You describe him as "disgustingly beautiful." You add an ugly word instinctively, a safety latch to hold onto.

You feel like every gooey thing inside you is spread out for anyone to scoop up and smear on crackers. You forgot what it was like, feeling like this. It's like nailing Jello to a tree, trying to think logically. You pretend to be cold so you're not devoured whole. You pretend you can sweat out this painful beauty like a toxin. Your poems accumulate at night like empty cockatiel eggs, bleeding love you try to kill as your poor heart begs.

You sail through your work with a hypnotized efficiency. Your boss even sent a "thanks for the extra effort" e-mail. When you describe your job, people at parties say "yeah, but what do you really want to do?" and you're never sure if it's a compliment of your potential or an indictment of you for settling. I know you well enough to know your focus is out of character, a sign something's off kilter. You wave off joining me for a coffee break. I bring you one anyway and you crack at the gesture. "I just can't believe he's gone."

I am a goddess of forgiveness,

my heart beats true and yes, it bleeds for you,

pure as the Billy Bragg tune

gently pleading from my speakers.

I am the milkmaid of human kindness,

I will leave an extra pint.

I am not, however, a goddess of absolute forgiveness

I'm not blind.

I may fight reality,

and give you a pass,

and justify, and rationalize,

embroider the blinders I place on my eyes...

But you threw my love out the window.

It lay on the ground, paralyzed,

There was nothing to do

but use the bones against you,

so don't act surprised.

I walk the streets in the city you built up and blew to hell. I trace the steps I took with you, imagine the breeze is your ghost. Things that make for good poems and songs are terrible roadmaps for life.

I loved you as much as I could. I gladly pushed myself to the limit for you, and felt like a spent lighter when that wasn't enough. You seemed so happy in your last days, but you weren't yourself; the saltatorial banshee behind your eyes had already claimed you. By then you thought oblivion and love were the same.

You see only what something is not. The crow makes a poor nightingale, the fox a poor tiger. You think something's wrong with me, but really - you use the wrong taxonomy to read me. You see only dots and lines and curves on a page and call it gibberish, while others translate it to music. You can do that, too, but don't want to. My song's frozen to you, forever unsung. You're bored as someone sitting through a market research study. My hunch is that's where you'd rather be; after all, you'd get paid for your opinions on potato chips.

You're alone but the stereo fills the apartment with life. "She keeps Moet et Chandon in her pretty cabinet...perfume came naturally from Paris..." You lustily belt out the exploits of the Killer Queen as if by pledging allegiance you can link her arm and join the fun. Right now, though covered in sweat, scraping mildew from the shower, you're so happy you feel you could step off the ground and fly. In a few hours your guests will arrive. You're eager to show off your spit-shined home and figure. You feel like a debutante who calls her own shots.

Most of your socializing is virtual, like a steady diet of tofu, your life assuming the flavor of what it touches. It tastes like losing yourself in songs to feel vicariously what eludes your grasp. Adolesence has its glamour, even in the arrested form available to you. You get intoxicated on anticipation, the thrill of waiting in the wings to take your part. Yet you never feel your steps are right, ignore the onlookers urging you toward the spotlight. Time has its own agenda; you can make friends with it or just vainly Photoshop it. Play the hand you've got.

My voice is the wind in the air

it cools you, strokes your hair.



My touch is sunshine

I coax petals open,

bestow at your feet

bouquets of devotion.



My body's a river

to bathe in

and pray in,

a place we mingle our

names in.

I prized you,

baptized you,

but you never meant to stay,

just wanted a way

to Mexico,

to scatter your past like ashes,

forget who you used to know.



I loved you but didn't need you;

the opposite was true for you.

Like that song,

I was a river you could skate away on.

Your kisses were forbidden fruit I was warned about. I steeled myself against your charms, read rosaries in my head, my fingertips rubbing phantom beads. I gazed at your lips, the cerise answer to my thirst. They were so vivid I could taste them in a look. So much more tangible than good intentions in a book.

The imaginary rosary slipped; I gave in and kissed you.

Now I live in the winter I've condemned myself to, the sweet juice of your kiss replaced by frozen drops that sting, my faith not strong enough to guard against your pomegranate dream.

