pansy poet.

Why? I did not want to answer why,

or when, or how either.

Because my answer is just discomfort.

It is the only way I grow and learn.

And the grass was not greener

on that other side, 

it was just as stiff, dry, and grey. 

The lush lime and rich avocado

was always just shadow play. 

So I grow and learn through hurt,

The grass is greener,

not just where I water it, but 

where I was planted to begin with.

ruins.

Am I to live the same three lives over and over again? Run so far from my childhood, I run right back into it. Silvertone. In pants, a style which is a decade too late. Circling the drain, circling the hole, into the ground, pipes running aside along. Shear my hair from inconvenience in quick and rare event. Like my head is a garden and we doing fall clean-up. It's a mother heavily sighing and frustrated to handle the torturous task of caring for your child again. You can suck the joy out of a child till she can't find it again till she's forty. Not get the thing she wants, not because there is not enough money or it is impractical, but because it is a shame to want to begin with. Funny how you don't want me. You didn't want me. But there I was. You had me. Maybe that is why I don't get the thing I want. I would rather want and not have. Than to not want and have. Resent it's presence. Negative. But not like the opposite of positive. Negative like film. Like photos taken in the painful burn of summer sun-heated cement bench. Slab. Outside a restaurant. I am pulling down my skirt hem and pulling up my tank top. I suddenly, aware, of how the dress code haunts me. Twelve and cut down to size already. Life needs a dress code so I can feel prepared and ready and able. I need a short leash. I need reeled in. I need manhandled back into the box. Just dip back into the groove, stencil and blueprint. The scaffold and foundation sturdy and ready. Easy to ride the train when the tracks been laid. Castlestone. Just repeat what's been done before. My mother built this. But it's my job to maintain. Maple steeple. I need to be caged. Kept on track, on task, on top of it. Keep at bay those teddy bear blues. Too loud. Too excited. Too sullen. Too quiet. Calm down. Fit into the spaces available. Fit into life like rags between cracks in the log cabin. Stop up the drafts. The chill which scrapes along the floor. Drags along the floorboards to bare toes vulnerable. Smaller and smaller still. Wad in the cheek. Punched in the guts. I punched myself in to guts today. It stayed the same. Gold temple. I am grape globes. I am glass. I am fragile while it lasts. Stand here on the ruins. The past hasn't passed. The roads cars drive on, on top, like icing, on the Roman roads, cakepop. 

glories of the unknown

In the rare evening event

when I toss and turn restless,

I do not count finite sheep, but

instead count the infinite unknowns

till I drift aimlessly to sleep.

Baffling all I do not know

and likely will never know;

I could count them till I die

and not even need sleep.

Such as do you bite your lip

when you are deep in thought?

The smell of your morning breath

or how you dance or 

if you'd dance with me or

how you'd dance with me.

How do you eat plums? Do you

nibble, or gnaw, or slice it up?

Do you dog ear pages of library books

or sigh before sliding into bed?

When did you last cry and why,

and how do your hands move,

piano fingers or gorrila grip?

Can you read my mind?

Would you like to visit 

a historical dollhouse with me? 

Is it odd to even ask without knowing

how you tackle museums?

How do you think of me, if ever,

at all? Do you count sheep or

do you count all you do not know?

Your list so much shorter than mine.

tell your God there was black blood.

Don't get too clean, girl.

And never too dirty.

Don't bring a gun

to a knife fight,

don't bring a weapon 

of any kind.

Any hint of defense,

is indefensible,

screams 'not victim enough.'

chaos carrie.

I want to tell you 

about my feet, about

how I am unsettled

from bottom to top.

It shivers up the ankles,

shin, knees, and hose.

That base, connect,

ground, flitters and flips.

I'm always moving

inside or out. 

Asleep, restless eyes,

darting tennis games.

Toes strain and ball

feet fists and feet foes.

My mind is a thousand miles

every direction in every way,

a furious wind of thought.

From the bottom to the top

that's all I am.

I still wear your sweatpants

I still wear year sweat pants.

They were brand new, but,

for you, no longer of use.

Your mom called me over.

Boxes. In boxes. 

Not the bags I'm used to.

That's something you 

only learn from experience.

The Air Force will box and label

and ship all your stuff to your family.

Did the postman know he delivered

a dead girl's stuff to her mom?

I just wanted a few sentimental

tokens, amulets, icons of my memory.

A scrapbook but make it fashion.

But your mom insisting I take it all.

So your sweatpants, brand new, never worn,

became mine, now fourteen years.

Your sweat pants became:

My sweat pants.

My sleep pants.

My sick pants.

My drunk pants.

My sober pants.

My first-marriage pants.

My second-marriage pants.

My grad school pants.

My stained pants.

My holey pants.

My holy pants.

But they were still your sweat pants.

I put you on. Not you, your kabuki mask.

You possessed my body. You haunted my mind.

You made these holes and these stains.

And we merged.

So bury me in your sweat pants,

faded logo on the hip, holes, paint smear,

perma-dirt and exhausted elastic,

so I can still wear your sweat pants

when I join you.

strongly worded letter to the English language

Why are the words 'within' and

'without' so vastly different?

Logic would say they operate like 

'inside' and 'outside'.

Should be obvious.

See 'inside' and 'within' 

are synonyms and

'inside' and 'outside'

are antonyms, so

'outside' and 'without'

should be synonyms too.

It's math, It's logic,

It's not your strong suit.

Perhaps this helps.

"If I am within her, I am inside her."

"If I am without her, I am outside her."

This would make sense.

But that's not how you roll.

You made confusing meanings

so I can be 'within' her and 'inside' her, 

But when I'm 'without,' her, I'm not just 'outside' her,

She not even here, for myself, or others,

not even for her own pleasure or doing.

So different. No hope of respite.

'Within' her, 'Inside' her, I'd have a bed at night.

'Outside' her, the hope of sleep tomorrow.

But 'without' her? There never was sleep,

No blankets, no pillows, nothing was real.

Nostalgia fades so much faster on a past

you are trying to remember. 

So in summary:

Inside=Within

Outside ≠ Without 

Fix it.

Respectfully,

Caroline