Faith

My love

it is so hard to keep

faith

with every day there are changing shades from day to night

sometimes I am comforted by fireflies and evening moth

who dual beyond the porch, betrayed by flicker and swat

I imagine the patterns of her wings, that magic sting of light

so short their lives compared to ours, so rich and meaningful I would infer

sometimes it is the exclusion of pain gives me rest

when I can at last unroll my carpet and forget

carrying the weight all day, a vase of ache absent of flower

to place this nowhere and have it melt away

I lie in the bath and heady steam dissipates reality

in those musings there is only the delight of a girl

seeking her passion in lingered meandered imagining

and you come to me, full of health and unharmed yet

by cruel flint and staunch of your absent conscience

and you lay me down and make of me what you will

a thousand pieces of me broken and rebuilt

which I give with my all, for you were and you remain still

far more than sense can convey

in the hour of day when dreams are gone to sleep

I see the cruelty of your take and take and take

the hunger of your keep and how I was but a thing, in your

cabinet of curiosities to be taken out and squeezed when you

thirsted or when times were hard and you needed the succor of

kindness to tuck you in, nothing of you was sincere or loving

all that I held dear possessed the sound of my own breaking

it was as if I had become pupil to mistreatment

learned many times on illiterate whip of inheritance

children soon become acquiescent to disregard

I didn’t know how to be worthy and you took my pain

pinned it to a velvet card and called me Opodiphthera Eucalypti

my blush and powder, the soft rubbed fur and bleed of color

round and round my pattern and maze, sucking from thistle

the gypsy without, I live in silk and attraction to light

pollinating only the fruit of predators like yourself

as you pinch my wings with your greed and whisper

my lunar, my atlas, spin your silken web across my longing

for I have never learned my worth and you wish to

gobble on my spirit as you may an Autumn apple

the fragrance of your dissection

my love

it is too easy

to stay my life in wait of your call

watching others continue onward and myself find

nothing but the covet and anguish of a prisoner

if I had the strength to

I’d hurl myself against the glass

leaving a smudge of myself in technicolor

for children to press their noses against and wonder

oh what ever life could make such a kaleidoscope

and in these mixings of burning and yearning

parched by want and crushed to nothing

the dancer emerges broken and fragmented

to spirit into night her ether and the longing

she is free of her torment and bound to the wax and wane

of one who has rubbed against and been caught by

a terrible rope, woven with obsidian, the shade of pain

my love

it is too hard to remain

faithful

to your brand of hurt

and live in dying with every pursuit

I have long imagined I am already prepared

for the hour, the moment, pain exceeds its curse

and slipping like oil and water and vinegar bound

we change from solid to infinity and beyond

where only the stain of who we were and what we bore

that burning need to consume, that hunger for

all the poison within your sickening and how

never did you rest until the very perish was wrought

standing still like a girl reaching for

something invisible

my love

it is the fresh unopened rose

and her tightly closed promise

shall see tomorrow and claim

the glory

for I will not be there to witness

this new day and those trespasses for this comforts

me in such a depth as if every kind of anguish

were salved by the knowledge this too shall end

and you will dissolve in time

beyond the fragment of what has been

into the very air like things we cannot yet see

whirling and catching the air in relief

for moths have never lived long enough it seems

to know their beauty and how it is

for us who live sometimes too long

and rise to see another day, alone

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The promise of the dream (nombrilisme series)

I dreamt or made up that I did

In sweet spot between wakefulness and sleep

giving over to fantasy as bolster against, hard spit of life otherwise

sometimes, you just need spoon of honey stirred in warm drink

reducing disappointment, like when you were ill as a child

someone laid a cool hand on your fever and whispered;

there there, there there

when I was little, I was very disappointed

with empty rooms, lack of interest, invalidating reasons to exist

I learned before I could talk, to fantasize and imagine

sustaining me throughout life, both as warm blanket against harsh reality

sometimes a drug that I used too much to ward away gloom

for when we live inside the rooms of our imagination

we create such spectacular palaces

sometimes, the outside world is neglected

we do not try as hard, if we can imagine instead

I danced with Jennifer Beals in Flashdance in my mind

why then did I need to try?

and reality it is necessary to know, you get nothing without effort

dreams are just dreams, eventually avoir le cafard, leaving you cold.

Once in a while, I still permit myself to

think of a world where everything I want, comes true

what would it feel like?

think of what hurts you the most, turn it into the best scenario, that was my moto

I hated how I looked, so in my fantasy land, I was free of all taint and condemnation

always abandoned, so in my mind, people came to me open armed

as silly and unrealistic that may be, in the cold light of day

lying in my bed, yesterday, I flung my arm out of the covers

into cold air

imagined a lover taking it

kissing my goosepimpled skin with warm lips

until I could hear their words, whispered in my ear

feel their want of me

curling around usually empty flesh

so long I felt, I had mastered the feeling of rejection

I could write a monologue on it

wanted to kill it, leave it dead and bleeding

never again know intimately what it felt like

to be lied to, walked away from, deceived,

never again know, how it felt to make mistakes

trust someone who promised and gave nothing

in my mind, I needed nobody

still they came, as fantasy will

the girl I set my sights on

changing her mind, bending to Fates chant

it was all rather sad, when you thought about it

here I was making up worlds that didn’t exist

when in my own, there was only indifference

but it is, the unbearable likeness of being

sends me to my mind palace, hiding from the world.

As a little girl, when it was cold outside

and rain fell or my own tears, in my prison

and I had read all the books, thrice over

nothing to see out of windows, nobody to speak to, or call out for

the emptiness of days, absent of structure and attention, I was to all, invisible

behind my eyes, I created a world

of being wanted and validated and sometimes

amazing

where lovers spoke entreaties, wonderful things occurred

and as I grew older I could pretend

it was not me who touched myself

but the hand of someone, I only dreamed of

for reality was falling rain

nothing worked the same out there

it stung of let-downs and empty words

even when something seemed real

it would not be me, who it came for

maybe recognizing, I was not worthy

for I spent too much time pretending

not working hard enough in stark light of reality

for I was ever a coward, escaping the grunt of dull living

for the majesty of the fantastic.

On weekends going to clubs full of dreams

just to escape sordid living of emotional poverty

drugs can be snorted or made up, by concentrating

and lovers who did exist, could be magnified

it is said, you do not fall in love with a person

but with passion itself

and I was guilty of that

though always I wanted, to meet the one

and I still believe such things exist

though not for me

I was never a fantasy girl, despite living in the fantasy

and you were my fantasy

though I did not make you up

I may as well have

for you did not want me

I cannot now, recreate you in my mind

you are more than I could ever imagine

now the dream is soured

because I knew you in the real world

and for the first time

wanted to stay there with you

dancing beneath changing trees

for once, I threw everything of me, at making something come true

it only confirmed what I had always feared

it may be true, we do not live without effort

but to risk our hearts and realize we are not enough

doesn’t seem recoverable

it is no wonder

many of us I suspect, live inside ourselves

where we cannot be hurt, by what we want and do not

have

is that selfish?

was it greedy of me to believe?

we are not given these feelings for them to

simply wither

but here I am, so many years later

still dreaming, solitary, untouched by something real

growing it seems, with every year

a little colder and more removed

for nothing is as sad, as going through life unwanted

having to find succor in the promise of our dreams.