Tag: relationships

Next time– Get a Dog

pexels-photo dog
You should have gotten yourself a dog.
              No, really.  I mean it.  Instead of chasing me
              Until you caught me.
What you thought you’d found,
When you found me—
And that’s what you wanted me to be—
              A rescued dog—
                             Full of gratitude and loyalty for the perceived rescue.
                             With no record or memory of previous owners,
                                           Ah, an extremely important part.
                             A wagging tail at every word or look from you.
                             Sitting at attention, waiting patiently for you.
                             Desperate for any command you should happen to give.
                             Dutifully complying with each command, each wish
                                           You should ever express.
                             No friends, no family, no loves.  No needs
                                           Other than you and to serve you.
 
That is what you wanted
That is what you needed—
              In your own words—
                             To be my number one at all times.
                             After all, no one would love me better.
                             No one would give me a better home,
                             As you so lovingly liked to remind me.
                            
 
Next time get a dog.
She’ll feed your ego better.

Dreaming of You

Medusa

Image from lostgirlmyths.wikia.com

I dreamed of you the other night.
A dream in color and complete.
We both know I rarely remember dreams.
But this one I awoke from—fresh
With that it felt so real feeling.
Imagine my surprise
when I realized
this dream hadn’t dripped from reality.

We sat, it seemed, at some café
In Dallas or Houston,
Or perhaps, we were strolling
The streets of Provincetown,
Walking across the Golden Gate,
Hiking some trail up a Colorado mountain,
Riding the subway of Manhattan,
Driving the traffic jams of Baltimore or
Los Angeles. Perhaps, we watched the whales
Out on the Pacific or maybe it was the Atlantic.
For in the dream, the background shifted like
A chalk drawing on the pavement in a rainstorm,
The colors bleeding, fading, sliding into one another
The way we used to do.

The place doesn’t matter, in the grand scheme
And all, of any such dream.
You talked away as you always did,
Leaving me no room to breathe
Or even catch enough air to say a word,
Squeezing the freedom from my soul.
Your eyes glowed, shining sapphires with no rain.
Your golden bleached hair blowing wild in dream wind.
Your words twisted, tangled in on themselves,
Doing a contortionist’s dance,
Snaking their way into my ears and on toward
The inner working of my heart and brain,
Slithering under the door to my soul.

Once there, your words tried to bite away,
Injecting some poison into my heart, my brain, my soul
To twist me into saying all the things
You wanted me to say–
All the things your ego needed—

Like that oppressive August afternoon
When you argued nonsense to get me to say
I was to blame and beg to stay.
I never knew a slither of words
Could slide and twirl so many ways
like those ribbons of a gymnast, circling this way and that.
As you saw a snaking pattern wasn’t working so well,
I watched your frustration rise.
Your back straightened even more so.
Your eyes narrow almost microscopically,
Your thin lips disappear completely.

I woke then, laughing.
I think I startled my dog.
I laughed again—

I see Medusa
When I think of you now.
It’s a bloody wonder I, myself, am not stone,
But the well of my hope is another matter.

Lies We Tell Ourselves

a85067d662325fd67f5b8aaf448668a1
image from Pinterest

The lies we tell ourselves
Such sparkling things.

Belief needed in the moment–
See diamonds, rubies, sapphires,
Gold, treasures to cherish.
Let the mirror reflect
The lies to eyes
And souls
In needing desire.
Do not hold them in harsh sun.
Too thin,
Too frail,
Too fragile
To withstand such blazing light.

Gently bury them deep
Beneath the soil
Of a needing heart
And the damp decay
Of foolish wants.
Let the lies take root
Growing into the very soul.

Believing
The lies
We tell ourselves,
We smile
To keep
The truth at bay,
As the lies grow
The rot of hopelessness
Into our very souls.

A Word

Remember whispered intimations

In the time before sleep.

Having faced down the hours

Of another day of what must be done,

How long will it take before

Forgetfulness wipes the whispers away

Of well-intentioned comfort

Along with any memory

Of facades presented but to a few

Who knew the truth?

Until then, stumble onward

Facing the intimidation

Of a blank page,

Smash a soul against it.

Read the splatters left

And know time is the matter.

Time, neither too fast, nor too slow

Can it pass before realizing

Nothing really mattered,

But the kindness

In forgetfulness.

Air

Never could breathe
When in your air.

