Ocean Moon

(Pre-Script: This post best read as the song, "Bend and Break," #32 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...)(...still waiting...)

On the back of my heart

is a tattoo of the dark side of the moon

and the face there

is your face, rippling

like the surface of the sea,

so that's how I know

that there is water on the moon.

But dark, hidden,

a secret no one seems to recognize,

and you're changing; the wind,

blowing, changes the shape of you

but I know you.

I feel the pull

from deep inside my chest.

There's an ocean who's current

has never been surfed or sailed,

treasures hidden on shores

unexplored.

-XOXO,

Liquidation

(Pre-Script: This poem will melt you if you read it as the song, "Between the Lines," #28 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...)(...still waiting...)

What if I slipped through the cracks

in the floor
(the floor was made of tile and I had turned to liquid)
so there was no trace of where
I had once stood,
of if I had stood there at all,
a solid being on a solid surface?

What if I became liquid

from the inside out,
the blood poured out of my heart,
and congealed first inside my chest cavity,
became

what looked like a purple black bruise

from the outside,
and eventually saturated through bone,

vital organs,
any connecting tissues,
what muscle tone I had once earned and maintained,
and finally skin,
all bloodied now,
all only blood now,
from inside, from the inside
of this solid shape of me.

-XOXO,

Birthday

(Pre-Script: This poem smells fresh when read as the song, "Everybody's Changing," #14 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...)(...still waiting...)

I have stopped carrying you.

Actually, I never carried you,

but you have never stopped

wanting me to, expecting it,

which is something like expecting

a banana to jump out of the fruit bowl and dance

on the crumb strewn kitchen counter.

With my hand,

I will wipe the counter clean,

so clean that

no one could know just by looking

that anyone

had ever made toast.

I'll use my cucumber scented kitchen spray

so that no one

could know just by smelling.

-XOXO,

Deposits

(Pre-Script: This post will carry you out to sea when read as the song, "Uncharted," #44 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...)(...still waiting...)

When I was 4, the ocean knocked me over. Not in a gentle or graceful way, just flat out, cold salt water smacking into my back and pushing me face down into the sand while it rolled over me, then back out. This is the risk that any small person takes when stepping into the ocean, never mind if she is wearing her prettiest pink swimsuit or not. Never mind if parents or grandparents are standing nearby with a large towel and a red box of Cheez-It's.

I have never been knocked over since.

When I got a little bit older, I used to go out as deep as I felt brave, and body surf. It was always cold, so I would wait until one level of my body got numb before daring to go any deeper, and finally I would be up to my shoulders, and finally, dipping my head under. Eventually, the chill of the ocean would take over the numbness I had taken for granted. When I realized I was cold, I would get out of the water in pursuit of warm sand and my towel.

It's surprising how much sand a body can hide and then later that evening deposit in a bath drain. You thought you'd left the water, but so much of it had stayed with you, in crevices you thought you'd already rinsed clean.

-XOXO,

Desperate Wanderlust

(Pre-Script: This poem should be read as the song, "Going the Distance," #17 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...)(...still waiting...)

I have a horse called Desperate Wanderlust.
I ride him bareback.
He's not exactly the kind of horse you can saddle,

though sometimes he lets me guide him;
mostly he just runs and runs.
I am convinced we are trying to find the outmost reaches
of grace's wastelands
but we never get there,
I just become extremely tired

sick, even,
so we go back home, where I wrap myself
in the thickest comforter I can find
and sleep until I feel better.
The horse doesn't get tired;
I don't even think he rests.
He just huffs and paces impatiently in his pen.
He can be distracted by small domestic things,
-for long-ish periods of time, even-
A sugar cube, A quilt on his back,
new hay, the melody of wind chimes on a porch
in the late afternoon-
but these are just distractions.
It occurs to me that grace has no wastelands-
that all I do is exhaust myself with the effort I put into finding them,
that I am safe here,
and that warmth is a pleasant feeling.
But then Desperate Wanderlust starts to whinny,
and I start to itch...

-XOXO,

Leprosy

(Pre-Script: This poem is meant to be read as the song, "Keep Breathing," #24 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

Let's face it

(or don't face it, if that's easier)

no one wants the cure

we all just want the leprosy.

No one wants to wake up,

we all just want to dream through it

and believe that we're happy,

smiling as our fingers bleed and our flesh

is eaten away

one nasty gash at a time.

-XOXO,

Centered

(Pre-Script: This poem best felt when read as the song, "Bend and Break," #47 on the playlist, plays in the background. After that, click on "Maybe," #19. Go down to the playlist, click on those songs, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

I didn't even know you existed

until you showed up on the screen,

bright and blinking like a homing beacon

in the middle of some dark nothing,

and it centered me.

To think that there was light

and goodness

and something perfectly thriving

in the center of me,

and I'm not even that great of a person,

not half as healthy in my habits as I'd like to

say I am.

But that's the mystery of the thriving thing,

of a hope haphazardly placed

in the center of

where you thought only nothingness

and destruction were low maintenance enough

to survive.

I don't know everything;

I know that now.

-XOXO,