I wonder if you had birthday plans drafted in your head,
If you’d thought “I hope the quarantine bullshit is over by my birthday, so we can go all out”
I wish you could’ve seen your party.
We flooded streets,
And social media feeds,
And the mailboxes and inboxes of government officials.
We decorated our cars,
Formed caravans,
And sang for you in front of courthouses.
We celebrated through tears,
And chanted through face masks.
I hope we made you proud,
But damn I wish you could’ve gone to the club and shook your ass with your girls instead.
i am friends with a giant Spider.
she builds a new web every night, big and complicated and threating.
i sit on the porch once everyone’s gone to bed
and we talk about all the people in this house,
about how my capacity to love is larger than mine to hate,
or that at least that’s the goal,
and she tells me i can do it.
well, really, she tells me nothing. because
she is a Spider and is just building a web,
and i am a child drinking out of airplane-sized bottles of liqour,
but i’d like to think that if my Spider could,
my Spider would tell me that
i don’t have to waste my time hating him.
He loved me like spring,
Everything made new,
Love brimming over on itself.
He loved me like summer,
Heat and steam in the late afternoon,
Ripe with tender sweetness.
He loved me like fall,
Brisk and alive with just a shadow,
Of something colder ahead.
He loved me like winter,
Moments of warmth in dim sunlight,
Just out of reach.
chapstick.
gum.
baby wipes. (these have saved me several times)
a lint roller.
a clean pair of panties, a clean pair of socks, an extra pair of shoes, and a sweater in your car.
condoms.
safety pins.
a catalog of 3-5 embarrassing and/or funny anecdotes for awkward silences on first dates.
a song that you can listen to over and over again and it still reminds you of them, and makes you cry, but in a good way.
a loving touch, platonic or otherwise.
orgasms. many of them. often.
someone that keeps you grounded, even if it means they have to burst your bubble sometimes.
friends who genuinely see your beauty, and remind you of it often.
at least one person who smiles at you every time you see them.
I remember the outline
of your back,
striking, intimidating,
awe-inspiring,
each pace matched with
three of my own.
I vowed to catch up to you one day.
We approach the future
asymptotically,
and yet you reached for tomorrow
with unwavering confidence.
I hope my trepidation
was never too burdensome.
I no longer lag behind you,
an echo of weaving footsteps,
but with such violent urgency,
I wonder whether you’re
running from something, too.
Did not expect it from a total stranger in the
dermatologist waiting room
Having my nose spliced layer by layer
the cuts went deeper and deeper to carve out the Cancer.
Each splice searched under the scope
In between takes
I dutifully lingered in the appointed room
My nose dripping excessively.
Gingerly she approached.
“Honey it will be all right.
Look at my nose…
had it done 10 years ago.”
She thought I was crying noticing
all the tissues jammed up my nose
But No! My nose was just running.
Or was it?
fingertips stenciling love and stick figures
on breath-fogged car windows
clear blue sky
photographs stapled into dusty calendars
hanging on parts store walls
the roll and click of filing cabinet drawers
or crunch of leaf piles on October afternoons
rain hissing against summer blacktop
antiseptic needle stings
langorous afternoons sprawled on couches
the zit of bug zappers smoking mosquitoes
birdsong and honeysuckle
midnight skinny dips
thoughtful arguments and toppled chess pieces
Father’s Day cards
and Halloween candy
freshly cut grass between toes
cold grape soda and cool Guiness
holding a sick child’s hand
words with many-layered meanings
looking into your eyes, or anyone’s
and wondering about the future
This was not a day that called for ellipsis –
rather, the world demanded firm declarations of certainty
as if I wasn’t also becoming an insomniac –
yet the dream I woke up with slipped past the periods
and became a part of my waking mind.
And the line became blurred,
just as it does, more and more
each day, between the declarations
and the questions. The commas began to run into one another, like
trains whose conductors were blind to the other’s existence.
This day did not call for ellipsis, but
that’s all I was able to give. Thus, I lie still
in the bed as the heat of summer overtakes me again.
And I am helpless, as I become victim
to a never-ending interrogation. Is this what it means
to sleep?
SPRING RAIN
Spring is here!!
And with it are the fresh rains…
Hear the rain beating on my bedroom pane, dad?
And the streams of water running down
To the other drains…
You used to say when it rained hard
God was crying
Mourning someone who lost their life
And had to cross the portal of death to Him…
I think He mourns you now, Dad,
With tears of a sadness of a life no longer.
But He is joyful too
Because He has met you finally…
After all those prayers offered for you
He knows you well,
He knew you even before you were made in grandmother’s womb
And now he knows the pleasure of your company
