Thoughts in my head at this very minute

 Thoughts in my head at this very minute

 

About a man’s memories, so different from a woman’s memories

About one’s pride and righteousness

About the other’s guilt and weariness

About eating batter-fried prawns tossed with garlic and butter

About the crispy, chewy, delectable flesh in my mouth

About a blue dress, blue eyeshadow, blue, blue, blue

About my heart and what it would feel like if it stopped right this instant

About smoking a cigarette, taking a long puff, and exhaling slowly through my nose

About a man, in a car, in his room, under the moon

About another man, the only face that brings me to violence

About children, a child, my child, in this world, with me, alone

About the beginning of things, about the end of things

And how the beginning is also the end, and the end is also the beginning

About flowers, about cats, about babies,

About parallel universes, about Bukowski, about dreams

About agency, about freedom, about love, about labour

About things I don’t want to remember in words

And words I don’t want to remember any more

About escape, about distractions, about sleep

About enough, about too much

 

 No, I cannot wake up,

No, I do not have your heart,

No, I will not meet the undead,

No, I cannot care anymore,

No, I do not know how to,

No, I will not search the mirror,

No, I cannot let go—right now or ever,

No, I do not think I can bear to look at you,

No, I will not open the door,

No, I cannot dream another dream,

No, I do not know how to do this anymore,

No, I will not be the midnight moon’s whisper.

No, I cannot get up off the floor,

No, I do not know how it happened,

No, I will not hang up my gloves,

No, I am not quite done

No, thank you,

No.

 

I suppose I'd have a better go at affection

Had I any sense of self-preservation

But here I am, plucking out my last eyelash

And wishing it away, once again, on you

 

How many poems does it take for the sum of grief and resentment raised to the power of loneliness and divided by the difference between joy and numbness to tend to zero?

There are days, whole days that go by without me thinking of her

And then there are days when I can think of nothing but her and how much I ache for her 

And honestly, I can't tell which kind of day is worse 

 

Peace lily is blooming in the garden, 

I watch it anxiously, expecting it to wither even as I watch

Peace lily is blooming in the garden, 

Its beautiful serpentine hoods raised, 

Its yellow-white spathe shying away from prying eyes

Peace lily is blooming in the garden, 

I water it cautiously, just enough, not too much,

Shield it from the sun, so it has warmth but not heat, 

Keep it safe from the dog and the children, yet let it stand on display

Peace lily is blooming in the garden, 

I wonder how anything so lovely grows in my garden, 

Untarnished, unsoiled, untouched by the turmoil here, 

Maybe I've forgotten what it's like to watch something blossom,

Maybe I've no understanding of things that grow more rapturous with time

Peace lily is blooming in the garden

Plentiful

The plentiful rainclouds have just passed

The air is abuzz with freshly hatched butterflies

Everything's dressed in sparling emarald

I stare hither thither... Entirely mesmerized 

This time of the year always reminds me of my mother

More specifically, of her dying slowly and painfully

In a way that no one deserves to go (least of all her)

This time of the year reminds me of how much I miss her

 

I am trying to remember the good times, the miracle she was

But everything I’ve come up is as frayed and distressed as the

Bottoms of the then fashionable jeans we had that she so hated

All I can remember reminds me of how much I miss her

 

Her smile—shy and quivering, like it was expecting to be scared off

Her long-slender-bony fingers—and how they felt on my forehead

Her voice—more specifically, her voice calling out my name

Oh and it hurts how much I miss her

 

Some days I fool myself with a fantastic mirage of her

Imagine walking into the kitchen to find her standing  

With her tall back to me, her long neck bent over some chore

I wish I could wrap my arms around her, tell her how much I miss her

 

I wonder whether those whose lives she touched ever think of her

Her way of taking on everyone’s aches and pains, absorbing all

And making it her own, of comforting those with no hope of comfort

But whether the world cares or not; I do and I miss her

 

My eyes miss watching her move around the house

My body misses those long ‘it’ll-be-okay’ embraces

My mind misses the belongingness it found in her

Every day, every day, every day, every day, every day

I miss her