You stare, curiosity
Uninterrupted, even as people shuffle past with
Open mouths forming shapes
And hands gesturing.
Never have I felt so
Distant and near to another human;
I think about it often.
Hidden {a series} {pt. 5}
After
Weeks of
Endless
Iterations,
Grandmother decided that
Hell and Heaven belonged on
The same coin.
They are two parts of one whole, she declared,
Harboring malice
And disdain yet never seeing
The other.
Hidden {a series} {pt. 4}
Charcoal eyes rest warily upon the new
Acquaintance,
Roaming slowly from mouth to nose, nose to
Right eye and right eye to left,
Interested in capturing the
Elusive personality
Shadowed beneath the mask of red roses.
Hidden {a series} {pt. 3}
Thistles persist in garden beds, reminding
Humans of the tenacity of
Eager Mother Earth, who
Lovingly shares parts of her,
Ignorant to the idea that these
Guests will continue to
Hack away her beautiful
Thistles.
Hidden {a series} {pt. 2}
Empty
Vessels, akin to human bodies,
Eagerly soak up the sun,
Not noticing the
Insignificance of their lives
Naively clattering away.
Hidden {a series}
Tripping over the onslaught of words, I lay on the concrete that
Rubs uncomfortably against my soft, fragile skin
Understanding
That one day
Heeding my own voice, I will rise.
Ode to the Man in Blue Plaid Pants
The man sits in a rocking chair,
watching the road from a porch,
alone.
The house behind him glows warmly
and a silhouette moves past a window.
In the kitchen,
his wife of 45 years makes dinner,
in silence.
Last year and the years before,
they would host dinner parties—
friends would gather in the kitchen
and the clumsy-handed would be sent outside.
The air would be contagious with laughter
and often smell of burnt flour,
but friends would come back again and again.
Things are different now,
the air is contagious with something new
and no one laughs about it.
The man sits alone on the porch
and his wife cooks alone inside,
each thinking about their hosting days,
the friends they will never see again
and the ones they hope to hear from soon.
The isolation they feel is not dissimilar to loneliness—
only, this loneliness is with another.
Overnight {Part 1 & 2}
Overnight
My pillow turned into a body,
warm against my fingertips but
void of substance.
I held them close,
thinking of lightning and its pure
electrical power surging from the skies.
I wrinkled their imaginary shirt
and reddened the figurative skin below
as I held on tighter.
Without the means to speak,
they made no complaints.
I tossed in bed while images of
white light flashed across my eyes,
blindingly beautiful.
Overnight
their body turned into a pillow,
soft against my cheek.
It smelled of pine and eucalyptus,
bringing back memories of weekend trips
and dusty back roads.
I considered the shifting continental plate below me
as I pondered the existence of places I hold dear.
Will they all disappear one day,
engulfed in lava?
I tossed throughout the night,
disturbed by the nightmares that reminded me of you.
Sunlight danced with the dust in my room
as I slowly woke to find my pillow,
case-less,
on the floor near the door.
The fabric of life
The fabric of life
is sewn haphazardly.
Stitched bears dance with fairies under
starlit skies of inky blue.
Cotton geese fly west across
the woven meadows of goldenrod and aster.
Fibrous humans gather around fires
afraid of the tenebrific silence.
Young deers with threaded legs search for sure footing
as toddlers learn to explore the patchwork streams.
Each quilted design blends into the next—
appearing as one scene of lush forest,
dotted with oaks and maples, and
edged by tall buildings and squat homes of grey stone.
The balance of reciprocity rests
on a grand slate table in the center,
encircled by forget-me-nots and ferns.
The Air is Heavy
I come to you with a heavy heart.
The world is on fire.
People are sick.
Today marks the remembrance of 9/11.
My school is holding a strike.
***
I sit in a worn chair, facing
a wall of kind memories,
trying to understand grief.
Frank Turner blares from my computer
and his words are scribbled across the top
of my only black t-shirt.
Earl Grey tea swirls ’round in my mug.
I am feeling…
I hold sacred space for all those lost, suffering,
living in trauma put upon them by others.
I mourn the forgotten,
the loved,
the young,
the old.
My heartstrings are pulled by our crises.
Life is blooming, dying, trembling.
So It Goes 