Ghost Plant

One story
up, under a roof,
under a perfect yellow moon,
I wait.
I watch oxygen expand
into greatness.

Midnight sleeps an ear ache away
from me snoring.
Oxygen starts its engine, then
shuts off again.

God grows in a cradle like a
ghost plant, a living reminder
of what is yet to be dead.

One story
below me, kids are
throwing stones.
An eye for an eye,
till war takes them both.

When tonight catches up, it will
pluck spots from the day until
we sing the song of
the crickets.
I will wait for God to grow
out of his cradle, strike a match
against conscience and finally,
rename me.

Three Minutes In

Three minutes in – I am a dream.
Have you ever been met
by a mirror? Twisted like
eyebrows in confusion.
Steel eye compartments
ready for battle.

Nail my head to the floor,
my only choice is to look up
to neighbors…
to enemies.

The minutes slice off the clock
as we talk – I am imaginary.
She sees me with her husband,
white t-shirt sucked to my
chest, wet from digestion –
I am the dark apple.

My bags are packed, my body
on 90 miles per hour.
The hidden highway – I carve three minutes in-
distressed almond skinny
dipping in shame.
Have you seen me today?
Have you looked in the mirror?

Deep White

Demons sleep in the deep white,
a place to rest while
laundry drowns without ultimatum,
while dismembered chickens
swell in heat – sticking to
bits of parsley that grew this year.

People expire faster than milk.
If it isn’t there taste, it’s their
noises or gestures
or lack of reflection.

Kids are running off to school,
I leave the bread in the toaster.
One more day, slice open the demon,
crawl inside

guilt grows off walls
shames eats at intestines
all the people go, go, go
off to let me sleep in the deep
white.

that my lips may part for lava

winds sail slow
arriving with difficulty
to confession

I speak against another
back turned
burned by sun light

I am familiar
with the dark –
with poison
with automatic disappointment

that my lips may
part for lava
but not for pardon

and I sail slow over
raging seas
arriving with difficulty
to confession

where familiar darkness
speaks mostly
about me

Monday Confession

It will be several days of confession.
I have starved myself.
I have been hard and violent.

Each doctor takes note, takes opinion,
takes my blood and stirs
it in his coffee.

It’s Monday. 9:30 A.M.
The sterile tile has been examined,
the hard carpet, despised!
I twist dismay into the carpet fiber
with one foot,
the other taps out
awkward silence.

Sunday was a long day of struggle.
I ate out of the palm of a man,
tugged at his whiskers and
kissed him.
He had a candlestick, long like a lady,
using its light to sort me out.
I had only borrowed trust,
I had to protect myself.

He became a smoky tantrum,
a raging death match forcing truth
out of my swollen mouth.
It was a Sunday of ruin.

Confession came, thick bees swarming
my tongue,
a blur of black and yellow before
I fell hard out of life.
I woke up to this Monday, a dream,
a foggy span of blasting conscience .

And this is just the start.

To Be Fair….

Black ink dries on hard paper,
truth has made me guilty.
Speak softly to me!
A kind message?
Sublingual peace?
Abuse me with gentleness,
please!

Death is not deep.
To be fair,
this blush,
this young sigh,
this surface, it is all false.

Clocks speak with the sun;
patterns that change me.
I am Heaven.
I am Earth.
I whisper ‘farewell’.
I trade it all for instruction,

and the day goes,
consistently, then
brings me back again,

in ruin.
Life and Death. Undivided.

I wish for a different fight.
With fire or the sea,
a fair trade,
both worthy opponents.

I can obey their rules,
succumb to each,
their own authority,

yet, I am not standing inside flames.
I am not drenched in waves of the sea.
I am wrestling with ink,
a low, clear friend,
an enemy I would save,

a hard lover keeping me freely.
I am armed in my own silence,
wrapped in God’s skin,

and the words,
all the incriminating words are
seeping in.

