first it was the legs that simply disappeared
then the arms took the hands and left in quiet prayer
a torso should be enough to hold a head high but the heart just isn’t there
the spine is still intact and continues to play along though it abnormally curves in fear
when the eyes align
I swear I’m alive
but the body isn’t here
in a heavy fog I am swallowed
washed out of my skin
peeled at every layer
any doctor could take a bite
chart my territory in a book
mark me for my subjects
and when they are through
sertraline is waiting
she is gray
she is blue
she matches me in mood
and I
treat her better
than strawberry fields
dandelions
honeysuckle
her ability is greater
her strength is true
and when I take her
I am washed away
washed away
a different kind of new
especially during refuge
I feel the moon dig
through a difficult womb
desperate for comfort
begging for rebirth –
this life has burned
flesh from bone
stripped every vein
from duty
and I have just sat
chewing on beetles
biting off fingerprints
asking for peace
Photo by Jacob Mejicanos on UnsplashI am not a rule or a thumb
I am after the math changes
like when he comes and then leaves
on the black pavement, they don’t move –
they are yellow and dead
and glued by storm
without lightning, I cannot burn
without worship, I am empty
words do not matter
but I want them all
the words
the matter
the exalt
If I bleed out – don’t scream at me
for doing it wrong
For this time being, she swept dirt away from dirt and from cactus and captured the memory of a small home made of partially buried lava rock and desert rain weeds. She swept Earth away from itself, angrily debating existence. And it was comfortable.
She wanted to sit and invite a sister and a mother to laugh and admire her desert. Without a roof. Without water. Without time. She wanted to stay and wait for a summer moon to smile at her with pride, with knowing.
And night came, but the desert never becomes cold. Coyotes came to practice midnight and bury sharp hunger through the necks of jack rabbits. The universe came to cover her head and remind her of tin roofs and frail wood spines of old women that shriek with each step she steps.
How cold the desert becomes in that small house.
Elvis is alive. Fact or fiction. Electric theory travels across a nation. She meets guitars and drums and sex and drugs. She is seventeen wild in a broken city. She is chained to an old lamp-post that jolts to life at sunset. Her lungs are clogged. Smog takes over. She inhales a damp determination for life that doesn’t smell like rot.
I meet her at twenty two and Newport Beach. Carpet stained by black top walks and coffee. It’s an LA Times kind of morning. Knit tops cover immodest mannequins waving to her from window cages. He head hangs to her knees. Cracks in the sidewalk taunt her. She is guilty and broken. She doesn’t speak or mimic or cry, but she can hear intent. I give her symbols. Ice. Shadow. Flight.
She chooses to choke.
Summer leaves her. I leave her in an hourglass. Her slim smile leaks through the sand. Time is running out.
She starts talking to the desert. A language I can’t understand. Ink leaks from eyes to her young lips. She tastes words for the first time. I stop to watch. She is thick with rage. We are intense and struggling. Our muscles melt together with neurons and we know each other. We are scared.
We see doctors and pills and whiskey and we time it just right so that our bodies do not fail. And we buy reviews and our way into a new way. Oranges explode and we drink fruit rinds. And I miss her when she is not there. We discover each other but we do not know. What is truth? Where does it begin and with who? We softly debate existence and beg for an out. Shamefully we beg for an out.
And here we are. In the middle of the Earth. Gravity. Cells. DNA. Still so unsure. Still begging for an out…
until we step into his driveway at midnight. Our hearts shake. His sharp hunger examines our every layer. One hand behind our neck. We stop breathing. We are out.
not the kind you think of
when the word presents itself
there hasn’t been gifts
or flowers
or cakes
no declarations of love
I am veiled in quicksand
my ankles stolen
right from underneath me
A preacher speaking “blah, blah, blah, God” ….
and all that stuff
my dear family and friends
gathered around me
laughing
a single dove laying on
an altar
plugged into oxygen
plastic wrapped for perfection
suffocating
the caterer
with the smile of a thousand devils
reminds me to pay my bill
tonight we roast the dove
The dragon doesn’t wake with the sun. Â It is warmed
through mock light, on an affected cove. Â It looks
like it could be made of mopani,
but he cannot tell colors
what they should be
and what they are not.
I left him a note, this morning, by his glass house.
In his rest, he inhaled the pushed warm air
that circulates my blood each night.
I promised him Aspen and Cabbage and
my return.
I am late. Â I am always pushing the clock
into my lungs, back to my cycle,
back to little hands and little
feet swirling around
a glass house,
tearing cabbage for a dragon that
constantly stares at me.
Paperback is available on Amazon.com now!!!
Fountain Of Confessions is now available on Amazon and Amazon Kindle. I look forward to hearing any feedback on it. Thank you so much!
Hi Everyone!!
My 2nd book, Fountain Of Confessions, is going to be available through Amazon this week. I am so excited to share it with you. I am going through my emails for reviewers and getting in touch with some of you if you are still available.
If you’d like to do a review to post on your blog, I will be happy to send you an e-copy of the new book.
Thank you all so much for being here. Some of you have been here since the time I started this blog nearly 4 years ago!!!
I’ll be posting soon. Until then….
XOXOXO ~ MM
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