once.

we used to talk about what we wanted to be when we grew up.
we were astronauts, or artists.
tourists or thieves.
but now that we've gotten there,
i feel like nothing is the way that we dreamed.

our hands,
they have grown.
bigger, stiffer, colder.
they don't seem to fit like they used to.
the don't seem like they could form the future out of clay.

our eyes have now looked at the world
and seen something less magical
less perfect.
more real.
and now, when i see your face, and i look into your eyes
i know that they too are tainted.

i know that you are still the boy that i once loved.
and i know that underneath the calluses you still have those perfect sweet hands.
but i can't help but force my eyes closed
and try to remember everything that we had promised the world would be.

i'm fine.

you can't ask me to talk
can't need my permission or blessing
you can't decide to care now.
you can't be concerned with my welfare.
can't go back to how things were before
because you made your decision.
you picked

because i begged you not to ask
begged you to let me keep myself locked up
begged you to leave good enough alone.

but you picked and proded
and tweezed away at what i had
pulling apart the pieces of myself that i kept safe

that's not fair.
you dont get to bargain now
you dont get to know how i feel
not any more.

lock meets key

i have a padlock
that keeps my heart chained up and safe
hidden away from the rest of the world.
held in with iron clad links
that wont let me down.
a kind of security that doesn't need to rely on people
because people make mistakes.
people forget to look where they step.
and sometimes, on accident, they stumble
and manage to maim you on the way down.
they don't mean it.
they don't intentionally tear you up
but regardless of intent, cuts and bruises come along
and little pin pricks sneak in
into places that you thought were protected.

warmth

let's fly to alaska
so i have an excuse to always stay close to your side
because for some reason you seem give more warmth than any fire or coat.
i always thought that brown eyes were boring,
but there is something now that i am drawn to
like they are slowly melting away my edges.
i can see that little speck that always appears to be plotting

when we hold hands, i can feel your thumb move over my knuckles ever so slightly,
carefully tracing.
trying either to find each and every crease and ridge
or stay below the sensory radar of everything else around me.
and when i try to annoy you and leave my legs hanging on your lap,
and you fiddle with my laces,
it seems as if our little back seat has dropped off from the rest of the car
and we are somewhere far away, connected by strings of cotton and polyester, weaving together to tie us in.

just you and me,
we can eat vanilla ice cream
and laze in the hot hot sun of the winter wonderland.

time after time

don't tell me it's alright
'cause facts don't change feelings,
reason wont change regret.
at the end of the day your left with the sum of what you were left.
and sometimes anger does feel better than forgiveness
sometimes building walls saves your life
even if life was shrunk to fit inside the barriers
sometimes going through the motions isn't worth it.

but i forget these things when i let my careful wall down.

acids and alkalines

i want sour sour lemonade.
a sad kind of lemonade.
biting, burning, cool, cloying, mind numbing lemonade.
i can feel it in my mouth, tense.
and my tongue curls back into my throat in a dreading anticipation of the tart medicine.
but the reaction isn't because of a summer drink.
it's from a different kind of acid.
one that creeps up and pricks your eyes and makes them water.
that makes your throat tighten
cutting off all of the air surrounding you.
one that hits you in waves
stiffening your muscles,
and then tearing you apart at your hinges.
biting
and burning
and keeping you frozen in a moment.
refusing to let you go.

unfinished

fall seemed to take a hold of riggsy; sweeping her veins with a cold rush of wind, centering her feet on the path ahead of her.

for the longest time, it had appeared as if she were floating. above her life, above the world, above every little microcosm that made up existence. she still stood on the ground, and took in the air around her, but it was like in between her foot and the earth beneath her stood a forcefield of dreaming, and the oxygen that she took in with each breath was instantly converted into clouds that lifted her up, up, up.

things change, he told her, when you're not looking, things change.
and so she turned around, in hopes that behind her back, the world would go on changing, becoming something new, something that had an empty place for her to fill.

fuck you.

