close

i have a sense for poison, now.
a recognition in a tone.
a calculated mystery.
a silence where there should be sharing.
a rush of words to cover some shame.
an eagerness to be pleased.
an excuse for not pleasing.
those voids- - -
black holes of adoration.

even now, finishing arguments.
honest conversations with the walls
and a fist locked firm around some old vial.

riots in some middle state.
people losing lives and friendship and security.
we watch from the coast with eager, hungry eyes.
follow the minute-by-minute just to know how safe we are.

my blood runs too- safe and contained
watching smaller dramas unfold
watching from some safe seat
like a voyeur for heart violence

there is a draft in here
in need of an edit

this doesn't deserve another grappling poem
romancing the poison
exonerating the pain
it all feeds the vacancy
that should be left to starve dry

the cycle
the magnetic shift,
i want to be separate from it.
another swearing off- - -
another experiment with dosage- - -
another confrontation with evidence- - -
the same heartbreak with another face- - -

i look for the reminder.
remember remember
there is no yours or mine anymore
there never was a mine

carve that cave out of old, scribbled pages.
fodder for some pyre
it's your funeral,
and every word seems to [be the] last.

not even words.  not words or visions.
some poison in the blood, still running red.
still habits to break.
still an empty to leave unfilled.

close. close. close

we were close
but to no end
close, but not as in almost

close to closing
some wound
some vein too connected
to the source

wild thoughts on dark nights
but morning brings light
mourning brings light
eventually.

tell me

"Wild Geese"

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - over and over announcing your place in the family of things. -Mary Oliver "the kind steeped in books, with a curious eye, a digger, someone unfond of the common question.  a rarity, not a kind of person at all, but a singular example of personhood."

found

i found this gem in the back of a student's notebook left behind from last year.

the risk you take

when you let international students choose their own poem to recite, and you include Bukowski on the list of author options...

battle anthem

there is all this to do
at the start
who am I
who am I not
who might I be
for you with you to you after you
where does the line of the I stand firm
and where does it topple over
to stretch to something wider
and when does a stretch mean a break?

(threaded bare
tears streaming down the sides
bring the pain
bring the pleasure
two's company
THREE's company
I'm ready for anything
prepared for nothing
you'll have to take me as I am
take me
take)

"until there's one you can't ignore"

what is wanted here?
what do any of us truly want that we can even name?
acronyms to infinity
cut to the chase
dial it back
double check
before you send
there are no promises to make

(There was never time. That was always the reason offered. Never time for old and new.  But now there seems to be. Now there's time and now you do. There wasn't time for me and you. You must have been done long before I knew.  And there I was still trying. Still holding on after you were through.)

"you are a warrior, so stop your worrying."

I fear I am too ready.
Noticing too much
Accepting too little
from clashing, crashing voices.
Entertaining a shore full of crabs
at the edge of a shallow pool
where I and so many have stood before,
where so much overlaps.

(So what I understand is... you're meant to busy yourself with fulfilling things until someone comes along that you value so much that you're willing to set aside some of those fulfilling things to make room for them... and then you try to fulfill each other for a few years and at times you succeed and at times you fail and eventually you resent them for the space you lack for other fulfilling things.  Do I have that right?)

"what I want, I feel, is some rough kindness."

let's just say yes
let's just run amok-
see if we're still laughing
after a few cold months.

The Museum of Tolerance

"i always feel like such an outsider when i walk down the streets here" she says
almost every time she visits
it's after labor day and she's wearing white.  she has no idea that there are rules.

on a grey tuesday, we go to the museum of tolerance
this was her only real goal for her visit- the only place she knew she wanted to go
fifteen minutes into the tour,  she leans over to me
"what does antisemitism mean?" she asks

the part of me that, three years ago, would have judged her so harshly for being so out of touch with the world- for her inexperience- would have been so embarrassed about her ignorance-
now burst at the seams with a sort of compassion
that is new

Her voice was so curious.  So genuine in her desire to understand.  So innocent.

She's aging.  We both know.  She says.  I watch.

She is slower to react.  Slower to acclimate to her surroundings.  Slower to recover from a coughing fit.

And also

Slower to judge.  Slower to snap.

