Is that deep ache
Afternoon glow percolates gauzy leaves, limning my stroll with gold.
As I walk in simmering heat, I wonder at the sun’s largesse. Sunlight could frolic
all day above green canopies, never having to touch soiled
earth or trip over uneven sidewalks, yet she bounces between boughs to scatter ultraviolet
starlight across my cheeks, resolute in her generosity. She will
dive into writhing oceans, wobble across muddy
puddles, seep through drawn curtains, peek through storm
clouds if only for an passing smile or an upturned eye. Gifting
her light to each of us, she offers a brilliant joy we can’t help but share.
I forget if it was Tennessee Williams
or F. Scott Fitzgerald
who was crying in the cab
(or was it a limo?)
after their first big success,
feeling they’d never surpass it.
I think about
my fear of success
and my fear
of being seen
and how they have stopped me
from taking myself seriously
as a writer,
from ever trying to publish
or even finish anything
significant.
Because then someone might actually
read it.
Not someone.
Everyone.
And God knows
how important
the opinions
of everyone
I’ve ever known
are,
especially
old classmates
or people I knew from church
who haven’t been in my life
for years.
I put so much pressure
on my writing
to save me,
placing all of my self esteem
in some future success,
some novel
or play
or screenplay
that will
make me famous
and rich
enough
to quit the family business
and therefore
free.
It’s cruel
what I put myself through.
The older I get,
the less time I have,
the more behind I feel,
the bigger a hit
my first published work has to be,
literally life-changing.
Which is worse:
a success too early in life
or too late?
10: Tears of the Kingdom (Nintendo)
i don’t own a Switch and
(some of us grew up on off-brand coupons
and never grew out of them even as our
wallets have grown wider
so content ourselves with what falls cheaply
into our ginger mitts
the way my cat prefers
bottle caps and castoff cough drop
to the fancy string toys on offer)
(the day my brother and i got an N64 is an etching
worn softer than any Christmas in my mind)
(the first time i held an Xbox controller was in the
back of your dad’s house behind the oscar fish
my fingers straining just to keep the thing in my grip)
you
for one are so far away that the hallways and the walls between us
have grown so much wider
it’s bridges and routes and cities i must surmount
just to sit and watch you
(i remember how you hid the disc when i inched too close to catching you up, and i knew you so completely, so everything yet could comprehend you about as well as i could when we were seven and you hurt my feelings for the day) (and another time when you watched me playing though i don’t even remember if you backseat drove the whole ordeal or were hone-focus quiet as i was until the boss was dead, just that you huddled over the screen and my hands the way my own eyes did) (or when we very small, glitter-eyed at songs and swords and shiny rocks)
on a couch where your husband nervously suggests i must
be bored
come all this way to do nothing
come on now how can you say that this is nothing?
Consistent and sturdy. Non-judging and silent.
Existing solely for the purpose
to uphold and maintain.
Because I don’t need protection,
from childhood’s stalking
at my heels.
Never again, every
park jaunt where the lake becomes
a pool of red, honoring
the sunset’s
violent suggestions.
Never again, every
grocery store day checking the back
of knives and cereal boxes,
mirror images
writhing in my periphery
where wicked things gather
in the back of a blue eye,
bleached as sunlight.
I’ll turn my head and the blood will drain
from the photograph in my hand,
Never again, every
version of myself will close their hearts,
like a wound, crystallize untouched
new skin
new ways to live.
One day
I’ll keep these horrid thoughts out.
One day I’ll buy a gun
for good.
Never again, every
claim to be ingenuous. It is strength
armed within my body, proving
everything
I will not do.
One day
I’ll quit weaponizing my life,
and it will never be
my version of 6 pm anywhere,
never noon replayed on the floor,
dreaming of corpses haloed by
calla lilies, veiled by soil.
Never again, every
day I ruined just to feel half-real again.
I will not give myself up for a half-life
wasting away my time
wasting away.
One day
I will not dream of suicide and name it beautiful,
weighed heavy by every consolation prize.
One day I’ll buy a gun
and prove I won’t kill myself with it.
I took fifteen steps
down the hall
to the principal’s office.
I counted each step
in English then
in Spanish.
The Spanish names
of numbers
came easy to me
when nothing else did.
But that didn’t matter
to the principal.
It didn’t matter at all.
The alarm went off at 5:30 this morning
I was not ready, my sleep was restless
Getting up and running full speed to fulfil
an obligation, I was dragging
One of the nice things about Sunday is
that after church, we usually don’t
have anything scheduled, so it is
the only day that I can take a nap
And boy did I take a nap,
two hours of hard sleep that helped
my exhausted body recover from a busy week
or maybe it’s just a busy life
Taking time to slow down, take care of myself
isn’t always a priority for me, but
it’s even better when it’s a rainy day,
rainy days can be refreshing
It is very calming to watch the thirsty earth
embrace the cleansing rain as it comes thundering down
you can smell it in the air, the refreshing smell
of rain and earth mixed together as the ground soaks it in
I think a restful rainy day is exactly what I needed
not only to refresh my body with a nap, but to refresh my
mind with time to read, think and just be
for me, rainy Sundays are restorative
