m

I am
dripping
with sarcasm,
dripping
with your uncontained
presence.
Dripping down
my throat withing this
tea holding
court in a mug whose
handle has no
purpose for
either of us.

I am
gripping
this mug around its
middle, knuckles
white, as though it's what
matters the most;
as though surrounding my
hand with this useless
handle will help me
to get a grip.

I am
thinking
of how
silly a handless
mug must look standing
stoically, confident
enough to not be
hiding behind a
strange curl of clay or
porcelain.

I am
imagining
the confidence looks
just like you.

I am
considering
that I
like the
handle, even if I
never use it.

I hate the way
my fingers aren't
stiff and the
cello is beautiful and
I know the piece by
heart but my bow is
heavy and scratchy
like a brick and
I'm playing with all
the wrong rhythms and
backwards beats and
I hate the way
eleven months is getting
me nowhere and that
no one can understand
why this is
not
so
simple
and I hate that this
is such a defining
(confining)
poem.

Mild language.

This morning I
rolled over
in a cold sweat
and a man wandered into the room.

Hadn't seen him
in forever, the
poor bastard,
and he was drunk again like always.

It was one a.m. and
I figured I was
dreaming so I humored him
but that seemed to make him angry,

the poor bastard.

He was telling me about
what will happen
when you die.

But it made me uncomfortable
and frightened so
I covered my ears,
shouted Go away!
and in a frenzy I

rolled over in a
cold sweat and a man wandered
into the room. He was drunk
again like always,
poor bastard.

I didn't mean to
I couldn't help it
getting caught in your blog by accident.

I started reading
things I haven't read
in ages and gave up
on the homework I won't do
for ages now either.

I didn't mean to
but I couldn't help
couldn't stop reading
you the way I wish
I could all the time.

It's not always easy
to tell what you're thinking,
you know.

and said to my mother,
"I think I have a fever"
even when I didn't and
said "I'm lightheaded
and tired" even
when I wasn't.

I got out of the
shower and said,
"Mom, I'm still
freezing"

because I was.

And I said, "Mom,
I really don't feel
well..."

and I didn't.

I needed a
mental health day.

Occasionally I wonder if
I really just need
the mental health.

Standing alone in
the middle of a
room last night we
were just you and
me and you were
were cradling a cup of
coffee and I
was screaming.

You were cradling a
cup of coffee and
I was screaming
because I can't stay awake
anymore and I
hated you for choosing to.

I hated you for telling
me they're only
dreams. I hated you for
offering me a sip
and saying
the dreams went away once and
they will again.

I tried to tell you
stop drinking
coffee because it's
never healthy when
we're so young. But I
couldn't because I was
so angry and hating
you and only kept
screaming and yelling at
the top of my voice.

I kept yelling at the
top of my voice and
hating you and
everyone for not seeing
I'm hollow and I don't
have any organs and
all you did was drink coffee
and deal with your
concrete problems and tell
me everything could
be worse
that you guess I'm
lucky I'm
not you.

June.

Today I am fourteen and my grandmother squeezes my arm in a death grip. That’s impressive for seventy three. She’s up visiting for my sister’s birthday tomorrow. Such a gorgeous name you have, she tells me. It means “Ireland” in Gaelic. She tells me this every time she sees me, reminds me of where I came from.

Your great grandparents came over on the boat, every single one. And my mother, she had such an Irish brogue…

When she gets lost on memory lane I don’t force her back. I like hearing the stories sometimes, when I’m in the right mood. I can sort of imagine her, my grandmother, with her flaming red hair dye and the violet veins that bulge from her hands and arms and wrists. I can sort of imagine just her, wandering in a garden of purple, and those green Irish hills she always tells us about. I can see her fingering every flower petal as she goes, growing frailer but never older, speaking to the gentle breeze about the chocolate chip cookies she made just special for her oldest son and her oldest granddaughter.

Can't
leave echos
inside my skull
and flashes out in
bursts of
pure white from
under my eyes. It
bounces off the
dull glow of my
computer screen and my
English homework.

My neighborhood is
empty like a
ghost town.
All the people dance
by and forget to
come home, go
back. They sometimes
forget about the
sidewalk and how badly
the road needs to
be paved. We
sometimes all
forget to remember
the cracks stretching across
our foundations like
weeds, and how weeds
can be difficult to get
rid of.

The neighbor Jim started
leaving a lot when
his wife died at the
elementary school
a mile from the
library
two miles from our homes.

The man and his
wife and his son
and his dog next door
go camping in January.

The new development
at the end of
the neighborhood got
new roads black
like the way blood clots
when there's too
much to wipe with a
towel. No one can
figure why folks don't move
in and start breathing
for the rest of us.

Because we sometimes
all feel like we
can't breathe,
even when it's not
raining and
even when the couples
from the other streets
in town stroll by
with Golden Retrievers and
new babies and laughing
like love sounds.

We sometimes forget to
remember how we
once were, pushing children
in strollers and
playing fetch with the
family mutt that died
seven years and a long
time ago from Leukemia
while the vet was out
for lunch.

We usually forget how
the neighbors
complained to each other
during our first days
here, about the
ruckus and too
much
too much
living out loud.
They would close the
blinds and deadbolt the
doors and suffocate
each other in private.

Slipping out of myself
and into others
was easier than
I thought.
I'm not so much
individual as
a collection of
individualities, and
somehow it's going
to feel harder
coming back.

We can play make-
believe, dress-
up, hide-and-go-
seek, but
____________________

all we're doing is
called separation.

This is an assignment for history class, where the goal is to capture the role of conflict in the global society through a poem.

Warfare is a lady.
Irresistibly bathed in moonlight
and holy water,
she is Night’s lover, and her crimson
glow caresses the cheeks of
men enveloped in dreams and
power struggles. She whispers
sweet conspiracies to them
like a mother to her infant child
before sleep.

The lady drifts listlessly on an
ocean of lust and power. The
human mind reaches for her,
and we,
hands outstretched, tumble to the
ground, to the damp
soil at her feet.

We bury our senses in
strategy and patriotically
we believe
in conflict
in solution.

The lady soothes us as
patiently as a mother.
(There is nothing waiting under the bed,
Darling), and
we go to sleep
and sleep and sleep for
generations
peacetimes
fallouts
waiting for the
lady to rise again from the
depths of poetry and
metaphors, waiting
to slip gently back into her
warm grasp and feel
those slender arms across our
shoulders and her cool fingers
caressing our faces. Whispering nursery
rhymes in our ears. Assuring us we
can break free at any moment. Saying
go back to sleep and reaching for the
syringe by the nightlight in the corner.