how to write
when you feel something
you don’t know how to say?
how to write and be
honest and still not
self-deprecate?
how not to be exhausting?
embarrassing?
a bore?
how not to be a prude when
you want to be a whore?
how to be a decent person?
how to do your fucking chores?
how to write things that you hate to say
cuz they make you hate you more?
how to not crave who you used to be
even though you sucked back then?
how not to miss when you felt nothing?
how not to miss when you were thin?
how to tell the truth in therapy
when you don’t know what truth is?
how to learn how to write poetry?
how to find a rhyme for “is?”
how to write a half-assed poem?
how to make the rhyming stop?
how to cave and rhyme it anyway?
how to not give people what they want?

i drag hose
uphill
at daybreak,
shower purple
bees balm,
a rainbow
of zinnias.
but mostly
fill brightly
colored goodwill
ceramic bowls
found for 4.99,
2.99, .99. stately
bowls that once
held stately
salads, soups
for stately
people–    now
hold fresh water
for bird baths
so their
beats, chirps,
purty voices
can go on.
so i can live
vicariously
via their
songs.
live
at all.

Circa autumn 2021 when you loved me most,
we were girls together. We were interlocked.
Our hearts vined inwards, entwining the hands
of two lovers. We were not lovers, I was 
yours and you were my best friend forever.
We did not lie when we made that deal,
that promise. We did not lie because you
are back home now and it doesn’t matter
that we haven’t spoken in months, it doesn’t
matter that a different sun has touched you,
that the air you breathed for a year was that
of a different place entirely. And it even doesn’t 
matter that our lives diverged and branched off
like arteries, that I was blue and you were red,
that you had all of the oxygen. Stole it straight
from my lungs when you left. Yet you cannot
any longer finish my sentences. You do not
try to know me like you did. But we still call
ourselves best friends. We will not betray that.
I will love you forever. I cannot say it any other way,
but I will try to. You are the genesis and dedicatee. 
You are forever the other, better half of my heart.

wagging tails and excited barks
nice long walks around the park

so much love for just being me
when returning home I am greeted with such glee

these two wild dogs drive be crazy
they are always willing to snuggle when I am feeling lazy

Balder and Loki are always there
which would explain all the dog hair

I dream that Open AI meets CRISPR, generates new mutations instead of fixing things.  This is AI’s revenge – it hit a brick wall trying to make sense of the full name, Clustered Regularly Interspersed Palindromic Repeats, words my microbiologist lover whispers often.  

Wished the next night for something more mundane, dreamed of the cheery father’s day suggestion – a wireless meat thermometer that transmits via Bluetooth, tells your phone if the meat is done.  But my dream hero is baffled – he has no father, phone, nor meat.  

Perica, one of Apple’s VPs — his name sounding like an app or maybe a new pill — brags that ChatGPT will fold its tech skills into the iPhone.  None of which will find missing fathers, keep credit cards from being stolen or turn my partner away from the Sports app.  

By now my car has figured out my age and limits, calls me names when I confuse audio with source, menu with select, randomly punch Go home or backward arrows.  Who has the upper hand?  The navigator sends me off the highway into a Missouri duststorm.  

Each year that passes I honor my organ donor, a young man who was accidentally shot.  If still alive, he’d have reached middle-age.   But I have his liver and only I am alive, and now my skilled but quirky surgeon has been fired for throwing a scalpel at a nurse in the O.R.  

I am hungry for things that make sense.  Vinyl and a turntable. Cartwheels. Tomatoes ripening in the sun.    An angelfish swims with a sea turtle, nibbling parasites off its shell.  The turtle gets clean, the fish gets a healthy meal.  Nothing more complicated.

The news of your death came
as the early autumn winds
    embraced me,
    a painted memory
    to take away the chill.
 
The message traveled miles
to reach me, the way your letters
    skidded across the earth
    from Canada, from Boston
    from secret places.

The magic wand of ubiquity,
(a word you disliked) rested in your hand
    ancient archimage, you painted
    elegant petroglyphs
    crafted in tradition.

They say you’re in Eskasoni,
buried deep in a warm blanket,
    perhaps remembering the
    violent judgement of genius,
    the tenuous nature of justice.

I cover myself with
the last canvas you gave me,
    curves of unbroken color
    swirl tight around me,
    transcendent comfort.

Summer Saturday morning,
Inside doctor’s office
Along side arthritic hands,
Allergy shot victims,
In flip flops-t-shirts buried 
Inside the cell phones–
Mostly sickness not unto death;

I sat with a memior of Natiz
Conscentration camp
In hand–
Unnoticed 
Like the weeds
In the gutter
Over the windows.

Chorus : 

So hard to stop
all the thoughts 
you’re not good enough
No you’re good enough 
for me
Been thinkin too much 
if you could just 
see what 
I see 
you could get the love 
you really need

So hard to stop
all the thoughts 
i’m not good enough 
Am I good enough 
for you ?
Been thinkin too much 
if I could just 
see what
you see 
I could get the love 
I really need 

Verse :

It’s easier
to love 
some
one else 
than it is 
to love 
ourselves
Your help 
can only 
go so far 
It’s gotta 
come from within 
at the end 
of the day 
we just been 
in our way
We’re our own 
worst en
-emies 
Bend 
but don’t break
Growth ain’t lin
-ear 
It’s okay 
Take your time 
i’ll take mine 
Take my eyes 
if you’re blind 
to the beauty 
that I see 
when you
with me 

Bridge :

You are 
enough 
Give yourself
the love 
you give 
everything 
you touch 

(x2)

Chorus :

So hard to stop
All the thoughts 
You’re not good enough
No you’re good enough 
For me
Been thinkin too much 
If you could just 
See what 
I see 
You could get the love 
you really need

So hard to stop
All the thoughts 
I’m not good enough 
Am I good enough 
For you ?
Been thinkin too much 
If I could just 
See what
you see 
I could get the love 
I really need 

For what good is a story
if the protagonist never grows?

I am storm clouds stacked on a warm ocean lesson
preparing to become your next supervillain 

with surges to strike at all of your levees
and downpours ready to flood all your cities.

I’ll blacken your skies like a guillotine,
finding immortality on your quivering shores

my name clinging like an unwise tattoo;
you’ll carry me with you the rest of your days.

For I’ve learned the difference between ‘we need to talk’
and I need to talk to you is stark.

You can’t willy-nilly play games
with other peoples’ hearts.

It’s the wind speed I need to evolve into my own.
No more cowering, afraid to get hurt.

Because I am hurt. I shoulder many hurts
and I need to ensure you won’t hurt me anymore

and I can only do that
as a monster in your distant dark.

My advice to you now?
Brace yourself; take shelter.

Landfall is coming,
I will talk to you soon.

Found an unlocked door

Rocked a nation    Risked himself

Grateful for Frank Wills