Posts for June 9, 2023 (page 10)

This morning my heart broke
just a little
when you wanted the yellow crayon
instead of the lellow one.
Then I realized it has been a while
since you last requested peter butter 
on your sandwich or skeptically tasted
a bite of tormato. 
I will accept that we no longer check
the nailbox for letters each day after school,
but please, oh, please,
when I ask what you want for dinner tonight,
let me hear you say skaghetti 
just one more time.

my family left the city yesterday evening
now we’re in the conference
discussing the superimposition of images
layers
i’m sitting to take photos, notes
on the screen are reactions to the solar eclipse, nonreaction to the hurricaine that year
what are the limits of historicizing the moment
we bring hands together
make noise

side of my thumb

easing

the peel

away

Sometimes, I want to quit my job
and move home, bridges burned.

But sometimes, I’m drinking
four roses on the rocks 
in a little ranch house
full of bird dogs and nice furniture
while a woman tells me about
her ribs recipe and how she uses
just a smidge of maple syrup
to add some sweet to all that spice
and I can’t remember if home
is here or there.

noun
homesickness for a place you’ve never been  

my therapist says  •  there’s no good translation for this  • i am crying • down fourth street •   how many worlds • have i built • in this body • at war • with each other •  how many gods • how many mothers • intranslatable yes • somewhere between •  ghost and blood • somewhere between • this ocean and next • today i google judas • today i order chai tea • today i learn • betrayal is every language • war  •  is every language • no good translation • i am wrapping a towel • around myself • wet with longing • no good translation • desire • like a tourniquet • i am leaning down • to serve you • body intranslatable • as i bend • body incapable • language • have you ever put a ghost • in your mouth • have you ever opened • oceans • inside you • have you ever • watched your mother sleep • and seen your own wound • looking back

1.

Crossing rivers of time,
without pay, for nothing at all,
I, dreamless, looking for you.
Behind me, imperceptible,
without brushing my shoulders,
you, death angel, watch and ask:
“Where is that Paradise, 
shadow, lately your home?”
Silent cities, without answer,
rivers without speech, summits
with no echo, silent seas—say I, 
Nobody knows home. Fixed men 
standing on the shore stopped
at tombs, 
ignore me. The birds are dejected,
songs etched in chipping bone, 
in joy running the course
blindly. They know nothing.
Without the sun, ancient winds,
inert in the leagues
for walking, charred for climbing
and falling
backwards, all speak few words.
Broken down and watery the 
truth hidden in wells within us,
heaven runs in streams from inside us.
And, at salty mariner’s sign of Earth’s end, 
over jutting chalk, cliffs of cloud and water
our eyes rolling back
find me just one safe drop of hope—
that potable, greenest flowering cache
I seek in the black abyss.

2.

In the shadowlands
where the world keeps seed; our children,
confused–grown between the centuries!
They can’t go back, they wish they could! 
What terror known without speaking–
how very lost I am, my love.
“Dark angel, awaken.”
            Where are you? 
“Strike match, illume your ray; return.”
Return.
Silence. 
Still more motionless the pulses 
of the endless in the night.
Lost paradise!
Lost to look for you,
I, without lamp light forever.

Author: Rafael Alberti
Translator: Manny Grimaldi

On these nights
Oh what I’d give to resort
Back to the whoas of then

Awaiting your return home
After another too late night
But knowing
you’d come home to me

Those moments
were cycled with fears
That this time maybe you wouldn’t…

Either bc your drunk ass had wrapped your car around a tree,
Or bc you found someone better than me

I feared it… night by night 
But in my heart,
I knew you’d make it home to me

Even through my anger, jealous and worry 
I knew I had your heart in a capacity
that mattered

And now here I sit.
On my front porch.
A new front porch.
One flooded with activity and influx of too many, too loud boasting vehicles with something to prove.

The star filled skies that illuminated my soul
and organic sounds of the night that scared me
just enough
to allow me to feel at home among the wild…

Gone.

There I was…
Safe somehow.

But still afraid.
When you made it home to me,
You’d be among the wild;

Unpredictable.
But mine.

Categorized into one animal or another,
But still mine.
In a place I thought was home

Now here I sit amongst the lights
and unsolicited noises.
So loudly, reminding me
of what was stolen 
Not loud enough
to deafen my thoughts
But loud enough
to clutter my mind and spirit

Reminding me of once upon a time
In a world of dreams,
where everything I could ever have desired and loved
will only be just within reach
Within grasp,
so obtainably unobtainable
That
You’d feel it’s liveliness drip all over,
as if a parched plant received its first droplet of water 

just when death felt near

And the perfect balance of
sun and shade
allowed for growth…

Only 
for the rain to cease.
And.
A season of drought to overtake,
While the sun stolen by an unforeseen, indefinite, clouded sky

Now. Here I sit.

Believing

I’ve heard the sound of your SUV
driving by again to “check on me…”
so you can pin me;
trying to make me the villain instead.

So you can keep your false hero title
But I’d take it… another drive by

Even knowing

This time …

I may be broken deeper than those surface wounds and unspeakable heartache…
Oh,
I’d still take it.

And knowing that still lives within me… 
Creates an inner hate I’ve never known

Please.

Please, let me see the sky of stars,
Within sight of my home.

Don’t let this new,
unrequested home steal the peace
of the wild forever.

These nights…These thoughts are relentless.

It is not aesthetics that mark their beauty

It is reading Dean Koontz
            by waves of oncoming headlights
                           on our way back home

It is replacing city sounds
                with cacophonic frog songs
                            that keep us awake

It is holding their hand
                to follow in the dark
                            while they lead you through

It is awakening to the morning
                with coffee-fragrant air
                            and chocolate croissants baking

It is running out of gas
                waiting for a rescue
                            and singing Zach Williams at the top of our lungs

It is being unbelievably COVID-broke
                  enjoying their voice on the phone
                             and receiving an unexpected gift

It is knowing they will laugh just as hard as you
                    at the joke you have been saving all day
                               because no one else gets it.

It is stumbling ungracefully through
                    a new worship song
                                hearing them sing robustly off-key

It is them doing that one thing
                    you desperately needed them to do
                                before they ask

It is them playing Burn the Ships
                    as we leave a skeezy Best Western
                                (that we had no idea would be skeezy)

It is the collection of memories
                    in my sacred mental temple
                                   that lives on in my grateful heart

Maybe because, like them, we
spend hours sitting by a window
or staring at a spot on the floor,
intently doing nothing. 

Or it’s the hours we keep–wakeful
at night, roused by the moon, its silver
light moving us to sing. We’re both fond
of naps and the mystery of dreams. 

Could it be our fascination with common
objects: pens, scraps of paper, 
the way we push and pat them just
to see what they will do?

Perhaps they notice our eyes, how
they go from distant to focused 
in a heartbeat, how we spend hours
chasing prey no one else can see.