,
skin covered with scars over scars over scars over scars, he squeezes inside
Picks me up. I cling, blind and weak as a baby opossum
Words spoken are lost in the susurration of the shower, grief swirling clockwise down the drain

Holocaust Pantry

Eighteen cans of lima beans
Thirty-six rolls of paper towels
Stacks of tuna
Four can openers, none of them electric
A whole case of powdered milk
Blankets
Fire extinguisher
44 and ammo
Lots of ammo
Matches
Candles
A framework of five gallon jugs of water
Paper pens pencils
Hibachi grill
A 3 quart and a 5 quart pot
Two cartons of pasta, sealed in plastic
A door that looks like part of the wall
Because you never know.

Yard Sale

You can tell it was precious
someone cared
once
cared lots
Now, it's relegated to the yard sale heap on a tattered blanket on the lawn
with limp stuffies, windup clocks and mismatched ersatz tupperware,
"As-Is, your choice, $1"
I wonder how long it took to work
to pick out the fabrics, threads, padding
if it was a child just learning to wield a needle
or an experienced grandma listening to the radio.
They have new, printed ones at Target.
But I'll take this one,
drape it over the sofa, and when asked where I got it,
lie, claiming it in my bloodline.

Veganism

"I can see it, the vegetable man. There are a whole bunch of pieces, people portrayed by fruits, flowers, precious gems I think, but my favorite was the vegetable man. The cherry tomato eyes, onion cheeks, cabbage ear and the eggplant forming his beautiful Roman nose and brow. I can't remember the artist's name, Giovanni Archibaldo or something like that, but we can google it later. There are many examples of his work on artmuseum.com and artchive.com and folio.com. I think there's a folio.com anyway, I'm not sure about that either, but I know there's a artchive.com." I sighed and rolled over onto my stomach.

"I can think of other things to do with vegetables. If you'd like." His fingers slither over the veins in my arms and pause at the scar on my shoulder. "Fruits, sauces, ice cubes and, of course, eggplant. We can go shopping at the farmer's market. I'd like to roll a kiwi on you, drizzle honey down your thighs and just imagine the ecstasy you'll experience with an eggplant. Or two." He smiled wickedly.

"You're silly. I'm talking serious art here, museum art."

"We're naked. It's hard to be serious when we're naked. Besides, it's vegetable art."

"It is hard." I run a fingernail along his skin. "Never mind the farmer's market. Let's just toss a salad with what we have here."

Last Supper

She loves camping without a tent.
She loves the wind.
I wonder is she feels it now,
blowing the trees that shade the old cemetery.

I pick up a loaf of Italian bread,
cut it in half lengthwise.
Spread softened butter on each side. A whole stick of butter.
Sprinkle liberally with salt.
Not fancy sea salt or black salt or volcano salt or even kosher salt,
just ordinary table salt.
"When it rains, it pours."
Yes. When it rains, it pours.
A whole loaf of Italian bread and a whole stick of butter and a lot of salt.
I eat it methodically, one slow bite at a time, chewing twenty times with each bite,
until it's gone, washed down with Tab,
and wonder when my chicken parmigiana will be served.

I cannot sit shiva, not by Law, but I can share a last meal with her.

Who Are You?

Red print on my cheek,
A perfect match to your palm,
tells it's own story.

It's All About the Crackers, Still

I avoid the rain
Symptom, not cause,
But no longer.

Lost and Found or Not

Lost and Found or Not

All the things I've tossed away
Careless vicious afraid, most forgotten.
A photo quirk of memory recalls
Oh what ever happened to...
But a few choice items hurt
a book
a scissor
a hammer
smell of turpentine sawdust linen rags brings it back

You'd give me wooden chests tables a desk for my precious
I give you words
We wear scraps

Rude Behavior

Sitting here, not paying attention
rudeness to the nth degree
but at least I sit quietly,
absorbed in myself.

Complex Arithmetic Computation

So many layers of misery
I cannot even count them
They climb, they mount, they push me further down
I add them up, a Fibonacci progression of woe
Am I whining or am I, perhaps, justified?
Am I?

Foibles of Youth

My daughter, joyous in the newness of love,
rifles through my closet,
evaluating shoes and doodads
taking into her room this that the other.
I smile and pass the baton.

Child's Play

He tries so hard not to be afraid
of me
for me
to cover how he stops himself from saying, ‘Don't!'
He knows the surest way to push me is to try to stop me.
I kiss him and skip off to play
while he hides a frisson and a tress of my grey hair in his wallet
or perhaps takes to the santeria for a holding spell.
I don't know.
I'm long gone, until hunger, for him, pulls me back,
with skinned knees and scabby elbows, sunburnt nose and streaks of dirt on my face,
to be scrubbed clean and nurtured.

Comparison Shopping

She is stunning in her concentration on the task at hand,
English muffin price comparison,
list in hand and furrowed brow.
I can see her hands, naked.
How could such lovely long fingers be ringless?
I see her, veiled; me, sliding a wide band onto the third digit of her left hand.
Her eyes flick at me. Does she feel my stare?
Her ponytail curves under, caressing the back of her neck.
It needs pearls, a long strand, with an extender hanging down the bones of her spine.
She pushes her cart to the end of the aisle and disappears around the corner.

Little Bird

Little bird, little robyn bird,
Come out and play.
I'm waiting for you.
The world isn't so big.
We'll find pieces you can handle.
Perch on my hand, little bird, and peck my earlobe.
It'll be okay, I promise.

I will recount the week and smile at what deserves smiles
little things
direct looks
sunburn in new places
aching muscles and rich coffee
the peaks of early morning before the day gets flushed.
I will recount the week and ignore the rest
so I can get through today

What Once was Whole

It was, instantly, an alien place, devoid.
I was afraid,
not of what I'd find,
of what was here,
but what was not.
Not any longer.
The air was damp and too warm, shuttered feeling,
despite the hum and click of the air conditioner,
loud in abandonment.
I look around. Bookcases, knitting, kitchenware.
Shoes. Walker. Wheelchair.
Gauze pads and Betadine.
I calculate how many boxes I'll need
to empty this already empty place.

Just Another Night in Paradise

It's a slow night, here
Few patrons to pay patronage to those seeking accolades
If not money, support, stipends, then at least applause
I stare out the window, restless
When can I leave, when can I leave
Cold air blows on my thighs.
They'll be warm later.
Personal heating blanket will wrap around them later.

