Posts for June 12, 2025 (page 6)

I wish I lived in the apartment upstairs,
the one with pounding feet
and shrieking voices
and life that leaks out the windows,
seeps through the floorboards,
and drips onto me just below where I lie on my bed
and imagine the scene on the other side of the ceiling.

The apartment upstairs is singing
as another droplet makes its way down,
dropping onto my nose before trailing down my cheek
like a tear.
Chinese Water Torture,
I remember,
and I wonder if I stayed here forever,
how long it would take for the drips to drive me
insane.

My apartment is quiet and cold,
the floors so frigid this time of year
that you can’t walk around barefoot.
I choose to not walk around at all,
because there’s nowhere to go,
and I know that somehow,
even in just 1100 square feet
and four rooms that I know like
the back of my hand,
I’d get lost.

I once lived in the apartment upstairs.
Now I’ve fallen down,
landed on my back,
too wounded to climb back up.

I wish I lived in the apartment upstairs.
The lights in the windows are on,
and I can hear music playing—words to a song I forgot long ago,
but can still hum the melody to
now and then.
Silhouettes move behind the curtains,
fuzzy and out of reach
no matter how hard I stretch.

I’ve lost my keys
and the spare isn’t under the mat,
and the doorbell doesn’t work,
and no one hears no matter
how hard I knock.

At some point, I must have moved out
without realizing,
and no one ever stopped me.

So I remain down below,the drips from above
the closest I’ll ever get to that feeling
again.

The everyday violence of creation
is contained like
the message in a bottle,
within these knitting needles.
Stab, strangle, 
spin the yarn into something new. 

She learned to knit beside me
casting new loops
turning new tales
making new promises to break.
Swearing like a sailor 
with tears she did not cause
interwoven into our work. 

It was with that casual violence
that I was cast off.
Casually, like I wasn’t a project, but a chore.
Not something she chose to make
just something assigned
that you abandon after the due date.

I stick out like I
am wearing swim trunks to a
homophobe’s wedding.

What’s the costume of the day?
this is a phrase I used to say

Boas & Sparkles & Bangles & Flair
such fun to don, don’t need a dare

It’s EZ to look like the other gals ~ same necklace, same hair length, same frosting,
same shadow ~ same kinda shallow hallow kowtow

No chance for a glance in this boring stance

Instead it’s fun to boa, glitter and fur
to match, to clash, to splash, to purr

It’s not an intention to stand out from the crowd
It’s wearable art livin’ bold out loud!

My Tiger Fur Coat ~ stockings that shimmer,
My Red Frye Boots ~ Johnny Lennon blue glasses that dimmer,
My Beatnik Beret ~ fellow beats say hey!
My Red Leather Pants ~ my 101 pounds of fun ~ my South Pacific Honey Bun!

My puppy sticks her whole
face in the water and blows bubbles
over and over

after our walk around the loop trail
ending in the creek
where we stand in the shade of

hemlocks who are dying from
damage caused by the woolly adelgid,
but Maple doesn’t know that

isn’t aware of catastrophe or worried
for our fate in these coming days.
She just knows how good it feels to

stick her head in the current and let
water wash her senses with joy.

Awesome.
What better word
to describe the entirety of
what is surrounded by ancient shimmer.
Resting under those frozen fireflies,
I needed to feel something steady
while everything in me feels so uncertain.

It’s quiet up there.
Ordered.
Beautiful.
Every light, anchored by purpose.
I sit in wonder—
What if those silent sparks
are setting an example?

I’ve given so much to this music.
Poured out my heart in chords and choruses
that haven’t broken free.
Sometimes I wonder if my voice
was meant to echo—
or if it’s just been drifting
through a world too loud to care.

I look at the years I’ve lived
and feel like I should be more.
Like I’ve missed something.
Like I’m standing still
while time runs ahead,
mocking me with every calendar page I tear away.

It’s at my lowest
that I fix my eyes highest.
The universe preaches to me
without a single word.

It’s just Awesome!  

Everything so flawlessly arranged.
So precisely positioned.
Not by chance or accident.

Jupiter—
a silent guardian of Earth,
its massive gravity pulling in comets,
shielding us
without ever asking for thanks.

The moon—
locked in perfect rhythm with our tides,
whispering its quiet influence
on every crashing wave.

And Earth—
spinning at just the right speed,
tilted at just the right angle,
placed not too close,
not too far
from a star that burns with enough mercy
to warm our skin without burning us alive.

None of it random.
None of it rushed.
Every force in balance,
every orbit obeyed.

I wonder—
what if my delays
aren’t disasters?
What if the ache I feel
is gravity—
pulling me into alignment
with a purpose I can’t yet see?

The stars are awesome.
Yet, I am more so.
I say that not with arrogance,
but humility.
I am made in the image of God.
As are those who read this.
The stars can’t claim that.

Maybe the God who spoke all this into being
knows what He’s doing with me too.
With all of us.
Maybe the silence isn’t absence—
it’s patience.
Maybe the emptiness I feel
is room being cleared
for something sacred.

I will keep playing,
even if the room is quiet.
Keep creating,
even when doubt tightens its grip.
Somewhere beyond this moment,
there may be more for me—
not despite where I am,
but because of it.

I am not lost.
Just waiting for the right orbit.
Just learning to trust—
Everything in the universe
is perfectly placed.
It is awesome to know
that I am too.

After Becky Boling’s “Melt”  

The quilt my grandmother made
was not for me, or summer.
I never held it in my arms,
nor hung it on a wall, like art.
Too thin to swoon cold,
but all her breath could give. 
My grandmother’s eyes closed,
though Mother said she couldn’t
let her go.      

Did Mother stretch into the quilt
on cool nights, searching for warmth? 
In the note pinned to it,
my grandmother said that cold
had risen in her blood, an icy rainbow
pieced of scraps, she needed
drips of hot beauty.   

These notes my tongue
can sing.

an ekphrastic from a photo, Granddaddy and Q, by Mia LeNoir, 3.30.25

Your grandson’s cherub face, lit up in a grin—
as he turns your grown-up wrench, tightens a joint
on a 2 x 4. You, knelt behind, push up glasses
he’ll surely wear one day. He wears your
beige canvas work apron well, wound twice
around his small frame. Both of you in jeans
and khaki shirts blend together, against a green future.

Your toolbox, open nearby, spills out love and time
and heritage. His toolbox, smaller, but just as full.

He turns the wrench again and again,
throughout the day,
tightens the hold on your heart.

she finds the middle of me 
            parting my hair into an even
two. the white line of my skull defining
            as she pulls each long blonde strand
aside. we joke about an old friend’s 
            past while her soft pearly fingers
twist against my heavy head. not even 
             my mother knew how to braid. only
ballerina buns, pulled tight, straining skin 
            with bobby pins, an old script 

useless in holding any wildness back. though
            with her, there is always play anchored in
our bellies, laughing together since we were 
            eighteen. so i sit cross-legged like a child
wanting love although it is so freely given. she smiles
           says, “sure, anytime”. i pass her the hair tie
this time and another time,  time and time again.