You are a douche bag.
what kind of fucker breaks into some random house.
a crack head. thats who.
you suck.
do you think about the people that you screw over.
the people who have to sluff through all the shit you have caused?
the people who cant sleep in their beds or be at home alone, because of you?
you are a bitch.
fuck you for taking my things, but hey, shit happens.
the reason you are going to hell though, is because you took my home.
i now have a house.
not a home.
and i hate you for that.

summer:delayed

this summer i have

fallen asleep on the beach
watched three straight seasons of dawson's creek
played field hockey till my shoes melted, each heel had a blisters the size of a plum
turned bright red
dropped a full carton of eggs
painted a room
danced in the rain
ran in a thunderstorm
cried in children's movies
read on the rooftop
made a new team
ran until my legs stopped feeling
learned to double dutch
made ice cream from scratch
become unusually attached to dr. seuss

18

and not much feels different.
except for the fact that i can slowly sense my childhood slipping away.

i remember once when i was very young i cried all night because i didn't want to grow up.
i wanted to stay a toys-r-us kid.
growing up meant responsibility, and no board games, and leaving the fold.

and now i just feel like sitting in my bed like i did when i was 5.

i dont want to have to pay monthly fees at my bank.
i dont want facebook to take away my minor status, so that the world can find me.
i dont want to have to show an i.d. when i ride an airplane.

i want that airplane to float on the clouds because of pure magic, not aerodynamics.
i want to walk into a toystore and play with the groovy girls without people noticing.
i want to be able to go to denny's and get the youngin's discount.
i want to get play-dough kits and polly-pockets wrapped up in pink paper.
i want to go to school and learn about the pioneers, and volcanoes, and catapillars in cocoons.

i want to cuddle into my little cocoon.
snuggled up in front of the tv.
watching recess and one saturday morning,
while eating my bowl of kix[made for kids]

Bear

I have a bear. His name is BooBoo.

When BooBoo and I were in our youth, we were quite inseparable. If I took a walk, BooBoo was not far behind. His Black furry stubb-feet scuttled along by my side as I went to the park, or violin lessons, or the occasional quest for the neighborhood ice cream truck.

Now that we are in our vintage years, BooBoo and I are both a little worse for the wear. His black fur is pilly, his white fur is stained, his tail looks as if it has gotten caught in a few doors.

But BooBoo and I share a secret, even now, even in our old age. If you scratch behind BooBoo's ears, just the way he likes it, you will find that his fur begins to gleam, and his eyes begin to brighten.

Now it seems that he is more fabric than filling, and his button nose must be kissed tenderly, so it will not fall off. But inside of that black and once-white fabrics, lies a soul. The biggest soul a bear ever had. BooBoo the bear is young at heart, and wise with years. If only the rest of the world had the power of BooBoo.

i did not have textual relations with that man.

three letters:
h,e,y.
left thumb down, right thumb up, left thumb down.
left thumb up; send.

wait for response...

green light ignites.
phone vibrates.

"hey."

obligatory delay in response. do not appear needy. do not appear needy.

"what's up"

pause, send.

delay in response, put phone down in despair.
stare longingly at screen.
stare longingly at screen.
stare forlornly at screen.

pretend to ignore phone.
pretend not to be ignoring phone because that would be juvenile.
throw tantrum.

green light ignites.
phone vibrates.
sprint to phone, spastically open.

"ha, sorry, i was trying to find a parking place."

watch clock to approximate appropriate amount of time before responding.
act casual.

"ha, no prob."

pause, caress phone, send.

green light ignites.
phone vibrates.

"so, wanna do something this weekend?"

elation.
stay chill.

"sure, that would be fu-"

phone prematurely vibrates.
battery low.
battery low.
please plug in.
please plug in.
please plug in before phone dies, and life is ruined.

cannot find charger.
phone dies.
life is ruined.




fuck.

black&gold

I
am a bumblebee.
I am not the most beautiful butterfly,
or the fastest wasp.
I do not have the strength of the ant, I cannot lift my own weight.
I cannot climb mountains,
or swim in the sea.
Because
I
am a bumblebee.
I am the black of night, and the gold of the sun.
I am covered in a layer of softness
and a fine coating of glistening pollen.
I am fortune,
and I am a fighter.
And by the laws of nature,
I should not stay afloat.
But that will not stop me.
Because
I
am a bumblebee

The Ward

I started to take the pills again today.
One yellow, One blue, Three white.
Roger said I had to.
He said I shouldn't have stopped.
I told him I was fine, but he said,
No Melinda. No you are not fine.
I said,
I only saw him once, and this time I didn't talk back to him, just like you said!
and he said,
Melinda, if you saw him that is bad enough.
And I said,
But I don't see why it matters as long as I know he's not real!
And he said,
Melinda,
I'm concerned.


