Scream

My head is a dream

touch

My face is a map

blush

My coat is unhung, unstrung

Forever young

hush

He doesn't love

thus

I pull away

bust

could never stay

still

momentarily

for good or ill

but


copyright M.E. 2012, all rights reserved

The Gulf

The Gulf which swallowed my Heart
Vastly, deftly, unexemptingly
Death at sea, for a start
Viciously leaving no wake of bubbles,
Lacking oxygen to a weeping heart.
Death sentences surely.
With no remorse.

copyright M.E. 2012, all rights reserved

Visuals of Autumn

This weather in the first weeks of fall and last of summer is the memory of visiting local farms with Mommy; Lone Cedar and that other one in Oxon Hill. Of tromping through piles of mulch to meet cows for the first time, and try to milk them. Of tasting honey and cider and holding a pumpkin, large as my body, hugging it to me as if it were the entire world. Of Daddy carving the pumpkin and asking if it's good, when it's the newest and best thing I've ever seen. Everything Daddy does is good. I can't stop looking out the window at those pumpkins on the wooden steps, until they're past rotting and we carry them to the compost heap.

This weather is going to college for the first time, cold, wet and leafy, possibilities being endless and the doors of the world swinging wide open. Terror, apprehension, shame dragging me backward with their cruel heartless hooks. Boys and girls dragging me onward with what I conceive of as longing looks.

Every chilled-off day is driving for turns, swinging the steering wheel around the car like a lasso for speed and excitement. Worry is clutching my knees to my chest in the seat, huddling under my sweater, praying for warmth and hiding in the booming music. Relaxation is perfect melodies influencing my curling wrists and fingers to create isolated dances, laying one foot on the dash and the other out the window, as I always aimed for while a child and never was allowed to do. Safety was not of concern. For the prevention of blindness yielded a song called 'The longest way round is the sweetest way home'. The chill air on my chest at night, forcing another cough out of me, the sacrifice for worth, the talking until I wake, realizing the conversation never stopped. The longing, apprehension for facts, desperation for a cat; who then appeared and loved me as no one else could. She slept in my armpit, on my chest, on my face if my sleeping form allowed. I changed my schedule to walk home every two hours to ease her loneliness and give her food and peace. The love I feel for that cat is undying. She knows it. We are tied by our heartstrings and what hurts me, she feels, what hurts her makes me nauseous and willing to cross the world to heal this dependent baby-being. One broken heart carves a space, so love of an entirely different magnitude can take its place.

This weather reminds me of the last time I saw someone and the premonition which accompanied it, sitting on a porch in another rain, just like every other time we watched the storm and listened to metal. The feeling of 'there is nothing I can do about this' and 'I will remember this forever' have haunted me from that day to this. The haunted house I worked at seemed an appropriate release, a sanctuary. How to deposit my pain? More pain. How to change my life? Love someone new. Finally you. As he begins to eek his way deep into my heart like taking root there, to change my life forever, change my behavior and my heart without ever asking for a thing. He is himself, and I will myself to change for him. I've never been colder, never loved anybody more, never known a non-family-member this deeply, and yet, it continues to end. And to begin again.

copyright M.E. 2012, all rights reserved