Taxiing the runway
Holding
Until I have the body
Until I have the money
Until I have the time
Until I have the nerve
The good
The great
The astonishing
In leaden thought
In locked up dream
Of someday,
I suppose.
Turning the soil is good for the soul.
Promises of
Tomorrows and
Always
With kisses on the nose
And hands in your hair
Fierce, urgent eyes
Pressing for forever
Enveloping legs
Clinging tight to the
Muscules of your back
Kissing your eyelids
Overwhelm me
Locking you in
When you’re near me
But once you’re gone
I wonder
How could he ever
Why would he never
Leave me
Realize
Just how useless
And warped
And misshapen
And rancid
I am
He will
He must.
So I plot my
Escape
Filling myself back out
Too large to want
Too ugly to need
Too embarassing to acknowledge
Skipping plans
Hiding away
Tearing myself down
Choking on the poison
That’s fed me
All these years
Kept at thick arm’s distance
From anyone
Who might leave
Of their own volition,
It will be mine
Instead.
Glittering liquid
In your hands
Swirling pictures of forever
And always
And love
Dripping through fingers
Onto the ground
Until it’s gone
Trampled
Underfoot.
Mine.
I get the good pillows
The comfy pillows
He takes the bumpy
Lumpy
Grumpy pillow
The one he says feels like
It’s stuffed with
Dead mice.
But I get
The billowy pillows
That cradle my head
While he cradles
My body
Drowning my face
As it’s thrown
All the way back
Diving deep
On both ends.
Those dreamy pillows
That I hurl on the floor
When my body is
Shaking.
Those damn pillows
Couldn’t stop
Couldn’t drown out the
Words
That I didn’t want
To say
That I tried to
Hold back
But they came out
Anyway.
“Is it okay
if I love you?”
Time stops.
Breathing stops.
Searching for that pillow
To bury my face
Plug up my ears
Shield my eyes
From what might come
But it comes
Anyway.
“Yes.”
Greedy
For ice cream
And cheeseburgers
And french fries
And chocolate
Gave way to
Greedy
For weight loss
And new clothes
And a pretty face
And thin legs.
Then greedy
For attention
And attraction
And excitement
And sex
Crept in.
Now
It’s greedy
For acceptance
And affection
And time spent
And love.
People say that
Moderation
Is key
Small increments
Slow growing
Naturally developing
A step at a time
But they forget…
I’m way too fucking
Greedy
For my own
Good.
17 years.
That’s how long I was checked out
A library book
I’d forgotten to return.
It should have been pored over
By avid fans
Or even casual readers,
But instead was squirreled away
In that space between
The floor and the headboard of my bed,
The forgotten place that
Never gets light
Collecting skin cells and waking dreams
Trampled by spiders and centipedes.
When I finally reached down
Into that dusky space
And salvaged the fragile book
I regarded it with hesitation.
Was it still relevant?
Still interesting?
Was the damage too great?
The wrinkled pages and
Faded cover
Disquieted me.
I leafed through it gingerly
Fingers tugging at the history
Remembering my favorite lines
And discovering new passages that I hadn’t known
Or hadn’t remembered.
It was funny, this book
And thoughtful,
And dirty – really dirty.
There was so much inside
That could perhaps still find an appreciative audience
Somewhere.
But what about the fine?
The price that had snowballed with the days
After all of those years
Of disuse
Could I afford it?
I was unsure
But needed to know.
So I straightened the spine
Fanned out the pages and
Wiped the cover.
I slowly walked it back
To the librarian, who asked me
What I was there to do.
I gently handed it back.
“Return.”
The tangled branches
Are crooked, bent and heavy
With a few young leaves
Scattered to the winds
And the remainders straining
At their stems,
Waiting to fall free.
In the center of the tree
Around the Nucleus,
The Wellspring,
These lumbering branches
Sprawl to jealously guard,
Fervidly mistrusting any nearing
Winds or creatures,
At times stifling and cutting her off
From needed elements.
A broken branch hangs
Near the ground
Rotted and forgotten
Destroyed by disease.
And still another bends away,
Away from the interlocking
Tangle
Quietly soaking in sun
And wind and rain
Without shelter or blocking,
But also without bonds.
When blessedly, a fragile, torn leaf
From one of the tangled and
Lumbering branches
Drifts downward on a stream of wind and
Finds its way to the contented loner,
Wind-tossed into a crook
In its bent arm,
Tucked away, protected
And yet remarkably symbiotic.
No longer rootless
No longer alone
Together they bend
They seek the sun
They drink the rain
And they grow stronger.
And therefore so too does the tree.