when i was fifteen i put an ad in the newspaper for musicians.  i desperately wanted to have my own band.  i auditioned a forty year old drummer named Joe Hatt in my bedroom.  i didn't think he was right for the gig.  i had balls.

God given

we are man made

of lovely smiles

and steel plates

of resentment 

and melted thread

of screws 

and pencil lead.

we are man made

of method and madness

on crutches and bias

the light trys to get in

while the bone is still setting.

everything is bleeding 

and pumping inside of me 

at once alive and breathing for me

passed down 

and built in.

however shifty 

and broken.

your donated heart (previously opened)

keeps working.

it's man that is God given.

Sky

twilight is a soft stutter 

my lips are slightly ajar

there is probably at least half a moon 

waiting for us.

the space is in the sky. 

guilty

it does the same thing

night after night

what with its stars

what with its planets

what with its shifting sheet of darkness

arms and lights are thrown up

and we're just little

under it

More things i trust

experience

the g chord

change 

coffee

fire

kissing

i trust hunger

i trust my sister

i trust my conscience 

hooves

candy

my own tears

pencils

God

a back tickle

my intuition

sleep

i will never be a nonchalant girl

summer

squint

Trust is the word

i have this strong feeling

an earth inside my belly.

the gravity

of my well trained imagination.

and i briefly unravel 

like running from firecrackers

in a contest for sadness.

then i remember myself...

my strength. my lips. my beast of a heart. my loyalty. my steel spine. my huge crazy love. 

i remember God. 

and how words are not actions

and thoughts are not truth

and how answers are not solutions

and how i respond to the simplest of things.

i trust kisses.

i trust my hand being held.

i trust a ride to the post office.

i trust a heart beating close to my ear.

i trust laughter in another room.

i trust being pulled closer.

but words are pretty.

every night i dream of the barn. 

My address

dear you

dear me

dear all apology

dear fuck face

dear mystery

dear moments that i try to stay in

dear heaven

dear ashes

dear blind eye

dear cry baby cry

dear diamond ring

dear wedding

dear nervous breakdown

dear fight or flight

dear funeral procession

dear all souls day

dear sky

dear blue bird

dear blue eye

dear rearview mirror

dear horses and ponies

dear beauty

dear desert i refuse to see

dear midnight

dear moment

dear today

the worst part is the jasmine.

the heavy flower,

summer at it's darkest.

a requiem.

a long and low song that eventually quiets. 

the finite life of a trumpet.

i blocked out most of 2006.  i am capable of this and it scares me.  i forgot the last half of 1979 and most of 1980 and 1981.  which is significant because i have very clear memories of the years before and after...

my memory comes back in a thunder clap of color at the beginning of 1982 on one of many regular trips to Boston Children's to follow the progression of my quickly curving spine. At that point it had become so painful that a short car ride had become unbearable for me.  i was thirteen and i was silent about it.  i never told anyone of the sharp and throbbing pains that would grip and pull at my legs.  i didn't complain.  i didn't want to bring anymore attention than was necessary to the pretzel my little body was becoming.  so i kept quiet on the three hour drive to the hospital. i let myself be hypnotized by the trance of pine trees whipping past. i lost my head in the thick, almost bullet proof station wagon windows.. by the reflections of reflections that froze for two breathless seconds before whirring downward and disappearing into the heavy car door.  i closed my eyes when my folks squabbled up front over mom having spilled white wine as it pooled on the vinyl and slipped across the wide seat, seeping into my fathers ironed pants. they cursed each other but i heard nothing.  i wasn't listening as they fought over parking.. only the exact location of where they finally agreed on registered in my mind.. just in case i needed to get back there on my own. and as we sat in the waiting room listening for my name to be called we three were all silent.  we watched the other children.. much sicker than i, babies oddly quiet in their young mothers arms.. babies without voices or complaints.. we tried not to stare. i smiled shyly at the mothers.. foreign to me.. mothers in all colors, breast feeding their babies under faded blankets.  

my real name was called..."kimberly crowley."  x-rays were ordered, exams were performed, it was an afternoon of cold hands slipping over the knots of my body that were rarely seen and never touched. i kept quiet as the doctor explained to my parents that i would need surgery immediately or the complication of paralysis was probable.  my parents broke down.. and like a movie reel starting up again, i cried along with them... finally.  

watching the crumbling hope of my parents was my rope of emotion and i grabbed on for a few minutes and let myself feel their deep pain, which was also mine but i suppose i had been letting them keep it for me.  

i am terrified of you fading

poor things

i find them

i kiss them

 Creature 

in 

suburbia

He loved me in parts

i have loved a man unconditionally

in spite of his inappropriate boundaries

bone fences

i climb over

only to suffer 

the consequences.

goodbye, he says

you are difficult! he vents

and i flinch

waiting for my punishment

which i don't take quietly

i fight to the death

dirty ugly desperate

but he won't fight back.

he doesn't want me.

that crooked lip, he said

your beautiful mangled body, he said

that maniacal laugh

he wants me in part. but

my lips spit the questions he refuses to answer

my mangled body stays alive as an ultimate fighter

and the darkness is buried like birds in my laughter

the best and the worst of me all glued together.

Questionable

i have committed crimes

slowly in the dark

the quiet tap of my fingertips

the blurring eyes of my age

my heart skipping beats

my heart skipping beats

i would do anything to change

that moment that curiosity 

stole the best of me

but i ruin everything 

eventually. 

you can't love in compartments.

unless you love things that you don't need 

completely.

you need me here...

i need you everywhere.

we need each other, you said it. 

that's why i called you a liar.

i was hurt and didn't mean it.

but i ask a lot of questions 

that you never give me a chance to accept the answer to.

i am so much stronger when facing the truth.

Sidebar

divorce is a death.. with a permanent ghost

ghost at the supermarket ghost at the stop light

ghost at a party ghost comes over uncomfortably

your one life becomes two again.  and your own life becomes

about only you again.  and the children.  

divorce is history.  now you are beginning.

something else yet unnamed.  be brave

for god's sake.

we made love now we side hug

we don't know each other anymore

how are you? waiting for an answer

we stand next to our history

a sidebar