liver and onions

On a day like today, I finally make you liver and onions,  

a dish you’ve craved for months but I hate.

I nervously try to make it for the first time,  

and you smile, saying it’s not quite like your mom’s.  

No wife can match the dead matriarch’s touch,  

but I’m relieved I didn’t ruin it.  

Your smile reassures me,  

so I say, "It’s nice," and promise to make it again—  

while swallowing without chewing,  

because I can’t quite bring myself to like it.  

I think to myself 'I need the iron,' so I keep going,  

forcing it down as if it’s something I owe my body,  

but also something I owe you to try.

We talk about earlier, how you took down 

a bird’s nest from the garage,  

we marveled at how perfect and beautiful it was,  

vowing that, should the birds rebuild,  

we’d let them stay.  

And for a moment, we suddenly hugged—

a welcomed dining room apology. 

It was just two days ago I cried so hard and long

my salty tears left my face raw.

I’ll wear make-up tomorrow for work—

because you said you wanted to end our home too.

Please know, if we were two birds, 

I'd be already out gathering more twigs 

for the rebuild and even live in a nest

made of liver and onions if it kept you 

you don't know what this means to me

How casually, angrily, you cast out

the idea, as if life without you—

for me—

is as simple as grabbing my purse, my coat,

and walking out the door.

Don't you know that life without you mean

my career becomes paycheck to paycheck,

my dinners nothing but bread and a slice of cold cheese,

a bed reduced to just a mattress on the floor,

a home just a one-bedroom apartment,

where the only thing left to do is cry alone?

Don't you know what life without you means to me?

clueless

Forgive me, dear, for I cannot know,
You've cracked the door, just a sliver, aglow.
I've seen the foyer, but not stepped through,
Allowing me believe that’s all that's true.

useless

I try my hardest to see the bright side,

But your crippling sadness fills every room.

Sorry, I'm too young, with too much life ahead—

But didn’t you know that before we began?

You said Indiana was the problem, so we left.

Now it's Alabama, and we could move again.

But will Nevada, New Mexico, or Florida,

Or even the moon, really change what I am,

Or how you are endlessly unsatisfied?

a wrinkle in time written on the lawn

"If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should not grow old."

James A Garfield

Would you understand what I meant,
if I said I wish I were the type of person
who planned to overseed the lawn
this weekend? Could I be that person,
knowing at least seven people still cast me
as the villain in their life? Does it
still matter, if they wouldn’t recognize
me now—having grown into a middle-aged
woman’s body, no longer wearing youthful
clothes? Do you know if the neighbors see
the bare patches on my lawn and hate me too?

God, what is left,
when all you've done
is still written on your face?

tired since the 90's

tip top      /        tip toe      

          just the tip

            tip her,

            tipper   

   like Tipper Gore   

   not Tupperware   

  hooking pinkies  

like feminine despair.

3 a.m.

gun in pocket

hardwood plod

screen door swingin'

put on a jacket

it's cold outside.

niceties and nice titties (related but separate things)

Ears and toes, 

And fingers on girls.

Sometimes girls on girls,

Or girls on girls on girls—

Which is nice.

"Nice," drawn out like a surfer's breath:

"Niiiiiiiiccccceeee!"

Not like a mother,

Curt and stern,

Telling me, as a young girl,

"Play nice."

Dear Mother,

With the girls so pretty,

Friendship was never the point.

But I was nice in my own way.

Spring Cleaning

Green leaves and white blooms
sprouted from the blueberry bush
when I lost my confidence again—
the second time since August.

Back when I had started with youthful zeal,
taming wild creatures with fervor,
as if my success outside could tame
the beast I’d caged within,
since I was a little girl.

But it wasn’t the wild world
I should have feared,
but the ferals in my own home,
lurking there for years.

Nothing left but to clean up
another mess I've made.

navel-gazing

Do I like cats because everyone

I’ve ever loved found it so hard

to like me? Have I romanticized

the past, since it’s the singular known,

while the future — infinite unknowns?

Could I be happy in the desert?

Were my mother still alive,

what would she chastise me for,

and would the person I am today even care?

Why do I get nervous when I see coworkers in public?

Does it matter what my bellybutton smells like,

or why, if I’m the only one sniffing?

Praying for Thee

I believe every prayer is answered,  

In ways we least expect,  

With only what's within this world,  

And consequences we can't predict.  

So, be careful what you wish for, dear.
It might just come back to me.

No Need to Label

I only wear long sleeves now,  

because when strangers point to your name  

on my arm, they ask, "Who's that?"  

I say, "My dead best friend."  

For lack of a better word.  

I've tried companion, confidant, partner,  

heart, soul—  

none of these fit.  

I could try another language—  

compadre, chica, comrade—  

but none are the truth.  

What word could capture  

how I feel you speaking from the marrow  

in my bones, how you gently squeeze  

my kidneys, reminding me to drink,  

and how your spirit possesses my body  

with quiet strength when I'm scared?  

