Posts for June 6, 2025 (page 7)

An hour left to my shift at the store
and flanked by empty boxes on the floor,
I am startled by the appearance of a young woman
pulling her stroller to a stop beside me.

In a mad dash back from droning deep thoughts
I immediately fumble competency with a Midwestern ‘ope!’
followed by a stuttering attempt at understanding 
the goal of this common interaction.
Is the customer having trouble finding something?
Is she trying to shop the wall behind me?
Or is she just trying to politely squeeze by?

Then, almost as immediate,
a slightly more reflexive shift
in thinking.
She’s actually kind of cute,
has a really pretty smile;
do I dare a glance for a ring?
There’s nothing on her fing–

Thmp!

The daughter
pelts me in the gut
with the last bite
of her banana.

You’re right! I’m sorry!
Boss has spoken! Mom just
caught me off guard and
even the best of us slip up sometimes.

The shocked mother sharply inhales,
gently coos we don’t do that! It’s not very nice!
then to me, laughing nervously, she offers her apology.

I laugh with her
                (did she even notice the dipping of my eyesight?)
offer an empty box for the discarded morsel
                (she’s probably caught and still catches so much worse)
then she carries on with her day
                (I’m not even sure if what I did could be considered wrong
                 but I try, all days and always, to stay conscientious.)

As for the little girl in her stroller,
yet unaware of the centuries old back-and-forth
she just threw her first punch in,
her widened eyes never once stray away from me.
I hope when she’s older
she’ll still have that fire,
wielding it sharp and graceful
for when the threats are real.

To live is to dance, was Darcie’s great passion
Life pulsing through her in graceful fashion
Quietly luminous bohemian beauty
Gentle, soft-spoken, audacious and gutsy

Piscean artist: burning fiercely as flames
Her supple dancing dynamic range
Hard work, talent, dance study age seven
Budding career seemed ever certain

We met in third grade became true friends
Otherworldly girl: time knows no end
Caught up in our imaginary world
‘Twas more real to us than here and now

Me: moved in and out of Sacramento
She: arts high school in San Francisco
Our dance evolving with ebb and flow
Attuned as one, yet we dance alone

Darcie’s rising star Julliard bound
Encouraged and mentored by Trisha Brown
Traveled back east to finalize her plans
One last trip before fruition’s dance

Her cherished dreams were not to be
Traffic accident in NYC
Three weeks ‘fore her 19th birthday
Across rainbow bridge she danced away

To live is to dance, was Darcie’s great passion
Life pulsing through her in graceful fashion
Quietly luminous bohemian beauty
Gentle, soft-spoken, audacious and gutsy

You were fully alive and always will be

Scrub, dunk, rinse, repeat.
Scrub, dunk, rinse, repeat.
A mundane task embedded in the depths of our souls.
Scrub the body, dunk it in the cleansing waters, rinse to purify,
repeat when the world stains you, or you blacken yourself
with your senseless sin. Tradition as old as the dawn of time.
Humanity induces messiness in its drive for perfection
on its surroundings and on itself. Clean up, try again, a cyclical cycle.
Yet, when the cycle is forgotten and the cleansing never starts,
how long until the dishes pile up?
How long until it overflows?
How long until it falls apart?
Rinse and repeat.
Rinse and repeat.
Rinse and repeat.
They continue, because who has time to care about the world’s state
or one more dirty plate?

They’ve been left in the rocky desert,

trafficked for their young usefulness,

used to the point of uselessness,

turned into examples, then abandoned.

A sense of mercy would have lain them

with respect, instead of shouldered

and thrown to become leathered bones.

Stolen lives, taken by money and lies,

now valued only by their grievers.

(after the 2019 photograph, “Endangered 8,” by Tamara Dean)

i’m a stitch away from
            soft         implosion 
think i like        her cause
her cheeks are slick & cherried
think she’s    angel twin
    too my first girllove
first middle school
                best friend     turned  
maladaptive daydream
    we stole beers from her mom’s
garage fridge         inside her hot home
in zebulon                 we sat under moonlight
                                some nights as she smoked
cigarettes she took from her mother
without her noticing                         & then she
                got swept away with the wind of life
& ran from me                 on deer legs kicking
up all these feelings in me
                            & now i see her face in my ex
boyfriend’s new girl & it troubles me
                something deep             how twin
they seem                         blue eyes
hair flaxen blonde             cigarette fiend with
the same taste in heavy music             & aura
        is it bad i want her to notice me sweet?
        is it bad i wanna save her from my ex’s
 small boney hands & self deprecating narcissism
                            wanna tell her she can’t love that        boy
cause he doesn’t believe in loving himself
                            wanna tell her he’ll probably leave her out
to dry like roadkill                             but something tells me
she might already know                   my existence & the soft
rage in my belly      from his sharp teeth   biting micro agressions
         into me           the wounds haven’t healed yet but                   
i think my blood is stained permanently on his teeth         &
i like to think she must love the taste of me on him             &&&&&
i             hope she dreams of me inside his eyes 

Wetsuit diver on the edge
plunging backwards.
A vein slit vertical.
Cold water. Cold water.
Sink into that deep unknown.
The jettison motor aborts
launch escape systems.
Spiraling, spiraling, fast.
There is no more fuel,
just the big black forever.
Space. No breathing room.
No need to pump gallons.
Get rid of them, become light.
Like a gun flashed to the cops,
and the magazine falls,
there is no come back.
Slip past the precipice.
Cross a point of no return.
Cold water. Cold water.
From such great heights
a plummet is more beautiful,
a little slower, a little more
to ponder. Spiraling, fast.
But not too long. Quick enough
to be convicted. To be sure.
A heavy hand goes weightless
with the freedom of abandon,
purity of decision, descent.

Wonder if I struggled to recognize
the feeling this time because 
it’s so mellow, not a raging flame
that threatens to take me out; 
it’s more fluid, a trickle 
of barely molten ash that keeps
zigging and zagging along my path, 
tracing its way to a steady stream
of flowing water I’ve been waiting 
to drink my entire life.

Passion is powerful and all-consuming.
Deep love is wonderful and abiding.

But alone these are insufficient.

Should you try to pretend otherwise, you will fall.
You will fall into years of quiet heartache.

Months where you try to exhaust yourself before bed,
staying up later,
                            and later,
distracting yourself
        in every waking moment,
terrified of what you will face
    alone,
        in the dark,
            with your thoughts.

       Because you know.

    You know the truth.

Deep inside you,
you know the truth:

Being in love is not enough.

In the morning haze 
the guilt looms over me

“Except when to do so would cause further harm”
Contemplating these words 
Long after sleep should have come

what was done, a list
-lying in order to control perception of others
-over reliance on others to regulate emotions
-obsessive behavior 
-attempts to hold onto relationships after it was made clear not to

it’s been almost half a decade
would contact cause more harm
have these transgressions washed away

Saw you at a bar 
Know you saw me
wanted to say something 
but fear overtook me

Let me peel my skin off, Just to make you happy