Her Loudspeaker

I am sorry you are trapped with me.

Honestly, it’s a feeling I often feel.

I know how it is when it’s confusing to hope.

Let me tell you how I cope...

I enter this weird place of fantasy where

I wish for magical devices like:

Scales that would show the weight of all my invisible work! 

Cameras that would capture the beautiful workings of my chore-generating thoughts!

I frolic within works of modern art that are not yet created:

I am a gorgeous witch,

taking my turn to 

ride and repurpose 

a large variety of brooms that have been employed in the inhumane cleansing 

of that horrible discontent feeling 

when you know others are dying for your safety.

I am the queen that beat a rigged game of three-card-Monty.

Finally, the two wrinkled white devils have gone 

From calling my culture and womanhood hysterical and weak, calling my dark-skin evil or violent or stupid or lazy

To denouncing currency as something that can buy only the comfort of feeling like you have earned the right to abuse your privilege 

They are finally willing to admit the  unsustainability of 

just “looking out for yourself” or refusing to “worry about everybody”

In unison they hail me, once the:

“nagging bitch” who is “surprisingly articulate,” and “unreasonably precocious,” continually “asking for too much.” 

Today, their righteous queen.

Sometimes the magical devices and imaginative escapades are not enough.

Don’t fret; there is something that always works better than all the others.

It’s the one where I honor our mothers:

From the first moment I can remember she has 

given me advice, 
urged me to improve, 
reminded me to think ahead, 
told me to think about everyone else first 
and take it in my stride when they think of me last.

I play her on a loop in my head

“It’s easier if you rinse it, your two minutes will save me five”

“You have to be willing to work twice as hard as everyone else”

“The one lesson I hope you learn is never to depend on anybody” 

“They will take the chance if you give it to them”

It helps me see 
why the cognitive dissonance
is so much heavier for me

When I hear chatter about independence and free will, 
I also remember how digestible society finds modern slavery

And every time I catch myself wanting a real moment of solitude

I remember that her most constant words ring far too true:

“You can never think about just you.”

I am sorry you’re trapped with the deafening person I am really,

But I know you can understand why the more important vow to me 

Is my painstaking ability to be

her loudspeaker. 

Endless

It is hard not to feel your absence

The memories I cannot yet allow 

are now

Boundaries

Which cage me into a narrow space of being

A space with little room

for change 

Or patience 

Or understanding. 

And grief knapps everything.

It gives

Smiles, sugar, butter, tea,

a sharp edge.

Still, shanks can be used

To cut yourself free.

You always said,

“The only way out is through.”

But

It’s an endless walk, my love for you.

Thomas and Friends, Ep. 102701

This fight was never between us,

So it feels strange that the silence is. 

And if you are waiting on me to speak,

I want you to know all this:

Thomas and Friends, Ep. 102701

Siblings are like trains on the same track,

A tragic wreck for one is but

A nail biting delay for the other.

I want you to have your own journey.

While I know of old debris 

that you may come across,

I hope your narrative can place it in

some kind of glad treasure-box:

This is why I am clutching so tightly to mine.

But one day,

When our tracks are changed,

Perhaps we can reflect then:

on our vastly different engines;

the dryness of my noisy gears,

corroded by years of salty tears.

And so when it is long passed,

We will finally get our signals uncrossed:

Separate the steam from the smoke, 

backtrack, restore blown stacks.

Meanwhile, please know:

I love you.

I have a happy ear perked for your whistle,

And at the inevitable end of the embargo:

Also, a happy heart with room for your cargo.

This is not derailed, 

we are just side-tracked—

there is no grade to make, 

no end on this line:
we will always be fine.

Guardian Angel

It is the same plate 

My fork scratched years ago

There is a little bit of me etched in it.

Hidden in the gold-maroon of its border,

Is the ghost of me

For your consumption

I am also hidden somewhere in your thoughts,

In your unconscious responses. 

Perhaps, in your enjoyment of glitter.

I am happy with this past.

My wishes are glad.

Piecemeal-me is nourishing:

The spirit is no poltergeist.

Budgets

At

Graveyard hour

Your body crushes me.

Bones are stones.

Insomniacs together,

Blaming the other:

A future of guilt

Victims of 

pointless stress;

Punch clocks

As we lie in the 

Brightest darkness

Every breath, every micro-movement

We are playing 

monkeys jumping on the bed 

There is some red, 

Some dazzling blue:

in the purple of my

Black-eye.

Oh honey,

Lady liberty won't bleach 

our linens white 

anymore 

So sleep on the floor

Or bleed more frugally 

A Post-factual Romance

I met you in a magic way

The morning after 

A long night 

When my laughter rang strong

I think you tasted my 

Heartbeat-shade-lipstick

in the alleyway kiss of a lifetime 

And guessed 

that I come from a time that remembers 

Blood must be pumped into the brain

Before its first command is spoken

You are also well versed in the 

weaknesses of brains

Tricks of perception

Yes, there are facts of reality

But we all know the word is fiction

Spaceships don’t scare those who remember

oxygen is just a group of letters

You pushed me

Against the cold-graffiti-shutters

I felt my back press onto a warm bed of feathers

That was the moment I knew 

brave-lovemaker

Your art is building the world I want

A world where the heart is remembered

Lost Coverage

There is a tactile love

that grabs you in your sleep

A love of

kisses that once killed Keats

We live in a world of tailgating 

easy lovers

brashly hopeful for a fortunate accident

But the memory of touch 

is from a back-alley affair

the kind that makes overfull stomachs ache

and windswept hairs stand 

as we frigidly shake

Naked, uninsured

A blue-road accident

unwitnessed, unfortunate

leaves me nothing but a scar

in settlement

be warned that

a left-handed lover 

does not negotiate

and

for years to come you will receive

Morpheus-Mail

bills to remind you that

your damages 

must still be paid