Posts for June 11, 2023 (page 4)

You are fire

I can see the flames dancing in your eyes

A single spark resulted in unimaginable destruction

You choke me with your smoke and your lies

You destroyed me with a single touch

You turned me to ash with a look

No…

You’re lava

You melted my heart with beautiful words

I didn’t realize that you were hurting me until you left me empty

You gave me scars that can’t be concealed

You burn me as you slide down my throat and sit in the bottom of my stomach, just boiling

The stench of burning flesh fills my lungs and I can’t breathe

Not even to whisper “stop”

Walls, trees, fences, boundaries

Nothing can stop you

Unless you’re put out

Unless you are hardened to a halt

But even so, the damage is still there

The char never washes out

The carnage is left behind

The smoke will always linger

-I guess I just shouldn’t have played with fire

The unclean woman.
The social outcast.  

The untouchable.  
The bleeder.  

Forbidden from the temple—
Period.

They come in red and blue and yellow rubber
so they can bounce between two people
or high into the air.
They come in the perfect size and shape
big enough to sit on,
small enough to fit into your glove.  

My boy took a running leap
at the exercise ball in the basement
and bounced head over heels,
or rather heels over head,
cracking a tooth or maybe
just his little boy pride.  

The gym teacher pumped them up
only half way full of air
so that he could get a better grip,
smashing them at each other
across the center line of the basketball court.  

They roll slow across the floor
of his grandma’s 19th century house.
They roll down the stairs to the basement
where, wedged between the water heater and paint cans,
there are too many spiders for my son to retrieve it.  

They roll off the back deck into the yard,
then down the hill and under the bushes.
They roll into the street when no one is looking
and I scold him not to follow.  

But the real problem with balls,
as ingenious as they are,  
winning home runs, kicked for a goal,
is when you set them down,
you can’t keep them.
It is their natural to roll.

The curtains are frayed, 
But the holes in the fabric, 
Let the sun light through. 

They say, “We bury our own here.” *
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

He picked up the shovel stuck in the heap
Of dirt left to cover the grave;
Eased a light shifting of sun-dried soil
Onto the casket below
Encasing his beloved
Man cousin, 
Stuck the shovel back 
Into the dirt heap, turned and plodded
With head hanging low 
Back towards home. 

I picked up the shovel in the dirt heap
Of dirt left to cover the grave;
Eased a light shiftig of sun-dried soil
Onto the silk red fur coat 
Of the dog at in the grave below,
Encasing my beloved
Golden Retriever.
Stuck the shovel back 
Back onto the dirt heap, turned and plodded
With head hanging low
Back towards home. 

*old saying in Appalachia: The first person to throw dirt in the grave of a deceased is the one who loved the deaceased the most. 

It’s like this: we show up at the restaurant,
four deep. We’re all hot. And by hot I mean
attractive. Gurls with a “u.” And by hot
I also mean we’ve been bad ass bosses
all day long. Gurlz with a “z” too.

And we order The Menu.

And we open a Tab.

And we Talk. About. Some. Shit.

And we take our shoes off. And share
plastic silverware. And too small paper
plates. Remind each other to put napkins
in our laps. And grab water halfway through
when we realize we aren’t anywhere near
hydrated. We split one snap pea four ways
and then order two more cheeseburgers
because these Gurlz be starving.
We make an inside joke out of our
entrance. And are still laughing about it
as we exit. Selfie snapped and shared, too.

This is a friendship literally built
on sharing.

We’ve shared deodorant. One peach
among six of us. Gelato samples.
One pair of pants for two of us.
A kitten between another two. Beds
among at least three of us. Car keys
daily. Each other’s cell phones as
necessary. Mom’s in the bathroom
right now! Mommmmmm!

Tinctures, solstice parties, crystals,
moss gathering, pumpkin carving,
wreath making. Too much Christmas
decorating. Dirty buckets of water.
Hot batches of dye. Risks on ladders.
Glue on our fingers. Hair in our mouths.
Smoothies in our teeth. Sun in our
eyes. Stuff on the cart. Shit in the car.

We’ve nerded out about aerial arts,
carpentry, poetry and power tools.
Holistic medicine, ayahuasca, smoking
weed and nursing kittens. Expressing
anal glands, home births, IRAs, small
business taxes and jumpsuits. Building
a bed in a RAV4, sustainable harvesting
from neighborhood yards, Latin names
for botanicals, and how to operate
a scissor lift.

We’ve gotten no sleep. And overslept.
We’ve synced our cycles and compared
notes on what our bodies do. We’ve asked
questions we’d always wanted the answers to.
And left it all up to a tiny unicorn tucked
in a secret garden.

One time, seven of us walked one dog.

One time, one of us burst out in tears
at lunch in front of everyone and
apologized. Let it out, the rest admonished.

Another time, one of us cried in the middle
of the room while prospective clients
toured the space. We made it look
like laughing.

One time, one of us started to tear up because
she was gaining weight. But, silly, she was
pregnant! We all glowed as aunties.

We’ve been married, broken up, rekindled,
new dates, hot hookups, tempestuous affairs
and tender allegiances. We’ve become mommas
and step-mommas, pet moms and garden witches.
We’ve bought houses, sold houses, rented houses
and built houses. We’ve moved out, moved in,
moved on and moved forward with our lives
that will never, ever, be just our own—
singular—lives again.

The hard part of driving a forklift
happens twenty-five feet in the air
when my left fork clips the wall of
a pallet, sliding its side off the rail.

                                                Thirty-six
                           cases of coffee beans
            now brewed into tense battle 
with gravity while while a gathering
of spectators stop to watch the show,
probable tragedy being written,
the least (or most) of which
the girl, my crush
is there.

                                              I freeze up
                          for any unintentional
          motion will challenge balance,
the teetering and the tottering, sigh,
how am I going to get out of this jam
without long holding up everybody
with the work they still 
need to do? Do I just
let it fall?

                                              Or maybe,
                         if right fork maintains
               its hold on that side, if I can       
manipulate machine, maneuvering
into the center of the pallet’s gravity
I can get enough support to gently
guide it all back into place.
Good move, someone
softly says.

My mind is still, blood ice cold, I
never had a doubt in my abilities.
Turning now a confident clockwise,
I square up and complete the save…
…

…

In moments, the load is securely down
when the next hardest part happens.
She drives by without a word or glance.
No twisting maneuver saves this fall.

After driving all day
I walk out between grave markers
and sigh among the fallen heroes.
I know no one here
knows who I am.
And then I hear it:
the crackling of fireworks,
the celebratory rockets in the sky,
someone somewhere having a blast,
and I explode. I finally explode.
No one I know
knows where I am.

As the skin falls off my muscles,
and the muscles off my bones
my hollow eyes will watch you walk away.

Eventually I will sink into the earth,
forgetting you, and me, and everyone.
But for now I’ll watch you go.