Oh, how sweet it would be to move
to safety, but I cannot tear myself away. I crave salt water today, not on my skin but in my soul. I’m a desert creature now, but I need to wash the grit from my teeth. Yes, I know the waters are weighted and oil slick, as thick as dripping whales gliding in ponderous silence. Dazzling, this ability to muffle the sound of my own heart. It is bright, that unholy silence. Quieting ever thing including the one thing that is always, always on the tip of my tongue. Why is your pillow encased in frost each morning? This is important. Is it because you cling so tightly to the night? Is it because my love is not warm enough? I clap my hands together until the sound is exactly that of coins falling into a parking meter, of the world shaking itself loose of its axis and then I raise my voice in song, sustaining that one note until I can hear the whoosh of everything that came before you folding in upon itself an origami seagull with practical wings. I will it to fly away and miraculously, it does mirrored in the ocean below.
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I want to tell you about a bridge
that has been slouching across a 4-lane highway for so many autumns that spray paint slopped by moonlight is a gift. On one side, small rain-damp houses quicksilver bugs hand-me-down cars thrift store couches mothers worn ragged from jobs with green glass ashtrays on their desks, smoke sifting through their mascara as they type. Fathers, mostly memory, missing since we don’t remember when. On the other side, more of the same. Once when I was thirteen I sat in the middle. The bridge held me while the sky gave me its heart. Trucks moved below and summer began its slow burn. My feet were pendulums ticking toward somewhere that wasn’t here. Bear with me. I want to tell you something about happiness - that it is shaped like a wooden bowl and moves like a flock of birds. I want to tell you something about mental illness - that we didn’t have words for it, but that it doesn’t need a summons to seep into the bloodstream while nobody will look it in the eye. I want to stand on that bridge again, to see if it can still work that kind of magic. this is how you came into my arms
quickly and not yet tipped over emptied out by sorrow and a sense of smallness like that time you tilted your head to my knee held me tight still too young for words already on good terms with catastrophe we all awaken sometimes at 3am furious shouting into the dark cold with fear we hold tight to anything we can until the morning explodes into the world isn’t that why we’re here - to stake a small space, to make noise? This being human is a guest house.
Every day, a new arrival. - Rumi the way solitude shelters but numbs and one doesn’t exist without the other because you can’t have cake in the house without wanting to lick the frosting when you think no one is looking the way worry twists itself into a ball of bed linens slightly damp with sweat the surprise your blood moving still despite your heart being so broken the reigning lord of curls
kicked into overdrive. I’m tending the fields of myself - she of long weekends with only birdsong cat murmur brush on paper for company. I don’t know why it took me so long to remember who I was to begin with. I am god today Messiah of maybe, I don’t know , and we’ll see. It feels good to be the almighty and most high of words running like rivers to the sea. I’m in charge and I’m not going anywhere fast. I’m traveling at the speed of the five dusty books standing tall as prophets from my nightstand. amen. I used to pull the truck over to cry
under church billboards. Join us on Sunday! All those smiling cardboard faces working toward perfectly placed crowns gold-plated streets, chaise lounge of cumulus clouds. Then I recalled what I’ve always known - that we soothe our fears with fairy tale, and also, rumor has it that sisters with flame hair and a noose around the neck are stopped at the gate, which needs a fresh coat of paint. So instead, I imagine you’re in a place where the drinks are bottom shelf and the jokes - well, who doesn’t love a good dick joke? Remember how we used to ask each other then howl with laughter as if that were the joke. What’s it like in your kingdom? Angels still dragging around dirty wings? Dry cleaner permanently closed? Driving, I saw the face of a homeless woman yesterday who looked just like you. I wanted to bring her home with me, tuck her into the warmest bed in the house and feed her hash brown casserole but I was afraid she might tiptoe out in the dark of the night, my credit card information tucked in her back pocket, her arms wrapped around the blue vase grandma gave me. Or maybe I’ve confused her with you. after Rainer Maria Rilke
if drinking is bitter, change yourself to wine change yourself to fenceless fields uproot the posts bury the gates in the river sink the latches in quicksand dig deep in the soil of your life remind yourself that your hands are strong saplings partnered with solid mountain feet if these chains bite change yourself to freedom change yourself to freedom reading until middle midnight
glasses slipping into a well too deep to ever reach the dreams of Naples yellow on that old paintbrush all the most beautiful experiments in being human are ordinary so I’m keeping careful notes alongside three pressed flowers the color of raspberry ice lipstick of Popsicle colored sunsets,
pink of I wish it were different, purple of you don’t deserve this, line it with just fallen leaves pine needles, the thin pages of well-used books. Hold my hand. Yes, the sky is a dark-clouded fist above us and yes, nothing makes sense, but you are sheltered, the way the forest does. To take what we love inside
is a meditation in recklessness, a dangerous prayer. Tear past the crooked tooth and greedy tongue, slip into the capillaries, rebellious and swerving toward an endless litany of drunk driving and takeaway food. There is no caution tape here because everything is an emergency. This body, still such a stranger, is the only chapel I’ve got except my heart laid flat on paper. inspired by Lee Yong Lee’s poem From Blossoms |
Who am I?I’m a systems engineer and creative coach living in ABQ, NM. I believe that we can intentionally design our lives to align with our deepest dreams and desires. Archives
January 2023
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