You had all night,
all day to write.
Then excuses,
distractions.
All held no water,
impervious.
So that isn’t why.
And you know as much.
You’re putting it off.
And why did you?
There’s something to write
that’s terrifying;
out of reach, slipping
the fingers, hands,
even your mind,
like falling rain
which won’t remain.
They took my dna
Swabbed my mouth / Saliva extraction / Stuck it in a tube
Grosser than it sounds
Shipped it off to examine / Determine if it’s sound / What happens next?
I don’t know.
But I’m the crazy one / If I question those white coats / With their microscopes And sharpened scalpels
Frankenstein
Didn’t come from thin air / What if they’re building / another me as we speak?Mutated and horribly distorted
Stored my spit / Just for their library of clones / Or AI shenanigans / It’s all happening too fast / Can’t comprehend the next invention
Who knows what they’ll do with my dna / maybe they’ll just throw it away / Then I won’t have to worry / But, for now, I’ll close just my eyes
And turn over for the night
Once upon a time, I had a brother
He’s the only real one that I’ve known
Once upon a time, I had a sibling
He received the only real love that I’ve shown
It wasn’t a lot, it wasn’t enough
I never made him feel not alone
I bailed out when things got tough
And I never looked back to my home
Once upon a time, I left my home
I left everyone I knew behind
Once upon a time, I left him too
And he never forgave me with time
I regret what I’ve lost,
I regret we haven’t grown,
I regret we can’t be
The family we’ve never known
I hope you know joy,
I hope you know hope,
I hope you know I love you,
Though my decisions were a joke.
We were 50’s latch-key kids, confined
to the house after school, sustained
on Mallomars, Ritz and Velveeta,
Howdy Doody and the Mickey Mouse Club.
Hungry for adventure, we claimed
a New World on the path to school, christened
it Spooky Driveway, our secret forest
of dense weeds, junk trees, mysterious sounds,
and at the dead end, a dark and thorny thicket
of scrapped furniture and broken bottles.
We would imagine animals or intruders,
hoot and shriek and spook each other
as best we could, run out breathing hard
into our safe post-war neighborhood.
Lessons on growing up female ended
these jaunts. Lessons that conjured
kidnappers and rapists behind every tree,
in every dark place. We thought we had a handle
til the subway ride when the penis in the parted
trenchcoat set us running and screaming like kids.
What do I wish?
I wish for the plot
to be rewritten so that
it has a happy ending.
But I do not hold the stylus
or clutch the chisel.
I am the female lead
destined to live the story
and its tragic arc
just the way it was scratched
on cosmic paper and
etched in stone long
before I knew him.
To the thief who picked my pocket in Baden Baden:
A thousand curses be upon you. Prickley
pains in your feet and fingers
that stick together, may you not walk
or eat for a week.
May you hear constant echoes
of music you hate, late Stravinsky or Mahler
perhaps, portending your demise.
May bugs fly in your eye
every time you go outside
for the rest of the summer.
Dear —,
I hope this finds you well
Though I know that’s unlikely.
By the time this reaches you, I may finally be old enough
That you’ll think I’m an adult,
And you may at last be able to understand
Why everything happened the way it did.
You’ll be at a new house with new people
Who will love you as long as they can,
And it will inevitably become too much,
And you’ll have to start over again.
You’ll have lived a life of people calling you
Too much or not enough,
And I can’t say that they’re wrong
Because I never had enough love for you either.
I would say I’m sorry, but I was raised that
“I’m sorry” means it won’t happen again,
And if I had to do it a second time,
I wouldn’t be able to love you any more than the first.
I do wish you well, though.
I hope you learn to not hate even though you’re hurt.
I hope you let kindness smooth the jaggedness of your pain,
So that you can be all of yourself without cutting someone else.
And I hope you find your way to happiness-
Not the fleeting kind you’ve always sought
Like it’s a drug providing a temporary relief
Before leaving you gasping for more-
But the tough kind that shows what you’ve survived,
A light that glows in the darkest nights,
To guide you to the life you never thought you deserved.
I suspect I can’t be part of that life
Or its happiness,
So, this is goodbye.
Best of luck,
—
