YHWH

Inhale,
Exhale.
You are, were and is to come...
Healing,
Wisdom,
Hope.
Inhale,
Exhale.

YHWH.

LORD.

To Mr. R.

You told your
8th grade class one time,
Your piece or peace of mind...
That you enjoyed Asian history because
"Armies of people who look the SAME
were fighting over land and stuff."
Huh.

Armies of people who look the same.

So can I write you an essay
Displaying the trivialities between
The Blue and the Grey, lying so serene
On blood-stained green grass
As brother fought against brother
Never wondering what they meant to each other...
Because they were
Armies of people who look the same?

So may I write you a love song
Demeaning the virtues and vices,
The literary devices never touching
on Montague or Capulet,
Because Romeo & Juliet
Were from families
who looked the same?

So tell me why
You thought it was fine,
That it was okay
To talk about armies that all looked the same.
To tell young minds
Who might actually mind
And have been told
"You all look the same."
...Why did you think it was okay?

I remember only
Hot flush and swallowed words,
Anger, hoping I hadn't heard
A teacher, a teacher
Say it so clear
Saying it, saying it near,

"Armies of people who all looked the same."

You were a good teacher,
You still are, I know.
You joined for the right reasons,
To teach and grow generations
& I remember you joined after 9/11
To break stereotypes, to investigate hype.

You were a good teacher,
So you probably know
I can't figure out why
You settled to say,
That one fine day,

That vicious, ugly thing.

"Armies of people who all looked the same."

"Peace begins with you and me."

A September Goodbye

Goodbye  like the sun also rises,
Goodbye like apple pies
            and banana pancakes,
That dessert, lasts on your tongue goodbye.
That "hate to leave you" goodbye.

You are my sister before misters,
The sweet sarcastic smile to my
Too cynical comments.
I will miss your humor
like Sunday morning coffee,
that caffeine kick.

You are the plaid to my tweed,
Patterend differently but yet
Sewn just the same,
You help me remember my name,
              a sister thread.

And while you're away
Doing as the Romans do,
I'll remember what it's like to stay
In a home with slow-droning fans
With a friend, with a sister
Who taught me how to smile again
When pain taught me tears.

I will miss you,
So give me a
Goodbye  like the sun also rises,
Goodbye like apple pies
             and banana pancakes,
That dessert, lasts on your tongue goodbye.
That "I'll see you soon" goodbye.

Now. Then. Always.

Now.

Stop thinking of him now.

Like warm coffee, warm sink, warm hands,

Stop.

Cold coffee, cold sink, cold hands,

He's in love with the idea of himself.

And you love him.

And now you must learn to leave

warm jackets, warm hands, warm glances

and live with his

empty jackets, empty hands, empty glances.

Stop loving him.

Stop.

Then.

He was thinking of you then.

Like new beginnings, new laughter, new grins.

He was.

Dead endings, deadpan silence, dead grimace.

The silence space he left in his wake,

But he's still here.

But now you must learn to grieve

New mornings, new girls, new flings

and know they become his

Done mornings, done girls, done flings.

He was yours once.

Once.

Always.

He never promised you always.

Like golden rings, golden years or gold lining.

Never promises.

Broken rings, broken years, broken lining.

Your desire led you to him,

And your spirit dragged you back.

And now you must learn to relieve

Choked hopes, choked promises and choked dreams

and resurrect your faith in

fresh hopes, fresh promises and fresh dreams.

Seek your new Always.

Seek.

Nesting

Hollow and shallow reigned my name,
Taunts that remembered only shame
And echoes reached across my chest,
The girl forever lost in restlessness,
The bane of her own wandering.

"I will not wait for the dead,
Or wake the swine up from his bed,
I will walk where the living tread,"
Said the girl lost in wandering
The going and gone in her steps.

Her lips, my lips, just pondering.

Love stayed once, a while,
Stroked my cheek, so soft and mild
But he left and brought instead
The waking horror, the walking dead.

He was not Love but merely Lust,
Mustered in silent, ancient rust,
"We must," said he, in thundering,
"Test the waters and churn the sea,
Turn the tide into the lee,
And I will wait for only thee,
For thee."

