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Tag: 2018

art is an act of love

art is an act of love
art is a patient mother
art is a fiction
of love
in a beautiful world
of mothers that love
in a beautiful world

March 29, 2018

my skin

i like the way
my hands look
even
the spots
the redness
the wrinkles
(the new wrinkles).
it's me.
bone
pushing
white and pink
blue veins
scars from
nothing memorable.
these hands can sign
a paycheck, lift
a box, stroke
a cat.
they can smooth
a coverlet, on
a new bed, in
a new room.
they can say
'yes.'
they can say
'i am.'
they can say
'i am free.'

June 16, 2018

If My Cat Pooka Was A Dragon

If my cat Pooka was a dragon
she'd be fifteen stories high.
She'd have black scales
and black wings
and be the terror
of the sky.
Her meow would shake the earth.
Her purr would bring down walls.
Her hiss would send the bravest knights
scurrying to their halls.
So should you chance upon her
while she's hunting for a nap,
be grateful she won't squash you
when she jumps into your lap.

April 9, 2018

penny sharp

when you say
you need
you need
penny sharp
contradictions
in copper fixtures
of upholstery stapled
picture frames
of nightingale
doorknobs
and curtained
offspring collecting
rainwater
winter
in a cup
(I wouldn't have said
but you did.)

July 16, 2018

Nick

everything about me
you said
you liked
everything about me
(i lied)
i said
i'd lost
your number
i showed you a picture
of myself playing hockey
long hair
big smile
thirty years
before
and now?
you said
but
i disbelieved
clumsy buzzcut
lines on my face
your name
your naked feet
you said
your name was Nick
i disbelieved
but i remembered.

July 6, 2018

meme

there's a meme about grandmothers
are you happy?
are you fed?
are you loved?
i find it wonderful and
absurd
why would anyone care
if i am happy?
if i am fed?
if i am loved?
how much simpler
it would have been
if my father had
succeeded
in cutting off my air
a little longer
holding on
a little longer
until
no one else would have had to
put up with me had to
be disappointed in me had to
hate me
i can't leave now
though
what's the use of surviving
if i'm only going to
go away again?
i am not happy
but i can find
happiness
on my own
in my own
way
i need a chance
to feed myself
an opportunity
and then they can all breathe
a sigh of relief
"thank god she's gone"
and talk about me behind my back
and lie to my face
"of course we love you"
and hate you and
humiliate you and
stand aside while
you are hated and
humiliated
there's nothing pure
in human affection
it's crowded about
with insecurities
and despair
and unkept promises
i'll take
friends over lovers
lovers over family
cats over everyone
it makes me happy
to make them happy
it's what keeps me
here
still
trying

January 28, 2018

Tybold the Bold

I don't speak in riddles.
I speak in convolutions of
labyrinthine digression.
I'm not sad.
I look askance
to give
myself
time to borrow
a happier frame.
I'm not devious, though
I am a liar.
I can be noble,
perhaps courageous.
In time.

July 3, 2018

Online Dating Profile

i live an improvisational life
in between
bouts of depression.
bravado shelters me
like a tarp in a hurricane.
no glass
just boards spray-
painted with pithy slogans.
fun fact: my father tried to
kill me when i was sixteen.
interested yet?
twenty years spent treading water
is no substitute for a life.
five ten
hot flashes and a bad temper
lines on my face sculpted by dysphoria
embraced too late by
forty years
too late by thirty-two hundred miles.
i write like i'm starving
hunched over a machine
bringing up gouts of words
like wound fever in reverse.
i never know if i'm doing it right
but a key with no lock
can still be a pretty thing.
i live an improvisational life
in between
one breath
and the next.

January 13, 2018

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