Left Right Straight

All roads lead you somewhere
if you put one foot after the other, turn the cranks,
with an eye on the sun to keep track of the time/space continuum
All roads lead you somewhere
and when that somewhere isn't here,
this crime scene where I am reduced to a chalk outline on warn carpet
and the forensic team measures the splatter pattern of regrets and guilt
on walls, furniture and bedding,
they still lead you.
All roads lead you somewhere
I can disinfect the wounds, stitch them, cover them with gauze
and kisses and prayers for forgiveness.
All roads lead you somewhere
maybe even home.

Resonsibility

If you save a life, it is yours.
If I save you, are you mine?
To have and to whole?
Are you?

Broken Promises

It's just as important
No. It's more important.
What?
The omissions. The deletions. The Halfs and the Half-nots
the thing claiming to be truth, claiming to be real , to be whole
Only they're not.
Every piece puts together it's own story
as far from reality as cheese from Chesapeake.
The unsaids loom, dive in with pointed beak, grab a slug and return to the clouds
having swallowed it in one gulp.
It rides the heat tunnels, beautiful shadows on the ground.
Cower at the edge of light where the words and actions disagree
beyond the fields of knowing truth.
I will meet you there.

Return of the Cat

I am the cat who walks alone
You may walk in front of me, watching me over your shoulder.
Behind me, next to me, on my path, but not with me.
I am the cat who walks alone
even in the midst of all
even surrounded by loudness and cushions
I am the cat who walks alone
isolated, obsessing, apart

Carding the Three Fates

Spin grief into the fibers of a fine woolen jacket
Weave it on frames of wrong
Fashion it with repentance
and wear it as a mark of Cain
warning the world away.

Television Isn't Life

They say, no more sadness.
We want happy happy.
If you want happy happy, go watch ‘Emeril Live' reruns.
If you want truth, listen

My Name is Sylvia

I know why she did it, why she put her head in the oven.
She was looking for the key
to unlock the door
of the shambles.
Only the key wasn't there, way in the back by the pilot light.
It was hanging there, on the wall, like always.
She just didn't see it.

Tonight's Sonnet is a Dish Best Served Cold

He has plans, detailed plans.
When he gets home, he can see it in his mind.
Unlocking the door, climbing the stairs.
Muffled by the thwack of ceiling fans,
movement, scent of orange rinds
being grated into tea. Pulls out a chair
and sits, drinking. She asks, can you reach those pans?
After he kisses her, how did I find
this treasure? It's all so clear
to him. He has plans, detailed plans.
He wants tonight to be all kinds
of celebration in the apartment up there.
Only-it's quiet. He looks around. Nothing. No one. Gone.
Drinks a six-pack, then another. When she returns, she, she too, is alone.

Billy Collins Redeux

Behavior doesn't exist in a vacuum.
It's all situational.
Guess what?
I don't give a rat's ass about why
I'm still going to shoot your mother fucking cujo next time I see it.


dedicated to Billy Collins, Another Reason Why I Don't Keep a Gun
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/another-reason-why-i-don-t-keep-a-gun-in-the-hou/

And You Will Know Them by Their Shadows

Harken to me, the Eternal.
Lift up thine eyes, for this, this, is the land I have given unto you.
You shall beget children here, and your children will beget children in their time,
And this is the woman whom I have chosen for you who will bear them all.
This woman, lovely as a statue, as a graven image,
who you will worship on your knees as you did the golden galf.
You will woo her with betel juice and almonds and honey, sweet, aromatic, sticky,
and sing songs which are pleasing to her for she is the fated one.
You will sacrifice the fatted calf to her, to this woman, in her whore shoes,
the angle of her foot, her leg and the broad hips you will bury your face in
and pray, hands clasped around her thighs.
You will adore her as you have adored no other before, nay, not even me,
the Eternal, your God. You will put her before me, to be the mother of your people.
You will cup her breasts, weigh them, and when they are heavy with milk,
you will have suck of them.
Arise, turn now, and follow her.
Lay down your trivial amusements for she is the anointed one.


NB: this is what happens when i'm given a random bible verse to read

A Bowl of Cherries

She holds the bowl, scant amount of cereal and milk inside,
holds the bowl with two hands, laps at it, laps at the dregs.
Then turns it over into a hat, so proud, as a few drops of milk crawl past her eyelashes.

"Oh baby, why'd you have to go and do that for? Look at this mess!"
Hush, I say, hush.
Look at her, not the floor or the counter or the shirt.
They'll wash, they'll be fine.
Look at her.
Look at her before you crumple her face.
The shadows of those creases will always be there, haunting us.
Hush, now. Give her another bowl to wear. Let her have a layered hat, a confection hat
And another to be a different drum to beat with her forgotten spoon.

Egg

When I was ever so much younger than I am now,
a classmate cracked an egg
and let it drip through his fingers.
The assignment was to draw a hand holding an egg.
It didn't specify.
So he cracked that egg and let the white slide down past his knuckles,
while the yolk remained cradled in his palm.
I've never forgotten that sketch
or the hand which held the egg
or the hand that drew it.
If I was a palmist, able to read hands, I would have read his.
I wanted to read his hand, trace the lines, see what his future was
where he would go, learn, achieve and who he would become.
I wanted so to read myself into his future.
I wanted so to be the yolk cupped in his palm
while everything else slipped away

Totem Mask

He's waiting. Churning. Trembling, watching the clock numbers change,
I know everything that will happen when we put our public faces on the wall for the night.

Polly Wanna Cracker

I should be used to it by now, to death walking through the door and sitting on my shoulder, squawking, "Polly wanna cracker, Pretty Boy, Polly wanna cracker."
I'm not.
I've done this for years, long enough to see babies conceived, born and walking in on their own, asking if they could please have some milk and cookies while they wait.
But I'm not.
Used to it, that is.
"I'll be doing this as executrix for the estate, filing on his behalf."
"I found your name in her papers. What do I do now?"
"Do you need to see the death certificate?"
"Can you help me?"
I'll never get used to it.
Especially when it knocks on the door from the inside, when it's here and now, sitting on my sofa, not on someone else's shoulder, but hovering over the dinner table, salting the food with bitterroot.
She doesn't know.
I know, but she doesn't and ignorance is bliss, sweet bliss, chocolate covered pretzels, whipped cream with slivered almonds, a fig tree, comfort with apples, letting her function, smile and concentrate on important things, whether the black and turquoise top goes better with the white jeans or the khaki shorts.
Priorities.
Don't snatch this from her, Polly, don't.
Eat my crackers. I don't need them any more. I am fat. I am a feast.
Eat my crackers, Polly. I'm ready. I've been ready for years.
Give her a chance. Let her stack crackers, crumble them, enjoy them with dabs of jelly.

