It began when I wanted him to have a two hundred dollar rocking horse. Or, when she stopped her crying as I sang to her about that bear that went over the mountain. The piggybacks to bed, the too-long stories, the artful tickling.
My ignorance, my wilfulness, my shame.
Night shift
This is wee,
the hour.
I play coy
with sleep,
thinking
that if
I ignore it
and feign
that I am
fighting it,
it will engulf me
out of spite.
But no.
Its navigator
plies me
with pages
from afternoon fades,
jukes in studied loops.
Sheep have gone out of style,
I think.
A little scare
I had an ambulance ride last night, due to a sudden heart issue.
It turned out to be a wise decision, because I had to be cardioverted electronically.
Before that, they told me they were going to inject a drug that would stop my heart, “make me feel very bad”, and would then restore it to its correct rhythm. It did everything but the latter.
Also, I was given a more defined diagnosis as to what’s wrong, and was referred to a new (and hopefully better) cardiologist.
Pillow talk
When you lay down,
tears no longer fall,
but they pool
in the cups of your eyes.
Sky pilot
Lay prone
in the hammock of home.
No drink, no smoke, no drug.
Let the blue loom of the sky
seep its dye, so sterile, so dope.
Great is its storied fresco.
Rest easy that it waits for you.
Grown up
Kid I was
when Dad got my nose
showed how to take your thumb apart
Oh, and the trick
with the hats and cigarette butts
How to worm a hook
Bought a poetry book
Must’ve seen my look
Told me I must be a man
Face the bullies
Have a plan
Double up that fist
Let ‘em have it!
Yeah
Dust bunnies
Taken-
the combings of years,
of minutes and seconds.
Sift and sieve,
this sultry eve.
What’s fallen,
plasmic,
into dream hands,
begs of wonder,
of worship,
and tastes
of regret and forgiveness.
Itchy & scratchy
Burdock socks
are what I have,
a-clinging to my sleepy feet.
Everything, and the kitchen sink
* Mental health triggers, suicidal ideation*
God. You know, I’m just washing dishes, feeling useful and kind of self-satisfied. Haven’t dropped anything or cut myself, even though the bothersome cat is weaving around my legs. I swear- if he had a ball of yarn, I would have been a coccoon by now.
See, it’s the third week of withdrawal from a particularly nasty medication, and I’m thinking I have aced it. Not too bad, not too bad. There’s a cast iron frying pan with some baked-on crusty stuff, and so I run the water very hot and start leaning into it with the old scrub brush. I’m even thinking that this is good exercise, when the destined vapours rise up to me… the singular smell of fried mushrooms. [Me, at twelve, tagging along with Dad, picking them in fields and ditches, once getting chased by bulls] [Mom, frying them up in her iron pan, the whole house smelling delightful]
And, God dammit, I cry. I rattle dishes and run the water faster to help stifle it. And I think of missed things and squandered chances for love. And I let this self-pity pool into something worse, and I think what is the freaking point of trying to get clean and well? It’s not as if there are more memories to make, more chances to unsquander my wasted life.
And at last, to myself: “You’ve made a mistake, bud. Better go back to the upswing with those meds.” Because I see myself hanging from a tree like those men they found, and I take it to the logical conclusion of worrying about last testaments and burial arrangements. That’s what it does. That is what it does.
And so, tomorrow, we find out what we are made of.
Be my Witch
You must be my Witch
In the day, you are as plain
as day
I think you don’t see me
Maybe you think I don’t see you
but I am good at eyes
Always in your greys and tans and flats
Shiny swinging hair
Bottle goggles to discourage the shallow
You glow
from the feathers of my pillow.
Aremyfeetofftheground 