I’ll leave it as silence,  between good friends, 

keep my arms covered, so no one asks, 

and I don’t try to explain—  

She is surviving a lightning strike

to the head, once-in-a-lifetime jolt,

that no one else could ever grasp,

so I spend the rest of my life chasing

the memory, hoping to feel it again.

the whole time was me time

No matter how many you love,
or how many love you in return,
when you shake death’s hand,
slip into his passenger seat, and
leave this world behind,
there’s only one who’s been with you
from cradle to grave—
and that’s the woman you are.
So choose her,
for she’s chosen you
while all the others come and go.

I'm a Nobody? As if!

I’d ask ChatGPT
what Emily Dickinson might think
of transgenderism in America today,
but I’d prefer to know
if God blessed her writing infinitely,
with unending inspiration,
though she mostly wrote for herself.

And I wonder if all things
done alone, for oneself,
without an audience,
are likewise infinitely blessed
by God. ChatGPT would say she might
support challenging gender roles,
her resistance to norms
leading her to seclusion,
her prolific poems left unpublished.

But she did not experience writer's block—
    just periods of creative seclusion.

Yes, it’s in rejecting society
that we’re embraced by it
for centuries to come.

Ha!
        I knew it!

then I pray I may stay so tenderhearted

“You’re such a tenderhearted type,”

she said to me,

with the same sharp disdain

a church elder might show a young woman.

“You sure get the boys’ attention.”

As if I should somehow discard

the way I tear up at a commercial,

spend weeks caring for a pregnant stray,

or take time to answer an email

on my day off, just to ease someone else’s worry.

As if I could— or should—

suddenly reject everything that makes me who I am.

Just as she couldn’t

hold back her criticism,

no matter how hard she tried,

I couldn't be any different

and still be me. Besides,

it seems a far greater challenge

to die still tenderhearted

than die bitter like her.

You Aren't Maya Angelou So Go Take a Fucking Shower

"The glamour of the night before is all gone, and only the stink of the morning is left."

It doesn't have to be perfect,

or good, or even understood

to exist.

Not if it truly needs

to be here—

even if just a small, small, small

part of it. Maybe I'm like that too.

how to get to know me.

Imagine a Rubik's Cube

with six colorful sides—

only one facing you at a time.

A jumble: one yellow square,

six white, two blue.

I offer you one side,

but even that is just fragments.

You could try to turn me over,

to glimpse one of the hidden five,

but I shift my squares so swiftly,

the side you see is never the same.

Don’t feel too sad—

some never even see a yellow square.

A Nightly Relief

"Good Morning" at midnight,
Plodding in the dark to a bathroom so small,
Sit on the toilet, rest your feet on the tub,
Wonder if your hand could recognize
The doorhandle to your childhood home—
Would it be like finding a forgotten shirt
Crammed behind a dresser, only distant now?
Or like meeting an ex in public,
Unsure whether to hug, shake hands, wave, or ignore—
As if all relationships now feel “online,”
Though we once met in person, life
Just twisted, fractured, now it feels unreal.
Flush the urine down, aware that—
in the pipes below, your DNA
mingles with theirs.
We are all so connected.

Yet, even as we touch genetically,
We remain separate, untouchable—
mostly alone.

A crass but accurate metaphor

February came cold and hard,

Like an unwanted dick to the face.

     Which I am proud to announce I haven't 

     experienced that in years. For a woman,

     this is so incredible—it's resumé worthy.

So imagine my shock as a month

slapped me in the face and I fell

with the same mechanical horror

—as most women do when presented 

a cold, hard, unwanted dick—

I stared at the ceiling till it was over.

Then March came in soft—like the morningafter

when I second-guessed if it even happened.

Caroline, you're overthinking this thing.

It’s said I have 86 billion neurons—

How many of them keep me awake, spinning in circles,

drafting the same email over and over,

hoping the next will be the right one?

I long to pull these thoughts from my mind,

like taffy from my mouth,

like thin strands of spaghetti from my nose,

spiderwebs unwinding from my ears,

pulled taut and snipped at the root,

watching them never grow back.

riding in the saddle that stradles the line between fiction and fact

Outside your feelings,

your life, your thoughts,

your concerns—there lies

another world.

In it, I exist.

I am not frozen,

waiting for your call—

as you must think.

The self-centeredness

didn't hurt me as much

back when I was also

as you-centered as you.

coincidence / not coincidence

Moon in Reverse

after a new moon in Pisces,

I dissolved my needs—

water in a jar.

Now, I need to speak

to the girl I was,

for only her guidance

can lead me forward.

Feb-brew-wary

Heartbeats in the sand,

     A headlock on land,

Where did the inspiration go?

     Tore up the paper

and dissolved it in water.

     Purple pen ink

made it so pretty 

      in the toilet

as I flushed it down.

tension headache (4 days strong)

stabbing pain,

in the eye—

hurting me

in 3/8ths time.