First
in the dark
I see them
atone them.
I travel
many roads
with my eyes
closed.
Still
I find my
way past ru-
ins burned to
the ground with
misused words
said in my
sleep.
I
will not be
what I dreamed
for I will
be what I
dreamed (& dreams
lie when shown
truths).
Watch
me re-hurt
whom I hurt,
empty shirts
filled
with vanished
men who know
me.
When
I wake, these
flaws will stay
free
from
me & me
from them (both
true).
Sound
like sh-t to
you? Nothing
new.
Post poems
It starts with a dip in energy
followed by mysterious aches
that morph into chronic pains
accompanied by clicks,
clacks, and grinding sounds
the symphony
of wakeful
movement
Age.
The Singing Dress
What I meant to say is it feels odd
to trust people while I’m lying
on a stretcher but what came out
was that I want living and loving
to hurt that’s how I know they’re real,
whereas in my dreams I feel no pain
and have 360 degree vision like a rabbit,
thus no need to trust anyone or anything
but my own vision, whereas in the real
world one of the inherent limitations
of being human is that we only have eyes
in the front of our heads or in my case
on the back of the side of my head where
all the hair used to be, unlike pigmy owls
who have decoy eyes in back that predators
can pluck out rather than the good, working ones
and I meant to say people will betray you
when you’re not looking especially those outside
the group whom we refer to as the others
but what came out was I feel alienated
from the group like I’m another other
and I meant to say I feel alone
but what came out was I need a loan
and I smiled at the homophone, because I love
poetry, because I’m a knight in the night,
I let bees be, I dig the whole hole, and
I got rejected, left alone by lenders
and rightfully so and I meant to say
I discovered poetry and sex at about the same time
but what came out is that both, for me,
are about my desire to be desired
I meant to be polite and say please with tears
in my eyes but what came out were pleas and tears
in the middle of the pages where the words
that came out couldn’t touch what I meant to say.
sometimes in bed at night
you can gently put your palms together
fingers resting in each other
feel you are not alone
oh, how I’d much rather stay here all day
searching out words that make me feel
and forget this day job that pays the bills
but seems like a waste of everything else
i’d so much rather bathe in chewy, buoyant stanzas that float me
along alliterative alleyways
i’d rather the rush of your stories caress me
with soft hands or coarse,
I don’t mind when you shock and shake me
over here at the day job the surprises are never good ones
just broken widgets and more broken widgets
and people up in arms over the broken widgets
if I’m going to keep pushing papers around
let them instead be filled with a passionate, hard won calligraphy
scratched out in secret caves of wisdom and beauty and insanity and
truth as best I find it
illuminated
shared
with all who serve as scribes
to this existence
(participating in this year’s LexPoMo has been so wonderful- and I’ll really miss it when the month ends!)
Skin feels like a borrowed coat, ill-fitting, too large or too small. Mirror shows a reflection I don’t recognize, a stranger in stolen clothes. Every touch a jolt, a wrong note in a familiar song.
He, she – words that scrape like sandpaper, leaving raw the truth they can’t express. A constant performance, masking the disquiet beneath. An undercurrent of longing, a yearning for a different vessel.
Exhaustion from the effort to fit, the ache of being out of sync with the world. But in the quiet moments, a flicker of defiance. A whisper, “This isn’t all of me.”
The weight of dysphoria, a heavy cloak. Yet, a spark ignites, a resilience taking root. This is my journey, my path to forge. To claim my truth, one step at a time, under a vast, open sky.
