Stalling

nothing better, nothing worse-
so i'm stalling, rifling through my too-small purse
wondering what i should leave
at home, what i should bring. a gun?
to shoot one [or both] of us with? don't have one,
and don't think i'd bring it if i did,
but the thought was entertaining while it lasted.
i hesitate between chapstick
and lip tint, but decide it will look as if
i tried too hard. now it's just getting silly,
trying to choose between
Heavenly perfume or grapefruit bodysplash: i
toss everything on the bed, and leave it all.
the only things i always need
to keep close to me
are my wits and my heart-
arguably, i'm missing a bit of each.





This one is older than the last one! I've got new poems, really, but I went through one of my notebooks and found all these ones that I thought I posted but didn't.

Heavy

why so heavy? moving as if it's a fight
as if it's just enought to avert my eyes;
you closed yours, leaned back, sighed. (i thought maybe
you were trying not to cry.) why am i alright? (that's
what i thought you wondered, about me, about why
i walked and talked and thought so slowly. i won't
admit that i was fighting- fighting the urge to run or
punch or just ignore everything and go
to sleep.) i felt nothing, felt nothing, feel
nothing except
heavy.






This is an OLD one. It goes along with those other ones, "Feeble" and "Cut".

Wandered

ninteteen years of history, of stability,
of being rooted as a tree to a single state, a single city.
years of slightly changed sameness, testing
of boundaries and stretching
out against elastic chains. ohio, ohio!
my blood sings with your soil and a piece of
the massing "us" that fill your streets,
one unit of the "we"
that belong to this state.

but now, but now!
it feels as if the sky has been called down
sometimes, the weight of nineteen
years crashing and crushing and breaking,
breaking against me and against those boundaries
until we are bursting from them, shattering
and unleashed and free. free
from comfort, from physical assurance, from easy
words or a similar timezone, even.
free, free! the beast of me howls joy
fierce, freedom! while a part of me weeps
for the ground that is the same but
different, so different.






I finally put words into this feeling I had, when I got picked up from the airport & was being driven to my new home.
This one kinda came in bits and pieces- I would write a few lines one day, then switch them around, then write a few more a couple of days after that. And so on, until now. I'm not quite sure it's done, but... Oh well.

Inviting

I think it's the breezes I miss most; the
feeling of cool air evaporating
sweat and water from my skin.
The grass and trees come in second;
their whispers when the wind twines
its fingers through them,
the lush blanket of green
that invites me in.
The cactus here invite me as well,
spreading open arms out to me and the sky.
The thought is appreciated, but
I have to decline.





Pobrecito cactus! No hugs for you.
The wind here is like that gust that comes out of the oven when you open it & get too close too fast, the rush of dry hot air that dries out your eyes.

Also, I can interact with my blog now. :D

Grief

I watched her wipe the tears away, when
her hands weren't busy twisting the broken
keychain. "I try," she said, "I try so
hard to carry on, to be the strong one.
I've prayed so long for this- this
pain- to go away, for me to be happy. But it's
so hard, so hard when it all comes crashing
down."
She continued to explain, I
continued to listen, feeling like
I should cry with her or bake cookies
or call up these people who could not
or would not support her and tell them off;
she was laboring under something so large
that I could not understand.
She cried, I clenched
my hands into useless fists. When
most of the moment was gone, she left
to find a phone charger so that
she could comfort her grieving aunt.
I watched her leave, thinking
of islands and men and God and the
ingredients for chocolate chip cookies.





I also thought, Why God, why? I know what people would say why, but why?
It's so painful to not know how to help someone, because I always want to make them cookies and it never does much at all.

Submerged

the shush of a calm ocean,
waves whispering the places they have been.
ropes creak, boards squeak,
the constant sway of everything-
all of it, subliminally,
at the center of one's being.
this is the life of a pirate or sailor- floating
yet submerged in the mind of the sea,
as mother and lover she will always be.




Add pirates & such onto the list of things I should write about, because Nutmeg has asked for it and she's spoiling me with story snippets.

PS, in case you didn't know- the internet here has a block that allows me to get to my dashboard & make posts, but nothing beyond that. So I can't view comments or reply to them or look at anyone else's blog, either. FYI.