Leaving Work Late

Rigid bicycle spokes rapidly spin
turning as the globe shades its face from the evening sun

Passersby pass by the bystanders asking for money
on city routes lined with vehicles weaved together with taxi cabs

Fingers of traffic extend from skyscrapers into the fields
as the city stretches from its ten hour workday

The last rays withdraw warmth
as the exhaust settles into the falling cool of the night

Homeless men are pilgrims in the metallic forest
hunters and fighters and beggars

The woman on the corner is a vendor of her body
advertised by the glitter and heavy red lip gloss, thick black eyelashes

Headlights catch jaywalkers, young lovers hand in hand
a first date, a last date, perhaps not a date at all

While streetlights mask the stars, but cannot hide the moon
it waits…waits for them to turn the lights out and watch

Some of us flee the weight of polluted air and hungry people
the wait of the commute, of life behind streetlights and elevators and crosswalks.

We travel the highway home through the open mouths of tunnels,
Taillights glow—red devils in the thickening night.

That Got It

The least you’ve ever done
used to be perfect
And what you own is indeed. nothing
conceited, trapped
At least, your lovely sofa means
You need not my bed.
I can buy you      the sofa,
whatever you set before in a
couple years for yourself,
they are              conceited too.
If you’re the right one
now Then own, this
the     very  last      things
you think are first tell it
then in The nest,
Then goes no rug.
and that got it.

Regarding Grace

Forgiveness is picking up the bath rug
without speaking a word about it
and washing your dishes
without speaking a word
giving up the room for you and your noncommittal boyfriend
without speaking
a word.

Forgiveness doesn’t speak
doesn’t stand up for the rights
you defend between sharpened sighs
eye rolls and occasional storms down the hall

The kitchen floor is layered in eggshells
the kind that make you glare
if I break one while you’re napping
or perhaps just while you are reading Cosmopolitan.

This trapeze act with you tears at my nerves
every time I reach for the swing
you grow irritated
I falter
and thank God for safety nets

I could quit this circus with you
leave you the star
cut your net on the way out
then leave before the sirens.

But circuses aren’t for grown-ups,
so I’ll keep picking up your bath rug.

Long-Distance Love Song

She waits for him
every morning
she rises, open eyes
hoping he left a 160-character message
on the pixelated screen
too bright for sleepy pupils
peering at the pretty words
that cost a phone bill, a ten second break
and a daily reminder

good morning my dear… I miss you

The post office a daily destination
most days a disappointment
even a blank page
would fill the void
with the distant smell of his skin
his hair and
somehow his gentle touch transmitted
through the lined page
the oldest form of text messaging
only two quarters to say

I am coming back for you

Perhaps romance ended with letters
with flowers from faraway lovers
and long-distance phone calls
when the digital tube
made three hours
three seconds
so she waits for him to call

I will see you tomorrow, love.

the diagnosis

my body turned into a sinkhole
never thought i’d feel so empty
so dead and so alive
i was in limbo
in the coffin with a heartbeat
on the cell phone with my mom
as i described how it felt
to breathe the dank air below the grass
so close and so far away from normalcy

she pretended
we played house and i was her daughter
and we were starting over
we ate cake and had tea parties
and we only faked fights
and i was five years old again

the day my head itched
my fingers tangled in a few strands
and like we used to pull the pampas grass
it plucked from my scalp
root and all and dad
he loved my long hair
he pretended like it wasn’t important
like it didn’t matter
but my tears fell out like my hair

i hoped they would eventually run out too.

some people brought me food
and they pretended like it would distract me
like i could stop thinking
about the walls of my body that were caving
like sand in an hourglass
but i knew they were only visiting and thinking
this might be their last time to see me

and death is a curious thing.

not death itself of course
but you never know what happens
until it happens and it’s something
like a hawthorne story
one is all it takes
and you’ve read them all

sometimes mom leaves me during treatment
because she can’t pretend there
and in between heaves
i look up at the white coats
and sterile scrubs to see no one pretending
except the occasional intern

i guess i haven’t started pretending yet
because my body still hurts
somewhere is a deep ache
like when your fingers get too cold
and i’m still in limbo between fighting
between pretending
and release

the sand is trickling into my coffin.

Time Exists Under the Concrete

twenty five minutes
may as well be twenty five
fathoms under the crushing crystalline waters
lightyears between burning gaseous spheres

twenty five heartbeats until my eyes seal forever

doctor whatshisface used to say that life is a purpose
a purpose that I found
is a lie to coerce us to stay
to give money
to donate supplies
to the Jesus cause

a cause which required none of myself
and all of the American wallet

but this darkness has no purpose but
a waiting room for the other side

they wouldn’t let me carry my wallet in here
death requires no ID
nor fears no terrorism
nor convicts no criminals

death is the only fairness
that accepts us all

another twenty five hours
and my eyes are magicians in a cavern

light

nothing

like living
now you see it

now you don’t.

the digital divide

sometimes I feel choked
by vast cyber lightyears in

space

I love, I love

I love you.
chat bubbles and textenshroudmywords
substitutes only for the touch
the one I don’t feel much

pixels transform your hand around my waist
to digital facades
photographs that fade
as we put on a masquerade

keys, keyboards
weapons of mass destruction
return is the blade piercing my heart

return, return
quiet those words
till your promises prove true
return to me, love

I don’t know how else to say it

just touch me, hold me
kiss me goodnight next to you

you don’t have to speak
no text, no cyber spaceships
you just have to wipe my tears
smooth my hair
look at me like
I’m beautiful

I told you once to speak your mind
but
please
let your breath on my forehead
speak fathoms for your love

I will hear it in your lungs
as your heart beats morse code:

I still love you.

