it never was a secret

The fading morning sun

Shines through my hair

And makes the tear in my eye glisten

As I lay in our bed

And listen to your stupid music

Which I don’t know what I’d do without.

She was born trouble,

Is what they’ll say

When they lay me in the ground.

Children pointed and whispered

As if a scarlet A were on her breast.

Yeah…she was born trouble.

That one had a natural affinity

For sitting in parents’ living rooms

Late at night -

Apologies all around.

Should’ve never crossed the river,

That one.

Would have saved her a whole lot of trouble.

But she was born trouble.

I’m wondering why all my friends have sisters.

Without fail - they all do.

They’ve let me infringe upon this inner circle

From time to time.

And I was able to savor

The sharing of clothes

Whispering about boys

Compassionate telephone calls,

But I was not a sister.

(I was a friend with a brother -

“Eeeww boys stop spying on us!” -

A nuisance not a confidant)

I am three years old again,

Telling Mommy I hope it’s a girl.

I will be her big sister!

It’s true - I want lots of children.

I want both boys and girls.

Maybe there will even be sisters!

At least they will understand

This kinship which I never can.

Riding the bus in the rain today

I saw a boy and girl

Huddled under an umbrella.

He had his arm around her,

Holding her close.

And suddenly I missed you.

All it takes is your arm around me

Or you casually taking my hand

To pit my stomach

And quicken my pulse.

I want to be huddled under an umbrella

In the rain with you,

But I am just a face behind a cloudy window pane -

Only passing through.

Three simple notes

And the beating of a drum

Flood into my ears

Leaving me paralyzed.

All I can do is close my eyes

Take a deep breath

And listen.

What was once our song

Is now just lost in the shuffle.

A memory, in a way.

Like you.

I am tired and emotionless

And I have been drained dry.

My fingers tire of typing

My voice tires of this phoniness

And my face is tired of this smile.

I want to go home.

Not 913 -

That is not home to me -

But home where I wake to hear birds sing

Where fog enshrouds the mountains in mystery

Where life is just simpler somehow.

It brings a tear to my eye -

This simple beauty which my life lacks.

My soul is crying out

And I don’t have the energy

To silence it much longer.

Taste and See

We’ve said amen and alleluia.

Now it’s time for children to gather round

And grasp the loaf and cup with eager hands.

Barely able to concentrate -

Simply dying to consume the remains.

I, too, was once privy to this post-worship ritual,

Stuffing my little mouth with all the bread I could swallow,

Never quite sure why it tasted so good

In the backseat on the drive home.

We feasted.

As they are feasting.

And one of us will have to pick up the crumbs from underneath that table,

But none of us is worthy.

Prayer

I’ve heard the stories of my Papaw,

And how he couldn’t pray without crying.

My parents choke up themselves

When they tell the story.

I’ve always struggled

With the end of the memory,

For it never tells me why this man

Wept before his God.

I barely even knew him -

I didn’t know the lines of his face,

His smell,

Or his laugh -

I just know what I’ve been told:

Tearful prayers,

And only God knows why.

But I know why, like my Papaw,

I break down before my Father

Each and every time:

It’s because of who I am.

Sometimes my little voice,

Saying the same things it’s said before,

Begins to quiver,

As my eyes burn and my head drops

And all I can do is weep before my God

(My God who listens patiently

When I’ve smacked Him in the face

And doesn’t care to dry the tears

Of two undeserving people on their knees).

Doxology

I
A year ago I knew you not.
Our paths crossed occasionally
And sometimes I would smile,
But mostly hung my head in shame.
I never saw your face.

II
I ran to you when I was scared
Or things were getting desperate.
But I tried to run the other way
As far as you would let me.
I never knew your face.

III
My senses were dulled
And my eyes grew heavy with the world.
Content in my desires,
No room for anyone else.
I did not like your face.

IV
You broke me.
Slowly. Painfully.
All I had was you.
I clung.
I did not deserve your face.

V
I still admit I knew you not.
I let the awkwardness pervade.
There was no way that I could smile,
Only hang my head in shame.
I could not avoid your face.

VI
You gently took me by the hand
And held me as I wept.
You wrapped your arms around so tight
And sang me softly to sleep.
I longed to see your face.

VII
I will never comprehend
How one life so void and useless
Could suddenly be filled with love
Which never was deserved.
I fixed my gaze upon your face.

VIII
You broke me.
Lovingly. Intentionally.
All I had was you.
I clung.
I did not deserve your face.

