I don’t want you to
Fall in love with me
So, you infuriate me by
Obliging me
I don’t want you to
Fall in love with anyone else
So, you infuriate me by
Not obliging me
obliging
and so, you see, here’s the problem
My problem is
I want everything
I want to do and
Try and
Taste and
Kiss and
Play and
Touch and
Laugh at and
Laugh with
Everything
I want all the sensations
I want all the experience
All the sights
All the sounds
All the stolen moments
I’m ravenous for it
And I pace and
Pout
And know I also
Would just like a nice
Glass of wine and to
Listen to
The jasmine summer breeze
Tickle my neighbor’s chimes
of fairy tales and happy endings
The eternal tappings of a slipper’d foot
100 strokes of a brush through golden locks of hair
White steeds
Tangles of rose bushes
Fairies, gnomes, evil stepmothers
A groove of expectations dug into
The soft vinyl of my young mind
Laying tracks of fantasy and escape
To play over and over
Burning impossibilities behind
Eyes clenched tight against
The probabilities behind
A small body accessible to
The wrong people at the wrong times
Prince Charming
The Nick of Time
A Vanquished Villain
And Everyone Lives
Happily Ever After
The sunshiney, happy places
A child huddles in to escape
Are nearly impossible for a
Grown woman, fingers jammed in her ears
To negate
A musical security blanket
That never gets frayed
Never gets left behind
Never fades in the wash
Never gets torn up by a
Vicious older brother
But hums along
Available for any panicked interlude
When reality is too painful or
Frightening or
Disappointing
The mice always sing and sew
The dwarves always whistle while they work
The dragon is always slain
The princess is always saved
And Everyone Always Lives Happily
Ever After
5.7.11
anger is the least honest emotion of them all
I wish I cried
I wish, like most women, I found tears useful
I wish they would make me feel better
Like I’ve been lead to believe
Not worse, like I have found to be true
But I don’t know catharsis
I go within, I recede
Emotion is best buried
Which is just as well
I’ve been taught expressing it only
Adds punishment
But once buried
The emotions mix, bleed together
Fear indistinguishable from dread, indistinguishable from humiliation,
Indistinguishable from guilt, indistinguishable from loneliness
All reduced to a brown roux of anger
The least honest emotion of them all
Unfortunately, like any radioactive stew
Nothing stays buried
Ground water is inevitably poisoned
After a while trees rot and die
The Earth rejects and
Eventually, all contamination seeps to the surface
Ravaging indiscriminately
i wish for you
I wish for You
Grace
I wish for You
Peace
I wish for You
Kindness and sympathy
Softness, rhythm, warmth
I want these things for You
Because I seek them for myself
And I believe if I can get them
For You
I can find them
For me
I wish strong embraces for You
To surrender to
I wish eternal shoulders for You
To lean on
I wish compassionate expressions for You
To tell secrets to
I wish soft, warm hands for You
To feel resting on Your arm
I wish gentle kisses for You
I wish steaming mugs of hot cocoa with little marshmallows for You
I wish these things for You
And I wish them for myself
As I wish them for
The bruised and broken
The lost and lonely
And for those who have merely forgotten
I’m bursting with wishes of these things for all of us
a skipping rock
A skipping rock
Lays waste to hordes
On the other side of the world
Dashing thousands in
Its ripples
loved
There were times when I felt,
Arms curled in, pressed to him
Breathing in the skin of his chest
His arm encircling my shoulders
His knee flung lazily over my hip
His sweet breath coming slowly, quietly, evenly
Swaying the loose tendrils of my hair,
That I felt utterly
Loved
And loved him utterly in return
desire
It winds
It comes in and out of focus
It’s my belly that truly feels it
The curiosity
The nausea of impending repercussions
I can’t make myself not do it
I can’t talk myself out of it
I cannot see a reason not to
But, oh, the reasons to
The feel
The sweetness
the mettle of a woman
The mettle of a woman
Is forged in fire
Hammered by adversity.
She rises from the coals
A phoenix fused into
A juggernaut of strength
And grace and accomplishment
She raises everyone around her.
Her laughter teases and cajoles
The best out of the best of the best.
I am not her.
I flinch and stutter.
Loud is too loud.
Bright is too bright.
Splinters gore and gouge
Brushes of sleeves
Sear and rend
I raise no one.
I impart nothing.
I lead only lemmings into the sea
I repulse and annoy.
I may remain merely and constantly
A cautionary tale.