Leave her alone, Polly.

Bright Light Blind

What tragic mistake did I make, at some point in my prehistory?
What led me to this?
Staring up at the guillotine, sunglint blinds me.
If I press a little harder...
It doesn't matter, does it? Press or don't press. See or don't see.
All lines converge on the horizon,
No matter how they skew out.
All lines converge and disappear,
Whether I run, hide, stare it down in an attempt at stoicism.
All lines converge into smoke.

With a Candle and a Feather, Seeking an Honest Man

They asked her: Are you a ???
She made the big mistake of being honest
when she answered.
Used to hyperbole, no one can read truth any longer.

Anti-Wonderland

Lost in anti-Wonderland, that dark place which is my refuge,
where everything is wrong, negative images bombard me.
Demands, pleas, they strike me, beat me, break my bones.
Where is the White Rabbit to lead me out of here?
Jaws of Life trepane my skull, looking for Hope,
her aiglet caught in a fissure.
They free her and leave me in the dark, alone, again

Uh huh. Tell me another.

Given options, choose.
Make it better, with a smile.
Accept or move on.

"Ask. If you don't ask,
the answer is always no.
Ask Improve the odds
to fifty-fifty.
Take a chance on you."

No, Daddy, you're wrong.
I asked. The answer is still no.
I don't ask anymore.

4/1/2010

Morning, y'all. It's
April Fools Day, another
Big Ole Fuck You, World!

All My Road Pt 4 REVISED

There is no good writing, there is only rewriting. Compare, if you wish, to the earlier version. Will I make more changes? Absolutely. Am I ever satisfied? Nope. Do I stay true to the story, to my characters? I try. I try very hard.

Driving past that interchange of vomit where once upon a time I'd been airborne, that interchange I'd never been able to find a short or long cut around, where I had for the first time realized what a turd he was, a selfish, immature turd, I find it hard to breath. And yet...

Here I am. Again. Questioning, talking, pleading: why don't you love me anymore, what did I do, what makes her better than me? I take a deep breath and walk to the door, prepared to rap on the glass. He's there, waiting for me. He opens the door a crack and lets me in.

"What did you want to see me for? You told me it's over. You said it, not me." He locks the entry door and moves past me. "C'mon, I'm working in the back."

I follow him down the tight hallway, avoiding the transfile towers and stacked up computer parts that make the journey to his realm even more of an obstacle course. "You lied to me. You lied over and over. I just told you what I saw, what we both know. When the words and actions disagree..." The back of his head is just as responsive as the front.

The words and actions. The way he'd abruptly changed, all business-like about things that weren't business at all. From long hours of playful to "Are you finished yet? I have to walk the dogs." As fast as I tried to close the gaps, he hammered wedges into the fissures. He knew I'd discover the truth, sooner or later, see through the glamour, be unable to ignore the spotted elephant in the corner. A truth so awful to him had to be repellant to me. He was a hollow statue on a pedestal, at least in his head, and that wasn't good enough. My acceptance of his flaws was as unacceptable to him as it was unfathomable.

"Words and actions? What does that mean?" he says over his shoulder. He points to a chair but I remain standing. Seated in his oversized execuchair, he stares at the computer screen. Was he working or playing ScrabbleBlast again? I shiver, icy memory tapping me on the shoulder, trying to get my attention. I lean against the desk opposite his. I don't want to see the screen, don't want to know what words are there. The actions have slapped me around too much the last few days. "Whatever. I'd like us to still be friends. We used to talk about everything. I miss talking to you, you're so smart. And now... There's too much distance between us."

"Oh, that's an interesting metaphor, there's too much distance between us. Certainly, there is now even if there wasn't before." Neither of us had moved in the past year, but the miles had doubled, tripled. The not unreasonable commute had become a burden, heavy, torturous when it meant clocking miles on his vehicle. Mine was expendable. Anything of mine was expendable, unimportant. "Why am I here anyway? What do I want from you?" I pick up a stapler, check to see if it needs refilling.

"You said you wanted to talk. I guess this is our breakup rehash?" He fiddles with the mouse, glances down at the papers littering his desktop, back at the screen. He shifts in his chair, turning it from side to side as he shakes his head . "I think... I dunno. I love so many things about you. I love fucking you, the sex is like, amazing-"

I'll never say that to anyone. I'll never tell someone I love things about him because I can't say I love him. I won't say anything. I won't spin.

"Well, was amazing, except for the last few weeks, and I love the things you do for me, the way you treat me, think about me, try to make my life easier, advise me on things-"

But you don't love me, the real me. You can't love me. I see through you, right to your core. I won't lie and say you're wonderful or perfect. I see your flaws and love you anyway, but that's exactly what's wrong.

"-but when you told me you'd lied me and you didn't want to see me any more.. I dunno, it changed how I feel, colored all my memories and perceptions, perverted them." He leans back and gives a small nod of satisfaction. He's justified his actions.

"Oh, please. You are so full of it. You knew, don't tell me you didn't know. You're not stupid. My lies were nothing compared to yours. It's like we had a constant, set total of lies. So when mine shrank, yours blossomed; you had to fill the empty space with bigger, better lies. And I bought into it. I swallowed them, my pride and my common sense, anything to be with you.

"You looove fucking me. You love the way I treat you, care for you, help you, but it all comes down to one thing: you don't love me. Everything about me is replaceable, expendable. Everything. You know, you call me all hours of the day and night, drunk, sober, angry, outraged, 3 p.m. or 3 a.m., ask me this, ask me that. You ever ask me how I am? What I'm doing, if I have time to talk? No, that's not important. Too much trouble for Mr. Narcissistic. Your needs are important, not mine. You confess to me, repent to me, depend on me. You know I'll help you in any way I can, do anything in my powers to help you. And you? I can't depend on you for shit. You can't even be bothered going ten minutes out of your way when for all you know I could be dying upside down in a ditch, forget about really inconveniencing yourself and helping me when I need something."