7.20.04

I want to become unashamedly apathetic.
I want to drown my pain in my drink of choice mixed with loud guitar and call it a day.
I want my body to give up and let me sleep until I’m caught up.
Mostly, I want to stop searching.
Stop searching for the hope I know exists.
It’s why it took me over a year to grow up
And why Satruday night was restless
And why I’m pressing this pen to the paper now.
I’m so tired of holding out for the good
When all I find is the bad and the ugly.
There are times when I just want to scream at You,
For I’m sick of Your Voice because I know You’re right.
It would be so easy to quit and jade myself to it all.
I could stop smiling and praying and loving…
And stop living.
Yes, I hear You. I always do.

8.08.04

I wanted to take your advice,

I really did,

But I don’t think that you knew what you were saying.

You’d have gotten a hot meal when you thought no one was home,

A tender embrace when she said she’d be gone until Sunday,

A baby girl when the doctor swore you’d have a son,

Or maybe a poem to you from me.

8.20.04

You didn’t have to tell me.
In fact, next time I wish you wouldn’t,
For if ignorance is bliss
I was full to the brim
Until you sucked me dry.
Now I’m back where I began
(I’m always back where I began),
Struggling to rise from a new pile of ashes
And turn into something dazzlingly brilliant and beautiful.
And that’s too difficult this time,
With you forcing me to test the waters before I jump
For yet another year.
And I don’t know why I can’t just rise up and fly,
Why I must be pulled down by a chain
Whose links always seem to connect me to you.
All I know is that here I stand -
Overly-eager to leave two hours prior,
Now feeling like I’ve had the wind knocked out of me.
I’m tired of the pattern I keep repeating,
So the next time I finally stop
Please smile at my blissful ignorance and chat about the weather.
You’ll have one less poem to read. I promise.

9.03.04

I just read all my letters to You
From the past year or so,
And now I’m scared to death.
You are incredible -
We make a great “us” -
But I’m scared of having to choose.
Something in my head says
I can’t have You and him.
I’m broken, torn, twisted.
I want to shake You
And scream Why the hell not?
But I fear You’d only find that amusing.
I don’t understand You
Or why this is happening.
You know as well as I do
That he is my weakness.
You know I’ll try to hold Your hand
But (eventually)(quickly) let go
Because hand holding is boring.
So I’m left with my letters.
8 1/2 x 11 sheets of love,
My heart poured out to the only One who understands ,
The only One who loves me something fierce.
How could I abandon You?
Sometimes I don’t know,
But sometimes I also know that I’ve done it before
And I tend to surprise even myself.
You’ve got to hold tightly this time.
But I can already hear You:
No, you hold tightly to Me.

9.08.04

The standard rules do not apply,

Or so we decided Monday night As we reconciled our past and our future
With subtle entreaties
And sighs.

10.12.04

the pieces
are falling
one by one
I know
because I understand
things click
and make sense
like never before
my feeble attempt
at grasping It
begins now:
The song I heard in Ohio
That haunts my soul
Intertwined with suburbia’s
Smiling faces
Just north of the River
And innocent glances
Yielding somber results
While the cool summer breeze
Begged me to stay
And the smell of the home
Left me intoxicated
Along with the help of
Shimmering city lights
Igniting my passionate side
they were not wrong!
they fall now
(cue pieces)
I’ve tried for
six years
to grasp It
I thought I had
but now I do
it’s right
(it’s time)
I understand.

10.20.04

I’ve decided you heard me after all -
My muffled tears
And heartbroken prayers,
As I snuggled close to the wall
Wanting two simple things
Embodied in one.
I realized yesterday that I have them.
You slipped them (him) in when I wasn’t looking,
Like they always said you would.
I didn’t think I’d ever be writing this,
But then again I wasn’t even sure you were listening,
Now I can hardly fathom just how closely you were.

10.29.04

How quickly I forget that you are different

From anyone I’ve ever really known,

So I offer this feeble apology in advance

(Because God only knows

What I’ll do or say).

Ideally I’d like to mark my calendar

“X is the day I laughed”

And ideally I’d like to paint your picture

“This is perfection”

But my head is full of crazy notions

That are nothing but ideals.

I realize this is splotchy,

Like fragmented conversations

About poetry and Truth and the future,

But I’m seeing life in fragmented pieces

That I just can’t seem to assemble.

I don’t know what to do with you.

You, the wonderfully unfamiliar sensation

That warms my heart

And pits my stomach

And causes an adolescent giggle.

How easily I’m reminded that you are different.

11.07.04

As I stood outside the baby’s door
And listened to him cry,
My heart broke because I was helpless.

And for the first time I knew how you felt
That long night two summers ago.
You stood outside my door,
Listening to your baby of eighteen years
Sob until she could take no more.
I know your heart broke then
And still has not completely healed,
But there is nothing you can do.

