There once was a me
I knew
But you died and took me
with you.
In place of me, a new
confused thing will do
Strange things like
hoard your every shoe.
The earth you walked,
the dirt you knew
Stained on the bottom
of a boot no one else can have
but you.
But you, not here, left me to hide
those shoes.
Your quirky socks I wear,
Will they walk my feet to you?
The wise old owl of me used to have
the redwood tree of you
A tall and lanky perch
from which to view
The shirking prey, the darkest night, the darting truth.
Tell me, my guru,
What now? What can I do
without the branches of you?
"Stop," you say,
"refusing
to choose
another
muse.
For I left, but I am not gone," you say.
"And I have news for you.
I am more than tree.
I am all colors, spirit-hewed.
Stop denying that same is true for you.
I promise, my owl
Everything you need, you already have
deep, deep, deep inside of you.
Go plant a new tree,
the tree of you.
Please believe me, you would
If you could see you as I do.
Strong as stalwart, as in your youth
Firmly-planted, leaves true blue.
There is no way out of this
You must go through."
But I am blind, wing-bound.
My vision slight, talons eschew.
I cannot be as I was once used to.
For
I am missing,
I am missing,
I am misssing
you.
And
I am missing,
I am missing,
I am missing
me, too.
Hello 39, welcome
to Hell. I go
in a new kimono.
One mourning dove reminds us
"This is it. We are in the nightmare," she says.
If that is so, then here in the dark side of our dreams,
the gin glows.
Big chunks of labradorite gifted by the dead now become the gin's rocks.
Take the stones, drop them
in your drink.
In nightmareland, you eat the earth
she bounded on, anything to be close to her bones again.
Like the aboveworld, you carve time
out for yourself, but still in Hell you are.
You try to take a break
from grief, for self-care,
to visit the land of the before times.
Tell it, "okay stay outside while I get a massage."
Have you ever had to practice boundaries with the dead?
Grief is a clueless, needy extrovert,
a friend with no sense of solitude.
Gregarious as fuck.
No, you cannot come over unannounced
I'd prefer if you texted before occupying every synapse, bronchioli, and eyelash.
Still, Hell
I'm taking up residence here.
The rent is goddamned
expensive, but the views
oh the panoraming, expansical, multiversalicious view.
Dear Dove,
What are you now?
Are you the steam coming up from the mug you gave me?
Are you the smell of chamomile and lavender?
Are you the lightdance dabbling across my journal's white pages?
Are you the Mexican blanket shrouding my head?
Are you that cobweb, my cat, this air, this palm plant, that flicker?
Are you god?
I know you are new to it,
still learning how to be in this afterplace.
But when you figure out how to, will you please send the answers?
And also, your new address?
I'll be watching.
~your wise old owl
You can trust yourself
appears on the page, scribbled
burning into the metacarpal muscle memory.
If you want to master this truth, you must practice.
And what is mastery
but muscle memory? Repeated motion
Until your hand, living a life of its own, finally frees itself
from analysis.
You can trust yourself
a low-hanging fruit
truth up for the grabs
should you decide you are done believing you were born a sinner.
You can trust yourself
over and over again
with the macabre, the maudlin.
You didn't chose the subject matter, after all,
it chose you.
You can trust yourself
with yourself.
18 years ago you felt like a danger to yourself
a fear slumbers just under your rib cage.
but don't you see
you can still trust yourself
with yourself.
You can trust yourself
with your words, welling up from your belly
gagging you on the way out.
The impulse to write and never reread
before hitting publish like a good editor would do? You can
trust that too.
Likewise, you can trust the brooding,
the waiting, the hatching. Whatever you want to do!
You can trust that too.
You can trust yourself
with your intellect. It's not intuition's enemy.
Coming together, they'll conjure your multiverse.
The archetypes
the crone
the slut
the terrible, beautiful priestess
the oracle
the alchemical witch
Do not mistreat them by employing separation
of brain and gut.
You can trust yourself
write it until your heart bleeds it
write it until your pen runs out of ink
write it on every page fluttering inside your bookish soul
write it on every word gestating within your agitated chest
Write it until you believe it.
Dear Diary,
My owner wrote with a black pen today.
I spent the evening awaiting her relieving scribbles
Sharp and fast. I should probably tell
her that no one can read it.
I feel best when I can get fresh air on my pages.
But I shouldn't complain,
She takes me everywhere and tells me things
that would make you blush.
Until Tomorrow.
Daddydaughter play
tasting new.
Introducing childhoodpast.
Little bum crawling
away from mother
dear.
They're fighting
words and her
work, shouting over each other breaking
bones and throwing stick-
stones.
Long for the words
like raspberries and books
to abound
sweetly prolific
easy as a drive to the library.
Look, Words.
She planted a rose, tomato, berry
produced as expected
swallowed sweet
whole.
Listen here, Words.
She regards your cousins
behaving. Not scattering
in sighs-darting, skirting the issue.
Staying put like good little words.
What the words giveth
they taketh away.
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