Posts for 2020 (page 5)

                                                                     my mother
                                                                          Jean Addington Adams

My mother was famous for her quotes (and this
one is no exception)

As, per usual, she was right.

After she was in hospice five days, after constant morphine
drips (that would kill anyone!) her feet began to turn blue,
the lips I kissed non-stop turned an obscene gray.  We prayed
the Lord’s prayer.  I wanted to crawl inside her but a nurse
stopped me.

We watched, we waited, we cried.

When she left, died, passed, went away –

an eagle tore loose within me –
soared through the black night –
covered me in light.

It was a snap of time out of time.

It is so hard to give birth.

Contained wildness.
Is that an oxymoron, like
Organized chaos?

It is what I ask for 
In my backyard, but is 
At odds with the desires of others.

My modus operandi
In a nutshell.
Unlimited wildness is frightening.

I step outside the box …
But just with one foot.
Testing the waters.

Yet, my reputation remains
Slightly unruly.
Not always the “good girl”.

Admonished many times,
As a child, to
“Look before you leap”.

Rebellion was
Jumping in with both feet.
Damn the consequences.

Bruce Springsteen plays in the background,
The soundtrack to the entirety of this relationship,
“You can’t a start a fire
Without a spark”
Engraved in our wedding rings

“Friends” comes on at 11 every night
As I stomach the existence of being there
Phone conversations with snippets of our future
And for a minute, I forget all the bad

A light
A love
A blue furry chair
Video game demos
Sims
Mountain Dew
Doritos
Staying in the back of the house
Where poetry flew out of me at night and time stood still
And my energy moved it, I swear it did
Patience
Patience
Good things come to those who wait
So I’ll dial and escape 

When you refuse to do something so simple,
Something that could save a life,
Several for all you know,
You are not staging a rebellion,
You are not sallying forth with a righteous battle cry,
You are not holding the gates against barbarians,
You are not exercising your precious freedom,
Or upholding the laws of God or whatever idol you worship;

The only thing you’re doing,
When you refuse something so simple
that could help so many,
Is revealing what an asshole you are.

i’m doing that thing now
which all writers must do
at some point, sit and stare
at a blank screen and think
about how to make things
more meaningful than
they really are. so
there’s no metaphor here,
just a list.
today i folded my laundry
all at once, which means
i must be doing well.
my neighbor’s puppy
makes a habit of leaving
scratches all over my legs,
of trying to eat her own shit.
today i woke up at 9:30
and i winged my eyes, which means
i must be doing well.
yes i am listening to an album
where a woman is drowning
on the cover, but remember, 
there’s no metaphor here,
only a list. sometimes
i make lists for hours
of schools so far away,
their ancient buildings
and impossible acceptance
rates, the smiling faces
of their students who,
if i squint, could almost
look like me. and sometimes
i find pictures of the cities
they’re in, the parks nearby
with their dreaming musicians
all the subway lines stretching
their little spider legs
for miles, the bookshops
opening their teeth, the black
staircases crawling from
one balcony to another and
the people who curl their legs
around the rungs, their cigarette
smoke closing into the night,
people who never need
to look very hard for meaning,
people who, if i squint, could
almost look like me.

discovered a new cafe’ in town today
a welcomed reprieve after my old haunts closed
coffee comforting  tiramisu to die for
finally a bit of normal back in my life

When the cracks began to show, I knew
true love was taking hold.

She was trying so hard not to cry.
I could tell by the way a voice breaks
when one tries to hold everything inside
because if they let go even the littlest bit,
the emotion is going to explode outward

and I was so happy when she did let it out,
not because I enjoyed the tears
but because the pain I felt seeing them
was actually my opportunity to love her
in all the ways the world had failed her.

She found enough courage and strength to lead me
into her own mires of wounds
still oozing blood,
speaking of the villains who had ravaged
her sense of self-confidence and love.

She exposed devils who had sliced her open
and she brought me before them,
all the anxieties she collected over the years.
I met them with an open mind
as well as a heart ready to receive her.

I faced those demons, sword drawn,
a voice of compassion and empathy
because I recognized her as a girl
so deserving of all the graces
of being truly loved.

Such vulnerability requires immense trust,
to bet all hopes and dreams
that the listener won’t give a poor reaction.
The fact that she found this place of comfortable discomfort
speaks so much about how she feels about me.

The most beautiful part is that it’s mutual.
My own demons came knocking one day
and she saw through my shattered interior
to bring the true me out on the other side.
We both desire the best for each other.

This is the way love is supposed to be,
not just in a romantic setting
but across every relationship we hold
with the people we truly care about.
We’re meant to let supportive people in.

If we don’t, we become our own implosions
because we end up with nothing inside
to hold us together.
She trusts me to do that for her
and thus, I can trust she will do it for me.

Love took hold in those moments where
we exposed and saw past each others’ flaws.
Never before have I felt so strongly
about a relationship at the onset
as I do with this special girl by my side.

Thus, I can’t help but dream
about how much such a promising future can hold.

The moles sprinkled across your body remind me 
of stars on a clear night.
I could trace the constellations of your skin 
for hours and never get bored.
You are a sky of wonders. 

I have so many tabs open
my head is spinning
Should I click on this one?
Close that one?
What happens if I need that page again
and I can’t find it?

But these aren’t tabs. 
These are irons in the fire 
and coals burning red hot — 
That I have to walk across 

What is it our grandparents used to say?
Up hill both ways in the snow…
That’s where we are now.
In the middle of a two-sided uphill climb
and it’s never gonna get easier

Unless we can flatten the curve
Into a straight line
Right down to zero.

Zero cases, zero unnecessary deaths, zero hate crimes
Zero bad cops, zero child molestors, zero politicians
ready for a blood sacrifice.

But there’s so many tabs 
Filled with ignorace 
and not the kind that brings bliss
But the kind that brings death 
and hatred and a quagmire of other problems.
And so few filled with love and compassion. 
We need to close a tab or two. 

But then what happens if we close the wrong one?
And we can’t find the page again? 

The screen door was busted at the bottom right corner – I don’t remember which one of us kicked it out because all of us were angry enough to, but I remember sporting an ankle brace that summer. Sat legs up by the pool and let bees swarm the sweat under it, complained about the tan line. Made my excuse to not mow lawns but still rode my bike and missed a few doctor’s appointments, wasn’t concerned ‘cause these kinds of injuries are just like the crude swears and familial death wishes we chug back down our throats with the last glass of sweet tea before school starts.

It was the same summer I threw my brother’s boombox from the second story and blamed his open window. Apologies were currency so I could still see friends if I said sorry to the neighbor’s driveway, if I said my allowance was funding for a new stereo. Had to sit out hikes but would ride in the car and fight a fly out the backseat window, and if dad left me with his keys I’d take the car 70 down 55 mph backroads, sprained ankle sore from shifting between gas and brakes.

On the drive home, dad would play his cds – bluegrass and folk – and he’d skip the darker songs. And I wondered if he knew what I knew when I looked them up, that one of his bands stopped making music after the front man died of cancer, if he knew that was why I spent the money on something other than a cd-player and didn’t apologize for it. Because by September it didn’t matter; I didn’t remember the guy’s name, and the screen door was fixed and my anger was settled between the mesh and the glass and we all stood and marveled at how nice it looked.