Irrational Being

(http://favim.com/image/1980467/)

she wakes to lavender
pooling in all her fleshy,
sorry nooks.

she had the dream
of all dreams last night:

staring through a dirty wine glass
like a drunken fortune teller
she saw life as it could be
by the softening glow of
holiday lights in city summer.

somewhere far from here
for the first time
she was good enough.

marked

Photographer: Amelia Fletcher (http://designspiration.net/image/1600174134540/)

I’ve been busy

digging around

for a part of me

I buried before

you

out in the backyard

behind the

only tree

like a duffel bag of

latex gloves and

bloodstained clothing

crucial

 

you found me

on a monday

poured over a

treasure map of

old photographs

marking a figurative ‘x’

on every familiar

face you asked

what I was looking

for I said the

breath in my

own lungs

 

you took me by

the elbow like

authority like

old love

you stood me

up raised a

finger to my

lips marked

an ‘x’ there I

closed my eyes

mouthed the words

where did you find it?

 

expired

(http://notateenmum.com/category/surrealism-2/)

I am stuck standing in the

mud of a time where words got

knotted together because there was no

lack of voices in our home, just the constant

knocking of chatter against the windows and the

walls of weather, what’s-for-dinner

but all of it was like the tiniest of earthquakes in

my chest, that old reliable constant

loud or barely heard it was there,

the warmest grip on my bones in the

bluish hue of the television

 

but now

 

I am knocking on the walls and

holding my breath to hear if my

memories come pounding back, and setting a

table for a solitary two is only romantic

sometimes because there is a catch,

when you are exchanging

expired stories over breakfast eventually

they all run out and the silence comes,

that deafening reminder to turn up

the heat, turn up the radio, anything to

take the edge off

realism

(http://misterblank22.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/the-abattoir-requiem-2/)

there’s no map in my pocket

not somewhere to fashion

big red bull’s-eyes

every time I feel

 

inadequate.

 

it’s all etched in

my half-smile

full skirts

too many glasses

of red wine

red lipstick.

 

you yell out

I shrink in my seat

suddenly these flowers

in my hair

yoko ono sunglasses

look so ridiculous

 

whatever you think you know

well, you don’t know it

you are as insignificant

as insignificant gets

your words spill out

like a dripping faucet

down

down

down the drain with you.

 

my fist is dripping

with striking realism

there’s a mosaic of glass

at my feet

and I can’t remember

how I got here.

My House

(http://fedetoth.blogspot.com/2011/05/francesca-woodman-fotografa-surreale.html)

my house is young

the wallpaper is paisley

it warms every room

it’s only an old soul,

my house

 

there is a snaking scar

in the foundation

of the eggshell ceiling

it looms just over the

bouquet of roses

 

only a shifting

a timely settling

 

there is an aching draft

that invades my house

sometimes I wedge

blankets at the bottom

of every door

 

there is a certain window

in my house

where I watch the sun

rise and fall

I dream through the glass

 

when night comes

I weave through my house

jiggling locks and chains

I straighten photographs

until morning

 

I hang words and shapes

over the puncture wounds

of my house

it breathes regardless

it’s reliable, after all

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Waves of Actuality

Your breath is my breath

 

running fingers down bones

you count the whole of me

in pulse, in strings of light

in waves of actuality

 

we read secrets through closed doors

we feel burning buildings in twilight

 

the sirens in your tendons grow

and I am scratching at what no one sees

but I feel you in my blood

 

but I feel you on the backs of my thighs

 

and you are wading through the red

and you scream out, “I am fine”

Same Old Sunrise

 

 

Same Old Sunrise

 

it ripples this watery photograph

so thin I can feel the other side

yet I drown I lose faith

I pour myself into a paper cup

too heavy to hold so I burst I fall into the crevices

of this still born life this non-sterile guide

to being who we are how we feel

in peaks and valleys and hidden rivers

while a mountain of imperfections

stays seated on my skull

and I cannot untangle the riot of whys

in the strands of my hair

so I drink down the what ifs

and I choke on tomorrow

and the same old sunrise

and I take a deep breath

and I enjoy the scenery