Hope.

there once was a girl who could bottle hope.
she stewed it in battered bulbous pots day and night until after the autumn harvest
when it was ready to be cultivated.
She toiled over the boiled liquid, staring at it with wide muddy eyes, languid
and lost in the murky pool of hope that was about to be ready for packaging.
In her kitchen she stood, starchy apron pressed firmly against her bosom like
a hopeless lover, leaning lackadaisically against the tilted edge of the ageless cobblestone counter, knowing hands firmly gripping the large old wooden spoon that had been passed to her through generations of hope bottlers, moving the spoon in circles- realizing that over the years the wood of the spoon sucked up pieces of hope from each and every batch, liquid morsels of every specially concocted batch became as much a part of the wood spoon as the maple that was once hand turned on a lathe to form it into the hope twirler that it is today.
People from far and wide would come to her every season for a chance to have a bottle of their own, knowing that the girl had a special gift and that within the round, muddled ruby liquid lay
what they had been longing for.
Through the years demand grew high, for hope was needed far and wide in times of trouble
and worry. With so many people in need of her gift, the girl who knew the recipe that had been passed from sister to mother to daughter to cousin could not give up the only thing that she knew, so she toiled and boiled and bottled and coddled.
One day, when the girl had grown into a tired, withered old woman who had seen many years of hope distributed, a man came to see her.
It was well past the season for hope to be shared, and she had given out her last bottle a month or two before. Cane in hand, wiry white wisps of hair brushing his forehead, he made his way to her doorstep. One by one he painfully climbed each step (as though he were climbing Mount Everest itself! he thought, wearily) until he reached the lopsided old porch that lead to the front door. With a creaky hope-filled knock, he awaited the answer of the one person who could save him from his dilemma . Moments later, a hobbling old woman answered the door and was shocked by the look of loss and pain inscribed on the face of the man standing before her. "I've come for a bottle of hope" he said, painfully aware that his wish was not an easy one to grant. "I stopped making it", she replied, "I'm fresh out of bottles and there are none to be found for miles around, and since no one wants hope that isn't packaged all pretty, neat, and nicely, everyone that used to come for it...just stopped, and so did I".
His mouth agape yet not allowing the tiniest sound to escape, the old man turned slowly, creaked painfully back down the steps, and continued on his path.

musings from the subway

For Kate...

words hung in the air like night... dark, simple, inevitable

earlier that evening we ate sushi,
strolled through lavish brownstone covered neighborhoods
and down to the pier to stare at the Brooklyn Bridge
we mused over books filled with masterpieces
in a mist of Rose' and Gustav Klint

it was like a lost connection during a moment of truth.
a note sung with a strained voice
a lush flower grown in dead soil
a master painting for a blind king
staring in the eyes of a toad
looking for a prince

the subway smelt like dirty armpits and neglected assholes
late at night, she finds it quiet
but not deserted
the constant thud of rubber meeting metal
as if for the first time
but never for the last
she takes a seat next to the homeless woman sprawled across two
noticing the girl standing nearby-
has the same sandals
that she wore yesterday
she breathes a sigh of relief
rubber meets metal again, another harsh greeting
spoken in a language she is glad not to know

the train bursts into the station
she steps off the platform
into her carriage

moving towards home
in a tunnel somewhere beneath the East River
she felt so full of life that she almost burst
songs moved her so completely
becoming as much a part of her as her blood and fingernails
the motion of the train flowed through her veins like venom
entangling themselves in notes and chords
she radiated something everyone could sense
but no one could put their finger on

hospital confessional.

