The difference between house and home.
Home is where you feel safe. Home is where you belong.
The moment you no longer feel safe or feel you belong, it no longer feels like home.
Afraid. Hurt. Breathing quickly.
Violated.
Add locks, add alarms.
There’s nothing you can add to bring back that sense of home.
So, you go somewhere else. You search for some place safe.
Where you feel like you belong.
It takes time.
Cuts scar over. Bruises vanish.
You stop jumping at every noise.
Eventually, you forget to be afraid, and the worry slowly goes away.
Welcome home.
Tag: poetry
Everything is a circle
Everything is a circle.
The table is a circle.
The table’s chairs are in a circle.
The cake is a circle.
The glass of milk is a circle.
Your eyes open wide. Like circles.
Your mouth is a circle, silent.
As you choke on the cake, your hands rise to your throat, and your face goes blue.
The lenses on my glasses are circles.
I watch you die.
I dig a hole in the back yard… another circle.
I push you in, fill up the hole.
I eat the rest of the cake, drink the milk, and go to sleep.
The Women Who Dance With Frogs
Come with me to the docks
On the edge of the swamp
To see the women who dance with frogs.
Through the reeds, Through the weeds
Can you see?
Watch the women who dance with frogs.
Hear the music of the croaks
As the women get soaked
Why are there women who dance with frogs?
Gathered up in their sacks
Go the frogs, tasty snacks!
Feast the women who dance with frogs.
Here they come! Here they come!
Hop away! Hop away!
Do not stay!
And we shall live to dance another day.
With the women who dance with frogs.
Notes
You are gone, and I miss you.
I want to write a story for you.
To remember.
I sit here, pen in hand, but the page is blank.
I cannot stop crying. My tears cover the page.
I crumple it up and toss it away.
The floor is covered with tear-stained pages.
So, still crying, I go to sleep.
In my dream you pick up the pages, smooth them out, and sit down at the piano.
Your hands hesitate, then, reading stains as notes, you play.
It is beautiful.
I can stop crying now.
And write this story for you.
The Darkest Dark
I sat down, closed my eyes, and imagined the darkest dark.
There’s always light coming through your eyelids or the blankets you put over your head.
That’s when you have to step away from yourself, leave senses behind, going where no light will reach you.
My friend was puzzled by this, and asked “Why are you trying to imagine the dark?”
And she told me to see the brightest bright.
“Won’t that burn my eyes?” I asked.
I heard nothing, so I lifted the blankets, turned on the light, and she was gone.
She doesn’t need to imagine it anymore.
Share Eclair
Judith and Claire
A curious pair
When told to share
A single eclair
One rose from her chair
The other did stare
“What would be most fair
To share this eclair?”
Said Judith to Claire.
“Cut the thing there?”
“No, Judith,” said Claire.
“If you’d compare
The halves cut from there,
One’s sizeable fare
While this one is spare.”
She pointed with flair.
“Let’s cut the thing there!”
“We can’t cut it there!
That cut is not square.”
Harsh words filled the air.
There was pulling of hair.
Such an awful loud scare.
They never did share.
That single eclair.
The Not So Merry Go Round
Here we sit on the merry-go-round.
Where some aren’t so merry at all.
Some kids are reaching for brass rings.
Others hold on and laugh.
And then there’s those crybabies, clutching with fear and screaming:
Moooooooooommmmmmmyyyyyyyy!
I’ll just sit on the bench, wondering.
All those tattoos on the arm of the operator.
The smoke oozing out from the machinery.
The gears grind louder.
Which the music almost covers up.
It’s a lot happening at once.
I just want to sit here on the bench.
And watch everything go by.
And listen to the music.
With a few folks, humming along.
I Am Cancer
I am cancer.
I will take your hair and drink your strength.
I will use your body as a battlefield, fighting you to the death.
I will hide behind you as doctors try to kill me, and you will suffer along with me.
I may take your skin as a trophy, rob you of your eyesight, and maybe take an arm or a leg if I feel like it.
I can take everything you have and everything you are.
Except one thing: those who love you.
I can never take them from you.
But I can take you from them.
Your Shadow
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Sometimes
The world stinks
So much
That your shadow
Your goddamned shadow
Has to take
A long bath
To wash
It off
No matter
How much
It scrubs
And scrubs
The world’s stink
Sticks harder
And never
Washes off
Completely
Everything stinks
Around you
Cover it up
All you want
With soaps
And perfumes
It’s still there
And it never
Goes away
If your shadow
Can’t come clean,
What hope
Do you have?
None.
Pull the plug
The water
Drains out
You tried
But
That stink
Gets worse
So bad you gag
Close your eyes
And wish
It all
Away
Fear
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Final evening approaches: Ramadan.
Father enters, asks “Ready?”
Forty elders and relatives.
Fatima expects a riot.
Find everyone a rug.
Face east and recite.
Fatima’s excited. Allah! Rejoice!
Fasting ends. All relax.
Fried eggs are ready.
Fennel, eggplant, and rice.
Fish, endive, and rosemary.
“Fantastic! Elegant! Amazing! Righteous!”
Friends eat and ruminate.
Finish eating and regroup.
“Fun? Entertainment?” ask relatives.
Farts. Embarrassment. Awfully rude.
Flustered excuses and revulsion.
Family endeavors are rowdy.
Former enemies are restless.
Fighting erupts! Anger! Retaliation!
Flailing everywhere. Angry responses.
Father exclaims: “All right!”
Fighting ends abruptly, respectfully.
Finding exits, all retire.
Fatima, exhausted and run-down.