He sang to you when you were still growing. He murmured sweet melodies against your Mama's belly when you were just an embryo, your tiny spine curved like a nautilus. You watched a nature show with him once that had lots of baby animals. When they showed the part with people he pointed to the things that looked like Sea Monkeys and said "that was you" and sang for you again. You swore you remembered the tune in your bones, your blood. No one sang on the nature show. You sang "Danny Boy" to say goodbye; it wasn't the same.

You thoughts move molasses like. An icicle toothed grief jumped out at you like a cobra and you feel paralyzed. The only way out you know is words. You conjure them forth like magician's birds, feathered creatures that may only fan their plumage and show off, may squawk and make you laugh or may just fly and guide you out of the abandoned coal mine you fell in. They may sing a beautiful tune that doesn't get you anywhere but comforts like hip flask whiskey, filling in gaps left by absent lullabies. You ask them to sing again and again.

It's like the big bang theory, how he came into your life. There was nothing, and then there was everything. He's like the answer to a question you asked a Hello Kitty ouija board in your childhood bedroom, a Teen Beat poster come to life. You poured all your wishes in a velvet void, where you filed your rosary beads, lottery tickets, other miscellaneous pies in the sky that you never thought would feed you. Yet they've bloomed into the person next to you.

You try to relax. You assume when the other shoe drops it'll have a stiletto heel.

Your words to me are kind. At least on paper they would be. They come out your mouth covered in thorns. You ask what I'm going through and I tell you how it feels. Clearly you think it's one of my psychosomatic deals. You don't listen, just look for buzzwords to highlight like I'm a boring textbook. It feels like you don't see me as a person but representative of a species. Like threat of social awkwardness is the only thing keeping you from killing me for ease of study, grinding my bones to strengthen the appearance of your smile.

Grief overtook me when I wasn't looking, like a ski masked thug with a golf club. Something about it reminds me of you - facing hardship and righteous suffering is what connected us. I think "what does grief look like?" and picture you in a dress shirt and black arm band marching in a parade. My poetic tendency to make everything dramatic and beautiful. You were nothing if not dramatic and beautiful. We sat in the park and you said "I can't imagine what it's like to lose a parent" with a tenderness I've yet to find elsewhere. I loved you.

"I know not to cross you, 'cuz you have a temper."

Which is true. And often a point of pride. Considering the source, though - a lovely lady I've had nothing but pleasant encounters with - it makes me feel like a monster. Like a mother told her kid had bad manners. Like the food I serve is tainted. Like there's an ugliness inside me that can't be washed away. Like I can do all the lobbying and fancy advertising I want, but the fact is I still cause cancer. I've come a long way, baby, but I'll never transcend my skin.

You've got unbelievable gall,

I grip my jacket tight around me,

against the idiocy that falls

from your lips.



How fitting are weather metaphors,

bet that's what you're hoping for,

for me to say you control my climate,

your smile the life giving sunshine,

your disapproval a storm lashing my foundations.



You're so vain.

Oh, I had some dreams that were clouds in my coffee

served to you with a smile and a pastry.

Songbird sweet and wizard wise,

must be how you think you sound,

but me, I fantasize

of duct tape, rope, and ways to keep you bound.

You're entertaining me,

but frustrating me.

You dangle promises sweet

inches from my tongue,

like I'm a hound of hell

symbol of how you fell

or would if you could

feed what in your heart dwells

You're nothin' but a tease

got me down on my knees

I don't need to say "please,"

it's all over my face.

And then you peek at me

through coquettish lace

tempted by thoughts of a fall from grace

You'll walk in the shadows

but stay in the gray.

I'm just fuel for rebellion,

a game to play.

In the light's where you'll stay.

She's at it again, building castles in the air. Their windows catch the sun, bleeding prism rainbows like words of love. The structure shatters, its exact moment of collapse thrilling as confetti shards reflected in the eyes of a riveted crowd. It's meaningless once the moment's passed, just stuff stuck to your shoe, detritus of arrested adolescence. Is it meaningless, though, or is that just what you were told? It's hard work picking up pieces and gluing them together, but not impossible. You rake your fingers through what's left and begin fitting your bones back together again.

You stagger toward me, hunched over with a pained expression. Your left hand's on your crotch and your right arm's held out in front of you, pleading as if for dear life. Like I'm Jesus and you're begging me for a miracle. Which is funny, as you were the showboatin'-ist leper #4 ever cast in a production of "Jesus Christ Superstar." So I think it's a joke, you're being a ham.

