Category: #friends
Only child
I’m sitting in a linoleum room with ghosts, specters and occasional stranger
a girl with long legs like a foal, is pulling elastic pink lines of gum from her full mouth
and snapping them back, loudly
I wonder if I have ever sat so evenly in a chair, if I ever had peach hair, light on my skin like that
it reminds me of my friend who competed in gymkhanas, we made up our own horses, hers was called Mars and mine, BeTwix and we ran
so fast our hearts thundered up her grandmother’s hill in the La Roque-Gageac
her legs were like those of a foal, even at eleven, the waiters watched her with wet lips
I think of The Object Of Beauty, how Liv Tyler gleamed, coming out of the oval swimming pool
What men must think when underage girls begin to fruit.
My ghosts routinely tell me, I am without worth, they remind me if I had anything worth having
my mother wouldn’t be absent
a life time of inadequacy, wouldn’t be my legacy
I disappoint myself, not just the ghosts, sometimes I think
I don’t belong in this American world, where women are proud to work sixty hour weeks and go the gym at 9pm
still feeling they haven’t worked hard enough.
I think I am forever running in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine, with my imaginary horse
watching a girl turn into a woman, aware of too much even then, and not enough
the specters mock my lack of confidence, whispering in my detached earlobe
nobody likes a wuss, confidence is the American calling card, haven’t you noticed?
Even silly people and indifferent people get somewhere, if they believe in their
silly people and indifferent selves. And brilliant people, who doubt, will fester
like a ring someone lost in a river, glitters too deeply for marbled birds to
pluck it out and restore to light.
I lost a ring once, you’d given it to me when we were 14 and I didn’t have coltish legs
or peach fuss on my skin, but rather, the strong bones of a kid who drank milk with her cereal and got a stomach ache
reading Asterix at the pine breakfast table, with her stuffed toys.
I can still hear the plastic clock and hum of the washing machine
a warm symphony of my childhood, as I delayed leaving for school
and the inevitable crush of humanity, I had long decided was not for me
in fact, my trajectory was so far from that world of push and pull
competition and attention, fan fare and nose-pick small talk
I inhabited the after school hours like an addict of one
rejoicing in the quiet and empty spaces where
my mind could roam and gallop
sometimes I would sit on the roof tops of outdoor storage buidings
eating my soggy paper bag of sweets, stuck together from being
crunched in my pocket, head stuck in a book about
beautiful places with kind people and fantastic things
wild roses growing like thoughts from arching cracks
in concrete, their soft heads and sharp thorns
not the decapitated baby bird, I buried beneath the acorn tree
its silvered blind eyes, swollen and bulging
wings pressed like cries of regret for having never spread
in flight
something horrifying in everywhere you looked
like the terror you feel when you realize you are truly alone.
That kitchen clock would change day and month
but never really the precision of its emptiness
I learned it is better, to rely upon fantasy and avoidance
than the pinch and grope of society.
Often, a stranger would ask
why are you playing outside so late?
I would run away into the eclipsing shadows
behind the corrugated iron fences that separated
the good neighborhood from the skeletons
those bombed, bleached, bones of former homes
where a kid of twenty years ago had lain
watching paper airplanes cycle
above their head, clutching something with glass eyes
and faux fur, as I still did
funny, to find some comfort in the inanimate manufacture
of nature
my toys looked at me in the darkness and spoke
words of love, I needed to consume
their salty fur held
the cups of my early disenchantment
when teachers commented on my red eyes
I said; hay-fever and they believed me
because I wore a dragon tail
this was surely an adjusted child
with avid imagination
cantering alongside her friend
with the honey colored hair and long bare arms
absorbing sun like a shining fruit
I knew then how different I was
how quiet pain, how loud silence
my mother always looked so beautiful in
floral dresses with her trim ankles and long neck
I, the stranger behind her
admiring and shameful in her artlessness.
it was among the lost in forest, I claimed my place
when first love failed, when promises became
paper envelopes containing no letter
dishing out school diner and homework
leaving my scuffed shoes at the door
I climb
into the ivy
away from the party
a reflection I see of myself
gathering stillness like a blanket
she is fetching her best smile
for the emptiness of years
staring into emulous clouds, watching
for signs and miracles and unspent words
the sound of others laughter
rinsing through tall green shadows
like echoes of
someone else’s life
For my first friend in America
Your hand covers mine
we clasp for the camera and smile a 100 watt smile
The American Way
I have learned
how to park a truck
that pale legs are not
as anathema in Texas as in Cannes
I understand, ordering drinks you size up
trying clothes, you size down
topsy-turvy world for a foreigner
lost in her baggage claim.
