‪Sometimes my anxiety makes me retreat back into a dark cave where I don't talk to anyone and I try not to think about anything at all because if I do then all the other thoughts come rushing in and Im swirling and swirling and swirling in thoughts and I can't stop‬

‪So I retreat into my cave and I don't think and I don't talk and I don't do anything.

And the only thought I ever seem to let through for some reason is a depressing one.

I think about how I am wasting my short little spec of a lifetime hiding in a cave from myself and others and I feel guilty and sad and self conscious about all of my decisions.

My thoughts ******* out of my cave and I try to talk to someone. Not about my cave or about how I feel sad, but instead I ask them about them. People like to talk about themselves.

A quarter way into the conversation I start to doubt myself.

I question whether or not I am enunciating or maybe I am being creepy and asking about their life too much? Was it creepy that I asked her if her dog was still sick because she told me that last week and I don't know if she appreciates my remembrance or is unsettled by it.

My thoughts swirl around and around until I eventually just retreat into my cave again.

I stare at the moon-from the moon
And look myself in the eyes
Through the mirror
Where my thoughts reflect
The meer image of curiosity
The lack of answers lingers-
Yet my imagination grows
Like the depths of the ocean
I plead to know
And then I sleep...
And then I dream....
And then I am safe.

Somehow it wasn’t right to cry
for someone who
no one knew—for years
though everyone knew about Lil
She was the crazy burden
of an orphaned family
whose memories rearrange the winter shadows

“Are we dressed right?
Are our faces adequately sad?”

They loved the skinny, happy kid
Loved—the ones who loved her
knew her from “The Old Neighborhood”

Two sisters approach the body
echoed in black and navy
holding each other’s hand
They look down at her—
They look her over
They overlook—“The Old Neighborhood”
of the Lillian they had hoped for—
took care of as a child....

And in the din of last respects
a comment from an older gentleman—

“The Goldrick girls were all such lookers”

So I was her niece
and not from “The Old Neighborhood”
I have memories of my own....

I was rich when Lil brought play money
from Misquamicut
She brought whelks and slipper shells too
My ear cupped close
I first heard the sea

Not as beautiful as I expected
nor as beautiful as I would know
She gave them with love—without telling
where and when that I would go....

Her hands were always cool and sweaty
Always trembling
Always a cigarette
and an argument in the background

From the height of three
and hugging knees
I see her face against the ceiling’s
white—with panic

Her eyes are never with me
I know someone is with her

“The Goldrick girls were all such lookers....”

Beleaguered beauty
Frail, with stiff grace
she glances sideways
Checking for my safety?

“Our names too close! Confused too often!”

I was to know her horror— as I know her sea

...Her laughter, too late for the conversation
a smoky hysteria
that will not share with her eyes
She stumbles backward through her childhood
as if she has mislaid something

She wants to go roller skating
with her sister, eight months pregnant
besieged by diapers
with stew on the back burner

...And Lil wants to go back...
to a time at the Rialto
to the *****’s boogie

to the edge—before
The Depression declared WAR—

on someone who
no one knew
for years!

And is it okay yet?
...to let her sea out of me!

It burns so!

You think that I may be the one,
   with whom this life you'll share;
To have and hold, til death do part,
   with love you'll ne'er compare.

You've got it right, yes I'm that man,
   to let my love light shine;
To make the best of time we've left,
   by making your heart mine.

We've made it through our separate pasts,
    there's more hard times to come;
But now we'll fight each war ahead,
   the two of us as one!

Let's live that life we've dreamt about,
   to find our peace on earth;
To go where only dreams can go,
   to love beyond all words!

Your thin white skin spreads
on the front. The blue
veins have become the strings,
annexing my peninsula.

You had said, it was a
bit of stretch, to cover the
lies of a fading sun,
for a delayed penitence.

Living water will bring clouds
to fill in the lakes of grief.
One day the lilies will grow―
meet in the air, for sombody's sake.

The black moon was still
raw. All the weeds had
become snakes. I start
hating this season of mating.