27 Years Ago (Dec 6 Montreal Massacre Memorial)

Tina:
Engineering student,
Tall. Some boys called her
Amazon.

Trying to lose weight with Slimfast and water
Her body fine, though,
Her mind sharp,
Her emotions fraught by
19 years of being
a woman.

27 years ago.

I have lost her last name, but
I remember the lilt of her Newfoundland accent.

Her green hazel eyes, steadfastness,
Openness.

27 years ago.

She joined me, on the
Stained, aged gold-and-olive flowered sofa we
Dumpster-rescued,
Sprayed with vinegar, kept like the flea-ridden kitten we brought home,
The stray downtown boys who needed
a place to crash,
The stolen bar glasses that traced an evening.

The couch outlasted us - we couldn't get it back out again.
When we moved
It stayed.

We sat, clutching tissues, hunched
forward, eyes wide to absorb the flickering drama unfolding
Disbelieving.
Unprepared.
It could be us.
It could be you, Tina.
They were engineering students.
This is Canada.

Warm Diet Pepsi to swallow the salt tears. Why?

Why?

The news anchors' hush, their drawn brows a swelling movie score,
This is where you feel. This is what you feel.

It could be us.

Well, not me, I deal in words.
Girls are allowed to do that. They give us that.
What power in words?
But don't you dare don't you DARE don't you DREAM that you
girl amazon bitch hateful cunt whore woman
don't you
take my job my math my formulas my bridges to build, my world to
dominate.

27 years ago.

And now.

Betheda:
15 and given to 10 ISIS "warriors" to rape and rape
and rape
like a gift
like junk food
to be consumed and discarded and I wonder
when do we dare to dream? Why?
Why did I lose track of that perfectly good sofa
(Good bones, you know),
But I still have this. We still have this.

27 years ago.
27 seconds ago.

earthbound

Shirley McLaine flew
tethered by a silver string

I was 14, precipice pubescent
I ate the moon, swallowed,
Followed.

Why does adulthood leaden our feet?
The mind is a balloon.

I see you bob aloft, I almost feel myself rising to feel the warmth
that buoys you but you remain

out of reach.
I can grow weak wings.
Not enough.

I could have been a balloon but
I waited too long for someone to cut my string

There never was a string.



(dedicated to max who i haven't met)

The Dreams That Haunt Me, pt 1

The moon rode a dark cloud, and you
A broom, incongruous
Pre-Quidditch

The moon is a pale friend,
I said.
You called to me, "Fly."

The face of the moon made me tremble,
And its tidal pull surged in my womb.

I will fall.
I will drop, gravid, and you,

You will leave me for your genius
And compulsion and the
Way our lives are always parallel,
Even now.

A train track and a road,
But no whistle comes.

Your broom doesn't reach me
Just the moon rays.

"Fly," you insisted and I ached,
trembled to fly, to take
that step off
the ledge.

Fear slayed the moon.
My words bled from me in the pale pre-dawn,
And you flew.

Keeping Silence

That one time I whispered into the wind and
the wind howled my secrets to the fox.

Everyone knows foxes talk.

So now I go to the desert, far out in the clean open air and
I scream my truth to the sun and the sand.

Everyone knows scorpions don't care.

Rhymes from a while ago

I am not doing this thought justice, because it insists on coming out in rhyme. However, I'm capturing it for reworking later... don't judge me too harshly.

I am earth, you are air;
It's elemental what we share--
water, fire and spirit bright,
sparks fly up in the dark night.

Rooted to this place, a part
Of every tree's living heart,
Closed system energy flow
Through soil and green, and me, I know.

Above the petty fray, among
The clouds, the birds' flight song
You soar, unrestrained and out of touch
Above my reach and gravity's clutch.

Where we meet, mountain peak,
In the cyclone's spinning streak,
Among the leaves of a thousand trees, 
We are tied together, god decrees.

Tumorous

I'm sorry,
The doctors' whites bled into the bright light,
Their goggle eyes blinking at my aberrations.
The words are wrapped around vital organs.
They are firmly attached to your spine.
They can't be removed or
You will die.

The doctors know science,
Their shiny degrees frown down in Latin with wax seals.
I will die.

The doctors don't know that the words must come out.
They will come out.
They will grow, expand, pile up, push on my diaphragm
Till every breath is a belch of swallowed sentiment,
Every hiccup a propulsion of pickled, sour prose.

They will grow and leach the iron from my soul,
Absorb the toxins that seeped through my skin in
A long lonely soak in a mire of grey moods.

They will grow and squeeze my liver,
Wring out the lemon-scented melancholy buried under tequila,
The bile of tabasco-hot temper I never expressed when you stole my light.

The words will come out and I will die.
And when I awake from the torrent of trance-word explosive
vomiting death.
I will be whole, and light, and I will know the science of healing
Myself.