Role with It

hero enables

histrionics 

jester juggles  
folks' lore 

the lost two 
turn their backs

cyclical origins 
of organic  
dysfunction

No Consent

As a preface, I was thinking about doing an art piece of some type with this poem and cutting it into little slips of paper with separate "years" that women could take with them for things they identify with, remember or suffer for. One day I might; for now, it's obscure here on my blog.

NO CONSENT

9

we rode bikes on trails
in the park near the pool
as if they were horses;
our wild freedom
interrupted by an unforgettable man 
"We used to ride here, too"
we paid polite attention

"Girls, watch for people, 
I have to do something" 

disappearing into bushes, 

he walked back onto the path
pale and pant-less,
as if they wanted to see it

10
the two-piece strap slipped
from her shoulder
her body's betrayal
made her regret wearing it

their half-closed eyes smirked
smiles mouthed 
"Hey girl, come over here"
the teeth flashed a warning

her feet backed out
to the safety of any distance
is a good distance

sand and mud slick
with the slime of decay

12
three stood in a triangle formation
blocked her with the confidence
of a well-studied play 
diagrammed x's and arrows

"How much do you charge?"
asked the blue-eyed-blond
future girls' nightmare

her threat to tell enough
to make them stop

she'd never been kissed

13
the nervous neighbor,
father of three,

sweat a line of lust
above a drooling smile
"You're getting so tan"

on the path from the pool
she evaded invisible hands

her father ignored the obvious

15
two months of first love
when her family
planned to move

he thought she
should touch him 
because of that

because she
was leaving

17
her round-shouldered
neighbor didn't date
some random weekend
she agreed to a movie

his braces gleamed in
the cave of his
mother's front seat
aggressive hands
revealed who he was

she regretted 

ever being nice

18
she parked haphazardly
in the dark field of cars
at someone's house party

she lost her keys

they'd only ever said 

hello in hallways 

he said he'd help 

her find them

Van Halen filled the air
and Jamie was crying 

when he pushed her
to the ground

one beer, anger, and adrenaline
enough to throw him from her

her crab walk backward
found keys, an ancient instinct
placed each between her fingers

surprised/hurt/incredulous
he said he'd always liked her

18
At the floor party
she followed his
quick wit, impressive
vocabulary

"Brains and Boobs!" 
he shouted, as if
she should be proud
of both equally

19
Some Saturday night,
in the dorm, she
declined an offer
to go to his room

in the hallway of people
he yelled her ass was 
the fattest he'd ever seen

20
It snowed,

they celebrated
with strangers

her friend left; 

he offered a ride 

In the morning 

she pretended
nothing happened

she didn't look back

21
It was Friday

they celebrated 

with strangers

her friend left; 

he offered a ride

He said he couldn't 

drive, could he stay? 

She offered a 
downstairs couch

Before the roofie
took her down 

she caught a glimpse

as he crept in

fingers to lips, 

his lime green 

striped tube socks

and little-boy white briefs 

glowed in the dark 

flashed a neon warning

from her locked bathroom 

the morning after, 

she told him to leave 

He called her office later 

surprised/hurt/incredulous

that she wouldn't see him

Forgetting was harder 

Four weeks later, 

she had to remember

forced into a choice

forced, again

23
She had a single room
at the company party

at 3 am, her door opened

the second key to her room 

a gift the sales manager 

offered his young client, 

dad to a newborn

he had nowhere to go

"We can just talk..." 

her gut translated;

took her and everything 

to the bathroom 

snores meant safety 

she fled to the 

empty hotel lobby 

She didn't 

make waves 

34
The technician came 

to fix the basement drain 

A congenial conversation

grew strange, she said

she'd wait upstairs and 

fled the basement 

Relieved when he finished, 

she signed the receipt

Hated being nice 

44
It was hard to forget; 

she worked on forgetting 

50
It took hard work to forget

57

Me, too

58  

I said no;

even when 

I didn't 

Inheritance

too young
for fables

the innocent
sees truth

words
are not
necessary
to know

a child-self
envisions
powers
big enough
to slay away

whispers
wishes in
fevered,
fearful dreams

time tears
at the cloak
of love

no place
is safe;
longing arms
suffocate,
unfulfilled

the truth of it,
a lifelong tag;
scratches
at her neck

Spit it Out

Spit it Out

we don't walk
on eggshells;
we eat them

our ingested truths
broken inside of us

jagged, unattended;
they fester in folds
buried, ignored

all that negligence
nourishment for
the eventual
rampant, piercing
infection of a being
that refuses
to forget or accept

