Posts for June 5, 2024 (page 15)

half caf
half-awake
half-dead
to

a

world

I
painted

so small….

Ahemudjdjfjjde blah……

There’s a tickle in my throat

It wants me cynical

but

I’d rather:

quit the caffinated lie, yes

Giddy on cynicism
was small….

Pompous me
Pompous and giddy….

I do love my coffee

I’ll take it cynicism free
17.5 and pressed as 
pressed as this scar tissue can press

Life is Pain au Chocolat

I’m fifty, feeling days shrink like microwaved
wrap, and I cry at the sight of young women
with emotional support dogs. My daughter
says her mother betrays me—I remind her she
cares for her, she’s a good one. I’m fifty—wondering
at why this tiny feeling for truth swallows me whole.

I rejected slow motion treatments for cancer today,
and wrote this folded letter to say goodbye to you.
The Tudor Rose has ten petals—one falls to signify
where Doc stopped the chemo—and there began
a beautiful game of dominoes. I beg you

fill me with real, abiding unhappiness please,
whether the sky is blue, green by sea, or ash;
please fill me with the giddiest mouthfuls, 
nothing makes joy sweeter than this:
that everything, everywhere 
tastes like you—

where dark chocolate pastries bite bitterest  
when I’m alone, to become sentimental confections 
when you smile—and it scares me so, more than dying,
when there’s a bread shortage from your bakery.
How long will I sound for your body 
and howl like a dog?

I am a torch in the twilight sky, 
a glowing orb that illuminates
sacred windows as you offer
evening prayers.  I reign
over the constellations as
queen of the cosmos.  Cassiopeia
ceases to adorn a diadem. 
Yet, I remain a sphere of silence,
quietly saturating the sleeping world
as the minutes of my soverignty
diminish.  The feverish world pushes
me aside, but I am coveted
by the exhausted multitude.
Shall I shine a bit longer?
  

11 hours:

Oh! My boy Henry. He’s gone and got his axe again.
He swears he’s just off to fetch the paper.
Doesn’t he know his mother will weep?
And to what ails Henry? 
Red chopped timber,
all over Mary’s white lace.

You may have been taught
you cannot say No

or at least that your No
requires apology or excuse. 

I’m here to tell you
your No is your power. 

Don’t explain. Don’t let
anyone take it from you. 

“Everything happens for a reason”
is what you tell yourself
when there’s nothing else to say.

One morning
you burn your toast
and trip out the front door
and miss the train just as it leaves the station
but it’s okay 
because there’s a reason.

Maybe you’ll see reports later today
that the train you just missed
ended up crashing
and you’ll think
“that’s why,
that’s the reason.”

(The train does not crash.
but there must be a good reason.)

You watch people and places and chances,
far too many of each,
filter through your fingers–
sand in an hourglass with no bottom.
Everything slips away,
but that’s just what happens,
and there’s got to be a reason.

You watch the world burn
in more ways than one
while other people watch the same thing
and turn a blind eye
and there can’t possibly be a reason
for any of this
but it’s happening
so there
has to be.

You clutch the bathroom counter
hard enough that it should crack
just like your mind
as you repeat the mantra

“Everything happens for a reason.

Everything
happens for a reason.

Everything
happens
for a reason.

Everything
happens
for
a reason.

Everything.
happens.
for.
a.

reason.

So many things have happened
and maybe one day
you’ll know the reasons.

but if you dont–

then there must be
a reason for that
too?