Yet he left me, lofty high
Heart strewn in streamers across the sky
Lust only knows to tear apart
The sordid and forlorn lost heart.
Silence led me to my knees,
Beckoning with broken pleas
To rid the hidden hollow in my heart,
The abyss of pestilential emptiness.
"I dare not stay awake for this,
For this."

Love came not on gaudy wings
Or far-flung empty, fairy dreams.
He came as whisper, as soothing voice,
A smile, so tender, a gentle choice:
"Choose me and hollowness will fair,
Like dust, open to the air
And I will nestle in your chest,
No longer the sting of emptiness,
But passion like a fiery flame,
And you will no longer remember shame.
And you will know Love's true name,
You will know my true name."

And so I sit here by and by, nesting
Love so bright, nestled nearby
In a once vacant, empty lot,
That silent, unkind, bandaged spot
That Lust so damaged, that one so cruel
who called me only "damned" and "fool"
But Love decided to save.
He calls me by another name,
"Beloved" and "Blessed,
Take comfort and rest
For I have always known your name."
And so Love hopes and dreams and stays,
Walks and laughs and eats and plays,

And so Love stays.

Memories

I wish I could forget

The way you hold your head

In dappled sunlight,

Wide smile splitting the rays with beams,

It seems I am too much

or too little

or not enough

to fully find you

in a half-hearted, half-empty tragedy.

I wish I could forget the times

You sat down to find

        me crying, hiding tears in the folds of hands

and I wish I could forget

The warmth of your laugh

on Sunday afternoons, drowning out

the cicadas with its air of intensity.

You don't deserve it,

This time-honored, sepia-toned droning

in my head.

Instead, you deserve to be

set out to sea, free

Never to see me,

That fickle friend, never lover,

The dreamer yet always the diver,

The one who took the fall

and you didn't catch.

Instead, you deserve to be

forgotten.

I want you to remember me,

Immortalize every fallen tear,

The sear of my hand on your shoulder,

The way you should have thought, "I want to hold her."

and battled the fear 

of remembering when and where

and who and how

this started,

I want you to remember.

But it seems

You are the one forgetting,

My tired eyes and hopeful tries

To attest to and win,

more lose some than winsome,

that distant friend.

And I, I the one who remembers.

The Might Have.

You are taking too long for me,
the gap spanning between here and there
far too large for me
to remember the gap between your teeth
and for you to remember the gap my smile used to be
when you just talked to me.
You are taking too long for me to love.

Maybe our future speaks in sad love songs,
forlorn and adorning the walls of teenage angst long ago,
and our love was meant to die.
Testify what I mean to you,
Tell me my worth and perhaps
the diamonds will fall from my lips,
emeralds brimming at the cusp,
rubies dotting my eyelids.
Perhaps, perhaps then you will remember
and dismember the silence
that once was potential.

What is love
that has yet to take flight?
What is love
that is unrequited?
What is the feeling of hope and half-hearted disaster,
lounging here where my heart used to be,
a tumultuous black hole of doubt and desire,
fire in my stomach,
I want you to know me...

Yet you are anomaly,
I can't seem to get you, or forget you.
Countless hours spent gathering flowers,
shredding petals in pursuit of the great
perhaps. Perhaps then you might recall
the gall I had
to dismember the silence
and wonder if I could love you.

The Wait

There should be a word
For the sound of waiting, and hesitating
Here.
Standing, waiting here where I
knew that I would be.
See, you didn't just have me at hello.
You had me at
front-row silence, slow-smile, cue-the-background-music
contact.
I don't remember when we first met
and yet I'm sure it was uneventful
because here I am, still waiting.

But you only wait and hesitate for the things
you really want.
You wait for meteor showers on cool summer nights
and your long lost lover on moonlit streets
and the sound of rain after a bone-dry drought,
You wait.

You are lump-in-the-back-of-the-throat,
You are finger-tapping and shaking-knee,
I want you to know all of me...
You are that type of waiting.

And I have waited.
It has been nearly six years.
I am tired of settling for less than I think I deserve,
and Honey...you are far from settling.
You are worth waiting for.
I hope you feel the same.
Please don't blame me for counting the moments before
you look away,
I'm just waiting...wondering when exactly I want to say...
I'm waiting for you.

The Turn

You are hostile turnstile,
You are danger in a bottle,
asking me to wait a while,
misshapen and warped like corkskew,
You, you are deadpan silence in a prison of my own making,
You.