"Hey, c'mon. I think you're being a little harsh." He folds his arms, then tosses his head to get the hair out of his eyes. Like a runway model, sullen-faced, skulking, so their feathers don't shift. He was vain enough, so solipsistic he'd plagiarized my work, used my letters, the only thing I could truly call mine, to get into other women's pants and been insulted when I'd called him on.

"I'm not nearly harsh enough. I know you. I know everything about you, how you think, how you work, how low you'll go to get what you want. Your ends justify any means. That hurt? Yeah, ends justifies the means, and albeit macht frei. Fuckhead. You can't stand it that I see through your games, that I see what a clayfoot you are. I hold up a mirror and you see the cracks. You despise yourself for being scum and you despise me for loving you anyway." I eject the last staple and put the stapler down exactly parallel to the edge of the desk.

"You love me anyway? Even now?" Is he batting his eyelashes at me? Is he flirting with me? Is this what I want? Is this why I'm here?

"So? I can love you and not like you. I can love you and hate what you do, how you treat me. Believe me, I've been abused by experts. You're amateur hour on that point, sweetcheeks. I've learned from my past. I can do all sorts of things. But you know what I can't do any longer?"

"I'm afraid to ask." He smiles a small smile, refills his coffee cup from the pump dispenser his staff keeps full and on his desk. "You want?"

"We've known each other how long and you still can't remember that I drink tea?" The first time he invited me to his apartment, he hadn't thought to buy tea. Not the second or third time, either. But I'd seen the expensive, waxed box of chai tea in his cabinet, the one sold only at the import store in the mall, the same kind the hostess at his favorite restaurant drank, on top of the box of Lipton I'd finally broken down and brought over. I wondered if he'd bought the chai or if Sushi had.

"Just asking. I can boil water for tea."

"Don't trouble yourself. I wouldn't want to impose." All the paperclips are lined up on the blotter like an English garden, neat rows and spirals. When did I do that? I sweep them into a cup and set it on the northwest corner of the desk.

"You never let me do things for you."

"That's right. Because what I want you to do for me, you won't do or can't do. I want you to be you. I don't want a god, I want a person, a flawed, striving to be better person. I want a man, human, effable, fallible." If I stay angry I won't kiss him. If I stay angry, I'll stay on my side of the room.

"Oh god, sweetie, you know me like no one knows me, better than I know me-"

"Damned straight I know you better than you know you. And just think how I'd know you if you weren't such a compulsive liar. Of course, your lies tell me even more than your truths, such as they are." I pick up the "Welcome to Indiana" snow globe as if it was a "Magic 8" ball with all the answers and shake it, knowing that only works if I ask the right questions, the ones I already know the answers to anyway. "You're so smooth, so charming with your quick wit and fancy car, expensive clothes, country club membership." I shake the globe. Only snow, still no answers. "And the games... Was I just more repartee, a whetstone for your vocabulary? Was I? So deluded by your smooth." I shake the globe harder.

"I thought just once in my life I could be Cinderella, that just once someone would save me. But no. I'm always going to be the bootstrap bitch, the life preserver of DUIs and Joan of Arc for morally and financially bankrupt hobos. Yay me! Just once, I wanted to be taken care of, just once. I am so tired of taking care of myself and the rest of the world. I'm tired."

"I'm sorry I'm not Prince Charming, really sorry. I wish I was, but I can't be what I'm not, no matter how much you want it, or I might want to make it so. I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam." He quirks his lips into that little half-smile he thought was so killer. I fight the urge to lick the side of his mouth.

I replace the snow globe and put the scattered pens and pencils into the square, faux leather pen holder. The push pins are in disarray, too, not grouped by color or shape. "Yes, you are what you are. And the sad thing, that was enough for me. I was okay with you being a flawed Charming as long as you were my Charming, but you needed me to see you as perfect. Maybe we both needed to believe in the fantasy more or lie more or lie better. It's just so tiring being ‘on' all the time. I want to be okay being flawed. I want to be with someone who's okay being flawed. I want to be with someone who really, really wants to be with me. Not some pin-up, two dimensional image of me, but me. Would you stop staring at my chest?"

He reaches over and places his hand on my lower back, thumb stroking that indent in my spine just above my coccyx, fingers gently squeezing the curve of my hip. I lean into the caress for a moment, then pull away. His hand drops to his knee. "Sorry. That dress is just amazing on you. How come we never got all dressed up and went out nice?"

"Um, maybe cause you never asked? Maybe cause you could never pick me up on time? Maybe cause you save the nice going out for your ‘I'd like to have a real relationship with her' skank and not for the woman you DO have a relationship with? Please, in the year we were seeing each other, you never even made time for us to go to the movies, let alone out nice. Want me to go on? The list of broken promises is longer than I am tall."

"I'm sorry for that, for all the ways I disappointed you but things happen. You know that. Things come up."

"Like my lunch is right now? You want me to tell you that you weren't so bad, that all things considered you were pretty good. You want your ego-stroking, well, fuck you, get it from Sushi." I lean forward, arms crossed, cold. Did it get cold in here? His eyes flick to my cleavage again. "Yeah, take a good long look. Where is she anyway? Still at work, little miss ‘oh, it's complicated'?

"Bah. Enough on her." I snap my fingers. "I didn't need or want an illusion. I wanted you. I know you. Do you know you? Do you know what you want? Not what you think you want, not what everyone tells you you should want, Mr. Silver-spoon-in-his-mouth-and-polysyllabic-words-on-his-tongue, but what you want? I'm discovering what I want and it is so different from before. My priorities have been messed up my whole life, and now I'm growing up and taking charge."

Silent, he stares at his fingers for a few minutes, examining the nails and then the tips, as if he'd never realized just how many ridges his fingertips had before. He looks up at me. "Don't cry." Was I crying? Huh. My cheeks were wet. "I'm going to miss you, I already miss you."

"No, you don't. I'm history, forgotten, out of the agenda. If not this one, then the next. Or the one after that. Or however many it takes. I'm long gone."

"I want a relationship and I can't get past what you did. I want simple and honest."

I snort. "Oh, please. Simple and honest? You wouldn't know simple and honest if it bit you on the nose. I have to go. I don't know why I'm here, anyway." I take my keys out of my purse.

