Dear Mama's..

there is light
in the darkness
despite the cliche- ness of the fact.

i spoke
and am hopefully understood.

she says, " that forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past" (lily tomlin)
my god how ricocheted our past is.

bullet wounds
scars
and ugly marks
we've left

out of love.

oh how i've never loved another like you
you were what i lost
and what i found
out of desperado
and incognito

i didn't know who you loved
and you didn't know how not to love
what you seemingly possessed-

how wrong we were,
mother,
our love,
misguided and way ward

did we even have a chance to truely love?

mother i will find you
as the book says, "if you seek you will find"...
but really
in peripheral
and in love
i have looked
for so long!
and i have not found you.

i imagine you to be something that is not familiar
a face, dark but light just the same
a tongue, different and the same alike.
a loving,
more fierce and unforgiving woman.

how could i search for you
or want you
when i have someone in your place?

the guilt i feel over this
is huge
but still i wonder
what Mother
looks like me?
what Mother fed me?

what Mother dreams of me every night just the same as the one that chose me?

I will feel accounted for upon my death,
for there will be two souls that
search for me
in order to complete themselves.

haunted and un-haunted i will be
until that day....

Comfrey...

light and swaying-
the trumpet
i long to close to my lips upon,
plays
notes i may never know---
spit, running from the brass of it's slender back
down to the meaningful place that it plays.

our meeting was a fleeting image
you and your coy self
and me,
feeling i could conquer you
effortlessly.

how wrong i was
trying to be more than i was to you
physcially and mentally.

i recall a day when you brought me new perspective-
i come back
to that
and think your lesson
is still pertinent.
Woman,
whose name i will not speak.

you get more than enough recognition
and praise
and love
for who you are-

needless to say
i realize how my approach to you was out of learning-
a need to connect.

i saw what could be and i wanted to emulate that.
only my connectedness with another made it messy and
not seemingly platonic.
you were confused-
i was hurt
and rejected.

your dismissiveness seemed careless
my eagerness seemed aggressive-



it did not work
and i will work again to make it matter to you this time...

untitled...

i need something to bring this out
lure it from my bones
the music that resides in the in between spaces
that occupies nothing and
no one
but me
and this.

jazz.
oh how i hated the dance of you
but love the music of you.
such disconnect.

i dream of many lives
with music to go with it.
and i wonder how
pushing the delicate lines could make us closer
and more compatible..

two tambourines and a microphone...

playing the drums for me is like sex-
or fucking
to be exact-
it's hard
and unplanned-
and calculated, practiced
and sloppy just the same.
sometimes you have an audience
and sometimes you don't.

sometimes the only audience is your expectations
and blind hands searching for meaning.

but when i hear the music that's inside of me
or around me
it can make me MOVE
not just a little shake or
sway
but it can MOVE me!

give me air
and life
and some sloppy, silly excuse to sway
and act as if i have a purpose that isn't related to the mundane, practicality of everyday life.

i think
and worry
and feel this movement
that moves through me
and my fingers as i type
and i beg for it's appearance on the skins of my trap set.

trap.
it doesn't do justice.
there is no trap to speak of..
but there is
a mic.
and a spirit that moves.
and records.

erratic and
non-sensical.
i beg to deliver the message of my mis- understood soul.

the music is and can be understood
if you get it
and me.
it makes perfect sense
the in-between's and missed notes
of predictability.

if you dig deep and think
it makes perfect sense.

i am not a cryptic person
i put what is on the table on the table.

you can choose to engage me
acknowledge me or not...

however-
the music inside of me
doesn't lie
it is what it is
and what it (i'm not) isn't....

warm night conversation.....

i am a woman in particular-
with a lift bridge as a crutch to get me to a moment
or discovery.
i retract
and refrain
and walk away
from you-
my ever elusive claimed "wife."

what did it make you feel
to hear those words
sloppy from another's tongue?

but i digress
i am not that woman anymore
and perhaps your taste is more refined
than for me

i wait
guiltily
but curious just the same...

moments set asunder...

i miss playing the piano
and the heat of your body as you sat next to me
playing some off rhythm representation of annie's the sun will come out tomorrow.

but this isn't about you
it's about some fleeting memory that hits me every time i hear certain songs
that were finished.
that weren't ended or quit abruptly.

something about kissing and spitting white noise reminds
me of matt and the dog house.
i remember the smell and feel of his wet mouth on mine.
i remember not being very bothered by this boy
or any of the others that came after that-
i was merely a fish finding my water
a boulder finding the sand within.

