Voices Haiku
Voices in my head;
Snippets of song from my youth –
Comfort, or cause pain.
New Miracle Vitamin Discovered – Vitamin EZ – More energy than the Tasmanian Devil, hair like Rapunzel, strength of the Hulk, while remaining calm as Buddha. All in one easy delicious gummy (choose blackberry rapture or tangerine paradise).
Miracle MixAMix – Smoothies, mixed drinks, ice cream, soup. The Miracle MixAMix does so much more. Why pay for those pavers for the walkway or garden; now you can make your own. Just add cement and a little water to the Miracle MixAMix. Get our super duper brick shaper attachment and you can build your own house. The blender that does it all.
Miracle Anti-Aging Cream – Unscented velvety lotion takes off anything on your face you don’t want there. Lather the cream on at bedtime and leave overnight. You will be amazed at whose face you wake up with in the morning.
We turn off the television and walk outside
The evening grass is cool and juicy beneath our bare feet
Feathery breezes play with our souls
Just days before, the lilacs sprouted green fists of promise
Today they smack us with their deep purple revelations
Scent a sweet coma
The sun a fashion diva flaunting her colorful wardrobe
Along the sky’s blue-smothered runway
In the distance children delight at their games
Birds fuss and settle into their spectral night trees
How awesome this world!
(So, yes, I do.)
Waiting for my rental, I watched the half-hearted rain from the station cafe, pictured you gazing from the kitchen of your mother’s house with a similar cup of similar tea balanced in your very individual hands while listening for tires on the drive snaking between the trees. That house was haunted, not by your late parents so much as by you, the insistent memories of growing there under the cannon fire of their lives, and in retrospect I understand your choice to meet there, selecting a white-collared black envelope to send the single invitation. Through the evening and night, hushed words and thin scream-cries as you spoke for the first time of her bruises by his hands, of his breath at your neck on too many nights across too many years, the later claiming of your empty bed to align his adulteries, described torn promises, twisted commandments almost scripturally fragile. At last I saw why we were never lovers, though in love with the idea of each other, and why you took me for confessor, entrusted fully with your exorcism, to be haunted while your dreams run sweet around me as I try to learn who frees the priest of demons heard through screens in darkened rooms.
unduhwee
underwear + panty
stummy
stomach + tummy
bidduhboo
little baby boy
beguhneeze
bacon+ egg + cheese
berrucking
breaking
(the exception to the rule)
What do these faux words have in common?
widely unknown but common at home
quick-firing brain?
stab at efficiency?
I’ll tell ya
cosmic payback
motherhood reparation
karma spanks the kid
satisfaction guaranteed
Yes please and thank you
With my insecurities,
it’s always a game of truth or dare.
They ask me
Honestly
What wouldn’t you change?
They challenge me
to make disguise an art form,
hide as if I weren’t –
until the tables turn.
I interrogate them
How could you change this?
I dare them
to show me what isn’t
already art.
Most of the time I don’t even think of it at all.
I can drink coffee and eat Cheerios without
thoughts creeping in of holding a sweet babe
close to my chest, feeding the child my own
life-strength in pure liquid gold. Other days,
these thoughts are so heavy that they drape
across my shoulders and torso like an afghan,
crafted, I’m certain, by a great-aunt who blessed it
with all the love she could muster, a blanket
weighted with pastel hopes and dreams of sunshine.
Most of the time I can breeze by the tiny clothes
without pausing to gently graze my fingertips across
tiny pink peplum tops with matching buttery leggings,
over forest green corduroy pants and soft charcoal vests.
Other times, though, I can hardly scold myself into budging
from those little aisles, imagining how much dreamier
they’d feel after being tenderly washed with Dreft and Downy.
I can’t help but boomerang back to what I might call them,
those babies that I can’t allow myself to call my own.
Names have always been the most memorable things to me
about people I have known as classmates, friends,
even those who forever remain simply acquaintances.
When I find my mind rocking and drifting into the shallows,
I even have to name myself for who I am should I go there:
selfish mother, neurotic mom, foolish woman who thought
she could raise a living creature when she forgets to give herself
water and bathe regularly and keep her own mind from
tangling itself into an impossible knot of “should haves.”
I’m much gentler with the little list I’ve compiled of names
for the babes, more forgiving, yet slightly tinged with despair.
Most of all, the names are strong– stronger than their mom.
They’ll continue to bloom and thrive in the recesses of my mind,
and I allow myself a few moments every now and then
to tend to the thoughts, until I’m reminded to live.
Uncertainty looms;
I crave bravery.
Shouting into the wind,
my words whip back,
smacking me;
my own intentions
leave a mark.
I resolve to live
with a past free of shame,
with a present free of anxiety,
with a future free of dread.
I resolve to no longer
let disappointments linger,
let heartaches define,
let failures repeat,
let my reflection embarrass,
let brokenness consume.
I resolve to
listen well,
love extravagently,
let others come first.
Uncertainty looms;
bravery hits me
where I need it most.