You made me feel
easy and comfortable like an adirondack chair
smooth wood, deep grain, eccentric shape
this became my town and in so many ways
it was thanks to you taking the time
to show me the way to fit in
the candles dim in the windows of the bar
as if they know you are now gone
where the bird died and we buried it
flowers grow up and a little crepe myrtle
as if forever our steps, will be marked here
mountain laurel blooms wildly
across splayed streets replete with thin cats
seeking their breakfast at Taco huts, the color of watermelon
where I ate among the gladioli without fear.
In the beginning
you were like Tiger Balm
rubbed over my fear, I was no longer shivering
could make my way through the throng
as good as anyone
your watchful eyes on my narrow back
seeing how I did, urging me onward
how will I continue with you gone?
Family, you said, comes from the heart
you may find someone you love in the strangest places
I found you in a Chinese buffet eating Won Tong soup
in my skinny jeans and piss and vinegar
you asked me if I used to be a dancer
I said yes, and now I unravel for a living
you took under your wing, that juniper girl who
didn’t know how to fit in to her new clothes
taught her the measure of her adopted land
like the time we planted trees and you warned
never forget to be merciful, to those less fortunate
the sky was pure blue that day, on the wind
the smell of honeysuckle and river lily
white cranes flew languidly overhead
we shared Limeade and Tortas, our feet dipping in hot puddles
I recall
the first time you were sick
I said, you reminded me of my grandmother
and you frowned; I’m not old enough!
But what I meant was
she had a strength, nobody else could see
every time I went to school she’d wait
in her high-waisted pants of crepe or wool
tight curled hair, wearing oversized sunglasses
below the stairs, nodding with a wink
mouthing the words; You got this
and I’d go into my classroom with a 100 watt smile
not fearful anymore
nobody saw that side of her, just as
people dismissed you as a Jesus Freak
seeing past the strength of your resolve
to live with love
I admire those; who have mercy and compassion
I look to those; who are loyal and unafraid to love
it is the weave of this girl, to follow in those footsteps
bring kindness, do good, lend yourself to gentleness
when I grew sick I saw, how many live with
anger and resentment, undoing their humanity
until they are unrecognizable and only breathe
the exhaust of their bitterness.
To the rose
opening this day
after your passing
I say, O glory, O beauty
live in the sun
as radiant and perfect as anything I have known
and I hear your voice, see your face nodding
you got this
I want to run backward and say
please don’t leave me, don’t go
but I know you have to
and I have to go on
alone but holding your wisdom
your mercy
in those lessons you left
imprinted upon my heart.
Moonshine
(inspired by finding an old photograph of a fancy-dress party I attended at University that I hadn’t seen in years)
One of them is me
but which holds the key? Later perhaps we
shall know our fruiting journey through
maze of youth
and slow pull of stocking
for kind of touch best found
in satiny afternoon glow
outside I hear my dim-eyed neighbor
mowing lawns until he aches silver
because his wife has turned away
nobody touches him anymore with
the dreams of yesteryear
so we sprint toward each
invisible finish line
with emptiness in our hearts
filled with busy distraction
nothing lasting, nothing to
endure or sate cold claim
of climbing into bed
unwanted or alone
the feel of darkness, our shroud
from terrible disappointment
and then
then I had it all and didn’t know
standing on the precipice
we laughed at our indomitable
facility to thrive
not yet diseased
not yet rawboned with stretch marks
nipping their silver lines like unwanted lace
or sagging pieces shaking to no
good beat
not yet diminished on shallow waxen wheel
of male adoration
though for me this was never
a piece I wished to carve for myself
it was the love of a woman I craved
like first drink from fountain
on a hot day with no clouds in sight
languorously we exult
in
crocheted certainty, time will stand still
make for ourselves exceptions and grand entrance
the labor of hope so easy and lubricated
then
we’ll never be shaken off
like a dull wet thing
nor left to gather dust
as something once favored
we are surely, gleaming warm heads
of our own personal state
if I could have heard the warning
should I have been able
to listen?
likely not for
day is long and hour far
we take lovers for bread and jam
hate yet a curiosity
our parents live robust
we can yet still, the freedom to
go home
there are structures protecting
the hollow timber of our hearts
from these days what we can we learn?
