Moms and Gates

 I wrote a stupid song about borrowing a mom from the pictures off the wall at a bar

Maybe it’s not so stupid but it feels stupid. I wanted to call one of the walk moms and ask what the fuck I’m supposed to do about several hundred things. I miss that.

I don’t know how I miss a thing I never had. I don’t know what it feels like. Sometimes I wish I could crawl inside my daughter’s head and feel what it’s like.

I tried to let mine be a mom once. It blew up so catastrophically that I knew never to do that again. That’s not a woman who is going to give sage advice. She’s going to make it about her and tell you in some backhanded way that you deserve whatever pain you’re feeling. Comfort doesn’t live there. 

I got real used to bottling up everything. And then there would always be some guy friend who would pull something that was wrong out of me and the gates just opened.

And some of them helped. And some of them hurt. But at least it was out.  I lean into the ones that help and my gates stay open. I lean into the ones that hurt and my gates stay open.

Until they get slammed shut from the other side and I panic. 

I see that I do that.

I forget I am not the only one with gates until all I am thinking about is gates because they just keep swinging this way and that way. And then I don’t care about gates. Fuck the gates. Fuck fences. I hate em both. And I run around like a fool and find myself drunk in somebody else’s field.

And then I wake up the next day and feel like a fucking idiot because I was one. I’ll tip toe out of the field, manage a quiet apology and gently close their gate.

I am going to attempt to be a normal human being who knows about gates and fences and lawn care and is so very normal and not weird at all.

And if the gates open again, we can all be normal people talking about the grass and how green it all is. I’d they don’t… well

I hope flowers grow in mine again soon. I’m not actually that fond of the grass, but the little white and purple flowers are nice. The grass has to be pretty green for those to grow. Guess it’s time to care about watering it again.

Stupid Questions

Can you land on the sun

if you do it at night

Will you drown in the ocean
if you try to drink instead of breathe

If you bury a secret
by the willow
do the roots tell the leaves

Can I outrun my shadow
if I run toward the dark

If the moon fell into the water
would the ocean become the sky

If you break a promise
to yourself

but never say it out loud

did it ever count

If I am afraid of losing you
does that mean I have you

or has it already happened

If your hand still fits in mine
is that evidence of anything

If I can imagine a life without you
does that mean I don't want one with you

Is the restlessness in my bones 

a sign that perhaps maybe

I am not actually the cool girl

Did I develop standards 

and am I even allowed to

Is it selfish to raise a bar 

that you already lifted up from hell

Is it settling if this 

is leaps and bounds better

than anything I’ve ever known

Baby can you water the grass

I wanna stay in our yard

Is it ours

Did we let it die 

When did the fence start falling apart

and is it because you’re sitting on it

or am I

A Fish May Love A Bird

I have spent my whole life
beneath the water

I know the weight of it
The way it holds me
when I am too tired to swim
The way it moves around me
without ever asking
where I am going

Sometimes I break the surface just to breathe

But lately I have been staying there long enough
to feel the wind before I fall back down

It moves across my back
like it knows me

And I wonder
what it would be like 

to have wings

To let the wind decide
instead of the current

To rise
and not have to come back down

I watch the birds

drift in their synchronized shapes

Do they feel a current too

They don't seem to fight it

They just… are

And maybe that's what I want
not to be a bird
not really

but to know
what it feels like
to stop swimming
against something
and still be carried

There are places here
I know by heart

Deep places
Dark places
Places where the light
doesn't reach
but I know my way through

So why do I keep looking up

Why does the wind
feel like something
I have forgotten
when I have never had it

Maybe I only want to know
that I could make it in the sky

Maybe I have just tired of feeling like drowning is all around me

Would I develop a fear of falling

Maybe there is a difference
between changing your course
and wondering
what the other one feels like

I don't know

The tide is pulling

The wind is calling

And I am caught
somewhere between them

Trying to decide
if I am lost

or if I am exactly
where I meant to be

One I Can’t Write

I tried writing sad songs about about you
Angry ones that call you ugly names
But every time I put the words to music
They all end up coming out the same