watching the movie
reminded me of my own story
of anguish and confusion.
what i wanted was not what i wanted.
i just didn't know any better
i just didn't feel any different.

standing here looking back
i was marie and you were my floriane.
i just don't know why you have denied me and my questions for the last 22 years.
i search your name and even found a man who i thought was your husband
but he tells me he's never been married nor known anyone by your name.

i guess i will just have to live without closure
as i have many times before and many times since.

on a sunny day i remember how i wondered who i was and how i came to be this-me.
i never held judgement other than when i felt the cold eyes from others-
people called family
people called ignorant
people who still live inside their own lies

and today i am full
i am sure
i have had my closure
that i was waiting all along for.

being connected physically though more mentally to so many people who know and don't know me
is awkward-
stilted at most
and makes a plethora of emotion surge through me as i try to recreate and reconnect those ties that weren't necessarily severed but more or less forgotten.
i try to be myself -
the part of me that lives out loud
and the part of me that is so inward.
i give up trying to understand and appease
and give in to being the woman i am today.

i wonder about what would have happened if i had stayed
in all the places that oppressed and repressed me
i shudder in thoughts of being forced to be any different

there is fire in this belly
that keeps a steady burning in my life
and
in my love
i wonder how much i could have withstood
of lying to those cheerleaders
or those football players who were merely sillhouttes of indoctrinated gender roles.

i am forever going to be in love with the memories of moments of defiance
images of playing football with the boys on that gravel playground
my girl scout sash blowing against my androgynous, lanky body.
memories of punching grayson scott in the face as i ran back to home base across the creek-
he, an enemy for being a boy
me, being a bully because i was an aggressive girl.

move forward to images of standing up for a woman being hit by her abusive boyfriend
fighting fire with fire though the fire that stood in front of me was 6'2.

it pays be fearful of invisible things and not things that actually pose a threat.

all of those bits merely remind me that i'm right where i need to be.
and the people whose eyes cross over me are more meant to be seen by me.

still i struggle to bridge the gap of past and present
even as i consciously choose to merge the two.

ok- i somehow lost focus and what i meant to say
but i guess this letter to no one and each and everyone at the same time
forces me to recognize that as much as the past is a hard spot to lean on for long
and destined to break me
i can still miss it
for what it was and wasn't.

i wish my floriane and my matt and the countless others would have said it's ok-
as they took a little piece of me
but in the end i am ok
and better for the confusion and
self exploitation.

turning inside out is sometimes the only way to be right side in...

the names of girls...

eyes itching
rubbing something out
wondering if this sick that has a hold of me represents what i have taken in

the confusion of others is a heavy bag to hold
the anger even heavier
my back is sore from sitting this way
but i know it's the only way i can see out
and over you

i don't think you are aware of my watching
but that's more about you than me

i have always been watching out

something about windows and waiting seems familiar to me
i never quite knew who it was i was expecting to see other than someone who was late to show up
years late
lifetimes late

but just the same i wait with the same amount of eagerness as the first day.

i have been reminded in many corners of other's lives
of you
your eyes
and your smooth ease
i think it is somehow your way of letting me know that you're still around me

i'm pretty sure that my peripheral doesn't lie
and that things i don't see in front of me are more clear to the side of me

isn't that the hidden truth to life?

i mentioned your name today while with a new stranger who has become more familiar than she was a week ago
and i told your story-
how you had demons that you couldn't shake
and that for years you practiced your ultimate demise-
in words and actions.
it wasn't that people stopped listening to your threats but that
they were merely taking in a sigh of relief when you decided without really deciding that it was time to succumb.

i didn't tell her that i read your words after you were gone and how open you were about
the words that lived inside you
that were full of heavy letters and an aching heart.
i didn't tell her that i all but stopped writing after you complimented me on my words that so few get to see but that you took the time to look at

i thought there was some symbolic damnation in the way you looked at the words i wrote and the fact that i didn't comment on your words that you begged the world to see and respond to- until after you were gone..
yeah, i left that part out
just as i have left it out up until now.

but something in telling your story made something come full circle-
the recognition that both of us shouldn't be silent when one of us still has the ability to let it go.

when i think of you i think of water.
and the way that when the sun hits it just right it makes an echo effect of the under tow.
that you loved.
and lived.

and when i think of you i think of darkness.
and how there were places that no light could penetrate.
that you couldn't force.
or live with.

and when i think of all the things inside of me
i think of color
and how i'm starved without it.

i think about these itching eyes
this achy body
and the runny nose
and i think of how to let go.

like all things
i am here to wait
and to witness.
and tell the stories that pass through me
as they merely represent what i have taken in...