I am a fire exit pulled,
all flashing lights and blaring alarm.
I am a smoke detector
with its batteries run low.
A continual chirp.
A baby bird pleading,
“Are you my mother?”
There is no blessed virgin,
no circle of trusted disciples
awaiting return from the tomb.
The rescue team
missed the final flare.
Clung to an empty life raft,
all that’s left-
drowning or not-
is me,
myself,
and time.
The churches are filled with hypocrites
Everything they are is against what they believe
What they built their lives on
Love is what makes us human
And yet they believe that I’m going to hell
All of their conversations are meaningless
We can talk about politics and history
But the wheel continues to turn
They’ll never do something to stop it
In fact, they are who keeps it turning
They flirt with the line of unacceptable
Going just up to the edge of it
Then retreating to ease their conscious
They justify their choices
And condemn my identity
They yell to debate the nuances of theology
And shut their mouths when lives are on the line
Silence is violence, even from the saved
I have tried to create a timeline,
In order to review my life.
Every time I start, I am reminded of
Events I do not wish to relive.
Each chapter seems interrupted
With some unpleasant experience.
Editing out the unpleasantries
Would change the main character.
I would like to meet the hero
Of my story. I need to give her credit.
KW
6/3/25
INTERIOR, living room.
(The ‘Dawn Chorus’ sings.
A mom-bun stands before the screen door.)
One must rest on top of curiosity-
What would it be like to live behind department store windows, dressed for some seasonal beckoning, the design washing our complexions with technicolor wishlists?
Consider the wildness for a moment. How many of your friends and my neighbors might visit daily, popcorn in hand, waiting for the next showing of our daily complexities? Ready to laugh when the boiling plot overflows. Shaking a raised fist at moral inconsistencies or differing absolutism in our display.
-What a party, yes?-
Dear architect, I require large planters filled with artificial ferns and climbing sunflowers to cover the unfinished rawness of my vulnerability…or, one giant Americana wreath with an old blue Chevy in the center.
-What hootenanny potential, yes? –
Sometimes I want to find a pile of yesterday mornings and try on each memory quickly, as if I’m almost late for work. I also want to lie leisurely among the laughter I remember but no longer hear. If I am being honest with you, I want to be tickled by humor’s roaming vines while the morning sun bakes me clean.
I’m afraid I’m not
much use to the world.
A doe hops a fence
like it’s nothing.
I hop clover
and giggle at puns.
My heart is outside my body today.
It’s outside and it won’t come home to me.
Used to strum a ukelele, my heart
was just inside and it was out of tune.
I was not scared enough back then, now it
runs away, pulls out of my one-armed hug.
My heart hides its face in case someone is
watching. My heart won’t look me in the eye.
My heart is outside in the blistering
heat. There is dust coating both of its cheeks.
It used to to body slam me, used to roar.
My heart is outside, and it won’t come
home.
Every novel published this year was a tour-de-force! Even the thrillers, which were filled with such surprising twists and turns that I couldn’t guess the ending, even the second time around. Clickbait, conveniently found at the bottom of virtually every web page, conveyed such jaw-dropping information that journalists reported outbreaks of TMJ in more states than the measles (not awesome), but dentists encountered a record-breaking year in taxable income. So many patients selected Botox treatment for pain relief that much of our population now appear as ageless as aging celebrities. Demi Moore, for example. Educated shopping has never been easier. By focusing my shopping dollars on must haves, I now project the affluence of Mr. and Mrs. Jones and their French Bull Dog Dixie. Everything in my closet brings my joy.
The wind howls blowing whistles from the cracks
While the storm windows bang
Mother’s chimes, oft never heard. are sounding…. taking me back….
The leaves cowl dropping like bells that may once have rang
Father’s words, known from my founding
taking me back…..
to the place I called home for a while
Sassie
My mind an attic of cobwebs and broken glass
Bones creak like wooden flooring beneath a footstep
My heart simply a boarded window after being vandalized one, two, three times too many.
Why do I keep letting them in?
Is it because the front door of this haunted house does not lock?
Or is it that the walls of this place are hopeful that this one will appreciate the artistry upon them?
After all, this house was once a home.
Decorated and filled with light and laughter.
But everyone leaves.
People die.
Kids grow up.
Lovers walk away.
They leave behind things like toys
Memories.
Houses.
I am the home that was abandoned.
In their lifetime, I was good enough.
I was good enough to plant laughter within.
I was good enough to see love grow.
The front door locked
And these walls did not beg for love because it was already surrounded by it.
But everyone leaves.
So here I stand with nothing left in me
A haunted house
Empty
Cold
Forgotten
Abandoned
My head hollow and walls begging for love.
As they move on and press forward in their lives,
May they never forget the girl who loved like home.
from little prayer by Danez Smith
every day we choose to let be or
not
many choose violence or
destruction
some choose healing
enough
choose to let ruin end here
