Posts for June 27, 2023 (page 3)

Why
do you think parenting
is a competition
you lost before you started
simply because you think it is
people that are good at something
just do
they don’t think about it
they are
natural
they don’t consider their partner
a competitor
because they are not
they leave them to blunder
in another failed attempt
to curry favor
It doesn’t work like that
That’s it 
it’s not work
it’s art
the art of love
unconditional
to love someone
more than yourself
not many can
but most mother’s do

I want to find a place
I can hide out on rainy afternoons,
before rush hour clogs arteries,
all meat and potatoes.
A place to watch the river,
hear the rain slap leaves
until rivulets run like blood
from the sacrificial lambs.
Where ozone stings my nose
with each lightning strike.
I can taste the air, like words
on the tip of my tongue
never quite fully formed.
A place I can sneak out of
and no one will notice,
and I can wander home
like nothing has changed at all.

I.

When the princess

finally realized

she had always

had the key,

lo those many years

gone and wasted,

her heart grew hard

and she never loved again.

II.

The princess realized

with relief

that she actually

had the key

to her own tower.

Happily, she unlocked it,

skipped all the way to town,

and married the first man

who could make her laugh.

III.

The princess’s whole world

was a keyhole

she would often look through

to see the outside world,

all of the windows being too tall.

But it never occurred to her

to look for a key.

Glowing sunlight peaks through the dark green of the trees,
I’m staring at it, but it’s staring past me.
The light’s never looking at any particular thing.
All the glow does is glow every evening.
I see its reflection in the window through which I pear.
I watch the light fade into the rest of the world, until the sun disappears.

to be alright
while at the same time
being quite the opposite
is a contradiction
yet also the truth
I am currently in the state near denial
not wanting to admit, face up to
the fact that perhaps I am going about this entirely
wrong
not knowing though, where to turn, I encourage myself to take a break
don’t dwell on it tonight
leave it
let it go, and then I chuckle
because how does one, simply release
all the while, striving for success and tomorrow’s plans

I want love like sweet, sugar floss bleach hair. Like watching the multicolor soap hit the windows of your car. I want love like being saved from a bathtub overdose and I want love like seeing doubles of each other.

When you’re like me, you idealize movies like Candy. You fall in love with the idea of being the coolest people in McDonald’s. You fall in love with the idea that no matter how truly fucked you are, someone might be fucked too. Someone might be even more fucked than you. Someone might indulge in the self-indulgency of your bad poetry. That someone might be the Dan to your Candy. That someone might carry your heart. Carry your heart in theirs. That you might find that secret glue that holds all things together in a perfect place. That one day, the noise will not intrude. That your world will one day be so very complete.

There’s always something something something
That walk down the street when you realize your
Only child
Doesn’t have neighborhood kids to play with
And coming back to a basement with a leak
You don’t know how to fix
And thinking about that degree you still want 
But never got
And clothes that don’t fit right because you’ve gained weight
Or because you’re on your period
And you hate every hair and inch
And mirrors are like magnets
Repelling you
And sure you see the wildflowers
And the golden wash of sunlight as the day ends
And sleeping cats melting into windowsills
And the moon as it curves pale in the sky
But how do you wrench your brain
A 90 degree burning turn onto a new track
When those something something somethings 
Are like sticky tacky tar
Melting in summer hot sun
When you can’t pull your sneaker free 
And the smell follows you all the way home

After ten hours and more
than a thousand years, I stand
on this rocky shore.

Once the world ended here,
where Saint Columba landed,
seeking a new world. 

To the north, nothing but ice.
West, only cold and Canada.
South, forsaken Ireland

with its saints and stories,
music and lush greens.
Here, endless wind

and damp and cold. The ferry
that stitches the strait to Mull
and back many times each day. 

I walk the isle’s empty roads,
gather green and striped smooth 
stones in its coves. Sit in its

abbey to feel the silence. As I
lean into ceaseless wind, my heart
slows to the rhythm of home. 

tenderly, but don’t cry—-
this isn’t about you, you are not
breaking your own heart

care for it, bandage the pieces,
ask it if it wants a kiss, if it wants to be left alone,
if it still wants your company (in which you must love it more than ever)

remember that the heart has autonomy,
but never ever tell it that it’ll be whole again,
that it’ll love again

because a wounded heart can do nothing but ache,
must ache, can’t imagine anything but pain,
& you don’t know what you’re saying anyway

for you’ve already found love & kept your heart whole