Without Myself

The music, with sharp tongues and daggers, presses hard against me.
I have been swinging from lyrical ropes
for days. If it wasn’t for guilt!
If it wasn’t for the time I have spent
drinking cups full of guilt, with guilt, for guilt.

Guilt raises dark hands that curve into
the shoulders of undeserving men and women.
My stomach tosses me over myself
for the thirtieth time today!

I can remember all of the first times that
I laid myself down with fire, judging
the length of my hair,
or the color of my skin,
or the shape of my body.
Do you believe me?
Do you believe that I spend time
tying myself up against poisonous walls,
waiting for a soft heart to come walking in,
6 feet tall,
with a blade meant only to save me?
Do you believe that?

No matter!
It is true.
I expected you and you and you!

But, not today.
Today, I fold myself over in two.
Half of me has my hands and my voice.
The other half is walking away with my feet and
my womanhood.
I do not know which half to venture off with,
so I sit here,
on this blue couch that is not, and never will be
something that I can call mine.
I sit, without myself, here.

I have branched out, and, in the same moment,
left myself behind.
Do you believe me?
Do you believe that a girl as leathery as me
could leave without herself, or
let herself go, for that matter?
Do you believe that?

It doesn’t matter.
Not now. Not when I sit on guilt’s lap, flirting
with her for approval. Not when
I tie myself down to her, to her and this soft, blue
couch.
What matters now, is the bacon and eggs that I will make her
for breakfast. What matters now,
is the laundry in the little room,
the showers that need to be scrubbed,
and the fact that
I am still tied up here, to these poisonous walls.

The Fog

The Fog glances at me, as if
I am a seventh morning
in black coat prayer.

Twice, I have been veiled by
The Fog.
Twice, I have ridden wounded winds
to secretly watch
dead men bathe in weakness.

I have hidden in The Fog from
sneer,
from shame. But, guilt has giant hands that reach
deep, plucking sin from a wrecked womb,
pulling it out,
into the open world.

The Fog glances at me because she
knows me. She floats toward me with her warm, white
blanket, wrapping me up,
away from sneer’s,
away from shame.

Self-Reproach

She lived in a junk ocean
swimming
in the dark waters
of nostalgia

She gave birth to four babies
two in the spring
two in the summer
She tied
all four of them to Her gills

they were heavy
they pulled and tugged
on Her
making Her instinctual efforts
tedious

She never let a tide change
without
reminding
the
four of their weight
of Her struggle

still
She carried them
dragged them through
Her muck
strung them along
deep
in the dark
junk ocean

the tides changed
over and over

eventually
the four
grew gills of their own
weight
swimming muscles
and She was forced to untie them
still
reminding them of their weight
of Her struggles

the four stayed near
Her
eager to help
to relieve Her
of  the strain
they had caused

but no service
could mend the damage
done to Her
strained
tired
gills

the four
swam around the
shameful waters
drowning in moral
conditions
as the weight She
had been burdened with

slowly
slowly
grew in the gross waters
latching on
to the strong
untouched
gills
of the four

weighing them
down
down
down
deeper
into the dark
junk ocean
where
they surrendered in Her
waste

 

Dirty Words

The ghosts are becoming countless.
I could name them, but that wouldn’t do any good. I try
to hide from them, but they always find me; under piles of blankets
on my bed when I’m turning in for the night, through the music
playing on the radio when I drive
my car around town,
in the eyes of an ex-lover who looks at me as if he
wants to rip my teeth out with
pliers.

The ghosts sit with me in every silent moment. They whisper
to me and giggle. They know that the escape
isn’t working out as planned. One of them gouges at my eyes. It wants blindness
to suck me deep inside myself so that I have
no way to try to hide.

When I sit, to write these sick stories, I am so engrossed with
fear that the words refuse to fall from the ink of the pen. They climb through, to the
top of the pen and right back into my hand. Dirty, filthy little words climb up my arms and through
each little nook in my soul and back to the dark, screaming corners of my
mind.

Each letter stopping by my conscience to scream obscenities before settling in comfortably.