that's mrs. mediocrity to you

.

or

forever

as long as you

never

touch

.

.

.

.

this is not a poem and i am not my shadow

the wall is solid but the light is not,
yet you cannot feel the difference

there is no baby bird begging for food
beneath a dark cloud
in a pot full of tulips

 perhaps there are no tulips

perhaps where i see purple you see green

perhaps this is skin and not plaster

there are no certainties

on this day

in this sun

or this room

with ghost shapes

dancing

but this is not a poem and

therefore none

are necessary

.

.

.

There are so many way in this life to have your heart broken,
so many days that feel like a too-hard struggle
in a battle already lost.

And yet
the world keeps spinning,
the babies keep smiling,
the flowers keep blooming,
the birds keep singing.

If perception is everything,
reflection is nothing.

A mirage of reality.

The bowl in my hand is clear glass and heavy.

What I see is the flame of forgiveness.

A vessel, cradling my heart.

Light, made tangible.

I hold on.

.

.

.

with the calm assurance of a master
beating back forest and flight and wildflower
in a dark cloud of apprehension
broken just enough to let the light through

one bird’s sky is another bird’s justice
and we call this fair on days when the sun shines
sitting in shadow with friends on either side
claiming balance

there’s a riptide of ballast claiming souls
and blooming has its own cost
one dime for pretty and two for compliance
while whispers of revolution father breezes

seeds will find a way to scatter
because we’re rooted in this circle
rose and thorn as proof of humor
bleeding through each window’s lock

.

.

.

Alice holds a doll in tired hands. I want
to smile each time I walk past,
say hello,
but tears always well and my mouth
turns down with the pain
of perpetual forecast.

“This feels like prison,”
someone whispers, and I
don’t think it was me but
old Joe’s eyes dart straight up to mine
and hold me with watery challenge,
though neither one of us knows
who spoke.

I don’t want to walk this gauntlet
disguised as hallway or write
these words
pretending to be poetry,
but here I am
scooting by with my purple sharpie
concealed in one hand.

Hope sits in my purse
next to car keys and kleenex and
crumpled receipts,
though I’ve paid for nothing
and everyone here
will be sure to testify.

Proof.

Of life and legs
moving,
always moving,

away

away

away

to places already been
and never seen.

Away.

.

.

.

Folding grey in upon itself and shouting color back into the world.

I am listening for grace and finding bits and shards scattered in puddles of mud and the still deep pockets of winter’s coat.

Moving through hard things and surviving them.

Watching lines of geese form arrows of forgiveness. Connecting the dots, but lightly, in pencil, in case I want to start over. Drawing my way through a book named 2016.

Yesterday pretended to be summer and I spent the day with dirty hands and a warm, warm sun, as the mockingbird reinvented his own story. He tells me everything and I laugh in all the right places, knowing we need each other—performer and audience, though I’m never quite sure which is which.

I feel myself growing. Older and lighter, wiser and taller. Heavy-hearted and ever-surprised.

I think about compassion. I think about flowers. I think about endings and beginnings, comings and goings, cycles and seasons.

I think about flight and freedom. I think about the day when both become impossible.

Geese fill the air with a frenzied, raucous melody. Fighting for space and survival. Smoothing ruffled feathers and thinking about dinner, or gravity, or both.

The horizon is always an illusion, marking time on a map filled with moments.

I find my way with blind fingers and broken pencils.

I find a feather in the corner of redemption, and think how floating and falling are simply different speeds to the same destination.

I find benediction.

Here.

.

.

.

i wanted to tell you a story
but all these words
cracked open and bled off the page
all viscous and slippery
and dark with age

i wanted to hold them in the cup
of my oddly-marked palm,
or i wanted to hold you and stand
before that blank cracked distorted mirror
and i’ve forgotten

i wanted to give you something
called everything
but that box always comes up empty
no matter how many times i trap-wrap
and rosette with sincerity

i wanted to line your heart
with soft mirage memories of joy
but there was wool, only wool
all sharp and dry and scratchy
rubbing permanence raw

again

and again

and the ceiling

the reflection

of holy

.

.

.

.

watching shadows dance

in a cinnamon shaped room

recording silence

.

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