as growing up and away
truth becomes stretched and gray
friends falling away
the bounty of never-never coming to claim
her inevitable duality
delight in youth, for contrast is cruel
all should have its value
but we are flippant with our boon
and when the cold night comes
we usher ourselves to greater darkness
in the strangeness of change
not able to see what is portent
nor later
the freedom
released from expectation
to unfold our wings
take flight
no more a shining thing
but something effervescent
and filled with
light
casting its thrall
as long ago, diving for pearls
we claimed the moon
The deepest cut
It doesn’t take much to knock a bruised fruit to the floor
watch it split apart like rotted glass, shards of damp skin in slow motion
try as I might, I AM that bruised fruit
try as I might, I cannot seem to recover myself back to where
once took for granted, the feeling of wellness
it doesn’t help when someone you loved abandons you
in the middle of your darkest hour
things like that aren’t supposed to happen
people who swear allegiance and loyalty aren’t meant to
be the ones leaving your side
such is the hour and fickle fan of illnesses devour
at least I know I’d never treat someone, that poorly
despite this and because of it, healing is slower
though I suspect anything less than fire would be
I didn’t know these things beforehand
the un-annointed do not possess future perspective
to see how illness strips your childish faith, cleaves you
bare and gasping
where family didn’t need to see me, even as I spent weeks in hospitals
it cut me to the quick, but it wasn’t the first or the last
maybe preparing the groundwork for your deepest cut
they say you get used to it in time
I never have
just as I never have truly understood the cruelty within some, who profess so hard to love
now, I am a changed person
I cannot make plans like I used to, thwarted by my body, haunted by ghosts
my illness is like a cobra, she stays quietly in the leaves
rearing up when I least expect or when I want most to escape
her possession of me, the way she knows how to tickle fear
with just enough venom until I am on my knees
I am sure some would say, this is therefore; psychosomatic
that it what they tell all women of hysterical turn
I saw in your eyes when I told the horror; your own disbelief
until doctors produced the proof, you still wondered
it became apparent to me, just like with sexual assault
being believed is paramount to recovery
alongside having faith in ourselves
I did not do a good job of the latter
finding myself more alone than when I started
and I thought I started pretty alone
I know I am a survivor and I was not destroyed
yet it feels like I was
when I look inside myself and find
so little left, a house without windows
it was only because of you, I kept trying
I told you that, I said, you were holding me up
when you let go
I fell to a place I did not know existed
I wanted to ask; Couldn’t you have just waited
long enough to see me through the worst?
but you wait for nothing except your own need
I had to find a way to stand even as everything crumbled around me
which is the biggest test I ever had and I failed it
I failed it again and again
walking through the lullaby of desiring to die for so many reasons
not least, the never-ending dance with sickness and pain
but somehow I did not die, I turned instead to stone
when people say I am strong now and ask; How did you get through it?
I don’t tell them; I am not through it
I still lurch and shake in the throes of unnamed demons and at night
I feel like an arythmic god has taken me and is spinning me
on high-speed like all my parts are made of jello
I want to ask that god; what is it you are trying to shake loose?
surely you know by now there is no more fruit left
not even the rotten kind
that fell and split and sunk into earth, a long, long time ago
it is only me remaining now; leafless, without sturdy branches
I cannot rely upon myself, I cannot rely upon promises
no longer a young, untouched tree with green shoots
I am damaged, broken and hobbled, by this specter and the unknown
as much as by those I knew and trusted
asking why to the imploring void; why are we stricken down?
to what do I owe my continuing? Even as it is, insubstantial
can they see in my eyes, when I pretend, I am trying not to gag?
