I SEE YOU

I see you.

No one else may, but I do.

I know you’ve been up nights, pacing, or lying there counting breaths.

I see you wondering if that cough is a sign, 

Taking your temperature just to be appeased.

I see you running to the arms of a stranger despite the risks

Because the one you love is being smart, safe

but you need a hug, a fuck, to be held.

Rendering that professed love void.

I see you suffering, as we all are.

I see you hiding that suffering as we all do.

I see you posting inspirational quotes instead of

Emoting the truth

I see you white knuckling as the carriage takes you

Closer and closer, up up up to the pinnacle 

After which, on the plummet, you can scream with permission

Scream with terror under the guise 

of a roller coaster ride

I see you seeing your friends sick and dying

Questioning the horror of dying an unlived, unseen, uncelebrated life

I see you.

I see you trying to pivot 

Bound up in the effort to be normal

You are not normal

You are not loved

Enough

You are in a place where you can never be loved 

Enough

To let the seeing ones in. 

To let someone, see you

I see you

Every day sporadically

Slip into a puddle of grief and sorriw

Tears

Sobbing

Randomly

4:52

It's 4:52 on a glum New York Sunday

When you've just got back home and your socks are still wet

Sun sets on Manhattan, the sky is still gloomy

rain ticks on the sill with the clock, a duet

Tear Temple

I would like to create

a sort of tear Temple

A place where we go

Just to grieve

A mosque to unmask

A town crier church

to remember, let go

And then leave

To break down the walls

The ones against wailing

And take pride in a guttural woe

Stocked with soft hankies

And big weighted blankies

where sorrows commune and echo

2024

It's the end of the year of my Dad dying

and I'm thinking about why, so much, I'm crying

It's for what he won't see that I'm gonna do

but it's my ego's perspective of his seating view

Because he's gonna see whatever I do

but I selfishly want to see him seeing me too

BUS STOP

you've spent 

way too long

sitting on a bench

just one street over

from the one 

your bus

drives down

Not Just The Right

Stop praying, such fools,

don't you know WE are god

We are the creators,

made in the image 

of the deities we formed

to make it seem like 

we are separate.

We are god.

We are making it rain.

Rain bullets

rain blood

rain pain

rain injustice

rain murder

rain oppression

rain terror.

WE are doing this 

as god 

because WE are all one.

the thought that some of us 

don't have blood on our hands 

is the problem.

The sooner we get that 

the sooner we stop dividing 

our responsibility

by 

MY problem 

and 

YOUR problem

by 

righteousness

and

self-righteousness.

The right hand 

on the body 

of a man

harms a child.

The left hand 

on the same body

just hangs there

or flaps around

in the air

impotently.

Both hands on the body

are 

guilty

the whole body is guilty

not just the right hand.

WARMER

You were raised in New England

and that means 

summers on the beach

toes in the sand

learning to swim in the 

Icy Atlantic.

Where you are told 

“you’ll get used to it”

“don’t be a pussy”

“be brave, girl”…

Blue fingers.

Blue lips.

You never got used to it.

And now you’re in your 50’s.

And it still spits you out.

Blue fingers.

Blue lips.

And never once did they let on

that there are places…

Warmer.

Anyone can go. 

Any Body can go. 

There are places.

That don’t.

That won’t.

Spit you out.

Freeze you out.

There are places that wrap 

around you like a blanket.

Always warm.

As if they actually 

want you
to stay.  

Puppet

 

No Small Cheat

You can steal a little,

lie a little,

pray a little,

even die a little.

But you can not love a little.

You can not cheat a little.

Those are all in.

You can not split the notion of love

or the cruelty of a cheat

like a pie into fractions.

It is what is or is not;

no halfsies.

No sitting on the dock with one skinny knee dangled in the water guppies sucking on baby hairs there

while the rest of you hangs spared

dry, mostly dry.

You're in or out.

you sin or live in doubt.

But no little love.

No small cheat.

At The End

There are those who forget and are angry.

There are those who forget and accept.

There are those who've learned what they came for.

There are those who will leave here in debt.

GRIEF RELEASED

And one day you wake up finally after 10, 20, or 100 months of despair, anger, resentment, to the pain of your obsession with grief Gone testament to the fact that you can not force a river you can not lend a hand in the process of mourning One day when the fates allow the pain will be lifted You will realize you have transcended the bottom dwellings of that past. So stop worrying about it now simply work on forgiving God forgiving the villain forgiving yourself forgiving the one gone That is the work of grief. dig deep on your own philosophy for what feels like an eternity and you wake up one day free

Good Witch

I’m a good witch. Mostly. 
Mostly good.
But not all
But not bad
I throw cards
Commune with spirits
Light incense
Caress crystals 
and burn bits of paper 
with images I drew
maybe of you
Rituals not meant 
to harm
Not meant 
to keep anyone from harm
Hands waved through smoke
Desires recited 
for karmic lessons
to be swift
Maybe suffering 
in some way
not unearned
Not quite 
plotting revenge
But definitely
aligned with it
Like a good witch. Mostly. 
Mostly good. 

THE DARK NIGHT

 

I never had a "dark night of the soul". 
That would have been 
too fancy, 
too helpful. 
Rather, 
I preferred the routine 
of knocking my head 
against a perpetual, 
relentless, 
screaming 
dusk.

ROMANTICS

romantics are the holy ones

the calloused ones, the brave

with eyes as wide as sea shores,

hearts as dark as graves

addicted to the best in man

blind to faults and scars

oblivious to grief on earth

abandoned to the stars

ant

 

Haiku for smoke detector

something in the hall

chirps every thirty seconds

dirge for Duracell 

Lightning Bugs

Being a writer is being a catcher

A catcher of light in a jar

You never get better

You never get good

Just depends how many there are 

The bugs that shine light

They come or they don’t 

There’s no knowing how many, how bright 

Your job’s to just sit there 

And welcome them enter

Then screw the lid on fucking tight 

The Wilds

I hear crickets out my window now in Brooklyn

And there’s certainly no place I’d rather be

I won’t be heading to the wilds very soon so,

I’m just happy that the wilds came to me

MARBLES

I pick up a marble from a bowl
on my coffee table 
and try to remember. 
Was this mine as a kid?
Did I fish it out of the mud one rainy day?
This orange and white marble is a shooter. 
It’s large, important. 
Is it supposed to mean something to me?
I’ve had it for years. 
Or have I?
Things get fuzzy like that 

when they are left in a bowl on the coffee table for too long.

LOVE

For some, love unfolds like a silk blanket 

over freshly mown grass 

on a balmy June day.
For some, love rolls out like a red carpet 

to blaring trumpet music 

and flying rose petals.
For some, love is built plank by plank, 

bravely joining two lands 

and making them one.
For some, love is like a 5th grader’s secret note 

having been forgotten in the pocket of her jeans

washed and tumble dried 

into a thickly layered chunk.
When unfolded, only deteriorating, indecipherable, 

light blue BIC pen hatching or question marks remain.
Dust and bits, 

dust and bits. 

Lint and confusion 

covered in 

melted strawberry 

chapstick wax.