Lord of the Fries

When my mom was my age

she dragged around a pucker faced

eight year old whose oil eyes

thought nothing could fall her mother.

Yet at my age, I feel no bigger than then;

we've always been youth leading youth

young, dumb, and hopeful, 

no grown ups in sight.

details

The doctor always said, 

"Now let's have a look at your belly."

before rolling down the sheet 

to reveal the swollen, white

watermelon heaving up

then down, in labored breath.

It's seemed so odd, odder than

your belly dilated and opened

slit down the center and gapping,

winking organs and glands at me,

that in all of medical school

and residency and practice

a surgeon just says "belly"

Like a school nurse.

Today I lived in the margins of The Book of Life.

Not a main character or even side character,

but an absent minded professor's afterthought

scribbled in the edge, rarely read and often askewd-

Maybe a reference to a highlighted word or

some false interpretation of author meaning-

Something a drunk college student may reppeat

or purport as their own thought but not fleshed out,

clearly an imposter, plagiarism. Something that is

circled in grading with the note,

"If  you want to go this direction,

You need to fully explore."

So like a hanging preposition it's dropped, 

doesn't make cut to final draft, that's what today was.

chicken egg

Which came first

being called insecure 

or insecurity? Told I am

so irresponsible or

genuine irresponsibility?

Was I just a drifting leaf,

aimless, meaningless,

blank slate of dried stuff,

till my traits dictated?

Or was I always this mess,

selfish and haphazard and

inconsiderate inside?

Which came first

the lies or being called 

a liar? The fears or

the exasperated sighs

and low clucks of disapproval?

Which came first my laziness,

rotton and decayed

and inert, or giving up 

on trying just to be greeted with 

"You are just a lazy little girl.

a indignant brat." 

Which came first?

Was it my empty heart

and hallow shell, brittle

and translucent like

a lobster exoskeleton

thrown out behind

the restaurant, loose

next to the dumpster or

was it all the times I heard

I was just trash without a home?

I suppose it doesn't matter which came first. 

If I am myself or just all the things 

others told me I am because 

Even if I wasn't it before, I am now.

cacophony

Many think nails on a chalk board is the worst sound-

But it's not.

The worst sound is suddenly hushed tones

from across the room, sideways glances.

The same kind of eyes when the waiters sing

cause it's your birthday or your phone rings

just before the movie's start. The stares of

disdain for your existence. It's quiet. So quiet,

Your ears can hear words but your brain doesn't 

understand them, the hairs on your arm stand

at attention, and muscles in the neck stone dead stiff.

Some a think record skipping's the second worst sound-

But it's not.

The second worst sound is when those hushed tones detour to laughs, comraderie without you,

but because of you. It's swift and jarring, 

a car leaping from the mountain road.

It's not the laughs but the stark contrast.

It's heavy boots at the door when home alone or

afternoon sun burning your eyes after a dark

movie theater, the sudden recognition of the crowd

you've sat with for two hours but don't know and

will never know because at best it was a transaction; 

at worse a theft of soul. The time, the confidence,

the trust you gave and never got back.

home

Every neighborhood has that lone dog barking

in the distance, far off like a thought that doesn't

stick with you from one room to another, floating.

Same kind of yelp from stubbed toes and bloody

noses, paper cuts and bit tongues, dart.

Every neighborhood has a low sweet breeze,

rustling through the trees like stiff bridesmaids' 

dresses and cards being shuffled, a sigh of relief

expelled with grace and the wave of an arm. 

It tastes like molded leather you can't bear

to throw away, it's dank and earthy that way.

It's earthworm holes and dirty hose, drinking.

Quenched with rusty water that chills even

in bowed heat, this is a summer street.

advice

Bongo drums and sharp razor

blade woodwind cuts the heart

bare to air and world, that's jazzy.

He chuckles to himself, when he

recounts. Recounts the number 

of times he should have been dead.

This scar was a knife and this one,

a bullet. Equal in size, not shape,

or pain. Brothers are haphazard,

He warns to not trust gangster

brothers or worse, twins. Identical

twisted turns, veins thick, bulging blood, 

shot eyes twitching miles away.

They know when one is angry.

Don't trust crime families, or the

similance of. Inside every business

that's family is crime like inside every

family is the business of crime.

sometimes

Later rain laid to rest

at least a reign. For time,

passes by seasons and

hallow homes and colored

lights along city scapes,

an escape, caper holes,

where we wrestled

wet days fresh with

after birth and another

refrain. No one.

No one envies this and

yet it's all they ever had.

trauma-based individual (no villains or heroes)

Gentle damage stretched out

over decades like pulling that

chewing gum out of my mouth

twirling it around my finger

when I was a kid. 

It was less gray then.

So easy to segregate

the devil and saint but

now I'm just a little bit of both

mixed and suspended in life.

Cycles and patterns stretched out

over decades like I am bent over

and trying release individual fibers

in my back, muscles tight with

clenched jaws and iron sides

hurt from laughing and crying.

eyelash wishes

Beetle on the bed post

as the sun wraps around

the house, a dress hugging

curves of the body we nested

into. Broken feet beating down

the dirt path and deer perked

up at the sounds we made.

We need nothing to do nothing;

What a comfort that is.

old

I'm aging only through these lines

Horizontal across my forehead

as if I am only always lifted brow

incredulous of all of what I see.

it's christmas

i shower in the dim

so that i can sink in-

to myself.

the party last night,

no one could know

the neon picture show,

circling skulls,

i saw on ecstacy,

twelve years ago-

when i closed

my eyes.

and if the sullen

and waif and wide-eyed

trophy housewife

can feel love,

perhaps so can i.

plump

She eats nuts, but

not potatoes. 

She dips so, both

quick and low, you

know not to go.

after the funeral

When your mom dies 

people love to come up

to tell you what she was 

to them. How she could

scoop them up and hold

them toward the clouds

or brought out the edges

of their soul and they cry

and look at you to hold

them as she did. They

even say "its not too bad,

She left us you." Sniffing,

stretching toward you,

they smell new hope but

it is just you are still baking

and when done you'll be

beyond anything she could

even imagine. You just feeding 

yourself unto yourself, 

whole on your own.

this is why i stay

No one loves me like you

the way a holiday slides

past the weekend and 

everyone holds their sides

to that story you tell loudly.

No one hold me like you

supporting my soul from

below, cradling the fallen

birds nest till it's in trees

Unharmed during the war.

No one speaks me like you

With taunt honesty, terse

as a tightrope with crowd

agasp even if the net will

catch us in the last minute.

No one sees me like you

just as the artist respites

his work seeing the toil,

sleepless nights, as well as

the joy everyone else sees.

No one knows me like you

the way you see my patterns

and cycles and predict my

future in ways I don't even 

realize till long past time.

you frolic or huddle?

Birds hiding under the bush,

But bunnies run in the rain.

He talks of suing from the

other room. As if the laws

of man touched all nature.

So I keep on in our home.