my appetite spirited away by the scourge and never returned
I would die of hunger and not know it
were it not for some strange determination
I don’t know where that comes from
but as I stand, it must be a place within me
does not give up, as she did not, all those years ago when
the flames licked the top of my house and burned, everything I knew to cinder
I am not like the rest of the world; stronger for my poison
nor am I able to disguise my scars
if I were asked what recommended me; I could not answer
I would probably open my mouth and howl
because you can reinvent yourself, a million times it seems
I am just one incarnation, coming apart at badly mended edges
you, who are able to vault life in gentle sprint, must mock
I am after all, just a fallen fruit, lasting as long as she can
in imperfect, bruised skin
She told me, don’t worry about it
We’re sitting talking about how we know
You’re making me laugh at jokes, about Hannibal
How I only like Gillian, because she’s a bit like you
And I can’t tell anyone, including you
You reminded me how I knew, I was still alive
In the video of you dancing, uncaring and wild
That’s how I’m reminded why
I know beauty
How women
Are the possessors of
All that is beautiful
With your downcast eyes, the color of absinthe
Hair falling in your pale face, cut cheekbones and grace
The switch of your merciless, marching intelligence
The sorrow, the humor, the passion lines
How you make me laugh hysterically and blush
Pouting, pulling on your cigarette, getting me aroused and nervous
Without trying, you command all attention
Your wit is sharper than a sword
When you didn’t talk to me
It was like a blonde flower, turning her lights out
The night was darker
Still I heard
That song you made immortal
The sway of your slim hips and secret smile
And I’m speaking to you in a language, I outlawed
Because he dirtied it for me, forever
But you sound so lovely talking in the fog
I know I have to stand at a distance, or I’d reach out
Grab the concentration from your lovely brow
But to be in your blazing aura
The tiny, angry, intelligent, firey soul
You inhabit like no other
You were the girl who woke me up
I’d give anything to dance with you
To that exact song, in those same clothes
Your then blonde hair, a chaotic wisp
The crunched concentration on your francophone face
There’s classic and there’s disheveled-perfect and you’re both
I’d take your hand and say
Don’t worry, I know the rules
But for fucks sake we’ve both been here long enough
born the same year
You got the small chest I always wanted
And you said you liked my eyes
Same color green as yours
Not narcissism
But sisters
Lovers of
Pain and hard living
We only trust those like us
Who smoked and drank and have to show on our tired faces, the weariness of living
Where boundaries are never crossed
But fantasy is free and inked
And you like being adored
I am good at loving
Sad, happy, gorgeous girls, with crooked smiles
Who hold my attention with their spark
Catching in the darkness like a skinned rock, thrown out to sea
On Brighton beach
Where we’ll always be young and beautiful
Me chasing you in the cold sea
You disappearing into green waves
Not even ourselves
Why and when did people stop being interested?
as kids we would sit on benches and talk about our pain
there seemed then, such a mercy in the air
it hung like cobwebbed dew around us and
despite the hardships we bore, our friends were
our succor
Why and when did people stop being interested?
and grief was labeled an annoyance?
why does growing-up mean we no longer write
poems like this
do we no longer feel the same
or just hide it away?
and if it is hidden how does it stay so
with the swell and the surge and the blistering salt
I hear rain falling into a tin can somewhere
and briefly I remember eating out of cans in summer
my lips sticky with apricot
it was a luxury then and my grandmother carefully
spooned each peachy globule out and added ice-cream
I hated the taste of ice-cream and I loved
the feeling of lying high in a big tree smelling apple leaves
in those days
when tragedy struck
we children who are called resilient
had the hope or the armor of youth
and the cherish of our friends
I saw her running toward me across the fields separating our houses
her red hair and freckled face red with exertion
we ate stale cucumber sandwiches left over from her mother’s
garden party and she held my hand in her own
clammy seedy palm
as if I were a starfish
I told her of my disappointments and the ache in my chest
all those who had forsaken and gone their own way
with the wisdom of child she wrinkled up her eyes against the sun
told me what I needed to do was pretend I didn’t care a damn
because one day you’ll grow up and nobody will be able to hurt you
I held onto that advice like a piece of paper framed in my chest
but it wasn’t true it wasn’t true
and I wonder where she is now
if she has children
if she is the same kind of mother she was as a friend
if I could see her again I would say
thank you for giving me the hope to get to this point
maybe it wasn’t true, maybe adults fool themselves into
thinking they are not children with ageing hearts and
brittle bones
maybe being an adult is harder than any childhood
because you don’t have afterwards to dream of
and the future as yet unsummoned
with all your magic and all your wistfulness
seen through the eyes of someone not old enough
to know the reality
I would tell her don’t tell your children the truth
let them dream as we did just a bit more
where I can still hear my grandmother knocking over pots
as she makes an apple pie and the smell
of summer is all about us in a haze
and your red hair makes mine look blonde
and your freckles tan your legs whilst mine remain blue
and your hand in mine is the first hand of friendship
I would thank you for running when I called
because nobody has run since and I suspect
adults have ways of doing things
us children never quite understand
I’m thinking if I could choose a side
I’d go through time and clasp your wrist and run
into the high grass fields out the back and where
nobody would find us
not even ourselves
years from now
TLDR is bogus / we should read, we should care and take the time
The outsider
she wasn’t like them, so they didn’t like her
to her face they smiled and said ‘nice things’
which she knew were lies
behind her back they laughed
and made dirty-lezzie jokes
because it made them uncomfortable
to think about what they thought she did
it made them feel a bit disgusted
like when you stand too close
…
she looked like them in superficial ways
wore at times, nicer dresses and had longer hair
the fact that she liked girls wasn’t in their
comfort zone
when it was summer time they had
BBQ’s and invited all the neighborhood kids
wondering if she would be safe around minors or
would do something inappropriate
when they started a mommy running club
she wasn’t invited because she was neither
a mommy or someone they wanted to
bare their secrets with
what would she understand of husbands?