I am sitting
helpless beside her
hospital bed body
in chair mind
not present

nurses interrupt
taking vitals, pain--
relief

she sleeps, IV--
protruding from her arm
like a giant tick
swollen to capacity
embedded in a dog

my mind--
wanders

life has become a ceaseless dream of lucidity
where i sit--
watching
the nurses--
prodding
the ones i love--
in johnnys

burning so brightly as to singe the thoughts
in the forefront of my mind, becoming a part of all the thoughts
that pass

is the realization that
their future is uncertain
their lives may end
there is nothing I can do about it

but
sit.
watch.
think.

crossroads

I am at a crossroads.
Standing here, intermediary
I anxiuosly attempt to look down the nefarious road,
squinting my cobalt eyes forcefully,
attempting to see if I can sneak a little peek
towards the future, deplorably longing to know what lies ahead.
But there is no way to tell
the sly obdurate road is smothered in a blank, taunting fog
delicate enough to allow the onlooker to recognize the continuation and tenacity of the road
but purposefully coagulated and impenetrable to the human eye
revealing only
obscurity.

I am at a crossroads.
I look from side to side and the present besieges me
bored with this existence, the familiarity my comfort and my cage
I know I must move.

I am at a crossroads.
Behind me lies my past, the bitter ghost of who I was, inconsolably tagging along
No matter how far I walk down this aphotic road,
it is always there, a part of who I shall be.
It took me ten years of walking to learn that neither circumvention nor delusion
would shake it from me, I am not a snake molting dead skin.
Oh those were the years, running on down the road thinking I hadn't a single problem that could catch up to me...
What ignorantly blissful years those were.

I am at a crossroads.
Shall I run? That's my first instinct.
My mind says, do not think about fear of the unknown, just go for it!
Get it over with.
But no, I won't run.
I've learned that harsh lesson one too many times.

I am at a crossroads.
The only thing left to do...
walk eagerly ahead into the untold,
trust in the lessons I have learned on my journey
knowing that there's no way to tell what shall ensue,
just that I am going somewhere.

you don't have to do anything to keep me.
you don't have to do anything to lose me.

i don't want to be kept.
i don't want to be lost.

mother

For as long as I can recall,
our relationship has been one of control and contrast.

When I do as you like, you are there to take care of me when I am ill, give me advice when I am lost, and comfort me when I'm lonely.

You help me to solve problems that my brain cannot grasp.

This always has to be on your terms. Until now I've followed the unspoken rules.
"Your way or the highway", as they say.

I am now on the highway, since I've veered off the path of what is acceptable to you, driving fast and taking chances.

And you hit me where it hurts the most, you're definitely an expert at it.
Just writing these words has started a war that I cannot win.
I do not believe in wars, or battles, or fights over control.

All of the love, caring, and support you gave me was withdrawn before I could grasp what had occurred. Like a slap in the face I realize that you have already executed your carefully planned attack to make me suffer for my perceived insolence.

I cannot play by your rules anymore, and the relationship we had is slipping away faster than the seconds can tick on the annoyingly loud clock in your kitchen.

It hurts, just as you intended, I feel the abandonment and loss.
Maybe it's for the best.
Trying to live by someone else's unbendable rules just to be allowed in their life is exhausting.
I am extremely exhausted.

oh, pure heart

I have been told I am pure of heart,
and that I must protect myself from bad energy that can easily penetrate it

I've experienced this bad energy in many forms. Well meaning loved ones who sap the energy and love and hope out of me. Men who want nothing but my body. Playing the game of life and not following the rules because those I am playing against shall surely win if I do not. Going against my inner intuition and dealing with the consequences.

I have seen scientific evidence of what happens to your body when your are harmed too many times, when you release too many feelings of being afraid, attacked, hurt, lost without a drop of hope left in a vast expanse of endless sand.

It's a very hard thing living a life with an easily penetrable pure heart.
It's like huddling under a tree in the woods, stark and exposed and cold, surrounded by a pack of wolves that haven't eaten in months. How does one arm themselves? How does one protect themselves so they are not eaten alive?

Has the damage been done? Is it irreversible? Has it been too many years and too many hurts? Am I beyond help to the cellular level?

abandonment

when the times got tough, you left too.
not quite like he did.
but you might as well have.

we had our plan, you fought so intensly for
when things didn't turn out as you so carefully planned
you did what you do best.

under the guise of love and care
you left me before I could leave you.