Concerned.
That's what he said.
So I took the pills again, even though I am certain that they are trying to trick me.
Even though they take away my pretty dreams, and replace them with grey ones.

Then, when I showed him that they were all gone, that they had all been swept down into the cavern of my mouth, Roger began to write more.

Write, write, write.
That's what Roger does.
He has a white pad, and a black pen.
The pen used to be green, but now it's black.
He says it's because the green pen died, but I'm pretty sure that it's because I told him that the green reminded me of spring, so he hid it.
They don't like us to think about spring.
They say,
Focus on yourself for now, spring will still be there when you are ready.
They say,
Maybe if you participate in group work, you will get a trip to the countryside to see some spring.
But they do not know.
They do not know that I have hidden a bit of spring.
That I stole the green house from the monopoly board during game time.
And that at lights-out, I hid it inside my vent by the door.
They never check there.

Roger says that I need to work more during group sessions.
I say,
You try having a decent conversation with a bunch of blithering idiots.
He says,
Melinda, those are good people. It's not right of you to call them names.
Then I say,
Fine, I will talk during group session if you give me your pad.
And he says,
Melinda, We've been over this before. This pad is mine. If you would like to write on your own there is paper and markers in the craft corner.
I will not. Go. To the craft corners.
Not by all the cutters and pasters.
They are even worse than the group session fools.
They just sit there and cut and paste and cut and paste.

At least they don't mumble though.
The mumblers are the very worst.
Them and the droolers.


Roger, he says that when I attack the ways that other people live, I am just trying to justify my own actions. But I'm pretty damn sure he's a nutter too.
All he does is write, write, write. Nod, nod, nod.
He could probably uses some decent therapy.

Honestly.
I'm really quite concerned.

speak.

i am so very done
with the silent treatment.
grow up.
learn to use your words.
whatever you would say, good or bad,
just get the friggin guts to do it.
because no one likes a coward.
but lets be serious, you should have learned this all in third grade.

so hey,

let's burn bridges.
because i am sick
and TIRED
of the god damned ups and downs.
i've had enough on the flip flopping friendships,
and the ins-and-outs of your horrid life.
i'm done with your constant complaining
and the way you make everyone walk on eggshells so they dont upset you.
i refuse to censor who i talk with, walk with, or laugh with
because of your stuck-up
judgemental
self-absorbed
PARANOID
point of view.

bitch is a word you might want to look up.

warble

i want a panda bear mask.
because no one hates a furry checker board.

The Woods

His bright blue shoes glinted in the light of the setting sun as he walked out into wilderness beyond. Behind him, the merriment of a party was heard. Siblings playing badmitton, parents imbibing a sip more than usual. The sultry air of summer began to waft away, as day began to cede to night, and dusk began to creep in.

A strange hybridity of determination, and unknown fear surrounded the child. As if his feet were being pulled forward, deeper and deeper into the dark canopy. And yet, something was holding him back, clenching him by the heart, warning him that this was not the path to take. Deeper he went into the abyss of trees and shadows.

Critters followed at a distance, as if beholden to the child. With each of his toddling steps, they scurried and darted behind him. A tan squirrel scuttled about in the front of the pack, its foolish inquisitive nature propelling it forward with the boy as the ventured further into the layers of obscurity. An aged blackbird looked on quizzically as the creature walked on. Indigenous to its high, lofty trees, it would not join in on the crusade through the pillars of wood and moss. An overcastting omen, flying above the trees, it watched.

They traveled.

Bit by bit, the light of the evening began to disappear behind him, leaving whispers of light behind it in the stars. As the trees became taller, and the stars drifted farther away, his following of docile birds and critters beginning to retreat back into their nooks, their rudimentary instincts yanking them out of their trance. Eventually, all but the gauche squirrel had deserted. Deeper and deeper still he foraged.