To Settle

she is a migrant, a vagabond, a nomadic warrior
of the rarest tribe
she radiates
a reflection that disappears
when you move
let her go and like a feather
she is rising and falling
slipping through fingers of wanting others

she is rootless, homeless
she is yours
a cactus flower protected by spines
a diamond lodged in coal
yet heart so bare and open
you could kill it with one touch

and she places it in your palms like an infant
a warm delicate portion
and its only fair defense is within your ribcage
sharing your lifeblood
and loving yours as yours loves her.

don’t let her slip away
for time calls her to newness
tie her feather to your hat
keep her lifeblood close to yours
nourish her roots
let hers grow into yours
in sickness
health

’til death uproots her
and she receives her wings.

My Addiction

I have been chained to perhaps one of the most mind-numbing, life-sucking addictions ever. It killed any life that was once left in me, any inspiration, any hope for inner progress, and made my world a rather gray apparition. I have been addicted to busyness. Perhaps I still am.

It started with an apartment. The apartment moved me away from the noise of dorm life, but also away from the constant “connection” to the people around me. (I say “connection” because I was rarely connected to anyone besides the people I merely labeled my roommates and suitemates.) The apartment gave me a quiet corner. A corner without a social life, without a single person to know how I was really doing, without someone besides my fellow employees to ask me about my life.

My desk became a conveyor belt of sorts, an assembly line. I moved from one task to the next with quality and efficiency being my priorities. I worshiped time. I always keep a detailed planner. When I work, my best products come when I shut out the entire world and live in this tiny cubicle of workspace. I eat alone there. I sleep next to it. When I am not at work, I am in the chair, doing whatever task needs to be completed next. Rarely was anything more important to me than the time I had. It’s true.

I barely know my housemates, and they barely know me. I have developed little social life, though every year I have hope that somehow someone will actually see me. Someone will care enough about me. You see, busyness, this addiction, it’s just something we do to cover up our pain. It’s just something we do to make ourselves feel better somehow, feel worthy. My addiction is busyness. Some people plug in headphones. Some people fix stuff. Some people laugh a lot. Some people hide in groups. Some people drink. Some people use clothes, accessories, make-up, hair. Some people eat. Some people watch TV. I am not alone.

When I started to see how busy I was, how horrifyingly terrible my life had become in college, you know what I did? I got busy again. I told myself, “But these things have to be done. I need to be a good student. At least I am being a good student.” And I started planning in my head at what time I need to start writing this paper and when I should go to bed, if I should be on the internet while I work or if it will be too distracting. And busyness, though it was a good excuse, could never replace what I could really be doing. Busyness could never heal me.

So sometimes I feel really hopeless. I think, if I wasn’t busy, would I be doing what I know I should be doing? I don’t think I even know how. That intimidates me. I tell myself, I would rather be alone. I would rather be alone than keep reaching out to people for friendship and keep getting hurt. My heart is not the elastic kind. My heart needs my hard exterior because it’s so soft inside.

Time–no, life–is so precious. Every moment I live is the only moment I have. A week of lying flat on my back helpless showed me that.

But sometimes I feel the same helplessness on my feet in a crowd of people. I feel helplessness for things to be any better, for me to be any better. Then hopelessness. Then tears. Then anger.

And God breaks me, because the busyness, it kept me from Him. I was too busy working to let Him tell me that my heart’s not right. Sometimes my cubicle isn’t big enough for God. I miss God’s knocking. Then I get a little upset, because I haven’t heard from God in a long time. Wait… that’s my fault.

I wish I could end this by saying I’ve fixed the cubicle or gotten rid of it. I wish I could tell you I’ve defeated my addiction. But I haven’t. I can tell you what I know: good faith brings God’s grace.

A new dawn breaks every morning.

for the sake of a poem

in this house there is no blouse
no cat no fat no fat cat flat
we haven’t drapes or any grapes
to feed the creed a seed

the walls be chipped by pirate ships
avast ye says he on the sea
with cookies hiding in the nookies
nice ice and the garage sale price

away to sway the dancing way
she flirts a jumbo purple skirt
pirate mccoco from island loco
steals her appeals to the masculine feels

boisterous loud from a dangerous crowd
will push the tush back to the fine bush
where the thoughts of the lots had us all shots
by the chips of the ships of the pirates at sea

for the sake of a poem, you say ‘em and know ‘em
and the icing of tongue, pretty songs that you sung
good words feed the mind and the hunger you find
with no reason but pleasin’ the season of tongue.