I let him cry himself to sleep and listened,
Hands tied behind my back.
And I loved you all the more
For doing the same to me.

12.15.04

The stillness in the air was broken -
Thick, quiet, calm.
As an exhale and a noise pushed forth.
My mouth hung open in amazement.
Was that
Was that my voice?
Resonating in my ears,
Filling the tiny space
With surprising color.
I didn’t know where it came from,
Much less where it was headed -
Into the night.
The cold stillness dying for warmth,
Like me,
A bundle of scarf and mittens
Too quiet in the calm
Calm now broken
By the icy chill of spontaneous words
Without consent,
Moving freely ahead.
Turning from blue to gold to white
Bringing the thick stillness to life
And light and love.

12.27.04

So I will bury myself.
Plunge into work and get buried by it all
Then sink into bed and wish the covers could bury me further
And of course bury myself in the mundanity -
The monotony of picking up that sweater
Putting it on the hanger
If I can just do that
Then dishes are waiting
And laundry
And the day is gone.
(Thank God I never had time to poke my head out and look around)
Then it’s back to burial by sheets and blankets
Until it begins again.
Burial has become survival
The only way of shutting out the fear.

2.07.05

Could I have been wrong?
I thought as I cut peaches on the counter,
Wrong to run from the scene of the crime
Without really looking back?
It was entirely possible.
I’d run before without knowing why.
Had this been any different,
Blamed on inexplicible feelings?
I kept slicing,
Although I didn’t have time to be cutting up fruit
Or thinking about if I was wrong.
I hadn’t had time since I ran
Because I was running full-force ahead…
You know…
I think I ran from fruit.
And from the time it takes to stand at a counter
Preparing a meal
Making conversation
Watching the children.

I admit it…
I ran…
I don’t know if I was wrong…

Your City (Part II)

Last night I was in your city.
I must call it yours, you see,
For had it not been for you
I never would’ve had to fight those tears -
Those choking sobs
Which drew my body up so tight
I wondered if I’d ever breathe again.
It was all quite unexpected.
The green signs served as warnings,
Assuring me I could face it this time,
But I encountered your city by night
(We always encountered it by day before),
And therein lay the problem.
How can I avoid you
When our past is lit up on either side of the road,
Glittering and gleaming like it was all so good?
I’m ashamed to say I cried -
Sobbed, wailed, call it what you will,
I did it in the darkness of your city.
And I knew it was wrong,
But it felt so damn good.
Who was I crying for?
One year and eight months have left me able to convince even your mother
That you’re what I’ll never need…

But what I’ll always want -
Those nights and days of smiling, touching, listening, loving,
The perfect little house in suburbia I grew to love,
The illuminated memories,
All waiting for me just above the river.

Cold-Hearted Bitch

I’d be perfectly content to tie him up
And keep him that way forever:
Locked in a room,
Lacking human contact,
Looking only into my eyes
To keep him loving me.
And apparently I’d be perfectly content
To do everything exactly like before
And watch it crumble exactly like before
And say I’ll change for the next one.

I’m a cold-hearted bitch, I’m thinking
As I smoke this cigarette and shrug it all off
And blame someone else yet again.
Yeah, a cold-hearted bitch
Who keeps her rope at her bosom
And her emotions at bay.

Why is he always here?
And why does he take the bait
With arms outstretched and palms together?
It bothers me.
I’m having to hold hostage a willing victim
Who tells me, rope or not, he’ll stay in that room.
It’s not fun anymore
And this cigarette is gone
And he is still here
Looking into the eyes of a cold-hearted bitch.

You ask me how I sleep at night?
Somehow I just do.

7.11.05

This is how we live -
Forced goodbyes in parking lots,
Gritted teeth and burning eyes marking the drive home,
Your hair in my sink,
My trash in your wastebasket,
And the hint of a person in the folds of the sheets.
This is how we live -
Turning corners just in time to remember
He’s nowhere near,
Grasping for the hope that arrives
On the wings of Friday.
This is how we live,
In a world where all is significant,
In a wasteland made of love.

December 2

I find it appropriate

That we’re fighting today.

Fight - not even a fight -

A lover’s quarrel;

We quarrel because we love.

I find it appropriate

Because now we have the freedom to fight

And to love.

Another gray December day

Exactly a year ago

We could not fight.

We could barely talk or touch,

Merely attempt a nervous laugh.

I smile at how far we’ve come.

From discomfort to disagreement -

And all that lay in between.

This little quarrel lets me know

That in as little as a year

We’ve learned to love.

September 8

Tonight was the night we drove to the Falls.

Me with my spontaneity

Him with his complacency

And the Native Texan with her car.

