Just an Observation
labyrinth plaid
Eating.
Shopping.
Lying.
Drinking.
Eye Rolling.
Talking.
Stalking.
Playing.
Sexing.
Texting.
Sexting.
Driving.
Starting.
Ending.
Manipulating.
Dating.
Dumping.
Humiliating.
Medicating.
Living.
Loving.
I am Impulsive and Compulsive….
What about you?
In shame, I seek forgiveness,
never to stop looking for it. Mother,
dysfunction lulls the furnace—
Father, dysfunction, dampens
the furnace. Frozen, the lakes once
beautiful, now not a hint of flowing water.
Father says
I am his failure,
and my failure,
to not have stood up
as he taught me.
I cannot breathe. My lips drawn,
a dry ink pen writing
deadsy shattered sonnets.
The hummingbird came back today
For that fake wreath upon my door
I have to wonder in his mind
If vengeance on me he so swore
For lack of nectar day by day
In plastic blooms on wooden door
Pretty sure I could take him, though
How to Hold What Trembles
Their beauty carried its own syntax—
but the grammar was always the same.
A volatility I could read
like a sentence about to break.
Black hair falling like a curtain they can’t lift,
brown eyes shining like fired glaze,
porcelain skin showing the faintest web
of fractures beneath.
I could hear the pressure in them,
the fine porcelain singing
before it cracked.
They leaned against me
with the dead weight of a shelf-worn thing,
porcelain faces lifted toward me
as if I were the one person
who could keep them from breaking,
and I kept setting them upright.
I know that wanting.
I know how a doll can tremble
even before you touch her.
I, remembering how to hold what trembles,
opened my hands.
And they let me,
because I knew what it meant
to be too full
and too empty
at the same time.
Baby bird falls hard
onto number sixteen green,
leaving nest for good.
I fold you down soft
into the rough, leaving you
is the hardest thing.
My question awaits
A real person that seems to be
in short supply now.
I felt grief today.
In the oddest of ways.
I unfollowed someone who passed away.
I was in a rush, trying to get my follow count down.
The prompt asked, “Are you sure?”
As the action couldn’t be undone.
I was speedily clicking, yes, yes, yes.
I was eager to lower the number below my following.
Because I wanted to be like the “cool kids.”
I got into a routine, not paying attention to who I was parting ways with.
I mean, the list he was on was “least interacted with.”
What did it matter?
But it did.
The moment mattered when I realized I unfollowed him.
I don’t know why that made me feel like I lost something.
The thought of never being able to follow him again invaded my mind,
because the profile was set to private.
I will never see that media again.
Interestingly, while he was living, we weren’t even close.
He dated my friend and had a child with someone else I knew.
He wasn’t family, but I did date his brother.
After reflecting on the consequences of my actions,
I immediately felt sadness.
I remembered I still had him as a friend on another social media platform.
That provided some solace.
But I will never see that media again.
I decided to be more careful,
because I have others who have ascended in my follow count.
I still have the deceased in my phone contacts.
As people I know pass, I create digital photo albums featuring them.
I visit their social media pages.
I keep screenshots of our messages…
I rarely feel deep pain or loss at the news of their transition.
It’s only when I lose the memories and connection—
the grief sets in.