Posts for June 4, 2025 (page 17)

Every time I get better, I get worse

Every time you’re gone, you come back

Dragging yourself out of the muck

A discarded nightmare come back to haunt me

Eager to wrap your hands around my throat

And hear the melody I scream, your name

Ripped out of my body, my dignity

A masochistic wheel spins in my brain

It replays only you

Like a hot iron to skin

I hear it crack and screech

Feeling the pain

Watching it shrivel

I’m so scared of so much

You coming back

You leaving again

You staying away

But more than anything

I’m scared you’ll never leave me

read me like an old love letter

what does deep silence look like?
how does it feel?
does it move or is it still?
does it impart an intoxicating essence?

deep breath in, fill belly, solar plexus, and chest
deep breath out, spine waves in a deflating balloon motion
sounds grow loud inside

eyes close, body still, legs crossed, back straight, 
attention draws inward
listening ~ deepens on the finest level of feeling
as mantra is introduced

can light be heard in the third eye center?

water slushes sounds so loud
as descending colon flows in a harmonic rhythm

frontal brain
heart brain
belly brain
align

breath flow shallows ~ as the sigh of a capped cry is released
thoughts fleet to an unanswered prayer
as distractions flood the mind and
loud busy thoughts swim by

Where is the mantra?

come back to the sound, the breath, the rhythm

inhale
exhale

the thought of a TM checker’s question comes to mind
asking, ‘it’s easy right?’

the mind flits from thought to thought
eventually lands back on the breath

breathe in . . . breathe out

only sound allowed ~ mantra 
mantra’s soul purpose
to calm mind chatter 
to deepen silence

soul’s silk weaving dances even in the midst of
this inner incessant chatter 

and in the deepest stillness
on the finest level of feeling
despite the barrage of thoughts
and blatant cacophy of distractions 
a faint sweet sound still prevails

OM
sweet
OM

Pandas are black and _____
“white”
I type in the virtual box
Suddenly,
I am
CAPTCHA-ed
by Algorithmic God

I am human
I have proof

I can check boxes
filled  with  buses

I can retype those
lava  lamp  letters

I don’t phish
I just wish… 

…   I could type how I felt the night
the woman who would be my wife
picked me up at a Cincinnati hotel

prayed at Plum Street Temple
then shared a chardonney
at a Hyde Park bar

sitting as conjoined twins
on a couch in  the  lounge
she   seamlessly  molding
her body   to mine in true
lava  lamp  letter  fashion

That can’t  fill  the  blank
Just answer the question

while thanking Algorithmic God
enthroned in the Cloud  on  high
that pandas are black and white 

I stole a sprite’s light-filled soul, and she became more opaque,
like a rogue black hole swallowing stars whole in her wake.
She leaves me breathless and cold, as my gaze she holds with one take, and I’m left here alone with a “heart of gold” I’m told to break.
And you’re just reacting, I know, out of control you inflate, tormenting me so in a disorienting show full of hate.
I thought we loved one another, but we no longer relate.

In the clouds I see my
parents and my sisters
and myself as we were
before they divorced,  

the TV not yet smashed
and my child self unaware
of Mom’s mental illness as
we all play a board game  

called The Ungame, but
the cloud dissipates, darkness
falls, and it’s like the moment
at the theater when the lights  

go out and an anticipatory
hush spreads across the darkness
and many years later, I’m still
fumbling for a light switch.

afterward, my breasts, digitized, scanned through,
x-rayed, inside out on the screen remind me of giant eyes.
she has pulled me me gesturing like she did while i stood
topless and barefoot with a heavy radioactive blocking skirt
wrapped around my waist, into the next room to show me,
saying, in English, Bee-U-ti-fullllll! and clapped me hard on the back.

I’ve thought them beautiful before, my love’s tongue
slowly tracing a nipple, or a hand gently cupping them.
when they hurt, stretched to fullness, and my baby’s mouth,
a tiny open circle of need pulled the ache out. I did’nt think
they were beautiful when i shoved them into not one but two
too-small-for-me sports bras, the technology not advanced enough
to keep them from bouncing.

I did not think they were beautiful when I felt shamed to wear a bra,
in denial they existed, my dad’s hand on my back in church, gently rubbing,
and me, not wantinghim to feel the band of a bra, not wanting to feel
that I’d grown up enough to need one. but I needed one. Pissed at mom
that one Christmas, thin dress, for the family photo, matching
with my baby cousins, me, the oldest nipples shining out.
I was twelve, and too big, too tall, already developed,

press them, pancaked, hide, cover, high neck, sinful, too voluptuous,
d, double d, pregnant, nursing, firm, not so firm, falling, soft, softer,
aching, stretched, useful, ancient, sprouting random hairs,
the only sustenance any of us needs, craved, not enough, shrunken,
chubbed up, smashed between two plastic trays for the first time
because now I’m forty one, clear, thank God, this year, and beautiful,
according to the Chinese aunty smashing them now, gently lifting
and placing them just so, to take a picture of duct and shadow,
seek out what might be hiding there to kill me, even though these breasts
have given life, fed and been loved, been looked at, gawked at,
groped in an alleyway by a boy I didn’t like but still wanted to kiss,
they’ve been with me my whole life, seeing them now with this woman
beside me, yes they are beautiful, thank you.