The darkness surrounded the boy.
The squirrel had disappeared.

Back in a suburban yard, at the edge of the forest, children dressed in argyle were carried off by their loving parents, and loaded into minivans. Driving off into the black horizon.

Stages of Grief

      When Gregory died, I saw two clear paths ahead of me; move on and stoically watch myself grow older in the mirror, or buy a house in the woods, close enough to town for children to walk past on the way home, but far enough away that I wouldn’t need to know them. I chose the latter.
       In November of that year, I chose to become an alcoholic, Mondays I drank gin and tonic, Tuesdays was bloody marys, Wednesdays I sipped on manhattans, Thursdays martinis, and Fridays I indulged in a deep, red wine, one that would send you to sleep at quarter after five. On Saturdays and Sundays I rested. After a while I had accumulated a splendid collection of bottles. They were all different colors and shapes, some pink and rotund, others green and cylindrical, others still a deep blue and curving as if they had melted into my hands. Naturally, I hung them from the trees.
       After a while, I became tired of my routine imbibing, so I departed from that stage of grief, and I bought a cat. I named it Oscar, although the litter of kittens that appeared on my porch swing made it clear that I had erred in judgment. But, it never listen when I called it anyway, so I continued in calling it Oscar out of spite.
       Some time after Christmas, Oscar stopped coming to the house to find food, so I was forced to assume that she had found a gullible child somewhere to take her in. Luckily I had raided the attic only days before in search of a new activity, and I had found a plethora of knitting implements. The windows needed curtains to match the bottles outside. I began to knit in frenzy until each of the gaping windows was covered in an impenetrable layer of woolen yarn. I had not bothered to find threads that matched, so each curtain looked as if it had been cut straight out of a homeless man’s jacket; mismatched, and ass backwards. It was perfect.
       Once spring came it occurred to me that a nice garden would use my time well, so I dug up every wild plant in the expansive yard, and potted them in old ceramic bowls to line the stairs. They died in no time at all, but as I had expected, they had certainly taken up my useless hours. Besides, now if the house were ever broken into I would hear the intruder tripping on 37 odd dishes that had once held life.
      Still restless, I made it my new duty to become the neighborhood watch. I ordered a pair of binoculars off the internet, and my search for criminals began. Within a week I had memorized the TIPS hotline number. Within two they had changed it. I spent the rest of the month watching law and order.
      As summer began to creep in, and the sweltering sun rose higher in the sky each afternoon, I discovered that I needed a new hobby. This discovery of course lead me to the basement. There I found bats. The only option I saw was to take an online course on bat catching. It was an incredible success, and by early July I could swing a tennis racket up to the ceiling without hearing a single screech.
       But alas, my new lack of bats proved to cause an infestation of mosquitoes and other insects that would draw blood in the night. This prompted my next endeavor; insecticide through candle making. With a slightly hazardous combination of various waxes, paraffin, noxious chemicals, and the remnants of yarn left from the winter months, I created a small factory in the deserted dining room. With the bottles swinging in the wind outside, I set to work melting and molding and mixing and melting again until I had a menagerie of stalagmite shaped candles. For the next week and a half, I burned them along with random papers, some wood bits I had found about the house, and a lead horse figurine that had worked its way into a crack in the windowsill.
       As the rest of the summer wafted by, I lay beneath the ceiling fan in the kitchen, wearing nothing but an evening gown.
      Once August had passed, I called my children. I had long since disconnected the answering machine, so each conversation was forced to begin with the necessary expletives, explanations, and exuberance. Suzanne the third youngest of the grandchildren, after all, had lost her first tooth. Somewhere in America, a desperate director was in search for such drama, I was sure.
      The next day I unplugged my phone.
Slowly, as October began to creep around, I began to write my first novel on a thirty-year-old typewriter. It was a torrid love affair between a solder and a nurse. It took me a while to realize that I was merely repeating A Farewell to Arms. I then proceeded to dissemble the typewriter in hopes to salvage some metal to make tap shoes. There was none to be found suitable.
      Then, one morning, as the sun was just beginning to rise, and I was just beginning to go to sleep, it occurred to me. I had left my cat-eye spectacles outside on the porch. Oh well, I sighed to myself. Doubtless it would rain, leaving the glasses watermarked and blurry. That, at the very least, I could accept. I could accept the rain, and the storms, and the blurred green glasses. They would come and go through my life, like the men and the children and the loved ones. Just like the jumpropes of the little girls on the street; up and down, in and out, there one moment, gone the next.