surfacing more excruciating
than the swallowing

New Beauty

she feasts on air, insatiably hungry
for bony hips and nipples without breasts

she eats herself smaller, enemy flesh falls away
her sinewed arms hang like claws

this is not how she sees herself
her body forgets it is female

Missing Persons

the discarded wander
layered in remnants
things we cast off

shrugged from our shoulders
like ragged sweaters
full of holes and torn elbows

like all things treasured
they arrived gift-wrapped
in the film of afterbirth

slipping into the world
through the same tunnel
souls cast into a shell
foreign, cold with longing

most were happy
they'd arrived
shared the intimacy
of family whole or fractured

today he is the only one
able to contact Major Tom
his visible hand holds
a cloaked transmitter
the blue napkin in his
nostril blocks our interference

she praises nicotine
too made up for daylight
her nails betray
the street beneath them
her sweet voice sings a
wish that her daughter,
that bitch, would die

they sit like filled trash bags
poised to go out
felled by chemicals
a hunger that holds
them in between here
and no where
how do they go missing?

all good intentions
spent on other beings

If only, if only

it's always been
a serious assignment,
self-inflicted

one of analyzing,
the loose pieces
thrown, scattered;
the puzzle of us

mistaken shapes
that seemed to fit
then didn't

others so quickly
perfect, like
a promise we might
still solve things

unable to see
what was right
in front of us,
words might have
saved us all

empathy sits
at another table,
begs to be asked;
patient, true

Equations

memorization always fails me;
the idothisudothat equations
solve themselves while
I stand on sidelines
doubting the obvious

despair shows up
uninvited, to squander
foolish hope that we
might arrive at
different answers

lost in our mathematics,
any epiphany I ever had,
how we x and y and z
remain an abstract
I can't get a grip on

we speak in tongues;
your words float in my mind
like figures in a times table

I respond with my best guess,
waving from another corner
fingers crossed behind my back

Truth

a certain strain of
runs like veins 
through stone

history so grand, 
you might wish 
you'd been there

the romance of suffering
enviable to one outside of

fractured tales shift
with the landscape of
location, audience

a poverty of promise
not unique or eloquent
in being unfulfilled

every only-if the 
tragic, reliable constant

we are not so
special, after all

what lies behind 
the facade is still
less than ordinary 

turn, face our simple, 
humble truths;
the reality of us 
far more lovely
than all of 
our prior fiction

know that we are
collectively magnificent

The Music Room

we are exiting rooms quickly,

much faster than it took 

for us to fill them with life, 

things we loved, thought 

we needed and finally, didn't

it comes down to walls; 

they stare back at me 

devoid of art or purpose 

alone in the basement this morning

I hear voices, laughter

and an imagined wall of sound 

hits me as I close the door 

that only partially stopped 

the waves of amplified guitars, 

boom of bass and drum; 

the poetry of my sons' lives 

overcome, I turn to climb
three flights of stairs 

with a last load of laundry

I will never be a lucky witness 

to those moments again, 

thankful beyond these few 

inadequate words

that I had such times 

Sometimes

It is a week to say goodbye

what I don't understand
outweighs all the chips
I stacked on the side
of what I thought connected us

the story I drafted, played at,
half-way believed, was just
a wish for who I hoped you were

to whom I'm
saying goodbye
I still can't say

Sons

I sit in reluctant sun today
on a porch weathered
by greens of every color
at the house we lived in
before we ever thought of you,
our limbs like tendrils
of the wisteria that
caress the pergola

in her house, we talk of you;
your quiet sweetness
like her patient chickadees,
your ferocious determination
as you push into the world
insistent as finches rushing

I've watched you walk away;
your shoulders sharp as
the corners of a square,
strong enough to bear any load,
emotional or otherwise

the shape of your nose
a shadow of our ancients,
your deep eyes lit from within,
the remnant of another fire

I praise the DNA
that runs through you,
a singular stream forged
through the debris of
a thousand lives

I pay homage to the men
who've gone before you;
those boys and men
we've loved, would open
arms and legs for, again

Boundaries

this morning, toxins
reached cumulative levels

I can do melancholy
with the best of them,

but I'm desperate for
an emotional ipecac;
I can't stomach you

you rant a pointless rage,
tell me what-it-is,
preach the as-i-see-it gospel,
diss on, disregard, dismiss

you stop me right there, cause
you've lost interest in the story,
do an about-face to school me
with a self-declared loving intention
that feels like punishment

I won't allow it any longer;
my push back more
instinctual of late,
lines drawn impenetrable

you, one more lesson that
I need not suffer to love;
that I've learned - independent
of anything you could ever tell me