We are resting this week.  Together.  Resting our eyes like seniors in a home.  Resting our minds from the racing outside.  Resting our hearts from having to say anything too deep or too serious.  We are just being together in a way that feels more together than it's been in many years.

"what do you want to eat tonight?" she asks
"i don't know, something light."
"ok, let's get chinese food."
and she believes, truly, that chinese is a light dinner option.
"because it goes right through you," she says.  and i just laugh and laugh and love her despite and love her because.

We see the world in two different directions.  I can laugh now.

we are listening to a holocaust survivor  (her reason)
and she is nodding off in the seat beside me.  fighting it, but still

and he is happy as a lark- wearing orange argyle socks and a page-boy cap-
talking about seeing babies thrown up in the air and shot- being found out because a woman
he was hiding with had a big butt that wouldn't fit through a wall- cracking jokes that no one but me would chuckle out loud at- everyone so somber- he had survived and he could laugh-
how he'd gone from hiding to working the German Underground- layers of identity- nearly killed four times

stranger than fiction, this life

moved to America and offered his hand in marriage to a woman
if her father would give him a free pastrami sandwich

and she sat behind me, helping him finish his sentences
repeating questions when his hearing failed
his story so carefully preserved along side hers
in pictures
and memory
and the telling
and retelling

one survivor's lot in life
so many lives
so much death and
so much living

my mom comes out from showering now
"did you understand everything we heard today?"
...
"why did they hate the Jews so much?"

she's still thinking about it.  she's still trying to make sense of it.

and i am too- and i am humbled-
 i am a daughter turned mother-  student turned teacher
with so much to learn
about love and compassion
and living

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174555

thoughts upon waking: sequel

They say that in dreams, teeth represent control.

Last night I was in the backseat, my dad was driving me to the B's. Three of my teeth came out.  They came out easily, all at once. There was a lack of panic in my reaction. I wasn't upset. In fact, I felt relieved that we could turn around and go to the dentist instead of the B's because I didn't want to go visit them anyway.  I sat patiently during the drive, holding my teeth in my hand.  My dad, the worrier, was more concerned, but even he didn't seen too bothered. He knew a good dentist.  I later noticed that some of my bottom teeth were loose and wiggling too.

When we stopped at the house and I looked in the mirror, I didn't think the gap from the teeth looked all that bad. Maybe even cute in a quirky way. I figured the other teeth would eventually shift over and make up for the absence.

This bodes well for letting go gracefully.
This bodes well for making peace with the gaps.

Grow grow grow.

dat moment

1.   Can the English writing people of Earth please agree to stop using "dat" for "that"?  When did that become a thing? It makes my innards shriek.

2.  2 chocolate chip cookies for dinner. Feeling myself lately.

3. This weekend I got out of my head and into my body, and it's astonishing how easily all that anger melted away. All that was boiling was caused by a speck.  All that incited has been dissolved.

4. Who are these instagram wonders who eat fancy eggs and drink the fanciest coffee served on perfectly crisp tabletops and linen every goddamn day? Who are they, where are they, and how do I get there?

5.  AND ALSO, let's just clarify that a moment is generally an ephemeral, very brief occurrence.  Let's stop saying "that moment when" you worked a 70 hour week or "that moment when" you try and try and nothing ever works.  Those are not moments.  Stop.

6.  and also too- man, the little hiccups of rage.  the little wishes that i never capitalized.  i wish i had called you out- to your face.  been less like butter, so ready.  So eager to hear a soft word spoken. wish I'd been less quick to shoulder blame that was not mine, and less inclined to offer justification that i don't believe in.  i wish it would do any good at all to be true.  to be harsh.  to be honest.  to be as openly disappointed as i feel at times.  i wish i had been less quick to accept apology for doing what you've always done when faced with uncomfortable situations- avoid.  it's always only made it worse- harder than it has to be.  i was never going to like it- really.  of course not. but i do judge. with reason. they are patterns.  she is a vapid, beautiful, vulnerable and young choice like so many others.  but I need to divorce my wishes for you. They are not (were never) your wishes for yourself.  and it is no longer my business to judge (though I do).  it is no longer your lot to know my thoughts (and so i make good and refrain, mostly).  it is no longer your onus to care (what weight.  what freedom).