Ivy Trimmed

I am safe here in my home.
Tree lined street curves soft,
Small blue house with window box flowers,
It is an old mother apron-tied smile.
These white walls are my solace.
I love the light spilling from every side.
Carol’s ivy-trimmed windows,
Flowered couch has traveled with me since 1994,
Cushions busting from wear, stained and flipped.
My home has painting of innocent girls, sad.
They look out at me and I say,
“This is rest.”
Surrounded by music and family photographs,
I am home here. I am in the air here.
I close my bedroom door and leave it all on the floor.
Cornered by window shades and palm leaves,
I am home here.

8-20-00

Saw Digging

I am sick tight wrenched and wrung into myself.
I felt dumb for sobbing two seconds and it dissolved.
I am sucked out like a black hole and I think of the nothingness my life is.
My pain has been behind darkness. Silence.
I know it more than ice cream chocolate.
I am not making this up.
Fuck you for even thinking that.
FUCK YOU for even suggesting I could be the one with the problem.
My problem. My problem is right.
I am drenched in loathing of my weakness.
Soaked in vulnerability.
How dare you.
Why can’t I open doors inside? Why can’t I let the flow out?
Out like bats in a cave at night, cover the moon.
I could cover the sun. I could be a light switch of corrosion.
Daylight blinds me.
I am cutting, saw digging rusty, heaving, deeper inside myself.
I am pulling and pushing back and forth.
Dry and hard as steel is the true depth, like sanding iron with paper.
I stop frequently to say, “This is not my life. This did not happen to me.
I am not this person.”
What if they can see me crying like turnip’s blood?
I have no more strength for this tonight.
No more sawing, cutting. Cannot continue.
I am sideways, heavy as stones in a Moorish castle, surviving empires and world wars.
Heat and light depress me.
It took place in the morning while he was still in bed.
It was twenty years ago. Why am I crying now?
Why do those moments win my soul?
Hating him is not my life’s only goal.
I have so much more to do.
I want to dissipate and evaporate and breathe easy and clean.
Maybe I am getting in touch with my anger now.
I imagine throwing plates, breaking at his head.
Handing out posters to his church mates.
Setting up an information website and slashing tires.
How could I consider loving him?
His dorky and awkward social manners, he thought he was funny.
I wanted to treat him like everyone else.
I wanted to forgive him for molesting me, for abandoning me, for lying to me,
But I AM THE ONE WITH THE PROBLEM!!!
I am sick for thoughts.
I am exhausted from tapping into shit.
I just want to be whole.
I just want to love free and without restraint.
I am pierced and dull and stiff and cracked.
I am jello.
I am tired.
I am done with all this.
I don’t want to carry this anymore.
I want to be done with knots and stones and barricades.
I want to be me without those things.
 
8-19-00

Saturated

Stop heckling Stop cackling
I hear it through the curtains
I hear it past the window fan
And over the distant cars
I am alone tonight
With my bags packed
The night is empty
The rooms on vacation
Aloha, my friends
I go to Seattle again
I choose this knowingly
Ah, I miss it now
The distant laughter
Rhythmic and impure
A chorus of response
To the unheard remark
Car doors, ignition
Silence
And I feel I need my mother
To understand
How living here is my right
How loving her can be hard
And laborious
How memories can come in waves
That saturate your skin
And fill your pores
Until walking becomes impossible
Breathing an accomplishment
I want her to know
I have rights to be alone
To drown or to swim
She just needs to understand

8-8-00