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here
i shot out the door into the rain late getting there to do six things at once then i was late somewhere else twice socks damp from puddles a roll of rolos for dinner spilling snapple on the passenger seat i forgot more things than i remembered today only to make it to the end and breathe in the smell of wet almost december but this poem is not going there to a realization we need to take time to appreciate every moment no this poem is about something harder this poem is about fleeing from that moment (many moments actually) at six years old when abuse broke my body and the cracks run all the way into today trying to perform something for you that will approach perfection so this is a little harder than listening to the rain this is listening to the sound of something i could not say then no but i’m saying it now no to the cut corners in search of accomplishing everything i’m going to sit here for a minute engine running fogging the windows singing as loud as i want to
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freak book
my uncle had books of curiosities hidden among the standards between Shakespeare and Whitman these tall volumes like oversized comic books full of photos. on visits i would dig them out. they were far more educational than the classics: multiple piercings full body tattoos political ideas suggestive practices. freaks. a sideshow in that sunlit midwestern living room. run away and join our circus, they said, your beard will grow, you’ll learn the trapeze. i found out which volume i belonged in, chewing my lip on the braided rug. i fit right there in between the tattooed girl and the fire eater. i grew up to be both a tattooed girl and a fire eater. posted in a dark seething city intersection swallowing the flame leaving the night completely black. the problem of beating
i cried all the way over the bridge it wasn’t exactly that you snapped or the long string of her angry texts or the emails i had hoped to get it wasn’t any of that exactly it might have been the way the light gets caught in the wildfire smoke and i’m down here starving for brightness or something about the way we let intent be obscured by the daily miscommunications and before you hung up the phone all i wanted to say was i love you in between the beat down of the work day and the things i maybe should have done between the questions and the long silence i love you it’s ok to cry it means this broke heart still wrestles with the problem of beating it means i still stare through the thick like a star might break it it means after all the issues and every problematic potential and after misuse and abuse and after the goddamn parking meter didn’t take my quarters i love you/her/myself and nothing can block that out survivor stories
what about the ones who slipped under the surface a silent drowning the antidote to everything the antidote to everything is your truck cutting off in the driveway your boots on the steps your key fighting with the lock. it’s five thirty and the october cold still sheets the windows. you brought entemann’s donuts and cello wrapped cinnamon rolls from the twenty four hour grocery. i brought this kiss in the quiet kitchen. it lifts my heels and i feel the sunrise early light bouncing on the linoleum firing the possibilities of this day. the antidote to everything: part two the antidote to everything is a sleepy girl with stringy hair eating a donut and doing math at six a.m. she is all the reasons to exist, asking me questions wondering if she got the answer right. you are the right answer sticky fingered child. close the book. take on the day like a blue butane flame clear, steady, burning a hole in all of it. the antidote to everything: part three this morning’s story sits sweet on the counter icing on tinfoil, a sugared smile. but the truth is there’s still blood under my nails. i dreamt searing light and a hand coming down. the nightmares are all real. today is going to burn. but if i tell you about the bit of cinnamon on my finger tip i might remember it myself. the antidote to everything is a word escaping through my teeth: love or no. what i want what i mourn and all the rage. listen to the hiss of the heat, flame escaping chapped lips, cracking the corners of my mouth. wish list
what i wanted to tell you
this is what i wanted to tell you last night in the loud restaurant the twenty something cologned couple laughing and fidgeting with their hands sitting way too close to us. this: you are not the sum total of your mistakes. you are the sum total of every time you try to reach for something. and i claim that calculation too, if we’re doing the math. this is what i wanted to tell you. i love you all the way into the cold telegraph night into the wondering and wishing it could have been, i love you all the way through to the headlights hitting the white garage door, and the light left on inside. unwound
some people talk about how they grew up they learned things they got older they got a job got a house got married had children had an illness accomplished and failed how their lives progressed. my life has been a dizzy spiral things that fell and broke things that caught and ripped i got drinks at the bar got prescriptions and hospital beds and got the children and the love but forgot them in a haze chasing death on the tracks. if your life, too unwound knotted thread yanked off the spool and it was like falling through the decades your feet never touching the ground you’re sleeping on the concrete or one step away in the hospital bed on the tracks in that bottle or pill or syringe laced haze: there’s something at the bottom. when you get to the end of the thread there’s the deepest love left on the spool. you will find you have a revolutionary heart beating in a rhythm they can’t trace. Prayers of the People
(Based on Form IV from the Book of Common Prayer and partly inspired by the Gospel According to Shug Avery by Alice Walker) Let us pray for the Church and for the world. For the whole church, Michael our Presiding Bishop, Marc our Bishop, all Priests and Deacons, and all who minister to the needs of others in the name of Christ. Lord, in your mercy Hear our prayer. For the Nation and all in authority, that they may strive to give up their anger so that in any confrontation their first thoughts will never be of violence or war. Lord, in your mercy Hear our prayer. For God’s earth, and all who love the forest, the ocean, the mountains and the great deserts, that we may all be stewards of God’s unified creation. Lord, in your mercy Hear our prayer. For all who risk themselves for others sakes, that their vision of the world in which no one’s gift is either despised or lost inspires us. Lord, in your mercy Hear our prayer. For the people of our city, particularly the workers who serve us every day, that we all work and build community together. Lord, in your mercy Hear our prayer. For those who love the stranger in this life, reflecting the heart of the mother and the creator, may their example move us to greater openness and unity. Lord, in your mercy Hear our prayer. For those who are enemies of their own racism; that they shall lead us into harmony with the citizens of this world. Lord, in your mercy Hear our prayer. For those whose minds are clouded or who are in pain or trouble, may they be comforted. Lord, in your mercy Hear our prayer. For the departed, those close to us and those we never knew, that they may all find rest in the Lord. Lord, in your mercy Hear our prayer. We thank you, Lord, for all the blessings of this life and the myriad ways we embody God’s grace and love in the world. |
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February 2019
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