If

Maybe
If I close my eyes tight enough, I can force out all the tears
So that when I open them back up no one can tell I’ve been crying.
Maybe
If I just smile ‘till my cheeks hurt, I can make the world think that I am fine
I can make myself think that I am fine.
Maybe
If I pretend that I have a place, I wont feel so alone
So the world seems like more than flakes of tissue paper.
Maybe
If I go to sleep, and stay in my dreams with golden-pink skies
I won’t need to wake up to my plaster-white ceiling
And start again.

Sway

I like jumping to techno,
I like singing the lyrics of the cliché pop songs,
And swaying slowly in the middle of the floor,
When that one slow song finally reaches the speakers.

I like the way your smooth tux welcomes my cheek as I lean in to your arms
And being enveloped in to a little space only meant to hold one,
As my entire body is taken over by butterflies.

You mean nothing.

Coward.
You walk around high and mighty,
like a god damn lion, king of the world.
With a mask of loyalty and composure;
But I'm calling you on your bluff.
I say you are a coward
to your very core,
through and through.
So go ahead, say it aloud.
Say what it is that you are too afraid to speak.
or maybe...
you feel like you just shouldn't say anything at all...
Why break your pattern now.

Pages in the Dark

Slowly, the old woman began to walk about flicking out each of the light switches, one by one. The children were all gone for the night, but the echo of their voices seemed to drip out of the books in the children’s corner. The harrowed college students too were gone from the study cubbies, and yet for some reason the noise of their murmured notes flaked through the air. The library was empty.
With the lights off, the old woman began to move to a tiny desk to the left of the great wooden doors. There she flicked one more switch, setting a small lamp alight.
She sat there, at her desk, taking account for the day’s work, the day’s books.
She had no children, no family waiting at home. She had her books.
And she would always keep the children there, because they had read her books and signed their names to a ledger. And with that act, those children became hers. In each book she held a different mind. In each page a different past, a different soul.
A homeless man who sat in the corner, she kept him in her copy of Les Miserables, Hugo.843.
A young boy who would often hide a used stick of chewing gum beneath the round table by the windows. He was contained in A Tell Tale Heart, Poe.811.
A middle aged woman, who wore her skirts just an inch too short, her tops just a button too few. She was trapped in a tattered copy of The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorn.813.

The woman had her books. She would not let them go.

there was a subsequent elephant stampede

and the butterflies all died. C'est la vie.

an awful case of the butterflies

are fluttering in my stomach.

so often i am told

I have been told not to walk barefoot,
As to not get calluses
But I can think of nothing more gratifying than walking
With naked feet
On freshly cut grass,
Or toasted burning pavement.

I have been told to keep my hair up
And out of my face so I can see the world.
But the kalidascope that my bangs make on a windy day
Make the trees and sky glitter and shine

I have been told keep my nails well kempt
And my clothing clean
But I cant play a violin if my nails shine and grow.
And I have never once managed to stay clean
on a long summer run

I have been told many things.
But often I find
That in the end the day
I am happy with my callused feet,
And my tussled hair
And my tattered clothes.
So I will go on
And ignore

What I am so often told.

found

people get lost,
he says to me.
they get lost, and they never come back.
i cannot let you go.
what if you get lost?

and i say,
my darling,
i cannot lose you,
because you are mine.
because the sound of your voice brings me to you.
because the blood in my veins, is the same as the blood in your heart.
because your heartbeat is my homing device.
because you are my little sun each morning.
because you are my love.

news years resolutions

write more
find a recipe for the perfect spaghetti sauce
figure out how to properly use my contacts
run
re-dewey decimal my book shelves
learn to knit more than just scarves
be in a musical
marry david tennant