I can never seem to shake you,
the tear in my seams, the shake in my step,
The hiccup, the mix-up,
The riddle, the joke.
I misspoke.
You are the tide turning on forgotten waves,
and I,
I am only sailing.

Mic

I put my lips to you,
ready to speak my truths into your ready speaker,
but I was the weaker,
and I'm wondering how many times I can whisper
or wail or whimper
I'm sorry...
because I failed when I spoke to you,
choked like a dying flounder,
gasping and grasping at straws.
Wonder if you found her,
the girl I left at your mouth.

Whenever I look at you,
I hear my own voice echo back,
the young freshman attack of too much hair dye
and too little insight,
too much fight and too little wait time,
my deadbeat heart of mine
would die
in your sound system.

When did I
wreck your sound system?
The mechanics of everyday routine
dripping in mellow, no-nonsense serene
messed up by one mean little girl,
one mean little mouth.
Lips like daggers that bit and bled,
you said you never liked that.

Regret tastes like iron,
like steel reeling in the back of your throat,
a silent, repelling moat of happenstance.
I'm sorry, my almost
my too much
my forgotten host.

I'm sorry.

I just wanted to check up on you.

Paper Crane.

Remember my
December birthday
and the way you forgot to buy candles,
the handles of your Honda frozen like
popsicle sticks
and the way you looked at me
as if time trickled in like a bad cold,
Vicks smeared moments like stuffy noses,
a tissue comment shoved into my hand,
your bland, misbegotten frozenness
left to cool, left to stand.
"I'm sorry" a delayed plane, a paper crane...
straining and broken,
not knowing where to land.

X

You are stardust and silence,
the bite of crisp nori,
pouring cream into a paper cup,
a waste of perfectly good substance
in a fading vessel.
I wrestle with vanity in silence,
Profanity purging lips of whispers,
I know the way you lie
like lions purr to their cubs...
the quiet glimmer in your eyes,
the ties which bind us
keep us.

{Missing You}

It's 2 in the morning
& I am mourning the shape your body makes,
faking nose dives into the bed and sheets billowing like sails,
flailing and failing, calling and falling
to the waves our bodies create,
precipitating the beats of new found love,
this unfounded faith in who we were and what we did,
the small fib we told ourselves, wrapped ourselves in
fine linen only to begin again,
my love.

You are one and you are many.
The sea anemone secrets of my screwed apart heart,
like the jagged shatterings and smatterings on a sea floor,
calling with an appalling shriek into the night air,
I miss the smell of your hair
and the way your eyelids fluttered in the dark,
the shuttering of your backbone when fingertips rest,
to bless the undersides of hands and smooth upper lips,
I miss you.

The ticking of the clock
reminds me of your unwinding laugh,
that hiccupy cacaphony that found me in corners and rooftops,
ceilings and hot spots, I remember your tin roof smile
telling me to stay awhile
in places and spaces I should never have gone to,
you're wrong in all the right places
and I don't want to be right,
flight seems so close and quick, the candle wick burning
too bright...too bright tonight.
Bedroom eyes see, hypnotize in the dark
we embark.

Don't worry, I'm in a hurry
to forget you
put you in a pocket or locket and
set aside you
mind you I'm not missing
the parts I've found missing...
just listlessly, miserably missing you,
the you's I left behind,
one fine day
in the middle of the night
kept the memory, lost the fight.

Remember me in pocket times
when your eyes are adjusting to the light
and you can't remember what melancholy tastes like
or the sun plays melodies on your wristband,
you'll reach for my hand
and realize
I'm gone.

From Dust to Lust

I remember when
sin slipped in with silken trousers,
roused the cat from its dosing hours,
languished in listless agony
as I sat to listen to your wandering thoughts
and just as I fought to hear them,
the dim lights frosted my eyes,
I am hypnotized
by the depth of your stare
and the curl in your hair
paired down with Japanese wax
I wax, I wane
I want to be your window pane,
the pain of being in lust,
from dust to dust.

Hollow graham.

Holograms never tasted
like the graham cracker crusts of s'mores,
your marshmallow laugh smooshed under her crackling, biting wit
The "Lake Titicaca" jokes smoking chocolate
more than melting tension,
your tendons stretched like fledgling bones,
longing for a strumming hum to take flight,
Holograms rely on light.
Just right, just right.