No matter what you did or didn’t do

I can’t seem to not be loving you

If you’re listening for a song to curse your name

That’s one I can’t write, and I can’t play

I tried yelling all this love at the heavens

Hoping that the wind might blow it away

Banish all this nonsense to the horizon

Let the setting sun swallow all this pain

No matter what you did or didn’t do

I can’t seem to not be loving you

If you’re listening for a song to curse your name

That’s one I can’t write, and I can’t play

Just keep doing what you’re doing

And I’ll try to pretend 

I know you’re not stupid

And you pick up every hint

If it didn’t feel so goddamn perfect being in your arms

Maybe I’d be over it maybe I would have moved on

No matter what you did or didn’t do

I can’t seem to not be loving you

If you’re listening for a song to curse your name

That’s one I can’t write, and I can’t play

Sea Shanty

For most of my life I have been telling myself quieting stories.

I really don't need all that much. It's fine. Everything is fine.

I can just be grateful for whatever is there. Something more would be nice, I suppose, but don't trouble yourself over it - I know I'm not.

When your dad doesn't introduce you while he's bragging about all the good things your siblings have accomplished and how beautiful they all are, you tell yourself that you're just a background character in this story. Your book must be on someone else's shelf. This particular storyteller is kind of a jackass anyway, so why would you care that he doesn't want you in the foreground?

When you grow up hungry you learn not to admit you want something.

There is nothing in the fridge, so you drink some cold water and you fill your belly with a story instead. 

When your middle name is a story that something better is coming, you cling to that for dear life. You become numb to the idea that right now could have ever felt safe. 

You write songs about someday and tomorrow and you live off celebrating everyone else's today. 

You cook meals for your children so they never expect a growling stomach.

You skip them when there isn't enough to go around and tell everyone you're just not feeling particularly hungry that day. 

Or the next

Or the one after that

There's a hormone called Ghrelin that tells the brain when the stomach is empty. At the height of the pro-ana tumblr phase of life I learned to reframe the noise it made as a signifier of success. It meant I was shrinking, learning to take up less space. When a glass of water or a single bite of this or that made it easier to control... that meant I was choosing this. That meant I was not just a forgotten passenger on the ship anymore. I became the captain.

But then other ships passed in the night and they knew. The Ghrelin made itself so loud that people outside of me could hear it and they could board my ship and turn the wheel whichever way they chose. They fed the Ghrelin just enough to keep it docile. The moment always came when I would wake from a nap and see that my ship was pointed towards the old docks again. I'd be led right off the gangway into a little boathouse and watch as every piece of my ship was sold for parts to enrich the new captain. He'd rearrange it all to his liking and I would tell myself the story that I am just a background character again. 

This is still not my book, maybe that was never my ship. I don't need a book. I don't need a ship. I was not born to be a story. I am a plot device, I am someone else's galley. 

Until one day, the thought of my daughter not fully believing that she is in fact the best story that has ever been able to write itself woke the Ghrelin. That hunger drove me out of the boathouse and I built a raft. I fed the beast, I believed the promise of a middle name. I started writing a story and a whole host of characters showed themselves. 

I met a wizard. You had your own beast. You didn't even want a ship (wizards don't need ships), but you'd be happy to help me build mine. When the raft crashed you cut down trees and we made a little dinghy. We turned it into a skiff. We gave it a sail. We named it Hope and we were getting somewhere. One day you even asked if it could be our ship. Make it official. You wanted a ship now, but only with me. You wanted to write a book with us as the main characters.

I still told this little story that surviving was plenty and I never needed to be full. Your wizard's keep kept calling you back and I would sit on the deck waiting for your return. You would, but you were tired from the journey. You got mean, you got suspicious, you wanted to go back to your keep. I got sad, I got anxious, I wondered if I had believed the ending of a rough draft too soon. 

The stories are bullshit, babe. I am hungry.

I want a ship. 

I want flowers in the galley. 

I want birthdays. 

I want plans that carry through. 

I want careful tending and celebration. 

I want to be fought for. 

I want to be pursued. 

I want to be someone's nonnegotiable.
I want to be more than convenience or charity.

I shouldn't keep settling for being an afterthought in the background.