"What are you going to do?"

"Do? What do you mean, what am I going to do? Go home, what else am I going to do?"

He glances at the clock on the wall. "It's late. You've been up since what, six? And it's four now and you've been drinking."

"And your point is? I can tell time and no matter how much I drank tonight, it's not as much as you drink."

"You're almost a teetotaler. You had a few tonight."

"I'm sober enough, but thank you for your concern. I'll put a tick mark in your good deeds and kind words column."

He stands up. He puts an arm around my shoulder and pulls me to him. "I'd let you sleep in the apartment, but..."

My body starts to fit itself to him. I can feel the warmth of him through our clothes. "What, you can't trust me to sleep in the guest bedroom? You think I'll crawl into your bed? I have some pride, not much, but some."

"I don't trust me." He strokes my hair, my neck.

"That is so typical of you, playing the gentleman to weasel your way out of doing something. ‘I can't trust me. I'm afraid I might lose control. It's for your own good.' Four a.m. and you won't let me crash in your guest room. You can't put yourself out one iota for me, can you? You're still working, you could drop me off and come right back here. I'm leaving." But I can't move. I want to stay right there, feeling him, breathing him.

"You're too tired to drive."

"Tell me something I don't know." I rub my eyes, smearing mascara and eyeshadow on my hands. I must look like a racoon. Tell me an alternative."

"You could stay at a motel." What did he say? I push myself away from him.

"I could what? You going to pick up the tab? You make at least ten times as much as I do. You ask women all the time to go on trips with you, all expenses paid, but the one trip we went on, we split. Where's my trip to Vegas or the Bahamas? You know what? I bet if you put me up in a motel you'd write it off as a consulting fee. You've done it every time we've gone anywhere. You know what else you are? Besides a jerk? You're cheap. Cheap with your wallet and cheap with yourself. It's all about your bottom line."

"Do you feel better? You called me a few names, you feel better now? Because I really have to get back to work. I've got time critical projects I have to finish." He walks down the hall and I follow him. The boxes remind me of hungry dragons. I'm starting to hallucinate I'm so tired. He stands by the door, tapping his foot, impatient for me to leave.

"Time critical projects, my ass. I'll feel better. I'll feel better when I stop acting like a fool over you, stop caring about what happens to you. I'll feel better when I stop loving you. But I won't." I bite a jagged bit off my thumbnail. "Nope. I won't. Stop loving you, that is."

"But it's over. You've said it, I've said it. I'm seeing someone else. You'll get over me. I'm a compulsive liar and scum and a jerk and a fuckhead and an asshole and whatever else you called me."

"Well, it's a reflection on me, not on you, how I feel. I have to own my emotions and responses, be responsible for my feelings." It was really over. He wasn't going to ask me to stay, hold me, kiss me, let me cling to the illusion that he maybe somewhere deep inside loved me after all. The first time he was honest with me was to tell me it was over. "I have to go now."

"Are you going to be okay? I worry about you." He unlocked the door.

"Huh. If you meant that, you'd give me an option. You don't. You care about you and you care about the newest bang you're sticking your dick in. At least, you care while it's a novelty. It'll wear off. It's already wearing off. With you, it's all about the conquest. You still think like you're seventeen."

 He glances outside. Someone waves to him. He waves back, holds up five fingers. He's going to join them in five minutes. Nice. He has lots of work to do tonight.

"I have to go. I don't want to argue anymore. I'm too tired." I'm so tired. Give me comfort. Please ask me to stay. Please. I know he won't, but I wish he would.

"Can I call you?" He fumbles with the keys. His barbuddies are waiting. His dealer is waiting. First, I competed with them, then I competed with his internet porn addiction and now with Sushi and whoever else. Why did I bother? What's wrong with me? I take a deep breath, shake my head.

"What, when she dumps you in a month or so? I'm growing a spine. I hope." I get in the car and pull out of the spot. When I come up to the bar, I open the passenger window. "Go to hell, asshole. Go to hell."

A few miles down, I pull into a strip mall, cry for a bit. The flashing lights cast odd shadows on the dashboard, reminding me of the psychedelic Japanese cartoons that cause epileptic fits. Does Sushi watch cartoons, read anime?  Does she play Scrabble, do the crossword puzzles with him? Does she? Why do I care? Admit to myself that I'm too bleary-eyed to drive safely, might end up in a ditch again and I'm done crawling through alligator infested ditches for him. I wonder what the Florida Highway Patrol officer would say if he saw me sitting here now. "About time, ma'am. Surely is about time." I fall asleep with my head on the steering wheel.

been there done that

Hi robyn! Here is your Daily AstroSlam for Tuesday, March 9, 2010

You hate being pushed around by others, and today, you'll really push back. It's a matter of pride for you -- after all, that's about all you have. You're unemployed, broke and homeless; the least you can do is act arrogant.

if it weren't a perpetual fear, i'd laugh.

what i've been doing lately

rewrite rewrite rewrite.
edit edit edit.
cut cut cut.
paste paste paste.

aw hell with it.

DELETE!

Dirty Little Secret

He was my dirty little secret, except he wasn't little and if he was a secret, he was a very badly kept one, secret not because no one knew about him, but because everyone chose to ignore his existence in my life.

But he was dirty. Oh yes, he was dirty, as dirty-minded as any teenager could be with a worldly older woman as his sub rosa lover, a woman who was willing and eager to do anything and everything she'd ever thought of or seen before. He was prime, a juicy fig plucked down that I could sink my teeth into, bite down, chew and swallow, and he loved it. I was more fantasy flesh than any of his compatriots could even imagine, let alone aspire to and I was his. So yes, he was dirty.

Another facet of my fragmented life, everything in it's compartment, sharply separated, no overlap, nice and tidy. I like keeping things orderly. I like the concept of separation of church and state and I practiced it with great enthusiasm. I had my state, my public side, and I had my church to worship in. He was my church and I got down on my knees and committed sacrilege to make your hair curl and your stomach churn.

Until, years later, it all came crashing down, when the letter I wrote, telling him it was over, it was all over, over to the extent that I doubted it had ever been, that I wondered if it had all been a wet dream powered by a fevered imagination, the result of too much anesthesia at the dentist or too many donuts after a night of reefer, the letter which took "Dear John" letters to heights never before or since seen, the letter which I never mailed but kept, relished in rereading, treasured words, 24K calligraphy on cheap looseleaf, was found.