You, your perfume,
Or something in the scent of you
Clogged my nose,
My sinuses,
My bronchial tubes
With fluid like cement,
Leaving me no air
To live on.

Really, suffocation
Never felt so sweet.

You were warmth personified
Like fire you fed on the oxygen
Whenever you wanted,
Wherever you were.
But God, it felt like heaven
To warm myself near your flames.
Until it felt like hell
And I burned in the flames,
Sucking in nothing but smoke.

Now, from the ashes,
I rise and breathe.


Once again,
I know the air.

Monkey See Not

Truths we’d rather not see

Raked into the compost,

buried deep–

Used to feed vines,

growing twisted,

roping round,

A soul stilled

in one place.

Words in the Electronic Ages

  
 What we know of words upon a page
 Read, learned over again until sated
 In the richness found.
  
 Then turn to the electronic blue haze
 Where even words resonate, echoing fade.
  
 For the sweetest lies, a believer craves.
 Then scrolling over plastic flowers dancing,  
 The words of a lover’s refrain found
 Written once too often 
 In wooing others
 On the same blank cards
 With pictures of bears.
  
 The words like 
 Cheap plated jewelry’s shine 
 Turn black in the bitterness
 On the day some thought 
 Something pure, pristine was born.
  
 Then, finally, is it known the words
 Of the poetic, the romantic
 Are but rhetoric and lies
 Written and said  
 More than once
 But promised
 For one.
 
 The gravity, the gravity
 A black hole.

The Well of Loneliness

Originally Posted on https://braveandrecklessblog.com

Searching for something

In this void

Of fatigue–

A tender touch

Or warm skin to lie against,

A hope to grasp

When against slick

Stone.

Hours pass.

Anger and sadness silently left

And closed the door.

But the heart is chambered

Like a shell,

Swirling down within itself

Until reaching a breaking point

Of being long overdrawn,

Overworked, over tired,

Over

Over

Over.

Still learning in the stillness

Of time mixed with languages

Neither known nor understood

At all.

When there be no common ground

To stand upon–

A start, a beginning is lost.

In the travels

To find new shores

In this age

Without directions

Or something resembling

The instruction manual.

Turn to ask a friend,

“How does that dialogue go again?”

But there is no answer

In the old cliché’ of “seek and ye shall find”

You’ve knocked upon the door

And no one answered.

Live days in monastic silence,

Find it difficult to voice an answer

To the Walmart clerk saying,

“Have a nice day!”

Every night

Crawl downward and in,

Say a small, silent fervent prayer—

“I will always miss you

And I will always love you.

May my soul find you.”

Waking in fragments

To find it is time

For glue and duct tape.

They fix anything

That needs to be held

Together

At the bottom

Of the well.

The Price Of Salt

Originally posted on https://braveandrecklessblog.com

I went to all my baskets of words

To find them emptied out.

In fact, it seems

Anger and sadness

Sandblasted holes

Clean through the dang baskets.

Then I went to all my junk drawers of words,

Pulled each open and found each empty.

Frustrated, I tugged them all the way out

To make sure no junk, trying to hide away,

had shimmied behind the drawers.

But my efforts were to no avail.

All my words were gone, stolen.

Even my most treasured one,

Used ever so rarely for food or wine,

Used just once, only once,

For a love. 

Is this the price?

The price I pay for salt?

But this isn’t essential

To human existence.

No, I should report a robbery.

Call the cops and say,

“Someone stole all my words

And my most treasured one.”

Then I could file an insurance claim.

Perhaps collect something incalculable

And patch those dang baskets.

But how would they calculate

The value of such a word?

Used so rarely for things

And only once, just once

For something, someone rare?

How to calculate exquisite?

Happy Endings Are All Alike

Originally posted on https://braveandrecklessblog.com

Or so they say.

Wish I may,

Wish I might,

Find one to curl up into tonight.

But it’s too late.

Far too late for that.

I can imagine what those endings are like.

I’ve read them in books.

I’ve seen them in movies.

I’ve even lived them for little while,

A season, maybe two,

A few years and played a fool

Because I wanted too

And didn’t want to see

A truth or two.

I have friends

Who model happy endings.

It’s really sickening

In the syrupy sweetness

Of it all.

Yes, they are all alike,

I do suppose.

Perhaps,

Unhappy endings are most interesting

Of all.

I don’t really know.

I’ll tell you at the end.