alone means sans distraction

fighting distraction and not
but under my fingernail
is a speck of blood and the
dust in my eye and other
i'm moving my house to
under a tree by your
side.

the face in the window(there's
not) is twisting, contorting
and the face in my window
is yours. but i'm breaking and
aching and falling apart
just as quickly as they're built
up. tears tears tears under
underabove beneath but
maybe not next to. a tired
bout of schizoprenic dreams
brought about the simple
stains that stain my heart.

the point is, too many miles
and spaces between my fingers
and between our hearts. I
lost contentment the day I
drove away.

but maybe that was just today.

Jack Vettriano's "The Singing Butler"

The angry words are yesterday and the rain
Is hardly falling, dear. The wind is something
Of a distant memory--the rush of the waves
And your beckoning arms are all that fill my
head today. The two, bless them, they came
with us, shield us from the wind and rain, though
it couldn't touch us anyhow. We're lost in our
world... unable to remember those days and times
when the roughness ripped our skin and our
anger cracked the glass like a poised hammer.
And so we're dancing to the rhythm of the outside
World, yet unable to answer its call. We're dancing
With the shoreline, laughing at the coming storm.
I have you and your strong arms today, and
Can but feel the ripple wind at my back as we
Move and sigh with the coming rain.

dropped from a sky bird

i'm sitting comfortably in
this padded box--i'll be
silent for a few days. this
no-noise does my brain
good by me. the slow
slow slow (just slow down)
motion stop of the techno
(logic?) i have no logic
but i'm sitting in silence
to regain my composure
and to peep over my fence
into your well kept yard--
no i'm not wilson, i never
was. but i'm wondering how
long the silence will have to
last? it doesn't at all, but
i'm engaged in an ongoing
mind game with myself
(isn't that weird?) but i
like to remind myself that
you've known that all along.
but that's not even why.
there were days, fever-
induced ways that my
head would melt in the sun
but these are not those days
and this silence isn't for those
reasons. i try and try
as the clouds go by
to refocus my mind and to
try and try and try--

it might just be the estrogen talking

there's no reason
to be angry
or hurt
or lonely
there's no reason
at all to wonder
why the sky
is an unhealthy gray
there's no reason
to be small
you gave it your
best.

there is never any reason
to the how and why of
the brain that sits under
my hair. just as there is
hardly any reason to the
forecasts and flowers
growing at random on
the side of the road.

i think i melted into
a puddle. but for no
discernable reason--
there is no reason at all.

a lie within a truth, but mostly the other way around

it's many consonants and vowels
tossed around like a salad.. did
you enjoy the ham cubes? well the
vinaigrette was all yours, but i can't
help but wonder whose words these
will be?

the pounding of my veins is all i heard
in my ears today, a glance through my
windowpane--what is the outside world?--
and i remember it only rains in spain,
and even then, it falls mainly on the planes.
but you don't live on the planes, and i doubt
if you can hear my thunderstorm anyhow.
hypothetically of course. (i'm lifting an eyebrow
as i can't decide what i mean)

well the truth is my echo-location is stretched
a bit, and i can hardly hear your whispers
through the trees and snow and wind. (and
apparently the thunderstorm is an inhibiting
factor as well.) but the point is i'm drowning
in a drought, don't you dare ask me how that
is possible.. suffering rarely has a definitive
name, and even then.. some words mean more
than can be known.

i'll wander and he might gander, but nothing
could keep that other man from gandering
at the old man's ward. but then again, i doubt
any of this happened at all--i knew i'd be
companion only to the wind had i declined..
lies do not become us. but perhaps i'm too
harsh. because you claim things that i can
only faintly see... they all taught me that i
shouldn't see them.. so why should i gain
perfect vision now?

i wrap up my hurts into a tattered handkerchief
and remind myself that they couldn't be hurts
at all;; if i've been numb this whole time, how
have i felt the cold?

inception

i'm looking at my hands and wondering
how i'm here again. bloodstains and shame
falling off my fingertips in a helpless rain.
she told me it wasn't fair--i'm adament
that this is all because of me and my faults--
days-coming, forgetting the steps to this waltz
and i feel myself yet again sinking, pit of stomach,
fighting biting cold and hearing simple sounds
that try (in vain?) to reinstill what we had found.
singing, he took the mess of my churning mind,
"you'll be wearing white and i'll be wearing out
the words 'I love you'" i glower at my doubts.
the blankness in the white is a death to me..
i cannot look away; it's the whiteness of the future
eyes can't tear away, heart can't sit so unsure
but i'm sure this is what i will become, not that
other woman, tripping over her bloodsoaked
feet, a still matted mass for vultures to poke
but here i am again, looking down at my hands
when i should be searching for the face of my creator
not telling myself i'll patch things up later.
so the small idea, i'll try to push it down until
it's no more than a last resort--this is not where
i want to go. we were always a lovely pair..
and i won't be a starling in the moonlight, kamikaze
my tears into silence.. the stillness will not come
because of this, no. i won't let the stillness come.
there are places inside the stillnesses that enclose...
but those words were perhaps the best i had heard
she took my fears and reminded me, they're absurd.
so quite soon i will begin to dust myself off, to find
a rhythm that keeps a good beat.. and remember
to remember, to consult my maker before the embers.