is a hooded sulky teenager
living in the shadowy basement
of my body
blasting bone-grinding rock
at 3 a.m. and I, puny parent                 
at the top of the stairs,
screaming shut it off
to the indifferent dark

Uncle, change was on the way
Just a few years after your release
The deprivation of sufficient light
Food or exercise                
    Was ruled inhumane   
There would be no more bread-and-water diet
No more stripping inmates of their clothes
No more unheated cells
No more shackling
No more placing an inmate in handcuffs or chains
    While inside his cell
No more using tear gas to disable a convict
Surely these changes would have tamped down
Your desire to escape.

The last 12 months have emerged and expanded chaotically
like smoke from a genie’s bottle
disorienting in its possibility 
    and slightly terrifying in its power.
I didn’t always notice it
The way your eyes adjust at night
when the motion light at your own front door clicks on
you’re blinded by the shock.

Jupiter’s mass is more than double that of the rest of the planets combined
and it moves through each day in less than ten hours.
On the other side now
I’m marveling at the expanse of its reach
Not one cobwebbed corner of my life
    left undisturbed.
The astrological equivalent of an enormous charging otherworldly animal
    having just ravaged my entire life
I would have imagined myself
at least shaken
if not utterly shattered.
But here I am
eyes on the sky
ready for more.

I turned and looked
Her wall was bare
nothing to see
the feeling of loneliness,
hanging in the air

she comes to me in my dreams
she comes to me at night
my thoughts drift in her sea
my boat docked near the light in her eyes
dreams of her flapping in the wind

where are you on this dreary morn?
all the doors are nailed shut 
I cannot make out your form through the keyhole
my boat shivers and collapses in a muddy rut
My hope never dulled, I will try again tomorrow 

masked agents arresting minority citizens
but forget the record of lynchings 

the elimination of regulations
but forget sweatshops

the riot at the capitol
but forget Tulsa

the suppression of the press
but forget Comstock and Palmer

the sexism below the surface
but forget the imprisoned suffragettes

the blood of Ukraine
the blood of Sudan
the blood of Gaza
but forget the conquest of the Philippines

just what democracy are we loosing
if we lack the memory of how we were
if we are ignorant of our original sins
if we bury our dirty little secrets
if we fail to recall all our history

may we remember
from a when
may we struggle 
with a who
may we act
with an honest how
carrying our whole story
with eyes open

Today, the lake swallowed me again.  

Rewinding. 
Playing out old traumas. 
Represented in new faces,  
with different colors.   

I thought I had learned to swim. 
Claws to my back, tearing my spine to shreds. 
The monster pulls me to the bottom of the lake,  
while I cry silent tears, looking towards the surface.

My tears don’t matter.  
I’m caught in an everlasting current,
of repeated patterns and irrational fears.  

Press play.
It is when I turn off the music,  
and prefer the ringing in my ears. 
I learn the silence screams,  
louder than any death metal singer.   

In the distance I hear echoes of changed perspectives, and new opinions.
Maybe if I sit long enough with the silence…  
I‘ll remember that I took swimming classes.
I kick my feet and pull myself through the water.  

There are no claws, the monster lives inside of me.    

As my dear friend Reeny stepped closer,
              a pensive air
cast a shadow on her luminescent eyes
incongruous with the pleasant late winter’s day
                                       I knew my life would be forever changed

She maintained her composure,
              high-wire walker without a net
yet, an unbidden tear
              slipped softly down her cheek
        like gentle rain
                dripping
                      off
                      the
                    roof

             Her deep breath

             In calm and direct manner
Took my hand firmly, tenderly, like picking up a baby bird
             And spoke from her own feelings:

            “You better sit down. It’s about Darcie. There’s been . . .”
                                       

Who were you before you were everything to someone else?
Who did you become after you became entangled with someone else?

Hyper individualism; it’s a trauma response.
You carry the perception of the present as the past.

Sometimes what you don’t know can tell you everything.

She’s the one that got away he cried
But he’s the one who threw her back in
Too small to make a good dinner he claimed
She swam away with his hook in her grin
The girls are trapped swimming in this pond
There’s no space for exploration in fact
When we live in a world with no fisherwomen
Female subtleties in expertise fail to impact