The Present

I feel really raw, really present. More so than I can ever remember. But it isn't like they all say. The present drags on. It doesn't give any gifts. I make up crafts for myself to do so that I can notice the time passing and the seasons changing. I buy groceries and try new recipes, only to throw out food because time won't pass fast enough for me to get hungry enough to eat it all. No one comes to me to stay. I am present, alright. Like the axel of a wheel. Things are happening around me, happening to other people, and I stay put, just connected enough to not be able to complain. What happens next? What happens next?

I can smell tears in my nose. I wonder if I am supposed to cry.

Honey Amber Cloud

If unending honey poured over my head,

Smoothed down my hair,

Flowed over the bow of my lips,

And made of me a relic in amber;

It were hardly more soothing

Or blindly caressing

Or impetuously present

(Forbid me to move!)

Than this golden cloudscape,

This peaceful floating

Of you

And I.

Leveling Up

we are leveling up;
the you and me
morphing into a we,
an us that slips into our speech
unexpectedly.
the girlfriend and boyfriend
we've been tossing around
have set down on the ground,
and the future
that looked like tomorrow
is actually quite further off
and farther
along.

what to do what to do

boston is getting a bleaching,
the color leeching
out, puddling
around my shoes.

Despair Is Premature,

he said gingerly.

What Game?

I guess I'll leave it here,

This discontented thought-wracked day.

Nothing has changed, but I am tired.

There is some game going on and

I don't understand how to win.

I've spent the day in determined panic, 

My arms braced for impact.

I am tired of remembering to

Hold you at arm's length. 

I Pick Myself Up

I do not belong here,

On this shelf with your other toys.

I pick myself up, dust myself off.

Work the paralyzing hope out of my joints.

I clambor down, clumsy first, then flying.

If you want me, you can call.

If I can hear you I will answer

Because I love you.

But I am running now,

By tonight, who knows where I'll be.

Fine Lines

There is only
a very fine line
between
a doormat and
a waiting girl.

Cyn McCurry - Casting

Nearest

dearest heart
nearest to mine,
i marvel that i,
little me,
should be thine.

i hope that you know
that i long to be near,
that my life would
be better
if you could be here.

but you urge me to live.
you want me to rise.
you let me be brilliant,
adventurous,
wise.

you fill me with hope.
you're the end of my gaze.
you're the calm motes
of sunbeams
that lighten my days.

so though you are far, now,
we hardly must part.
for you are
my dearest,
my nearest of heart.

Three Attempts

I wanted to write you a sonnet

But a limerick came busting in on it.

I did what I could

Is this any good?

Oh, but content! I guess I forgot it.

Ummm...
Ah, yes.  Ahem.

The boy that I want is in China

But I want him to know that I ... lima?

Darn! Nothing else rhymes

And I've run out of lines..

I'm not a good limerick designah.

*sigh*

I'll try one more time to be clearer.
This boy to me couldn't be dearer.
I'd run any race
To be close to his face,
And spend my last dime to get nearer.

Tahdah!

I Am No Poet

I.
little poems to say the little things
that my heart leaps to catch
from mid-air.

II.
sad behemoths lurking in the depths
are easier to pin down,
if you can believe it.

III.
a scoop of mud
makes a quick painting

IV.
the butterfly thoughts
refuse to sit still
to be described.

V.
i suppose i am no poet
after all.

Your Hand Is Still In Mine

My foot slips off the path again.
My ankle twists the same way.
I forget that your hand is in mine
    when I feel that pain,
    that same pain,
    that same old pain.
But it wasn't you.
I forgot that it wasn't you.

Your hand is still in mine.
Your hand is still in mine.

The Future

We human creatures 

We collide.

We combine.

You and me

We make a line

We look:

There it reaches;

Golden in the rising setting noonday sun.

The future.

You Scare Me

you scare me.
the raw reality of another human being.
this close.
there is something unsettling
about letting you in.
an unknown factor, no matter
how closely i peer into your eyes or
how often my fingertips dance over your skin.

your thoughts are independent in your head.

you could bare your teeth without warning.
change your mysterious mind about anything.
every moment offers you the opportunity to 

leave,

but you are still here.

I Know Something You Don't Know

y

o

u

l

o

v

e

m

e

Tantrum

No, she cried. No, you don't understand. If we don't last, I know I will survive. I will love others. I will be happy. You are not the first, and there is always one more. The sea is vast and deep. The garden has no walls. But I swear you are different. I swear you fill all the gaps that others left gaping open. I want you in my heart, not anyone else. If you leave, someday I will find myself saying this again. To someone else. But I don't want to. Let it not be so. Give me desolation! Give me dissolution in the face of this quiet continuing! I don't want peace! I don't want moving on! Not this time!

149

I.
Love knows a trap when it sees one.

The two breathless beings poised uncertainly over the trail of crumbs

Is a clumsy clue.
Look up, you fools!
It watches you!



IV.
Love tiptoes on silken hooves.
Trailing those who wish to track it.
They recite the things that love should be,
But their whispers only mask its
Reality.



IX.
Stop with looking.  Abandon the hunt.
Dance, and Love will slip into the steps.
Lovers, dance.

Words Our Mouths Have Spoken

I.

The words stack up, line by line and row by row.

I blink and there it is, 

A wall of Happy, Safety, Sweetness, Darling, Dearest, Longing, Waiting, Hoping, Kisses, Soon.

But he is on the other side.

III.

Look at all these words between us.  

We describe our happiness and 

Wait to feel it.

VI.

This wall is a battlement of Incan-fit boulders

It protects us from the nothing.

One day,

When there is no more nothing,

When there is sunlight and skin and looks and touching instead,

We will be the cannons and the ladders

Laying siege to the stone box that our loving words have built,

Freeing the hearts so carefully kept, and 

Watching where they go.

 XIV.

The words our mouths have spoken

Must be swallowed 

And re told 

Without words.

To My Valentine

Red wagons are red.
Blueberries are blue.
Some things just are.
Like me liking you.

Please Take It

Please take it. I want you to have it.

This heart is useless beating in my breast.

It rots.

It tosses with wild spinnings.

(Lodestone seeking,

Never finding.)

But you it likes.

It purrs.

It stares.

It paces.

It holds its wild breath. 

These ribs were never more cagelike 

Than while I wait for you to know

(Like I do)

That this heart belongs with you.