You are a better hider than a seeker
yes this was meant for you
yes I see you
yes I know you are watching
yes I know this is about you and not me
yes you hide
yes I seek
We run away from each other
Like to magnets facing the same way
Tag you are it
The pencil is broken.
Why should I resharpen it
if it will just break again?
For every time I try to give it life,
I am breaking the wood,
wearing away at the pink gummy structure,
filling graphite with negativity.
The pencil is broken,
and I am the one breaking it.
My lungs are failing after running after the impossible.
My shadow creeps up from behind, my recurring nightmare has visited me once again.
Trying to step through thorns, bleeding feet, decomposing at every obstacle.
I try to pray. “God please give me the strength I have to continue on, amen.”
Then I lose faith.
She made a journey when very young,
Only staying a short time in her destination,
Having no choice in arriving or departing.
She had guidance from many,
But not from a few,
Suffering one great loss but receiving support to ease the pain.
She made another journey,
Leaving the old world for the new,
Never to return.
Opportunities denied,
New paths to follow,
Stability attained with curious appetite to satisfy.
Could it have been different?
In some ways, yes,
But not in others.
4 of Swords:
Those raw-umber eyes-
entangled forest inside,
Bats and lashes cross past wild
I knew a woman down the road
that predicted my sex with a needle
and string above my mother’s belly
she laughed like Witch Hazel
from Saturday morning cartoons
she had hair like Bonnie Tyler
I used to sit on her porch panting
failing to keep up with older boys
she’d give me Pepsi in a plastic cup
while her pet raccoon dug into
my pockets looking for something
that he never did find
she still called on the phone
after the stroke put her down
in a wheelchair in Ohio away
talked and talked and talked
about the road and made us
promise to make sure everyone
knew she was thinking of us
I wonder
when she died
if she was thinking
of those wild boys in her yard
laughing laughing laughing
the golden moment for a woman
at the end
that we all forgot
Motionless equine
shadows graze the bluegrass
highlighting hilltops
Time lingers longer
upon the greyscale landscape
drifting toward home
Every night
Same car
Different parking lot
Same time
The most simplest thing
So many conversations
So many moments
So many memories
In a small space
In a small town
By myself
Or with my people
Car on
Car off
Windows down
Windows up
Music blasting
Or volume on 4
Seats up or
Laid back
I’ll never get over
These beautiful nights
In my 4 wheeled
Hang out spot
I’m walking home from work,
A quarter of a mile stretched ahead of me
And I see a dark figure in the distance.
It looks like a person
But no. It’s too still to be a person.
Maybe it’s an unusually large piece of trash.
I’m coming closer now.
And still have no idea what this thing is.
A large tree stump?
A mishaped refridgerator box?
A time machine?
Finally
I make out the contours of human shoulders
Behind which a head is tucked so low
You can barely see it.
It is a man.
He’s just standing there with his back to me,
Right in the middle of the sidewalk.
I mumble a tentative greeting as I pass by,
Trying to determine
whether or not he is some sort of zombie.
He nods and says,
“Hey how you doin.”
As if nothing weird just happened.
And begins slowly shuffling his way down the sidewalk behind me.
