Poem: Marionette

each of his hands seems too big, 

but not for his arms, 

or for his chest,

or his legs or feet or head, all of which seem too big alone.

but not together.

the pieces never come together. 

they don't move together,

they move alone, like the cut limbs of a marionette

just pieces tied to someone else's hand.

his hands never connect to his arms, 

and no matter how big it all seems for each other,

he seems small, overall

and he seems alone.

and sad.

Poem: Birthday

a year passed. another orbit.
a circle around the sun.
hurtling through space and nothingness
exists my everything.

all it means is that i've returned
and for a day, i'm hurtling through the same space
i came into.

before that, i was still here
just split into halves
clinging to the fecund fragments of my parents
before that, in quarters of theirs,
cut smaller and smaller by the past.

if you trace back far enough,
i've always been here.
and when i fall apart into smaller pieces
the pieces will have always existed

we're older than the world itself.

Only Fingertips

Only my fingertips show.

It is spring today. I walk slowly up the hill, slow progress, following the leading shadow with my own footprints. The others lie spread on the young grass, sleeveless and shoeless, all still pale, like corn shucked prematurely.

The laces of my well-worn shoes reach to brush the fraying legs of my pants. Above, my legs are just suggested, just ideas that might have been, blurry shapes up to the hem of the sweatshirt, which replaces all shape with itself. The sleeves are too long, leaving only my fingertips. Only my fingertips show.

The breeze whistles softly through my fingers, as though my sleeves open to the mouths of empty glass bottles, held upside down, inviting resonance.

It looks funny. I know that. But being shucked invites all the wind at once. Being shucked allows too much. I prefer the wind in little pieces I can hold. Only on my fingertips.

Facebook

i figured out
why im avoiding it

by seeing
what i didnt want to see

and finding
what i didnt want to find

and now im sad
deflated almost

but i cant tell
if its jealousy
or disgust

Telling

I want to tell him, to show him what I have, what I mean, and what I'm made of. I pull his hand, pull him towards me and open my world to him. I throw open the doors and the shutters and the shades and it all falls out at once, having been stuffed too full for too long.

He laughs it off as the mess sinks to his feet. He kicks it around, like fallen confetti and streamers after a party, and my face sinks as it settles. With a hand on my shoulder, he tells me simply, "You're crazy."

And he means it well. He means it jokingly. He means it to collect the mess and put it away, hand it back to me. A dismissive, quick, analysis. Sometimes, he says it more to himself, though he doesn't know I think so. He notes it, tucks it away in his own mind's closet, which is probably neat and organized, with each bit sealed in boxes and taped shut. He might have a shoebox, reserved for me. About me. Maybe. Maybe it's filled with little notes. Crazy, they probably say, she's crazy. Buried at the bottom are the things he might not want to know. The lid is kept shut. But I wouldn't know. I've never seen it.

He doesn't understand. He sees a tangle of yarn without a beginning or an end to unravel. He sees letters that don't make words in languages that don't exist. He sees doorless rooms and staircases that don't go down. A past that won't be remembered and a future that doesn't have a chance.

Even now, I can't explain. I think in shades the rest of the world seems to be colorblind to.

Why I Haven't Blogged

The internet got too big for me. Walking outside, I looked up to find it towering above, having taken over the sky. I wasn't sure where it began, I just knew it overshadowed me, overshadowed everything, sat in every corner and crevice. So I left it. And I'm having a hard time finding my way back.

Magical Realism

Magical Realism. A literary or artistic genre in which realistic narrative and naturalistic technique are combined with surreal elements of dream or fantasy.

I wish it had never been named. A name has sharpened it, has refined its presence into solid crystals that shimmer, nestled in the folds of my everyday. I hate that shimmer. With every spark, I'm a bit farther away from reality.

As I stare out into the room now, the edges of my vision begin to blur, darkening, dancing. The ceiling slowly starts to melt down into the seats, like tear tracks down dry cheeks. I flinch and blink hard, promising myself it's just a blood pressure issue, a low resting heart rate, something else with a name I can hold onto.

For a few blissful moments, the world stays put. Then, ever so slowly, it starts to drip again. The streaks grow into rivers of colors I can't name. The colors turn into a memory, then a smell, a feeling, and back again. I don't fight it. I can't. I think I'm losing my mind.

Cleaning

The piles of junk and stacks of half finished books have sat long enough to start to stew in their own personalities. The lumpy mass of jackets thrown over the rocking chair has grown to be motherly and comforting, while the torn, faceless book on the nightstand is a jealous cynic.

I was determined to clean, to scour, to renew. I thought I'd feel better then. But I couldn't bring myself to trash memories, so I stored them.

Faces trapped under frames were shut in cardboard tombs, and stacked in the closet. Too far away to keep up, too soon to throw away. In the picture, she's still my best friend. In the picture, he still loves me. In the pictures are the people I know.

As the stacks shrink, the room falls off balance, as though the empty space is yearning for exactly what it's not. The dizziness and distortion are overwhelming, and I sit amidst the personalities of trash, and the ghosts of personalities in pictures, knowing that really, there's nothing there at all.

Book Flask

The first few words bead on my chapped lips, and I lick them off hungrily. As words become sentences, sentences phrases, and phrases ideas, the droplets grow to a steady stream. I gulp at them hungrily, letting the surfeit dribble down my chin.

The flavor lingers after I've shut the book, sitting heavily in my mouth and mind. Instead of being swallowed and finished, it has soaked into everything it touched, and now leaks slowly out. I'm soggy and full, like a sponge having absorbed to the utmost.

My foggy, drunken mind remains caught between reality and fiction, struggling to pull back to the former. The story is disturbing, a dark and heavy flavor, and I'm caught beneath it. Drowning under someone else's fictitious weight.

Who Knows?

I haven't written lately. Well, I haven't written here. I'm trying to write something else. But it's not working. Maybe I'll end up here again. Maybe I'll finish it and share it here. Who knows?