"What's the matter? Got a bitten scrotum?"

You move your left hand and show me the blood. Damn. The curse did work. It was just a joke over drinks...

We said our cheerful goodbyes at the Kiss 'n Ride. The whole drive over you were this helium balloon of enthusiasm, talking nonstop about your European tour and all the people you'd see, the places you'd go. It's almost like my car was this Disney ride through The World of Tomorrow, your tales were so vivid. I felt like I was there with you, or at least we were moving through a three dimensional brochure - Promise, Hope and Adventure apples waiting to be plucked.

Next day the paper fell from my hands, pictures of plane pieces, giant-fonted headlines screaming despair.

Like a kid's detention paper, you're full of promises. They're not lies, exactly, but you're the Walter Payton of exaggeration. My aunt says she wants to borrow you to strip her wallpaper, with all the hot air comin' outta you.

You make me laugh, though. That's what gets me. And I'd like to believe you, live inside your inflated words, ride them like a raft outta this town. You promise your next big sale is coming and we'll live like royalty in Memphis, right next to the home of the King. You're Colonel Tom Parker with no one to sing.

I've got this panicky feeling I've never had before. Sure, I've had panicky feelings before. But not like this. It's like I'm absorbing the energy of a subdivision full of guilt-ridden mothers calling their kids home for dinner. The sky grows darker and the spaghetti grows colder as they wonder aloud how little Haley or Justin got out of their sight. Like they could have eyes in the backs of their heads and eight arms to keep them from harm and still it would never be enough, they'd never be enough, their failings would always get the best of them.

You round the corner in a fine mood. Your keys are on a stretchy keychain and you spin them around like some zoot-suited dandy with a pocket watch. It's a summer night of hushed pastel skies and bright street lights, the color of possibility.

When you get to your door there are bright orange stickers with angry scribbles on them. You think of the forgotten notices of utility bills, the paper dolls your Grandma made from official looking paper, assuring you they were too old to matter. You wince, remembering all your wacky Grandma stories, realizing just how oblivious you were.

You took me to a restaurant where they play stringed instruments. The players hunch over their guitars as if they're alone, strumming gently as butterfly kisses. The Valentino eyed singer belts out and whispers tales of heartache and triumph. I don't know the language he sings, but how could they be about anything else? The performance nudges my heart open in ways I wasn't expecting.

On the tablecloth of brightly striped, sturdy wool, you grab my hand. I look up and my breath catches, candlelight flickers on your face. I can't believe you're mine. That must be how the song goes.

Genuine feeling makes you feel ugly. Your fingers twitch, hungry for violence, eager to smother your discomfort. You feel like a pauper around a well dressed heiress who can see right through you, can see something genuine in you, too. Her gaze burns. You'd like to join her, sit on the crisp white picnic blanket in the sun with the others. You fear what you can offer in return is inadequate, will fall apart under scrutiny, its brittle bones will snap, will fall to the ground and spell out your lack of worth. You could just look the other way.

I cried so much I have salt stains on my glasses, like bugs on a windshield, souvenirs of a journey taken.

I will myself away from cirrhotic behaviors. Pain drowned in factory line barley and hops is pain that grows angry and impatient, waits for you and plots for you. I oughta know, it just had its way with me, the tooth marks still slimy with spit. The only solution is to turn the other cheek, stop trying to resist. You won't make such a fun target, your fall won't be so precipitous. The bullies will get bored and leave.

I must exude a quiet sadness lately. Strangers I encounter seem soft and protective - filling out rebate forms for me, offering more smiles and small talk than usual.

I have been sad, in a very loud way, eaten up by grief. Usually these things stay hidden and just bounce against my skull, but the volume must be loud enough to spill out around me. I must be too beaten down; usually I fight it like a junkyard dog. Maybe the absence of that white noise softens others as I trudge around with my "Mona Lisa never had no Wellbutrin" smile.

The mooncalf's tales were your mother's milk,
stories spun intricate as spider silk
fragile and delicate seeming things,
with a strength that holds you captive, he sings.
The unmoored man sang siren songs,
you heeded them, looking for a place to belong
Soon you heard his voice no more,
you floated in the mist, directionless,
left with no choice but to guess where to go,
getting by on what charm you could muster
in this land of quid pro quo.
You try to remember the kind man's words
unearth them from the rubble of
all the contradictory voices you heard.