i need to throw a pity party
cry and
scream and
yell and
sob with a birthday hat perched atop my head
curse the days as they come
along with the ones that have passed
i pity myself and
the world and
all we will become
throw a party of anger,
smashing of cakes
then sweep the crumbs back under the rug
and force myself to stand back up
Why do we hate?
Because we are afraid—
of losing, of being less,
of being left outside
the warmth of belonging.
Hate is easy:
a shield, a wall,
a name for the ache
we cannot heal in ourselves.
It gives us something to blame,
someone to stand against
when the world feels too large,
too uncertain,
when our own pain
finds no gentle ear.
We hate to belong—
to a group, to a flag,
to a story that tells us
we are righteous
simply by being “not them.”
Hate binds us together
when love feels too vulnerable,
too likely to wound.
Hate gives us purpose:
it sharpens our fear,
gives form to our anger,
lets us gather our loneliness
into a single, burning point.
We hate because
it is easier to destroy
than to build,
easier to turn away
than to understand.
Hate is the dark twin of hope—
twisted by grief,
by betrayal,
by the old animal urge
to survive at any cost.
Hate gives us a kind of power:
to say no,
to draw a line,
to make someone else
carry the weight
we cannot bear.
Yet, what does it bring us,
in the end?
A shrinking world,
a heart heavy with suspicion,
the cold comfort
of always being right—
and always being alone.
We hate because
we have not yet learned
how to name our pain,
how to share our fears,
how to see ourselves
in the eyes of the other.
Hate is the echo of love denied,
the shadow cast
when compassion falters,
the hollow in the soul
that waits for something kinder
to fill it.
If we must hate,
let us at least be honest:
it is only ever
a plea to be seen,
a wound not yet healed,
a story unfinished
that aches for a better ending.
Why do we love?
Ask the mother—
waking, half-asleep,
to soothe a fevered child
for the thousandth time.
Ask the friend who answers
the phone at midnight,
or the lover who returns
after anger and silence.
Love is never perfect,
never pure as storybooks claim.
It is messy,
made of longing and loneliness,
sometimes a trick of the blood,
sometimes a bargain struck
between hope and fear.
We are built for need,
wired to reach
across the cold gap of existence—
a hand on a shoulder,
a word at the edge of despair.
Love is the ancient code:
the reason the tribe survived,
why the child was fed,
why we bury our dead
with care and song.
Without love,
the world is only a room
with no windows,
a body with no hunger
except for itself.
With love,
families mend,
friends endure,
even strangers soften
toward something like mercy.
Love is the root of meaning—
the brushstroke, the melody,
the prayer in the night,
the story handed down
so we might feel less alone.
Perhaps it is a trick—
biology, memory,
the old ache to be seen.
But even the tricks
can build a civilization,
can bind a wound,
can open the locked heart
of the world.
We need love
because, without it,
we are only hunger and teeth.
Because it is the only answer
to the loneliness
that gnaws at every soul.
To love, truly,
is to be human—
to risk, to forgive,
to build a bridge over emptiness,
to leave, for just a moment,
the silence behind.
If ever we stop loving—
however clumsy,
however desperate—
we cease to be
what we are meant to be.
So, let us love.
Let us risk ourselves
again and again
against the darkness—
for each other,
for tomorrow,
for the fragile, enduring hope
that what we give away
will save us all.
memory is only
a dream of falling stars
teacups marigolds
marmalade and Great
Auunt Lottie scowling
at me
my account is screwed
now I have two
where are my poems?
The Rising Sun:
The holiday comes
like junk mail addressed
to a previous tennant.
Though the intended recipient
hasn’t lived here in years,
I almost give in.
I want to tear it open
in hopes of finding
what I already know
it won’t hold.
There will be no admission of guilt.
No truth or apology
folded at the seams.
No:
What I did was wrong.
You didn’t make it up.
You didn’t deserve it.
You were just a kid.
I was a monster.
I would take it back if I could.
I leave it sealed
and toss it out.
Monday is trash day.
.
The calming tea sits
in a dainty, lovely cup
that awaits my hand.
I lift it now to
lips that meet the thin, warm rim
to sip liquid peace.
How smoothly it does
its healing afternoon task
I sit back and smile.
I was a boy, you my mother.
For the first time ever you were gone.
I went one way, you another.
I listened for a voice like none other
that called me every day at dawn.
I was a boy, you my mother.
You’d always been there, Mother,
in every picture I’d ever drawn.
I went one way, you another.
You weren’t the type to spoil or smother
& I was not the type to fawn.
I was a boy, you my mother.
At last I found you with my brother,
your favorite son, on the lawn.
I went one way, you another.
You loved me how you could, Mother,
& now each day I find you gone.
I was your son, you my mother.
I went one way, you another.
Arrived like a whisper—
not loud,
not demanding,
just… there.
In the ruins where echoes lingered,
he found space to build.
The walls were cracked
from storms he didn’t weather,
but he patched them
as if he’d been there
from the first drop of rain.
She was a flicker—
once wildfire, now smoke.
He didn’t chase her flames;
he sheltered the ash,
patient with the spark
still learning to trust the wind again.
He walked with
shadows that were fading,
listened to silence
as though it spoke volumes.
He carried what others had dropped—
not for praise,
but because it was needed.
He never claimed the ground he walked on.
Never asked for banners or a parade.
Just held the pieces
until they fit something whole again.
When tired eyes looked his way,
words didn’t have to be spoken.
He answered in action,
in presence,
in the kind of love
that doesn’t ask to be seen.
It just is.
Ed asked. We were speaking of the death of fathers,
the week after his dad’s funeral. I recalled
my father asleep in the chair, how his voice rasped
to welcome my bits of news, spooning a bite of ice cream,
adjusting his body around the pain once more.
Ed’s was a lake-dad with boats and fishing poles and lures.
Hunting, too, and probably Little League,
although Ed was not the star athlete in the family.
My dad worked at our grocery store. He couldn’t
come to the park Saturdays, watch me stumble in right field.
I did not have the back-yard-catch dad,
or the scout-leader dad or the camping-dad.
Ed’s dad shepherded their big family;
Ed once told how in family room he marked their mischief:
“If your mother could see this she’d just die.
Rita, come in here!”
I had the behind-the-grocery-counter dad asking,
“Got enough bread and milk?” and how
he taught me to count their change backward:
“Thirty-five, forty, fifty, a dollar. Thank you.”
Ed’s dad died of cancer. So did mine. And we got busy
with colonoscopies and PSA tests to stave off
what killed them.
“I still miss him,” I said.
And we remembered more—
for me, questions not answered and his handshake
when I got up to go. It was how he said thanks
though I was in the greater debt.
