A cartography of the blank and oblivious states

The man I love will

most certainly one day

fit in his doodles with my tattoos

write promises on my thighs

and poems on my back 

and songs on my belly.

He will recite the poems

and shout the promises

and sing the songs 

when I start to forget 

this is how he will be able

to bring me back

this is how he will be able
to bring me back. 

The day before I discover I wasted a wish

Coming from somewhere
between desperation and rage
a man with a gun
jumped in front of me this week,
he wanted my cellphone.
I couldn't hear him at first,
I was only halfway through a song
that says everything I would
tell you in my vows.
Had I gotten hurt,
you would have been
the last dream of my heart,
the last wish of my soul.

Treasures

Growing up I had a
jewelry box where
I kept a collection of
stones instead of pearls.
I can only begin to explain
why I save your sounds.

Constraints

Your discomfort with my words
imposes me a pattern:

I must not speak of love
I must not say your name
I must not tell my wishes
all in the same poem.

This has to be the
most hurtful of constraints.

(about constrained writing)

Incomplete volumes

I'd lie with you wordless
in the backyard
mid afternoon counting clouds

midnight listening to stories
told by ancient stars
your head touching mine

my hand touching yours
two unknown bodies
placed silently beside each other

thoughts speaking volumes.

(ab)sent

For an entire month
before you were reunited
with my letter,

I was afraid to have said too much
and then
to have not said anything.

How do we come to mean something
for each other
walking home alone from this far?

How do I come to love
the sound of your feet coming and going
around the house?

How do I come to love
all of your
silliest sounds?

There is so much I didn't say in that letter.
There is so much I don't say
when I can think about the words

when there's no rush to press send,
when I'm haunted but not scared
by the thought of your absence.

(Written for my dearest Michael's get listed challenge over at the Imaginary Garden) 

The Golden Rule

It's not about what people do to us,
but the way we react to what they do to us.
A younger me would have confronted the lie
and the man behind it with torn heart and teary eyes

because what could I possibly have
done wrong to be lied to?
Have I not been honest enough,
open enough, enough myself?

A younger me wouldn't have been able
to deal with a man assuming her to be
less than her clever self and therefore
would have confronted the man and the lie.

I have now lived long enough to know
It's not about what people do to us,
but the way we react to what they do to us.
This is the energy we send out in the world.

The post-apocalyptic assumptive world

You're a room
which only opens
from the inside,
I was told,
whose furniture and walls
I anticipate through a spy hole.
But what we see when
we look at things
doesn't really depend on
what is there,
I learned.

Chaos

If you leave,

stay gone.

I will open the door for the

same butterfly just once.

I'm a woman

and a Gemini,

I have just the 

decent amount 

of chaos in life 

I can take.

That's enough 

vertigo.

Crimson red

I dropped a
favorite coffee cup this morning
blind with anger
and sat on the floor with the shards.

I, who have always wished to be made
of iron, am reminded
I am not past the porcelain state,
crestfallen in a puddle of crimson red.

Blackout recipe

This is how you erase
two thirds of stars
from the sky:
you grow up and apart
from the people
you are loved by,
then you mark
your path back home
with lamp posts.

The itch

They see me from afar.
They see me and think they know
what I am made of.

linen, lines, lies on storage -
they think they see me from afar.
They think they think.

They think they see
for they have been granted eyes.
A heart, a mouth and a mind -

They have also been granted these things
and left to discover how to use them
for themselves.

They think they know how to.
They think we're made of the same stuff.
They think we do closeness.

Pirates

It's all been written, Tom
if not by God,
at least by Mark Twain:

two souls with but a single thought -
you and I were meant to meet
down our very own Meadow Lane.

I would lead a life of crimes
with no one else.

Your eyes can meet mine in Betelgeuse

Spring showers
dissolve the city streets -

this Saturday morning
I can't find my boots.

Lipstick, coat,
glasses, and keys. Check.

Late for work
I miss breakfast.

But your hue is in town and I
realize beyond recall

how you got to learn
the names of the clouds:

You were born and raised
in Greyish Brown!

Now please, let me
tell you about my stars.

Scattered Cumulus Under Deck

I apologize for being unsteady,
but these lines, like scud clouds,
part as fast as they come to my mind.

They know my eyes chase the storm
behind them and they hush
to remind you a few things:

that we are transitional,

that if you observe a
three-headed monster long enough
you might see it turn into a whale,

that we are all going places,

that it takes not only courage
but also a great deal of faith
to look a tornado in the eye,

that our time on Earth is sensitive,

that my treasure has never been
at the end of any rainbow,
I carry it inside -

a heart that will shelter your dreams

throughout the downpour
and would very much like you to
stay after the monsoon ends.

Burn the message

You leave my life much before 

I can learn your smell.

You borrow 

someone else's metaphor

to buy me an excuse

instead of a smile

to buy me distance

instead of  coffee.

You leave before we can
make memories.

I stand alone.

(Read part 1: Kill the Messenger)

September

September keeps stealing
the people I love away from me.

There has been too much heat
and too little shade these days.

You find neighbors in their porches
talking politics and having lemonade.

We now plant people like trees.
They grow arms as long as branches

which still fail to touch the clouds
but make great hangers for hopes.

Bring the canary back into the house by nightfall.

- says your last note

forgiving the creature for it cannot sing.
This is the lesson you leave us.

Ceci n'est pas un homme

Ladies and gentlemen,
I give you the prodigious man in the top hat
prepare to be diverted, for tonight he will perform
his most infamous trick.

Now even if you look closely,
you will see no rabbit -
Rest assured  it's not there.
I myself have been inside it once,

took the hat for the magician's heart,
ended up in a room in the devil's mind.
Do not be foolished by the many pictures
I have painted of him before, out of love and devotion.

Ladies and gentlemen,
I give you the spectacular man in the top hat
behold his elegantly fabricated smile,
before he vanishes through the hole in the hat.

(Share with The Real Toads)

Safe distance

History teaches me that
before we get too close
you will beat the retreat.

Before your dagger
touches my neck
and you're forced to

either look me in the eyes
or slit my throat
you will choose to

keep a safe distance.

The birth of secrets

I watch you move
gradually farther
from my eyes.

Nothing prepares me for the winter of
words

or the silence of
empty days.

Nothing prepares me for the heartlessness

of closing words

or the roughness in your voice

the last time.

I watch you walk away.

In my throat, 

a collection of stories I trust no one else with.