Slippery

I can barely name it.
It's hard to own.
Peculiar. Slippery.
So...she?
Me?  I don't know.

I am where I want
to be
but I don't know
how I got here.  Or
how I'm standing.
You are just
    outside the door,
almost perfect as far
as I can see but I
don't know why
you're there-
or here.
Because in another
life, I didn't know
you, could not have
made you up.
And I woke up from
a dream I thought
was life and there or
here you were.  Real.
Tangible.  Soft
weighted as snow
and warm
but when I touch you,
               I'm not sure
               I exist.
Because my existence
depended, always, on
            someone
                        else.
Someone I made up.
Someone I couldn't
touch. So, I've lost
time somehow, though
the facts are in.
Point A to Point B
    is written plain.
My fingers follow,
trace the
lines or path and
  I understand
  some girl
I suppose is me
must have traveled
logically from a to
b
but
the numbers mix with
letters and years with
days and time with
lapse and though
it doesn't rhyme I
still can't read it
easily.

So, I have to pinch
myself to see if I
am real but my
skin is numb in
certain places in
certain moments.

It's like, what if God
              was dead,
which is a shit
                analogy
but as close as I
can come to naming
what I can not name.

It's like any belief
disproved.  Like a
whole body transplant.
Like a story
within a story within
           a story,
           a twist-ending
so seemingly
out of nowhere,
you're just pissed off,
shaking your head,
                   rewinding.

But
     the rewind button
     is broken.
Or he was broken.
I was broken.
And I think I might
               now be
               whole
if I
knew for sure that I
       was real.

Your love seems to
touch my velveteen
and your belief is
strong- maybe,
          magic.

So, just stay
until my sense of
feel
comes back.
Wait till
I can grasp it, hold
it, skin it.
Till it dies and I
come back to life.


                         
                     
                           

Under Cover

"There is something haunting in the light of the moon..." -Joseph Conrad

The moon is pulling waves, even in our bedroom,
tonight, in the middle blue, and I am trying to find
where to talk
from
and my voice.  I rarely speak freely and when
         you look at me, I look away.
I am
trying
to speak from what I know. Simple words
                                     naming happiness or
                                                               sadness.
This is hard because have you noticed it's never
               really fully dark, even at night?  Even
                           under cover
snatched up and around to hide from the breeze
                               or the heat
                               or your eyes?

Under cover of the stars that fall when
obscurity's passion breaks.

I don't know how to unslant
                                     sadness and even less
how to tread
         these tides where my center
bends.

How to say that every single
   other
   other or
nightdayyearlife was a lie and this
  is the truth.

How to unglorify,
             unmuddy
this pastpresentfuture and see
one moment as clay-
just touch
just hold it
               in my hands, squish
               it through
my fingers without some
           grand plan to mold it
                                          into
a gigantic, daunting whole story
paralysis.

I have binged
on words, shoving them
                        into an overpacked
sentiment and then had to lug
     them back home.
I have boxed them neatly, organizing
                      them sterile and tidy.
Square and tight for an overhead bin
      and flight.  I, tonight, can not
                 give them wings but
                              maybe, I can
defer to Angel of One Woman's, All Women's
Blackouts and Clean Sheets
                 and Fire and Hope and Love Affairs
                          and I can ask her,
"Do you know taut pull of moon,
its haunting light(ness)?


Do you know how to speak of one
                     without
                                the other.  Other
without the one?"
Apart from all these words and still pulled
                           everything paired is one.
The moon speaks without
                             words
and I am trying
               to say that (happy or sad) I love you.

The Sunday Whirl

Lectulus

In creating, the only hard thing's to begin...
                                                         -James Russell Lowell


You are Adam
        and
I am Eve,
pre-fall
         and so
vigil held in
pre-nostalgia
waned with wick of wariness,
lessening into daybreak's risk,
and light rising, I signed
             the words, I love you,
then spoke them plain
        saying all I never thought
              I would.
Because lathered in your
before and after
kisses,
        somehow
                        what once gushed
syrupy
seems now likely.

So, here I am, in the wiggle room
  of luck,
believing in the blessing,
            given
           not
by choice or virtue,
but won
by fight,
and the danger of practicality,
looming just above-
        ever easing.

I offer to wisdom all previous
grieving,
repossess
    the wonder.
There is suffering
            still to steer,
              I'm sure,
but together
we
row rapids
  of redemption,
        each wave of what
once was
            and
reaching
            graveyard of the end
                             of what
                                  was once
before,
we'll dig up vision's
bones,
breathe bloom
into the stilted mouths of
                         mocking cynics.
We will
           laugh at sighs and stretching
                         silence,
because now,
voice,
legitimized,
and artificial phrases,
yes, sublimest art.
More is more, and I will serve you
happily
       in return for heart,
because you never gave up
                    chase,
                        and catching me,
you held me long in hidden gap,
wove, like craft, a frame of healing,
waited out derangement
            of my feverish cries
                                              and I
survived.