maybe their husbands liked her
because she was unavailable
when it was Halloween they made candy and
knocked on all the doors but hers
because the other mothers said best to avoid
what they did not care to know
…
that’s why she lived a harder life than she had to
for there is almost nothing worse than pretend friendliness
leaving you more alone than if they said what they thought
and spat in your face
if you think that’s an exaggeration or she feels
sorry for herself
think on the tiny percent of the world
where being gay is safe or legal
and the huge part of the world where it is forbidden or punished
think on how many lament at
the shift in culture toward acceptance
calling it a ruination of our society with all
those damn fags
compare it to those who truly feel inclusive
how every day isn’t the same
when you have to contend with not fitting in
making everyone else feel uncomfortable
just by existing
nor can you talk about what matters to you
just in-case visual images abound and people
begin to change the subject
…
if it were a choice … a lifestyle … few would make it
yet she exists
wishing sometimes the phone would ring
another girl like her would say
I know how you feel
would you like to go for a walk?
she is a gay princess in a tower
and her princess
is somewhere in the world perhaps
thinking the same thoughts
two outsiders
unable to find each other
In her cull
Before
Who knew how to die?
That it wouldn’t be instantaneous
As children imagine
A sudden pain, then unconsciousness
Who knew?
Death could go on years
Building and slowing like cold sea water
Burning firework left to fizzle alone in inky sky
That it would wind and unwind, a mad clock void of correct motion
Who knew?
It could take the very young, wrap them in wool, to cast down wet hill
The jarring and bumping eventual colission held at bay
Till forgotten
That it could take you
Suspend you from me and all familiar things
Where the recognition in your once clear and beautiful eyes
Became muddied and clouded with quiet violence
Your touch so soft, stolen and replaced with flinty brush off
Who knew
The courage of fighters
Seathing against their sentence and eventual
Chop chop of parts, scars and marred
Skin once free of blade
A scratch board of operation knives
She reached me
As I sat in my safe world
Pulled me through
I smelt anticeptic
Read her clever whirring mind
Far too smart for this dull world
How can such people die?
She laughs and says
At least I’ll go young and whilst I have my looks
So long as you don’t show the undertaker my scars
They remind me of barbed wire and grey hair and the lines you cut in snow
When skiing downhill
Her lips are red, she says
I used to ride horses and can speak five languages
I say
I wish you would stay
I could read you eternally
It’s the macabre and giggling nervousness you feel
Around dying
It brings out the worst or the best of us
I wanted to bolt
Race down the road
But I remain and listen
To the gurgle of her catheter
And saw the bruised clouds grow
As rain came like tears behind pitched fingers
Her humor never left
She knew more than all of us
What a terrible, terrible waste
She said; I can make an authentic French 75
I wanted to swap places, I am not so rarefied
But I am a coward
Before the machinations of surgeons
What devour they do, to our poor skin
Does it really prevent anything?
She asked, laughing at the cat
Who is also old and infirm before his time
Still batting the window when birds come to peck
At crumbs of comfort because it’s those little things
She says, keep you going
Like my favorite soup, a funny film, the sun coming over horizon
Reminding me I can still
Breathe
I learn to appreciate life
From her dying
The morsel of me
Though of language I only know two and
Cannot spell in either
It seems
Life is savage in her cull
The bright and wonderful snatched
Who among us had an idea of
How to die?
Then she laughs
Her teeth still white, her skin waxy and hot
And says, oh dear you!
Who among us
Knew truly
How
To live?