Suffering = Sand

Everything happens for a reason
Is Bullshit
But I’m livin it
With my share of regret

I watched the layers of my heart peel off
Feeling lost
My puffy feet getting soft
Take’m to the ocean, get’m washed

I found a path that leaves the grass
And turns to sand
The place my wheezing lungs command
will you Understand

I had no idea the entire time
and I’m still not sure it was worth the price
but the view sure is nice

6 Feet Apart

An unforgiving mockingbird song
Echoless in the dead of night
The air is stifled and still
Rain clouds, oppressive downy pillows
Weigh down
On our pin-drop silent towns
Folks tucked hard
Breath-holding sanity
Hoard it like TP
I wish I could get these clouds off of me

Tell me I’m a breathing machine
Expose the stars,
Forgive this pause
Exhale into the distancing
Own the space
Where you expel your dirty air
What kind of grounded do you want to be?
Playing in it, laying in it, complaining in it?
Taking a minute?

This stillness is a buzzing whisper
With so much to consider
Veils that muffle the murmur
Unknown trails that lead into summer
The rights you have left
The impatience and doubt set adrift
Unseen currents of atmosphere
Shifting between us
The space that suffocates
The oppression of no embrace

Upon Leaving my Hometown

I miss you now just as much as I have all the years before I even left
The echo in the space where I wished you were when I was still (t)here
Has lost its reverberation
My voice, a thud into hollow
Too tired and sad to boom through light years
Just to reach some random generation
Who *might* be listening
But are probably also too busy caring about their immediate problems
And it makes one wonder
Why evolution even bothered with
the development of communication, empathy, or ears
And why it didn’t grow me a pouch to stuff all these orphaned cares
How extraterrestrial I could feel when I was Always. Right. There.

VOID

I will fill the void you left with something else
Fill the void with merriment and revelry
Merriment and maybe tv, if no one thinks of me
If no one thinks I’m worth a shot
I’m worth a shot right through the heart
Right through the silence in my room
The silence in things we assume
Things we assume about each other go wrong
I’ve got it wrong, dude, I know that song
But I know that songs keep me here
Keep me here and feeling SO much
Feeling so much love with nowhere to go
Nowhere, no one to take my joy inside
Taking my joy and leaving it to rust outside
Leaving it to them, I’d be floundering
I’d be fonder if we were encountering
We were encountering understanding of humanity, I thought
And I understand humanity has a way of getting lost
Getting lost in safeguarding themselves, then will pose as trolls
Safeguarding themselves with gossip for fools
For foolsake I even liked those girls
Like those girls, I’ve been torn down
I’ve been torn between forgiveness and doubt
And I doubt much will change with this poem
Much will change when we don’t have room left in that void
We don’t have room for cruelty and fortresses
Cruelty that forces us to hide from those that hurt us
Hide from the hurt that comes from letting anything in
I’m letting in all the wash of feelings
The wash that fills my void with suds and love
My void is brimming with so much
With so much of what could be
What could be nicer is if we had lunch
If we had time to listen to the hiss of air leaving that empty pit
Leaving that empty pit full, like a fruit basket
Full like a well fed beast who is content to dream
I’m content to dream this space to it’s brim
This space will be served until then
Until then, think about self-preservation,
But be selfless in your reservations

No one should feel empty
Hug somebody soon

Big lots

I’m an ugly brand of cursed
I don’t know which is worse
The flimsy packaging
Or the aftertaste

Rebrand me all you try
I’m not selling out
A product of a fired staff
I’m a dream that should have died

I’m not hard to open
I haven’t gone stale
I haven’t expired
But I’m tired

Just a weird concept
Pushed into production
Devalued
And waiting to be free

Dispensable Beloved

Oh what a fiend you’ve become
gnawing and tearing at loved ones
what must I gain to realize
all the broken pieces it took to create my present
what part of hope must I set free
to get back a piece of me?
What even is reality?

A long set of days, each carved into my bones
every load and loaves
that built what’s home
flattened and tossed out
and what’s left has no value
not even the “How could you?!”
Nowadays, I have lots to do
So go on about your business,
get real and don’t ask “What is this?”
I got grain to chaff and charts to graph,
thoughts to discard and disregard
and time for laughs,
half a care
but only for the drifting, hopeless, and disenfranchised
What do you do with a landslide
when your life is a neglected child
and all you want to do is hide?

Love me as I am.

Volunteer

On my first breath
I was a mess
you were absent forever
I drank absinthe and ether
every addict is running from something
but I stayed put
and was sorry
everything ran from me

I often played alone
it was house, never home
while you were chasing approval
I chased yours
and now I don’t know how to stay still
I stay busy
My haste makes the wind of that first breath

I made sacrifices to nothingness
And slaved to empty husband and children
Woke up old and tired
ready to slave
to the everythingness
ready to run toward something
that I can give to
that gives back
whose arms circle around me, as I theirs
closing the loop
of linear marathons
that go to nowhereness

Scheduled Solitude

You guys are doing a good job of leaving me alone
There’s a code for those that know
You only give to the ones that show
And, oh, how quiet it’s grown

The rsvps unanswered
The promises, then the cancels
All appointments go in pencil
I feel so reprehensible

If I count on those that are accountable
The sum would come to doubtible
The deficits are insurmountable
For good friends are just not bountiful

We are made to feel rejected
If no human contact is inflected
But what if I elected
my time, my own,
To embrace introspection?

Here am I at the ready!
I am punctual. I am steady
It’s hard to be regretting
Having a good friend in myself

Sitcom Lies

The sky was BLACK as cheese…

 

and you said you couldn’t respect me

if I wasn’t HONEST

 

and I said YOU watch tv all the time

 

And cheese COULD be that black if you leave it alone long enough

which is what you’ve done with me.

 

 

 

Boarding up my windows

To prepare myself for winter

I am boarding up my windows,

filling my pantry,

compacting my bones

so moisture cannot

penetrate the joints.

The world will forget me more

but I am resolved to

avert the chill

with hunkered down loneliness,

oceans of tea,

fleece swathed solidarity.

Removed from frigidity

I am stone

alone

with my CB radio and scanner

leaning close

listening for chatter

flares and afghans at hand

in case the roof caves

If you find me in the thaw

Put a can opener to my lips

To hear the hiss and murmur

Of  secrets lonely women hold

In their ever sliding glacial hearts

There are storms no one can endure

And measures that are never enough

To save a home without love.

White Elephant

In fits of desperation,

I cordon off parts of my soul,

extract them and tie them up

in pretty packages for people

I want to bribe into being my friends.

I call it poetry.

Happy Birthday

Everything’s on cue

you wouldn’t know what to

if I told you

The annual let down,

the frown

is coming around

I’m all anointed

in the disappointed

I’m appointed

to be alone

in a clattered home

and write these poems

to get relief

from unchecked grief

and ignored beefs

It’s another year

and I’m still here

on the same tier

assumed to have provisions

but the incisions

show derision

I will display

and communicate

a need for an embrace

Alas, I am nobody’s princess and

just tissue wrapped crimson

my birthdays are just lonesome

I am a reflection

of decades of disconnection

and rejection

I can’t help but to think it’s my own fault.