So, now I give my life to you,
                        my love,
undo
softly, gently,
    false covering of figs,
      abandon fear.
I spill more sumptuous
                           than the fruit
                                              I
tempted with, and ask forgiveness.

Press hard your hips to mine,
                  your lips to mine,
and know the way
by memorizing feel of features.
Know me in the dark and light,
                in the cycles
of our hours,
our habits of formation.
Hear me
in our modern.
In
my notes
            slipped into sack lunch
vows I've never uttered.
Keep them close
as you do my body
in between the sheets
         in early morning
segue.
Taste like lasting taffy,
the sweetness of my thoughts,
        watch my fingers spell
                         in lieu of
                             lines
the pretty gathering of sonnets
                  and regard attempts,
however lowly, to call you home.
Eat with me newly granted
knowledge,
and when spent from toil,
return
   to Eden's bed.

The Sunday Whirl

                                         
           

Tenuto

Hold this note long.  Play it loud
to sound out
reverberation of the past.
Win me over.
I have
                tripped over my own heart and now the knees of my desire, skinned and bleeding.
Your balm
just
                                     might do the trick.
                                         I have been a slave
to the faulty
           fatuous
mirror of love; returned vacant stare with vacant stare,
                     emptied of all I thought I knew,
fawned foolishly
                                    over a man that was not real.
Cheated myself out
                          of every hope.
                                                    Now,
like a
baby mouthing everything,
                    I want
                             to taste -
                             to
feel,
again.
You've proved persistent,
                 unremitting, held out, priming,
                                                    prodding, kept calm in the fever pitch peak of all my fear.
Still,
I want to
  test
your durability-
your lung capacity.
                 Can you survive the swell of my uncertainty; decode my
                 cryptic messages, balance the act between
                             my cleanest meanings and
                                      all attempts at
sabotage?
Will you break if I drop you?
Can you keep me coming back for more?  
Will you lunge
through my limits, veer past my inhibitions,
                                               plunge into waters
deep to save me from
grip of misandry's tentacles?
How long will your promises last?
                        Your garden grow?
                                   Are your vows perennial?

I am sectioned off.
Head,
                                                                                                               heart
and soul.
Can you piece my roving instincts back together?
Create
collage from the amalgam of my inclinations?
                                                     I want a
lot and I need still more.  I have
                                             hues you've never seen
but they
are fading
      fast, trapped
between the black and white drone of dying words.
                                                 Revive me.  Change my thinking.
Show me the strength of your hands.
                                                   Are they tender
                                                   and able?
Can they cradle my undertones, read me like braille?
I have mimed what I should have spoken,
                                   signed consent for you to see
but perhaps the least I could have done was whisper.
                  See, my veneer of
                                    nonchalance is chipping and
                                                         I have nothing
up my sleeve.  I've learned that I'm a novice
                                  and you, an avant garde paramour.
                                         You are ravishing in your
lavishing and I am empty handed, fad worn
  and tattered,
         trying not to
balk at new attire.
Be patient
  as I hone my skills
    so I can play along.  My tongue is dry from thrush
                             of falsehood
 but my fingers work just fine
and I think
                                  I'll find I'm capable of ceding.  I ache like any
                                                 mother and can listen
                                                                           like a friend, so creep like ivy up these bricks I've
                                                                                                                                          built to keep you out.
  Outsmart
           me, baby.  I am close to yielding but
                                                                need you to be nimble,
prompt,
because I am running out
   of time.  I am aging
                    and
so
somewhat haughty; huffy,
                 high and mighty but softening with each kindness shown.  Travail through
                                my raving, flailing protests and I'll
                                                           lay them down.
I want you
but I'm scared I'm broken.
I maintain
  my lack of need but maybe, I'm only talking
                                                trash.
I've fenced off sentiment but there are slots in every story told,
                        so spot
these inconsistencies and if you could, forgive.
         I'll confess to culpability but never grovel.
                 Notice my vices but praise my virtues
and if your
           light is bright enough,
I'll hover moth
           like in the night so you can catch
me.
I'm split right through
            the middle now,
                  move in.
Tread careful.  Kick up gravel
so I can hear you come.