Answering tough questions and giggling ourselves silly

In the murky darkness.

We were high on life -

Three huddled figures clinging to the railing.

Now only a moonlit memory remains.

That’s a night I thanked my God.

Now I know he Heard me again.

Upon going through my Grandma’s recipe file

I am reduced to tears.

This woman with a fondness for pineapple concoctions –

She who relied on chicken casseroles as much as me -

Is only a memory.

A shopping list tucked in the back reminds me she was here.

Glimpses of our intertwined lives scattered throughout.

A dessert card bearing the name of my Papaw (he saw me take my first steps)

A crockpot recipe in my mother’s familiar hand (a younger version - a better daughter-in-law than me)

And a few hasty notes on that stationary I know so well (Education for Time and Eternity)

Our lives collide in that yellow box.

And I am reduced to tears.

3.30.05

I’ve heard that when Mount St. Helens exploded
They found traces of ash miles away.
People in California stared, mesmerized,
Saying, “It’s made it even here.”
I’ve made a similar discovery
On the left hands of girls I encounter -
The dazzingly white phenomenon.
It’s made it even here.

I want to know how and when it crept in.
I’d also like to know why.
A dark cloud of ash is easy to spot,
But so is love defined by carats.
Oh, God, it’s easy to spot.

It’s made it even here…
What the hell?
I was naive enough to think
It was a smalltown/Christian circles/sacrificial thing
That couldn’t touch me behind these intellectual walls,
Walls that value me as a strong independent woman
And whisper to me to keep up the good work of pants and freethinking and emotional unattachment.
Walls that keep me comfortable.
Walls that make me numb.

The sparkle across the room caught my eye today,
As she talked about him, smiling.
(Good God, how old is she?)
(Good God, what’s wrong with me?)

It’s made it even here -
It’s penetrated these walls.
My mind is swirling at the paradox.
On both sides I’m finding this brilliance,
And on both sides my left hand
Is soberingly dull.
I’m staring, mesmerized,
As my world is exploding with change.
It’s made it even here.
It’s made it even here!
Good God, what’s wrong with me?

Small Talk with Salieri

Whether or not the story is true does not matter;
I still understand and respect you.
People like you and I have a connection -
A kinship -
That is irreversible.
I know you because I know myself.
They don’t understand that this is all we have.
It is why we live and breathe
And what we see behind and before us.
It is our everything.
We defend it at all costs.
And oh how it hurts when they do not agree!
Murmurings over dinner are of someone else
And top stories at six are of another.
As we sit in the shadows and blindly compose -
You your notes, me my words -
And agonize over the dose of reality
They force us daily to drink.
Our throats burn with it,
Like our dark hearts
Burning with envy and anguish.
This is all we have!
And we will hold on
Until it weakens us beyond all measure.
It is then that we feebly let go

Knitting for Life

Stitch after stitch I jabbed the needle harder
Thinking how easily I could get mad
At nothing specific, just my life in general.
Because as children starved
And adults searched for warmth
And parents struggled to make ends meet
Detailing how my life as a spinster would pan out
Seemed like a great idea.

Enter the friend
Who laughs with me
About how at nineteen my life looks like a snapshot
Straight from the retirement home.
Funny I thought…followed by How ’bout we get married?

Enter my thoughts
About Oh God it’s true! Why did I learn to knit anyway?
Then I remembered it was to keep me busy…
And eliminate boredom as I knit alone with my cats
Late into the night at a lonely age fifty-two.

Enter You
With that same stupid smile I’m learning to love
Begging me to please calm down,
Telling me you’re proud of my work,
And reminding me that you are eternally good.

Recollection

Our beliefs take the form

Of stickers and signs

On bumpers, bags, and lawns.

They scream with conviction,

Pressed between the pages of scrapbooks

Packed into boxes of forgotten excitement,

Smiling from photos

We view with a shake of the head

And say we were young and naive.

Autumn Fades

Lovers draped in black on a park bench
Strike me as fittingly appropriate in this autumnal sun
As splashes of color sadly float to the ground.

This Summer

This summer will be forever burned into my memory.
If for one fleeting moment I think these people are stupid or selfish or cruel
All I have to do is look over my desk
At the woman crying softly
As she waits for an Agreement to rise
From the mound of burnt dreams and broken promises,
Or pull the file on the shelf
Bursting with letters from a desperate father
To his three unfamiliar children
Kept away by a barricade of lies,
Yet still I could take the phone call from the angry grandmother
Fighting tooth and nail for the flesh and blood her flesh and blood doesn’t want.
Glimmers of sunlight are sometimes fleeting indeed,
Even in an office with a view.