I know the game, and you beat me at it.
I used to play it with guys who didn't matter.
but this is you and me mom,
the one parent I had left remember?

And now all I can ask is, who is this person that I thought I once knew?

Wellbutrin

Wellbutrin flow down my esophogus and make me happy. Flow past the abandonment and neglet of my mother and my father, lodged in my chest like a drum filled with lead. Flow past the regrets and the bad memories that stain my life and erase them from my abdomen, where they lay in my intestines and obstruct proper digestion. Flow past the shit that's been my life lately and right out into the toilet, where you quite possibly belong.

because you're already gone...

i don't understand.
this was supposed to be a better year than last
we were reconciling
counseling
the works
i thought, you and me
"we..."
were making progress,
together.
but in reality
i was moving in one direction
and you, the other.
we went out tonight
i stood in the same spot on the dance floor
and waited for you all night, alone.
somehow, you waited for me and we missed out on that connection and now,
what's left....
nothing.
you, angry with me
and no explanation
i will ask, because i care. more than you can ever know.
why? what is it?
because with you, you are the ONE person that was worth it to me.
anyone else can walk out of my life and it wouldn't hurt, i'd be prepared
thanks to my daddy
you, the one person i would push to ask why? whats wrong? why would you want to leave me?
and somehow, i am willing to endure
an umbrella being thrown, at my head,
you leaving us all behind
to forge your way
the slap in the face i got,
when i opened our bedroom door.
just wanting to talk, to understand what's wrong, to talk with you.
the way you grabbed my arm,
just hard enough
so it will bruise
and i saw the end of my life tonight,
cowering in a corner by my dresser
when you raised this laptop above your head in rage
after my cell phone completed it's journey,
out of your hand and across the room
hitting the wall just loud enough to wake the neighbors and be embarrassing
but just far enough away from me that i will stay,
with you
since i can endure
so much
anything, really
but the one thing i should not have to endure again, please not this.
abandonment.
it would have hurt less,
if you'd let that laptop down upon my head
and left me for dead.
now you've let me know, you just confessed
you are already gone.
to california with your father.
where you'll be happy, and i will eventually find someone better
you fucking idiot.
you've got me.
my heart, all of it and there's room for no one else
and it's being thrown away
there is no way in the world for me to make you realize that
i am with you because i want to be, i chose to be
not because i had to be.
its hard for me to know that you cannot grasp that concept
and tiring for me to continually
try to reassure you.
so now i count the days...
and know that even if i continue to give it my best shot
even if we go to counseling and act as though we are working on "us"
you, as they say in that song "Viennna"
"are already gone..........................."
"there's really no way to reach you,
you're
alreaaaadddyy
gone."
and there's nothing holding you back, is there?
you were gone before i even had a chance.
or a hint that you'd thought it was best
and how many days, until you go?
either way, you've decided to hate me, for some reason you cannot express verbally
i sound like such a victim
but really i just feel as though i've been blind sighted
with the worst pain and fear of my life.
last year, January, began with a car crash,
my aunt's life gone.
i had prayed that somehow, someway, this year would be different.
obviously, no matter how you try or what you plan,
life just doesn't give you much say in the matter.

SAD BUT TRUE RIGHT NOW... The lyrics....FUCK

The day's last one-way ticket train pulls in
We smile for the casual closure capturing
There goes the downpour
Here goes my fare thee well

There's really no way to reach me (x3)
'Cause I'm already gone

Only so many words that we can say
Spoken upon long-distance melody
This is my hello
This is my goodness

There's really no way to reach me (x3)
'Cause I'm already gone

Maybe in five or ten yours and mine will meet again
Straighten this whole thing out
Maybe then honesty need not be feared as a friend or an enemy
This is the distance
And this is my game face

There's really no way to reach me (x2)
Is there really no way to reach me?
Am I already...

So this is your maverick
This is Vienna