Anxiety-rendered fingers
picked raw,
massaging shreds of cabbage
until they give way,
turning limp and swampy.
Sea salt, spices,
acrid sliced garlic and onion
bite at my flesh,
but I continue
until my hands are tingling
and no longer feel like my own.
Grabbing fistfuls,
I tamp it in scalding jars,
smashing with hands balled tight.
This is the only way I can feed you my pain
and turn it into something nourishing.
Never would have guessed, before you came along,
that I’m a little bit Peter Pan and a lot bit Wendy,
living a little lost, shocked as the years have flown;
how could I have known Barrie said it all?
Took some mornings spent dancing in the kitchen with you,
mixing up some pecan pancakes to Haley Reinhart,
before my eyes began to focus on what is in front of me—
it’s not so different than the self I left behind, years ago:
eighteen years old, reveling in the sunshine.
It took your hand woven with mine to finally remember
that I’m more than a mental illness or three,
so much more like the hints God whispers at dawn.
Never would have thought I’d be here almost a decade later,
still up at 3:32am writing these poems as the house sleeps.
Took me this long to dust off the brain-shelves
and remember that this is what fuels my soul’s flame.
We aren’t so different, you and I—and I can honestly say
I’ve never felt as compelled to shout about it.
You’ve got me rediscovering me, using the pages as a map.
Never could have imagined a quirky conversation
about the intricacies of our curly hair would lead to now,
but I’m not able to imagine a now without you—
so here’s to the nevers that compile the nows.
GROWING UP
Am I the child who sat on your lap,
While you rocked me and sang me to sleep?
The one you taught to read?
I am.
Am I the girl who sat at your desk
To write
So that my penmanship was neat?
And my math was correct.?
I am.
Now I am the woman you left behind
Full of grace and holding your hand,
I am.
You went on before me
Left me here to carry on.
I am that child, that girl, that woman.
I am.
Here.
Don’t matter if I was gettin up
From my hundredth fall on
My two wheeler, strugglin to
Keep up in math or headed
Toward my tenth job interview,
Mama’d say, ‘Put them oars in the water an start paddlin.’
Made no difference at all if
I was battlin to carry a baby to
Term or tryin to find the words to
Tell a 4 year old what divorce really is,
Mama’d say, ‘Put them oars in the water an start paddlin.’
Today is different.
Today my mama went over the falls.
Left me spinnin out here in the whitewater.
I’ve put them oars in Mama, an I’m paddlin,
But ain’t too sure I’m gonna make it to shore.
I’ve voted in a neighbor’s garage, in churches,
a cow barn, laundry, fire station and clubhouse,
for statesmen and scoundrels, for Democrats,
and on rare occasions, a Republican.
I’ve resorted to candidate write-ins,
said YES to two-terms for governors,
taxes for libraries and schools,
and NO to the lottery, marriage as between
one man, one woman, and the proposal
to expand use of eminent domain.
Always, no matter the issue or office,
while standing in line at the polls,
I’ve felt pride, and gratitude, to be participating
with others in our democratic process.
I voted this morning, walked to the mailbox,
cast my ballot and missed that high.
She has feathered her nest with beaten wings, caged heart strains against bent bars.
At night She escapes and flies with lightning bugs.
Flitting through tendrils of smoke, She sees his face illuminated by campfire.
Acrid stinging, cried-out eyes, She follows the vapors to him.
He reaches, catching her from the air, rests her on the tip of his finger.
She crawls to the edge of the jar.
“You’re not ready” he whispers.
Rapunzel leans out the window
on the first day of the eighth week
of self-imposed quarantine.
While the prince lies snoring,
her hair ropes behind her
in 16-foot coil.
That I might climb the golden stair…
She sighs at gray split ends
and fading streaks of lowlight.
The prince rattles coffee cups
in the kitchen, stomps heavily
on pale linoleum.
She grasps the end of her rope,
loops it loose
around wrought iron rail,
spreads fingers on free hand
to break sideways leap.
In soft grass, she clambers
toward the woods
trailed by a silver snake.
sit awhile beneath
this furnace,
our Sol
feel its breath
hot like spicy
licorice, or
the aftertaste
of a mint julep,
a freshening heat
that makes you proud
to live on its
third rock
that makes you sweat
and bleed ideas
to ground, to creek,
to ocean
until they drop back
recycled
from cloud tops,
thought seeds
from which sprout
new, better
ideas
fresher hope
I was told
that my grandfather taught
the boys how to swim
by throwing them into
one of the ponds up our road
and I would stand at the banks
and imagine them struggle
while he watched silently
just in case they weren’t
going to make it
Later I watched them struggle
with everything but swimming
while he moved through our house
without even watching or asking
for that
just in case moment
not because he believed
that they’d be fine
but because he was already
finished and gone
I wasn’t surprised
when half-drowning
wearing a suit with three kids
and pretending to have it together
that there wasn’t a hand waiting
and here most of us sit
angry
because nothing is okay
but we’ll be damned
to see our own
drown
so we can’t
burn it all down
instead
we have to make it better
for those that come after
because I’m not like him
and you’re not like them
