Adage
If 3 a.m. is for lovers,
then why is it
also
the Devil’s Hour?
I can’t sleep
& you can’t
be here,
or there,
& he
& they
never rest
when I try
to dream.
I’ve been living on borrowed time
With your love forever etched inside
My broken womb, trying to build a home
Where your ghost is the shadow
That lives in the window sill
Of our kitchen, where the rest of our
Children gather ’round a crowded table
And I still dream of you in colors that don’t exist
Where in my sleep, I cry for only, You—
Your name lies silent, on the end of my tongue
My heart reaches for you in the stillness
And in the darkness of the silence
With baited breathe until my lungs
are borrowing air just to keep going.
The unconscious dreamer within knows no bounds
I wake astonished and amused
When did I distrust my own imagination
permit creativity to bite the poisoned apple
Tender sorrow for that little girl
holds hands with bitter envy
They kneel to pray
Now I lay me down to sleep
Slipping slightly sideways
Suffering is a skill. I am
downstairs in the cold,
balancing deformed feet
on the scale, throwing up
water. I don’t need to paint
my nails, they are already
this fascinating cyan. I am
blanching at every touch,
a preview of a ghost, pressured
to dissolve. I stopped blinking,
my pupils expanding to catch
the visual snow, ice blue irises
burning. The supplements
mimic salvation, there is no
real bypass to avoid this
devastation. Its devotion,
entrenched by image catalogs
and spreadsheets, these white
hands grip each digit tighter
as months pass. I am dedicated
to misery, locked in rituals, fingers
clamped around my upper arm.
The skin pales with the imprint
of a shackle, my own claw marks.
When the blood doesn’t return
it heralds something malign.
I become so enamored
With the pot that I address
It anthropomorphically:
My dear pot
Your enamel is a bit chipped
But your soul seems intact
Your lack of bacon
And portly shape engender
Only a smidge of R E S P E C T
Though that slice of ginger was nice
And your bottom line of brown sugar
Carmelized with garlic wafting
Through the air like hookah smoke
Sent me half way to heaven
But heaven is only a lonely place
Without a friend, so Mr. Pot & I
Spend the evening in the warm embrace
Of human intercourse and, of course,
We become occupied with the scarlet life
Of the Octopi
Are you busy?
Can you talk?
Do you feel
emotionally catered to?
No, no. It’s just me asking.
I’ve had a few to drink, eaten
less than I should’ve.
Do you keep a
regular journal?
Does that feel good,
that emotional release?
I wish I were more a writer,
like you. The way your brain works. . .
No, I couldn’t do it. It takes more,
means being emotionally evolved.
Honesty?
Yeah, I would struggle with that.
No, no, I’ll let you go. You’ve got
better things to do. I won’t bother you
any longer.
Yeah, talk to you soon.
Bye, McKenna.
Since you,
the man who showed me how
to fry an egg over-medium,
no longer knows how
to chop up a zucchini,
to your wife’s liking anyway,
then I will show you how.
Since I,
a man who has resisted
confrontation since he was a boy,
even earlier, if you count coming out
when my mom wanted me to,
not quite when I myself was ready,
is now being asked
to be a villain,
then I will be one.
Since we,
as a group, a family,
wittled down
to the core essentials,
have decided to put our collective
head in the sand, hoping against hope
that the wave bearing down on us,
in fact does not exist,
then please excuse me
if I step to the side and watch the carnage,
refusing to believe that I’m not
also drowning.