I am not a plot device.

I have to stop shrinking.

And I have to stop doing it just so someday my daughter will not think that's an expectation.

I have to write a new story. I am terrified of it. I might never have a co-captain, and I have to learn to be ok with that. But I'm gonna have a ship, damn it, and if I sink with it... maybe my daughter sings my sea shanty on her ship.

I Want To Be Very Married

The day after he asked a question I wasn’t expecting but knew the answer to immediately I wrote this. I hope the damn wedding happens someday, and these will change if it does. But they’re real good and I meant every word when I wrote em- so they should exist somewhere.

—

Two years and three days before you put my favorite number of roses on the steps up to my apartment after twelve hours in petit four hell I wrote a thing about a man I had only known for 47 days.

“I think maybe the stars wrote you like a poem

Not the kind that rhymes and has some rigid scheme and is all flowery sentiments

The kind that keeps the reader alive

The kind that turns one way and then the next with those perfect imperfections that fold right around your soul

The kind that makes the reader wish to be covered in the words and completely consumed

I think maybe the stars wrote a messy, twisted, beautiful poem and have been waiting for 32 and a half years for the exact right moment to plop it in front of me

It’s the most thought provoking, hope inspiring, calm inducing, faith restoring, courage building, lovely poem I have ever laid my eyes on

This poem understands pain and deep joy like two sides of the same coin

This poem is comfortable with madness 

This poem holds up a mirror and tells you the truth your eyes haven’t translated yet

This poem wraps you up like it doesn’t want to let you go and yet… it still does when the time comes, without any anxious fear that you won’t return

Of course you’ll return

That poem is THE POEM

Nobody finds THE POEM and just reads the next one like it’s nothing

That poem gets folded in your pocket and plastered on the walls of your heart and recited to anyone who will listen and some who would rather not

I think the stars wrote you like a poem and hand delivered you to me the last Monday of December all unassuming and nonchalant like it wasn’t the gift I’d been longing for my entire life.”

Two days after I wrote that you made this bracelet for me, and I made one that said “you are the poem”

You are still the poem. You are more of the poem every single day. I have watched you love me through the darkest, saddest, most hopeless moments of my life so far. In my puddles on the floor, in moments I felt invincible, in all of my mess. I have watched you delve deep into the who my babies are and what incredible things they are capable of. I have walked with you through multiple losses, those creatures we have long loved and those who never got to be. We have grieved both sets, and carry them with us. I have seen you daily choose to learn languages and cultures that are not your own for the sole purpose of being a good friend, being a resource, being better. I have napped through so many band practices and jam sessions that turn into moments I got to see you be a goddamn rockstar whether or not you see it. I watched you get up every day and go to bed early than we really want so you could achieve a level of security you never wanted for yourself, but chose to give to me. I watched my kids and my dogs and my self find out that you are in fact the person you claim to be, not a lie, not a pretender, not an opportunist.

And I stand in awe of all of it. All of you. This beautiful poem that I promise to keep reading, that I promise to always find a way to harmonize with, that I know will change. That I intend to know the last line of. You’re The Poem. You are my person. And I intend to be yours, forever and ever and always.

The Women

The women are whispering
The women are speaking 
The women are crying out

The women are begging

The women are screaming

Penelope had a lovely idea and I wish there were more men who listened

The women should burn things

All of this waiting

All of these whispered words

All of this “he promised”

Must we always sit and weave the burial garments for the love that can not be placed under a shroud

It will burn in our chest whether we dig the hole or not

It will burn in our children even if we set the boats ablaze with us and the dead on board

When we are long dead and our grandchildren’s grandchildren breathe in the hot breeze that once blew through our hair it will wake, yet again

I weave the shroud and embroider the shadow of this love drenched rage and I hope the day comes soon where my sons lock the doors and burn those leaning heavy on the laws of gods that mirror the worst in every father

You could have come home any time, if only you’d learn the lesson the women were force fed from birth

Put down your sword and feed the beggar

Teach your sons to write songs

Let your daughters choose which ones deserve singing

But sure, go be a hero shaped fool

Maybe in exile I can teach you to protect love with more of it