By my kids.

All My Roads Pt 7

"From Orlando, take I4 east." Take it until you can't go any further, until you've gone off the interstate, off the road, off the sand and right into the ocean.

Take the ocean until you hit land again. That may be Greenland or Africa or the UK or somewhere else. It really doesn't matter where you end up exactly, as long as you keep moving, heading east into the land of the rising sun, that golden orb which blinds you if you gaze at it too intently.

Not all things that glitter are gold. Some are dross, base metal, some are pyrite, fool's gold, and some are, well, some just are. Glitter, that is. Some things that glitter are just glitter, little flecks of metal you can stick on valentine's or birthday card with Elmer's glue, or sprinkle in your hair to catch the strobe of a disco ball. I learned that long ago, glitter isn't necessarily gold, during my infatuation, my transition time with hamelech malchai hamlocheim, the king of king of kings, the man who would be king, king in his own mind and universe, anyway, that was for certain, and for a blaze, as long as it takes a match to strike and burn, king of mine, ruling my emotions with a toreador's flourish, ole!

If you go long enough, past the ocean, past the first landfall, still moving east, always east, past the oared ships of the Aegean, remnants of a mighty kingdom now sunk beneath the sands and waters of time and tide which wait for no man or woman either, covering memories with salt dust while the holder of those memories wonders if it's safe to blink, you find a greater landmass.

Keep on east, snows and desert, hop a ride on a camel or an elephant, take a train or three, Orient Express, Tibet Express, bullet train, heading east right across the Bering Strait. Look for that overland passage Prester John spoke of, that Sir John sought, the one that crushed the Erebus and filled all with Terror. Or maybe, instead, risk everything with the absurd passion of the besotted and shoot south right off the tip of Africa and set yourself up for a repeat of Shackleton, the ever rising sun now a shadow gazing over your left shoulder, shading everything you do, casting darkness alternating with blue glare so sharp you can't even see your own hands as they work. Maybe you'll be crushed as I was crushed, as my endurance was repeatedly crushed by the ever shifting pack ice I couldn't and can't escape, that I carry with me as my boon companion, still.

Anyway, look for that overland passage, the opening in the sea ice, quick, quick, and maybe you'll escape before it grinds you down and turns you so far around there is no north or south or west anymore, just east, east, east. Keep moving even though north is south now and you're so far from the equator you have to zigzag back to your point or place of beginning, if that matters.

"Take I4 east."

Or you could just take it east until you find a turn off that takes you home.

You can find a home.

You can make a home.

Your home can be anywhere or anything or anyone.

Because some things that glitter are gold, 24K, warm to the touch, reflecting your own affection back to you, and soft enough to reveal your own fingerprints when you press your hand down on it, your personal tattoo, brand, mark, malleable enough to spin into a cloak you can pull around and use to keep out the chill of setting suns.

Some roads lead you home.

All My Roads Pt 4

"What did you want to see me for? You told me it's over. You said it, not me."

"You lied to me. You lied over and over. I just told you what I saw, what we both knew. When the words and actions disagree..."

The words and actions. The way he'd changed, all business-like about things that weren't business at all. From long hours of playful to "Are you finished yet? Haven't you had enough? I have to walk the dogs." As she tried to close the gaps, he hammered wedges into the fissures. She wanted a man; he was a hollow statue on a pedestal. He knew she'd discover the truth, sooner or later, see through the glamour, be unable to ignore the spotted elephant in the corner. Accepting his flaws was unacceptable to him. He had to be better.

"There's too much distance between us. Oh, that's an interesting metaphor, there's too much distance between us. Certainly, there is now even if there wasn't before." Neither of them had moved, but the miles had doubled, tripled. The not unreasonable commute had become a burden, heavy, torturous when it meant clocking miles on his vehicle. Hers was expendable. Anything of hers was expendable, unimportant.

When she drove past the interchange where once upon a time she'd been airborne, that interchange of vomit she'd never been able to find a short or long cut around, that interchange where she'd realized what a turd he was, a selfish, immature turd, she found it hard to breath. And yet.

Here she was again, questioning, talking, pleading, why don't you love me anymore, what did I do, what makes her better than me?

"I think... I dunno. I love so many things about you. I love fucking you, the sex is like, amazing-"

I'll never say that to anyone, she thinks. I'll never tell someone I love things about him because I can't say I love him. I won't say anything. I won't spin.

"-and I love the things you do for me, the way you treat me, think about me, try to make my life easier, advise me on things-"

But you don't love me, the real me. You can't love me. I see through you, right to your core. I won't lie and say you're wonderful or perfect. I see your flaws and love you anyway, but that's exactly what's wrong.

"-but when I found out you'd lied me, when you broke up with me... I dunno, it changed how I see you, how I feel."

"Oh, please. You are so full of it. My lies were nothing compared to yours. And you knew, don't tell me you didn't know. You're not stupid. My lies disappeared and yours blossomed. It's like we had a constant, set total of lies. So when mine shrank, you had to fill the empty space with bigger, better lies. And I bought into it. I swallowed them and asked for more. I'm a fool.

"You love fucking me. You love the way I treat you, care for you, help you, but it all comes down to one thing: you don't love me. Everything about me is replaceable. Everything.

"You know, you call me all hours of the day and night, ask me this, that. Confess to me, repent to me. You depend on me, you know I'll help you in any way I can, do anything in my powers to help you. And you? I can't depend on you for shit. You can't be bothered going ten minutes out of your way when for all you know I could be dying, forget about really inconveniencing yourself and helping me when I need something. How can I trust you for anything?

"And me?

"I'm a fool. You're an ass, but I'm a fool."

"Hey, c'mon. I think you're being a little harsh." He folded his arms, then tossed his head to get the hair out of his eyes. It reminded her of runway models, sullen-faced, skulking so their feathers wouldn't shift. He was vain enough, so vain he'd plagiarized her work, used her letters to get into other women's pants and been insulted when she'd broken up with him.

"I'm not nearly harsh enough. I know you. I know everything about you, how you think, how you work, how low you'll go to get what you want. Your ends justify any means. That hurt? Yeah, ends justifies the means, and albeicht macht frie. Fuckhead. You can't stand it that I see through your games, that I see what a clayfoot you are. I hold up a mirror and you see the cracks. You despise yourself for being scum and you despise me for loving you anyway.

