Sunrise

Holding the left hand of sunrise
Above the fogline, thin spires cut the blue
Stars still sprinkle the shrinking dark
Like little punctuation marks of kisses
Sunrise’s right hand cups my flesh, pulls me to waking
Traces orange patterns of veins and bones
Traces my lips
Bright replaces the purples I wrap around me when I sleep
Just a few more minutes
I want to hold the sun
Right here

Shadows and Ghosts

He opens his eyes, reassures himself that I am here, not a figment, the weight of me in his arms not enough to disprove dreaming, and falls back asleep.
But that was yesterday. Or perhaps the day before. Or a lifetime before.
I'm not sure anymore. He's not here now.
I stare at the blankness of my bed, cool, smooth. A bird caws, the others sleep on.
Sun still down. Stars fade, taking the silence.
It wakes up and leaves to find a new home.
No train whistle to replace it, provide harmony to the dissonance.
And he is not here, not here to keep me warm, to wrap around me and slide his fingers up my thighs. Not here to keep the monsters away, to lock up the demons that chew my brain.
My bed is empty.
All it holds is me. That's not enough.
It holds a shell. My words pour out, spill over the edge, puddle on the floor.
See the light peaking in, and flee.
Farewell, goodbye. Silence, wait for us, we are on your tail.
We won't be back.
You've used up your allotment.
You are as empty as your bed. Replace us, but you'll still be empty.
Ghost fades, put my hand out to touch the space. No trace.
When you are gone, were you ever here?

Another Happy New Year

He asked her, but not me.
His ex-wife, the mother of his children, but not me.
I'm just the not.
Not girlfriend, not lover, not future.
I will never be more than I am right now, this minute this second.
Which isn't saying a helluva a lot.

Candle Lighting

She lights one candle, then another
A whole row of candles, the first melted away before she's lit the last.
Turns to me, looking for approval, looking for a sign.
A sign that I love her, that I'll always love her, that I won't leave anymore.
It kills me, the leaving, the constant leaving.
Leaving is being.
Unless I stay
and another part of me leaves, so I can breath.
The candles burn, use up the oxygen.
Where does the fire go, after?
My fingers climb the smoke wisp, looking for a way out.

Empty Frame

The voices go on, a hum? a buzz?
She can't make out the words, static in her head.
Upset, always upset.
She wants perfection, some Norman Rockwell fantasy.
She's never seen a Rockwell, doesn't know.
He saw fantasy, memory, a snapshot moment and the reality behind it.
The hurts, injustice, cruelty.
The evil.
And he saw the good, the loving-kindness, fulfillment.
All she sees is a picture
and that she isn't in it.

Dec 6 1994

It's empty, the rink. The eighty-four foot spruce casts no shadow at this hour. Soon, the street will be filled with happy, laughing families, or at least the appearance of happy laughing families. Does anyone know the inside of another's heart? Can you? Can I?

For now, it's empty. I have it all to me, this grey-pink hour between night and dawn.

I've watched it, cars honking at 4 a.m., plaza crowded with partiers, too much to eat, too much alcohol, too many drugs, drowning sorrows they don't know they have, filling their insides, their physical insides while I watch and compose metaphors. Hug themselves against the cold, giggling, going up and down the stairs, round the tree, and then?

Everyone leaves.

No one will see the sunrise except me.

I have no where else to go, no one to miss me, to wonder where I am.

Maybe when the sun comes up, I won't be so cold.

Maybe.

Whither Thou Goes, I Wish I Could Go

It's different here. Different kind of cold, goes through me-
Oh god, the train.
Take me, take me, take me, the whistle says.
Come with me. I'll be waiting at the station.
I'll take you anywhere you want to go.
Take the first step.
But you can't look back. You'll be salt.
I lick my arm. Squeeze of lime, shot of tequila.
Yes. I am salt.
The train pulls out, silent now.
Standing there, I don't wave goodbye.
I don't take the next train either.

Truth in Lending

I'll do anything to avoid-
even write garbage, deliberate crap-
to avoid myself.
Anything at all. Why?
Jumpstart, need a boost. How? Where?
Had it all and now nothing.
But I know this, the root is absorption in I.
Get rid of it. Gut it. Stop concentrating on me.
New page, see what appears. Cross off, delete, x out.
Move it somewhere else.
It'll be okay, we'll figure it out. We will.
Make our worlds coexist, overlap and not lose what brought us here.

Work

Pull a random note, any note, do anything at all with it.
Just to get from here to there. Or anywhere.
Anywhere. Everywhere.
Desperate to get anywhere.
Good bad indifferent, go anywhere.
Mean median mode. La mode et mean.
Life is cruel. No matter how cruel, no matter how much it hurts,
what excuses life conveniently throws down
[Liar! You put your own stumbling blocks in your path.
When they aren't there, you build them. Liar!]
You find more.

Empty Station

The train is gone.
The ducks, too.
Night is silent.
Sucks the sound from me.
Hornets sleep, long sleep.
Dark cradles the hive, just enough to encourage sleep.
Standing here, listening to nothing,
missing the buzz under my skin.
When they wake, fear nausea reaches down and pulls my guts out.
Pulls them right out, piles them on the floor and puts a candle on top.
Happy birthday to the end of the world as we know it.

Writers' OCD

Fussy?
Damn straight I'm fussy.
It's fussy to want A-1 AND ketchup?
You are talking to someone who spends hours looking for the right verb.
Damn straight I'm fussy.
Deal with it.

Snow in July

That night
I loved you so much that night.
Every dream, all dreams converging in one perfect place.
My make-believe future, every girl's future, all laid out.
Perfect.
We'd live happily ever after.

Music pounding, bass note loud in my bones,
not as loud as the steel and concrete, girders and cranes building dreams.
It's all going to be fine.
It'll be alright now.
Well, it's not.
Hands running up and down me, eyes anywhere else.
Not on me. When did it get so cold?
Struggle into a sweater on this 90 degree night.
So cold.
Because the truth is happy ever after is a grease puddle rainbow,
illusion in used up, drained out motor oil when you look down,
faint light reflected on the ground swell.

Lead guitar breaks a string.
Hands in me, kiss me. Close my eyes so I can't see where your eyes are.
Anywhere, everywhere but here.
Keep them closed while they restring the guitar.
Keep them closed.

Mind's I

If you were here, here, now, next to me
How can you say that, say such wonderful things?
You see what you want to see.
Shiver when your skin touches mine, shiver wondering
when you will see what I see, as I see.
Give me now, I want to be what you see.

My little one

Please note the latest addition to my list of preferred authors. As my youngest child has completed her latest short story, explained the illustration sequence to accompany said work and then played a work of music that she composed, I realized that I have been negligent in adding her to the list.

Perhaps I'm not ready for her to grow up.

Absence from Those We Love is Self from Self-

I have immortal longings in me.

It was once.

But we fought like an old married couple who had been through way too much and stayed because we didn't know any other way.

It was once.

And we were enthralled with each other, shocked at this glimpse of what might be, stretched out in the back seat of your Escalade.

It was once.

Gone our own ways, lives keeping us where we have to be, not want to be, oh not ever where we want to be. Not ever.

And lucky number seven doesn't feel lucky, rolled by strangers' hands.
Should be. Would be.
Could be.
We could be. We are not.
Your shirt brushes my calves. That and a question mark are all I have.

* Title and line 1 from William Shakespeare.