Perhaps you dreamed of me

A few people said / write something succinct / shorter than your usual / elaborated rhetoric / don’t you know how to / edit and be precise in your / measurement of words / good writers don’t need / verbal diarrhea / they can mold meaning / certain as bending copper / to light.

She thought it over

Knowing it was possible

After all she’d written some very

Shaved and glutted poems

Once.

 

(It wasn’t her way and if you are not true to your way

then you may as well be another lemming / willing to leap / from cliffs edge

of course this precludes learning which is / a value immeasurable

sometimes you can learn everything and still / go back to drawing unrealistically).

 

Finding something – – – perhaps it’s not a poem or a form but a short story

In the elongation and manipulation of reality and precision. Imprecise then. Deliberately.

 

Long ago she had no words because she couldn’t spell well enough to write. So she drew. For hours. Reels of paper. Stories by picture. Things she needed to say. To no one listening.

When she saw Woman In A Red Armchair hanging in a burgundy room / the silence palpable aside / rain hammering outside / mercilessly / like a hundred mouths clamoring

she tried not to stare at the line that made the woman / female

but was drawn to it as she might have been / a real breathing woman

something exquisite and desirable / she longed to see a live flesh and blood girl

to touch her with her empty hands and run them over her / quivering flesh

until those colors swelled up / and she cried out / for the sheer torment and beauty

but

no girls existed / save those who / liked boys / there were plenty of them

why were they all heterosexual?

why wasn’t she?

In America she heard / there are entire schools / devoted or a byproduct perhaps / lesbians / and only-girls-schools / well don’t start on them …

living in the city / you’d think but you’d be wrong / a few pinches / mostly shorn / forlorn

empty eyed / emulating men / less female than / those who wanted to lie beneath them.

Where existed that / judge not / beauty / with /dark eyes

the missing / beat / savor / prosper / sail

to her / soul.

If she could have / found her all along / not searching years but moments / glimpsed

sight and immediately / both knew / this bond before / words spoken

even at 13

even before she were born

perhaps you dreamed of me

created in the stillness of your loneliness / that which you did not have / filling emptiness with yearning / I am born to be / the wet ink on your skin / a permanence / no longer waiting / arms outstretched / for dreams unnecessary / now we / are.

Never quite together / torn asunder / this year the blackcurrents come later / as if they knew / what wonders and nightmares / store / waiting behind the pitch / to come rushing / we tried / we failed / the frailty of emotion / it bleeds easily / like thin skin / gone a-blackberrying / on a listless day / no clouds nor movement / sky dim / with unspent rain / the longing stored up / causing pain.

Perhaps you dreamed of me.

I stood — uncertain — proud backed —

against the light

where shape can be outlined

most acutely

if then you’d looked — ephemeral — something unstated

in muted expression

what we do not say — what we hold inside — contains the greatest

message.

Return to me. Though you are gone. Through the shroud. Time be gentle. Time be cruel.

Different and the same. Recollecting nothing. There is the proof. Stained on our table. Where you cut yourself. On a sharp knife of desire. And I opened to you. Ballet within music. Rapture closed us together. Forgotten. How do you not remember.

That long night we ran barefoot?

Flowers close their drowsy heads. Against night. Sleep. An eternity. Wakening. We are

strangers. Again.

Loss. A pressed red petal against Italian paper. Seeking its watering. I am so thirsty for your return. My love.

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Nothing of me

She stands in the doorway

The outline of her slim shoulders

The hallway light seems peachy

She is home and without her

Home will be a strange wasteland

Where survivors cling to wreckage

Watching for her shape every night

The smell of her still on tortoiseshell hairbrush

Why didn’t she need it when she left?

How did she choose what to take and what to leave?

The only choice I was certain of

..

I was not under consideration

That need, to not need

Suffocating on duty and then

Deciding to toss it into waste bin

Along with other chains

I have carried as my own brand of perfume

She who gave me life, wanted life without me

Always did, from the first day they placed me in her arms

And she thought … oh no

…

It isn’t her fault

Love never arrived

But I am left alive

Yearning to matter, knowing I never will

It is a bigger part of me than I care to usually admit

A voice in the dark always crying for Mommy

A word I haven’t used, I know not

I thought I’d grow up and get over it

But wherever you go, there you are

In my case, a kid whose mom didn’t want

…

I’m still looking at doorways

Watching for her tread

In other’s faces, a memory yet

Even as I grow older than she was

When she squeezed her heart

And despite the shared DNA

Found it held

Nothing of me

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.

Defiance

As she ticks upward

the hours tick down

crossed off by permanent pen

no you will not live this moment again

seize it as you would a hot sparkler

waved maniacal by laughing children

through mittened thin protection of wool

and in that conjure

you still the thunder of

what you didn’t achieve

what you didn’t yet reach

in the circumference of your dreams

just before burn

becomes indelible

raise up

let go of all worldly commands

to obey and bow

you are beholden only

to ushered majesty of tomorrow

make it worth your time

here standing in line with

other decaying eyes

blinking against saline

for soon you will rise

a little sorer for your walk

parchment for skin

timidity taking over waltz

then when you think it’s too late

surprise yourself again

swelling with love and energy

like the old dog who hears his returning master

will out run even March hare

for nothing is as lasting

as devotion

turning blushing cheek to quixotic moon

spilling beyond possibility

like frozen water is released

with first thaw

purest of all