#poem5

How did I not notice-

the way you slithered through life.

Red flags on every corner-

warning signs left and right,

lights flashing in my face,

blinding me,

paralyzing.

Your mannerisms towards others

should have reflected our outcome.

I took the bull head on-

fully aware of my fate,

but nevertheless hoping for

a change in story.

I don't know if it's the ignorance

or reality that hurts the most.

I have been told throughout my life

That I am too nice.

When I offer information to anyone, I try to offer it on a bed of clouds.

To gently set you down on.

I do this because I know what it’s like to be thrown down as a fastball straight onto a floor of concrete and then left there. 

A hundred pieces of me that I still feel like I’m picking up, scattered all over the ground.

Broken bit of my arm goes here...

The chip of my ankle is across the room...

I still haven’t found where my heart landed and there is a significant chunk of my brain also missing. 

Picking myself up and putting the fragments where they go as I continue on.

I find scraps of myself from time to time and I live as gracefully as I can. Not taking anything for granted, being grateful for what I have. 

So I put people on beds of clouds.

I cannot tell if one persons concrete is the same as mine. 

I do not see into their minds and I have not lived through their battles. 

One person might see my slab of concrete as a meadow of flowers.

“Quite soft” They say to me-- Maybe they were expecting rolling hills. 

I give them a cloud and they feel a ray of sunshine of their face or maybe a child’s laugh...

Dial it back. Take this other person. 

I offer a cloud and they hit concrete. That same brutal concrete--my common friend. 

Perhaps, after putting in some time and effort, I’ll know to offer them sunshine rather than clouds...This is what I do. 

What I do might be different from another. Reasonably, the first person might offer the second person a bed of flowers--

(which was my concrete)

and the second person is slammed into a bed of nails.

Thoughtlessness. Left breathless. So much pain and I can feel it. 

So I offer clouds. 

My goal, is to leave my mark as smile lines on your face. 

a masquerade the world is a masquerade with all of the celebrations & circumstance it feels like a bowl of plastic fruit, sometimes

this friendship or that acquaintance we marionette closeness looking for soft spaces in each others backs for knife wounds forgiveness & mercy are foreign languages even pity is parsed out like rations thrown from passing helicopters at a distance far enough to escape…

I started early took my dog and visited the sea the mermaids in the basement came out to look at me and frigates in the upper floor extended hempen hands presuming me to be a mouse aground upon the sands But no man moved me Till the tide went past my simple shoe and past my apron and my belt and past my bodice too and made as he would eat me up as wholly as a dew upon a dandelion's sleeve And then I started too and he-he followed close behind I felt his silver heel upon my ankle then my shoes would overflow with pearl until we met the solid town no one he seemed to know and bowing with a mighty look at me The sea withdrew