lord of flies; lord of june’s sun
it comes back around
it comes back around
each year back around
tired eyes tell tired lies
all else will end in the ground
it comes back around
The persistent itch of undone to-dos
And stray musings
Jiggle the Jell-O of my half-conscious mind.
Deep
Steady
Breaths,
Limbs comfortably heavy
Around fluffy softness,
Comfort from the barest edge of a comforter
Wadded and tossed back for heat relief.
Relaxed, calm
But
Ir-rested.
Eyes, now open,
Resign to blurs of extreme myopia
Corrected, brought upright
To pour and drink a little release
From the word well
Then return,
Free to seek sleep once more.
I’m obsessed with loving
your music
With engraving
lyrics until my old violin
fingers
can recall the strings
The difference in f sharp
and f flat is only subtle when
it’s been six years
A pile of rotting peaches sit in the fridge, playing sticks with a chocolate Easter bunny with its ears bitten off (it’s June). Unsalvagably brown bananas sit in the freezer, tallying the days on the wall that it’s been since I put them there with the intent of making banana bread to mask their bruises. Condiments crammed in the door like sardines in a can get sentimental and reassure each other that they’ll never go bad- at least in each other’s hearts. Maybe not in each other’s noses.
My memory of you sits moldering in my camera roll and a thousand playlists, stuck in time and replaying like a TV show I watch again and again for the comfort of it. I don’t find much comfort in it. My mind and my body live in the filth of it like white noise in the background. Nostalgia kills, a slow death.
Poeming
still remains a vain pursuit
30 minutes ’til midnight
the rain playing percussion on my roof
These are the only lines that
come to mind
They rhyme (hooray for me)
But my muse stays clogged
like the drain outside
my basement door
So I sit like an idiot
waiting for my basement to flood
If only the poems would do the same
Frida,
your Coit Tower apartment hangs on the edge of a North Beach cliff, teetering on
stilts. I want to walk from my favorite haunt, up Grant and stand in your uncompromising brilliance. Feel your lingering aura, your magic, your tenacity, your enduring restrained pain.
Diego sewed a deep thread & knotted an indelible infinity sign on your soul. A taboo tattoo, your sister his lover.
Intrigue wraps around your stiff countenance like a crown of thorns. I hope the exit was joyful. I agree with you, “nothing is more precious than laughter.”
And yes, I am convinced you will never have to return after your multi-color exit when they lit your cremation match.
Will they…
choose to take a chance?
run hands through hair?
share earbuds?
agave in lemon
learn the truth?
break each others hearts?
Won’t they…
end it before it really begins?
let the banter turn bitter?
do that, all take no give, thing?
sour watermelon, freeze-dried
keep up the deceit?
never give enough of their hearts to be broken?
I didn’t think
I’d write a poem today,
but then I heard the frogs hollering
outside my window while I lay here
trying to fall asleep.
So many echoes of longing
stretched across the yard.
I wish my own desires could
sound so beautiful
as I speak them to the night.
“Damn girl, you sure are BIG”
“Damn girl, you done BLEW UP!”
“What happened to you? You used to be thick!”
Comments like these, however harmless they may intend or pretend to be, are used as darts to pierce my soul and keep my self-esteem low.
But, really and truly, I feel sorry for you.
I’m intelligent, talented, funny and pretty… I thought you KNEW.
and appreciated…
and respected…
my love, friendship and companionship.
I never knew you were too shallow to see
that my real beauty is not on the outside, but INSIDE of me…what a pity for you.
