When my kids were little
And climbed in my bed
Complaining of a headache
Or a stomach ache
I would wrap my arms around
The problem
And just about the time
They were cured
And drifting off to sleep
I would feel it.

I have had a few successes
In my life
The way I understand success
anyway.

My mother obsessed herself
With breast cancer
Until she finally had it
Then looked to me
To take it away.

I think she would trade
My life for her own.

it isn't my place
To choose.

I wonder though
At the eternal admonition
"Physician, heal thyself"

My pain
Is still very present.

My dad wanders in and out of my dreams.
The conversations are better than I ever remember.
He says stuff to me now.

Apparently being dead does bring wisdom.
We were watching a flood, him and me.
Up home.
Must have been astral travel cause I don't know
how I could have got there.

Well, anyway, we were watching the water storm through the yard and the street and the middle of the house.
And I could feel my insides aching to mourn for all the things that I watched float away.
He just grinned.
And said "let it go, it's just stuff."

And I ducked my head and wiped away the tears and wondered again
how he got so smart.

The Glass Menagerie

*She was ethereal in her beauty.
I always loved her of course.
But only from a respectful distance.
She collected glass animal's.
I always gave her one for birthdays.
She would kiss my cheek in thanks.
Not the kiss I craved but a kiss.
Her perfect French braids
Framing her lovely face.
I fantasized unfastening them
Slowly so her hair flowed
Like the soft spring rain
washing my bare skin.
She would show me the
intricate color mix
in her glass menagerie.
But I only saw the colors
of her hair her eyes her lips.
When the sickness came.
Her skin became
taught and translucent like glass.
The weight loss showing her frame
She looked more and more
Like one of her beloved
glass collection.
Then when we lost her
She left her collection to me.
But the one
I wanted and treasured
Was on a high shelf
Beyond the clouds
Far beyond my reach.

We wanted to make sense of the world, So we colour-coded it, like our school schedules.
Then we realized we got the colours wrong.
Outside colours weren't the way to organize, so we looked on the "inside".
Who was to think that we can see everyone's colour?
They looked at the emotions we display.
Just because I can't smile everyday, doesn't mean I'm different.
It means I am sane enough to not wear a mask everyday of my life.
Then again, sane isn't exactly a word that describes me...*
Something else describes me, something I took long to admit
something the world doesn know partly because I haven't told it
but mostly because the world always sees what it chooses
After all in not knowing there's nothing it loses, or there is
In case it could profit from knowing about my bruises
And my random thoughts that cloud my mind everyday like a mystic frost
Times when I'm all caught up in this boundless ocean, life,
And cannot see my way or the sickening and thickening waves coming my way
Nobody knows I'm a ship with no radar, only no body ever paid attention
That's why I lean on only nobody, and nobody's my ladder.

it is at moments after i have dreamed
of the rare entertainment of your eyes,
when(being fool to fancy)i have deemed

with your peculiar mouth my heart made wise;
at moments when the glassy darkness holds

the genuine apparition of your smile
(it was through tears always)and silence moulds
such strangeness as was mine a little while;

moments when my once more illustrious arms
are filled with fascination, when my breast
wears the intolerant brightness of your charms:

one pierced moment whiter than the rest

—turning from the tremendous lie of sleep
i watch the roses of the day grow deep.