"You can't stand it."

"You love me anyway? Even now?"

"So? I can love you and not like you. I can love you and hate what you do. I can do all sorts of things. But you know what I can't do any longer?"

"I'm afraid to ask." He smiles, a small smile, refills his coffee cup. "You want?"

"We've known each other how long and you still can't remember that I drink tea?" The first time she'd come to his apartment, he hadn't thought to buy tea. Not the second or third time, either. But she'd noticed the waxed box of chai tea in his cabinet, the same kind the hostess at his favorite restaurant drank, next to the box of tea she'd finally broken down and brought over. She wondered if he'd bought the chai or if Sushi had.

"Just asking. I can boil water for tea."

"Don't trouble yourself. I wouldn't want to impose."

"You never let me do things for you."

"That's right. Because what I want you to do for me, you won't do. I want you to be you. And that's not good enough. I don't want a god, I want a person, a flawed, striving to be better person."

"Oh god, sweetie, you know me like this, like no one knows me, better than I know me-"

"Damned straight I know you better than you know you. And just think how I'd know you if you weren't such a compulsive liar. Of course, your lies tell me even more than your truths, such as they are. When they are."

"Don't cry." She didn't feel the tears. "I'm going to miss you, I already miss you."

"No, you're not. I'm already history, out of the agenda. If not this one, then the next. Or the one after that. Or however many it takes."

"I want a relationship and I can't get past what you did. I want simple and honest."

"Simple and honest?" She snorted. "You wouldn't know simple and honest if it bit you on the nose. I have to go. I don't know why I'm here, anyway."

"What are you going to do?"

"Do? What do you mean, what am I going to do? Go home, what else am I going to do?"

"It's late."

"And your point is? I can tell time."

"I'd let you sleep here, but..."

"What, you can't trust me to sleep in the guest bedroom? You think I'd crawl into your bed? I have some pride, not much, but some."

"I don't trust me."

"Oh, please. That is so typical of you. You can't put yourself out one iota for me, can you? Three a.m. and you won't let me crash in your guest room. You could sleep at your office or in your car or anything. I'm leaving."

"You're too tired to drive."

"Tell me something I don't know. Tell me an alternative."

"You could stay at a motel."

"You going to pick up the tab? You make ten times as much as I do. You ask women all the time to go on trips with you, all expenses paid, but the one trip we went on, we split. Where's my trip to Vegas or the Bahamas?

"You know what? I bet if you put me up in a motel you would write it off as a consulting fee. You've done it every time we've gone to dinner. You know what else you are? Besides a jerk? You're cheap. Cheap with your wallet and cheap with yourself. It's all about your bottom line."

"Do you feel better? You called me a few names, you feel better now?"

"I'll feel better when I stop acting like a fool over you, stop caring about what happens to you. I'll feel better when I stop loving you. But I won't." She bit her thumbnail off, chewed it. "Nope. I won't. Stop loving you, that is."

"But it's over. You've said it, I've said it. I'm seeing someone else. You'll get over me. I'm a compulsive liar and scum and a fuckhead and an asshole and whatever else you called me."

"Well, it's a reflection on me, not on you." It was really over. He wasn't going to ask her to stay, hold her, kiss her, let her cling to the illusion that he maybe somewhere deep inside loved her after all. The first time he was honest with her was to tell her it was over. "I have to go now."

"Are you going to be okay? I'm worried about you."

"Huh. If you meant that, you'd give me an option. You don't. You care about you and you care about the newest bang you're sticking your dick in. At least, you care while it's a novelty. It'll wear off. It's already wearing off. With you, it's all about the conquest. You still think like you're seventeen. Hell, you compete with your kids."

"That's disgusting. And it's not true. That's really disgusting."

"Yeah? Then why'd you compare me to your son's girlfriend?"

"You have a better body than she does. I told you that."

"Exactly my point. Why are you looking at your son's girlfriend like that? I have to go. I don't want to argue anymore. I'm too tired." Please ask me to stay. Please. She knew he wouldn't.

"Can I call you?"

"What, when she dumps you in a month or so? I'm growing a spine. I hope."

She gets in her car, starts the engine. She opens the window. "Go to hell, asshole. Go to hell." A few miles down, she pulls into a strip mall. Cries for a bit. Admits to herself that she's too bleary-eyed to drive safely, might end up in a ditch again and she's already crawled through alligator infested ditches for him. She wonders what the Florida Highway Patrol officer would say if he saw her now. "About time, ma'am. Surely is about time." She falls asleep with her head on the steering wheel.

Viney

He is the ostrich man, with wheels.
Or is he the stork, emu, flamingo?
Whatever bird-hipped being he is-because he's not human, no human could be that fast, lithe, etoliated-
with legs so long his feet blue shift as he moves
pate as hairless as the eggs dropped from any of these
whole being the perfection of aerodynamics
spinning in a hyperbaric wind tunnel
as government grants measure the carbon dioxide released,
lactate threshold achieved of his scrawny limbs, gnarled veins throbbing.

If he lifted his arms from the aerobars, he would fly

Modern Medical Miracles

"Just take a deep breath. Yes. Another. Another. Good. Now, roll up your sleeve. That's fine, just going to hook this up so we'll have a constant read. What? Oh, it's an electronic blood pressure cuff, we watch your pressure right here on the computer monitor. It beeps if your BP goes too high or low, so we can adjust your drip. Yes, there is new technology every time you blink. This is so much safer, before one of us had to sit and watch you. Now, we can take care of other patients and the machine alerts us if there is any aberration. Excellent. Okay, then, you relax, the doctor will be with you in another minute or two, the anesthesiologist, too. Relax, honey, you'll be fine."

She blinked. It'll be fine. They'll start the drip, 100, 99, 98, 97, 96 and when she woke up, in five or ten or twenty minutes, it would all be over.

Again.

Again and again and again and again.

They'd start the drip and she'd go to sleep and when she woke up, she'd be peachy keen, right as rain, all things bright and beautiful, neat and clean inside and out, good as new.

Again.

Again and again and again and again.

Why?

What was wrong with her?

