Posts for June 11, 2024 (page 8)

God, i missed eating peanut butter for lunch

i’ve cored and cut apples into eighths for more kids than

can count or be counted

coworker commented on my efficiency once

                              it’s strange the things you remember

                              but to be Witnessed is like a folktale

                              repeated and braided in your brain

                                        Let Me Show You Them

                              is what brother and sil call it

in childhood we called them

               Apple Boats

and there was

               Macaroni in the Neighborhood

for some reason

               Stuff on a Plate

is a new year’s classic with cheese and meats and crackers sure

but shrimp cocktail or whatever dad has in his many freezers too

                              in Mongolia

                              there was so little fresh fruit

                              just eight gallons of milk filling up the minifridge

                              and when i bought three apples

                              there was a worm in one of them

you can cut it into ninths through sixteenths if it’s too big

he does his makeup
in the corner
rose blush a facade
of the flush
from the night before
after our love-making

the light coming through
from the small window
overlooking the alley
breaks off the mirror
& beams across his foot
i want to kiss

i can’t kiss him now
lips rouged
put together
unlike me
scratched knees
& wrinkled shirt

i wonder how long this time will last
until he’s gone

A group of friends we are,
our hearts entwined
living and sharing our lives

Encouragement, scolding,
and lots of laughter as
we interact every day

We share heartbreak
success, jokes and
chunks of our hearts

I think we all survive each
others trials, because
together we are stronger

Friend is not really a strong
enough word, sisters works better
because we share love

Of each other and of
the one who created
each and every one of us

The key jump starts a voice in the seat next to mine
Let’s go for a drive
A remembered song idles from broken speakers
Keeping time with a forgotten blinker
Until the journey ends
And I get out alone

the moon still calls
like when i was a child
knees pulled up close to my chest
perched on the big windowsill in the quiet house
the only one awake in all the world

the moon still calls
even after so many years of not listening
when i mistook pixels for pixies
phone screens for faeries
scrolling for seeing

the moon still calls 
and i find ways to answer her again
chin cupped in my hands
gazing at her fullness
she’s not angry with me afterall
and my eyes are young again

Holding hope.
Breathing in, close arms.
Balancing heartbreak and time on a distant cabin floor.
We hid from the world to face our pain.

Time
stood
still.

Looking into your ocean blue
Eyes that wash over me.
I drowned, and
Knew I was yours.

Now. The Cyber Security class on the last
Monday of the Academic Year with mostly
freshman. 

The chapter of my life
        when lullabies and midnight cuddles
Diapers and vomit;
        when mothering was a verb more than noun.
Emerging from the fog of new mothering
        title in hand.

A couple crunches old arguments, harvesting words best left unsaid.

I awake one morning: a cartoon mule,
my new body cel-shaded
three monochrome colors–
a Pleasure Island reject–
but nobody bats an eye.

I keep a pair of glasses,
three missing teeth, a goaty beard
that is drawn into the shape of my new head,
the stubborn attitude that has plagued me
almost all my life.

My cartoon ears can hear
like a microphone. Watch them oscillate
like some sort of satellite, my cloven fumbling
for my cell phone, my lighter–
the daily rituals that tether me to form.

I clop against linoleum floors, a caricature 
framed in doubt again, doused in ink
and worry.

Outside the people walk
so freely with their human legs,
smooth skin, short teeth.

I reconcile my new penciled-in truth–
to lean into gray shadow,
this ragged shading.