The Sunday Whirl
                   
                                           

Binding

She is
(somewhat) sober now, but sleepy, and so everything is funny. She laughs without control,
                                                                          abandoning herself to
                                                                                                       the leisure of not caring.
                                                                                                               She belches loudly, and this erupts
a new peal, waves of chortling
                                 carrying across the small, dank bar,
                                                                        disgusting some, infecting others,
who giggle along.
                                                                                   The man she is with belongs to this first group.
                                                                                     He is not amused,
                                                                                                 and his stern
gaze
catches hers and she
                 quickly
                 quiets.
His eyes growl
                       the way her father's used to when
                                                   she'd come home
late,
words not necessary to convey the message:  deep, deep disappointment.
She shifts
         on the stool, attempts to make light, a slight joke but
falls
flat
and he responds with a terse command that it is
   Time
   To
   Go.
She shrugs,
as though she gives no credence to his threat to leave without her,
and though past evidence suggests he
                 won't,
she wonders,
                 worries,
just enough.
               He
is worn out,
the
dark circles beneath his eyes, telling.
          Is this love or some strange duty he feels obliged to?  She's not quite sure;
            fears, almost,
                              to know,
though the
lurking uncertainty a consumption almost
                     as complete as drink.  She misses his
                                                       smile, withers inside a little each time she reaches for him and he stiffens, returns her touch with tepid put-on affection.
   Their old way of
playful banter
                   replaced with either
laconism or lectures.  She
     no longer bothers to counter
                          his well made points, slants secretly,
                                 even,
toward his side.
                                                      He treats her
like a child
because she acts like a child.
They
      agree on this.
                       She hands him the keys, chastened and contrite.
Fellow drunkards flash
                                                    looks of pity as
                                                                          she stumbles
                                                                                        behind him on the way out. Still a
gentleman,
he opens the passenger side door and helps her in, his eyes though, cast down, as if
                                        the very sight of her is painful.  She
                                           expects this and accordingly,
                                                                 demurely turns away herself, drops her
                                                                                                   hands into her lap.   Now baneful tears burn,
and she
                          squeezes them back
before he climbs into his side of the car.  She can't stand the way,
                                                                                           when she cries,
his resolve slips into helplessness, fueling her own.  She will not
                      use these tears
                             to trump.
                             The car seems to crawl up the long road home and
                                          she stares
out
    the window at the woods she knows well.
Even in the dark, the leaves on each tree seem to individualize,
wave,
as they creep on and on.
              Born in tree country, in all this green, she tries to think back, to when it all turned grey.
She curates memories
                             in the museum of her mind,
categorizes chronologically events that may have led to current state;
  any proof that she is justified in her slow demise.
                          She finds nothing.
                          He has
refused to speak,
but she curves toward him now, watches
            the methodical rise of his chest as he breathes.
             He pretends not to feel her eyes, fixates instead on the road that's winding.
The entire
world rests heavy on his back.  He is exhausted.
In an unexpected move, he
                 extends his
                             hand.
Stifling a gasp at this
prodigious marvel,
              she gently centers her own
      in his.
Her
          heart thunders
and against her will, she begins to sob,
               so gratefully relieved by this rescue from the hell of her mind.
               She is too immersed in this emotion to notice his reaction,
though
               he is strangely
calm,
less mortified by her feminine bent eruption than he might normally be, despite even,
the continuation of the cantering tears; the effect made of streaks of inky, wavy, stripes
down her cheeks.
By the time
      they are home,
she looks worse than usual.  He carries her, though she is still entirely conscious,
places her tenderly on their double bed.  He
  edges in next
                    to
her slender, frail frame.
They are both still fully dressed.
                      She is both his illness and his cure, and
likewise,
as she
relaxes in his arms,
        she recognizes and gives into
the soothing, medicating effect, of his closeness.
They know this is
               wrong.
This need, this cycle, this
     self-defeating dance they do.
                             Neither is
                                          strong enough to stop.
Maybe if they could, they would,
but they are dependent as though for air,
and
jailed by their
                  respective roles,
duet of denial, a relationship
                         reminicscent of lyrics by an 80s hair band.
She is distressingly
still beautiful to him, beguiling.
He is gracious host to
                  her parasitic nature,
                                  capsized in
                  her raging sea of insanity, soaked thoroughly through in her sorrow.
                                                    They lie here, just on the brink of dawn with these
                                                                            separate realizations.
Morning
will soon arrive with invitation.
The sun will pine across
beryl sky
for their acceptance of her light.
     Their breathing slows in unison and they shut their eyes against prophesying
                                                                 moon glow.
This is
just
    their way.
       Early, before they know they've
       even slept, a goose signals to her flock that
                                                 it is
                                                  time for flight.
                                                                     He rises first, of course, brings her
                                                                                                coffee.
She tells him
she is sorry,
sips the hot forgiveness,
savoring these
symbolic beginning mendings they continually repeat.
                                                 He meant today to
be the day of endings
but rays flicker in, cast shadows on her sadness
and he sits beside her,
                  biding,
                  binding.

The Sunday Whirl
Three Word Wednesday