She turned, watching the monitor click, the gentle inflation and sudden deflation of the cuff on her arm a warning, a link to everything else that told her what she wasn't. 70/40. Well, that couldn't be good. If her pressure started too low, they couldn't put her under. If it dropped too low, they wouldn't be able to wake her up. Could they? Did they have paddles here? A crash cart? They must, it's a surgical clinic, they had to have emergency equipment. Paddles weren't even anything special. For goodness sakes, Disney had paddles. Restaurants had paddles. And they had transport here, if the paddles didn't provide enough power. She giggled. Maybe they had tazers, those would wake the dead.

Yes, paddles, just in case someone decided to go to sleep and stay asleep, decided it was easier to go on in that lovely twilight of nothing where there was no more trying and failing, no more planning and counting, and certainly no more watching and mourning. Sleep is a wonderful thing. Maybe she would sleep now, for a bit, before the hullabaloo started.

She closed her eyes, head still turned to the machine and lay very still. Another minute and the ruckus of scrubs and sprays and latex gloves, talk talk talk, should we do this, should we do that, as long as we're in here, snip snip, can you make a decision, not making a decision is also making a decision, you won't feel a thing, it'll be done, scrape scrape snip snip, no worries, be happy.

She despised Bobby McFerrin, with his noisy mouth and twisted a capella renditions of classic crock. That ‘Be Happy" tripe? That was the worst of all. How could any thinking person be happy in the messed up world?

One eye open, slow. 64/38. Hmmm. Shallow breathing, oxygen in only the upper lobes. Keep it steady. 64/36. Fine. No more again and again and again.

"Oh dearie, this will never do, no, it won't. We can't have you like this." The nurse picked up her head and shoved another pillow under it. "This simply will not do. You have to sit up, get your pressure up. Doctor can't operate if your BP starts that low, it has nowhere to go, and believe me, you do not want to undergo this procedure without anesthesia.

Procedure. It was a procedure. Not an operation. Not a test. A procedure. Did calling it a procedure make it smell any less foul? She sat up and took a few deep breaths, tightened her legs, balled her hands into fists. 80/48.

"Much better. We'll just keep you up until the doctors come in, there they are." The nurse nodded in the direction of the hallway. "I'm going to watch you myself, I am, after. The feed is right here on my waist. It'll only be a few minutes, but we don't take chances. You keep breathing like that. Excellent. We don't want any problems, now do we?"

She smiled at the nurse, at her own thoughts, at her power. She could do it. She could do it easily, just let it drop-see, 74/46, back up a tad- let it drop until it was done. No more masquerades, curtain drops, fine. She took another deep breath.

"No, we don't want any problems, no we don't. Thank you, nurse. Thank you so much."

Christmas in Florida

This was no Rockwell Christmas, no roast duck, no tree, no presents, no family. This is no picture perfect landscape, not here. This was Florida, sunshine, tourists, heat, where the snow is as fake as the hospitality industry camaraderie. This was a bleak, sweaty landscape just like so many other bleak, sweaty landscapes he'd faced before: quiet, dust motes floating in the warm air, solitary.

Only this year, the nuance had changed, making it both more and less harsh. This year, his Christmas was not quiet, but filled with rapid breathing and hiccups of pleasure. This year, it was hotter and he wasn't thinking of the temperature as he crested another hill, one of the many he'd conquered that day in the wilds of Lake County. And this year, although he wasn't alone for the first time in a very long while, he was lonely.

He skidded around the corner, scattering gravel but still upright and powered up. Ghosts of Christmas past stretched their claws to grab him, send his delight into the gutter with all his other Christmas disappointments, from missing weenie whistles to sweaters that didn't fit to rings thrown back at him. Memory of waking fought with resentment of separation. Whoever said parting was a sweet sorrow was an ass. There was nothing sweet it. There wasn't even anything sweet about the anticipation of reunion, because there were no sure things in this universe, not his universe or in his life anyway. Nothing sure ever, uncertainty and unpredictability was the only thing he counted on.

Snowflakes of joy melted into soggy disappointment.

He switched back into the big ring. Downhill rush sent a tingle to his groin, sore from his earlier exertions. He shifted back on the saddle, pressed down against the nose, tucked his knees tighter against the frame and watched the indicator on the speedometer rise.

Why did she leave?

Why did she have to leave?

Over the last few months, she'd cracked his isolation, pealed the flesh from him like vernix from a newborn and now she'd left him, lonelier for the knowledge that he was truly alone. Knowledge is a terrible thing, joy tasted and revoked. He was Tantalus, thirsty, hungry, and could barely graze her life giving wetness with his tongue, nip at the flesh swinging just beyond his bared teeth. Once you've tasted ambrosia, everything else is sawdust.

Another hill to climb, more sweat, more hot wind. Christmas was supposed to be cold, snowy, family gathered round the crackling log fireplace and he had aching muscles, sore knees and exploding lungs from the sucker punch her words had landed. His guts wanted to spill out, leave a trail for the ever present turkey vultures. Sisyphus and Prometheus now. He knew a few bits and pieces of classical mythology, but now he could mix and match gods and demigods with ease. Another set of trivial information she'd gifted him with, along with all the others.

How could she leave?

Was she thinking of him?

He turned towards home, the place that held him. "And I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep."

Through a Glass, Darkly

Was it live or was it memorex?
There was no way to determine if they were in St. Pete, Palmerton or that kingdom of fakery-DisneyWorld.
Did it matter?
Not a whit, not a ha'penny, not a fig.
As long as they could ingest enough liquids to keep their blood alcohol levels above the legal limit, no one cared what universe they were actually tottering through.
A young girl passed, skipping rope. "Step on a crack, break your mother's back. Step on a crack, fall into the black. Step on a crack, find something you lack." They watched until her voice faded into the mist, then turned away.
Arms around each other's shoulders or linked, swagger alternating with stumble, they sang their own odd medley of verse, straight up, on the rocks, over easy, as they proceeded down the streets.
Until Josephenia, hanging off the end, tripped, her arm slid free of Bartholomew and she fell head first into a puddle, breaking up the reflection of confectionary building as if the water had splashed up to melt the sculpted fondant and french meringue rosettes, tripped into the puddle and kept going, until she disappeared completely, leaving only a few bubbles to show she'd ever been at all.
The others blinked, shrugged and continued, just a bit more careful to avoid the fissures in the asphalt.