Poetry

This Isn't Really About You

Added: 06/08/2008

Your hands are a gift
unlooked for,
two sensitive birds searching
for a sky in my skin,
finding it like north
in their flight toward whatever home
we are always driven to seek.
And my heart aches
to be a broken cage,
to be pried wide apart for you to see,
there’s enough room inside
for a flock of your fingers to reside forever
around the delicate burning flower
of my unrelentless heart.

One night, I looked into the lake of your eyes,
surprised by the size of my own startled sighs.
I realized that I have no words to explain
that it’s not pain or remorse I carry,
it’s a force beyond what I can restrain.
I try to contain it with 9 to 5 and organize,
I do my dishes instead of fantasize,
I cook
and clean
and file
and sweep
just to keep this beast inside me asleep,
because this passion that resides
has already devoured innocence once.
I try to restrain it,
silence its howls,
but your hands have found the key to its cage,
I can feel it awaken, killing this woman
who has killed her rage by trying to forget

that my pulse once lived
at the base of my throat.

That a glance across the room once soaked the insides of my thighs,

forgot exactly which muscles
made the small of my back rise to meet the night.

The beast is hungry, and impatient,
this is the animal inside they see
when they say – “You are sexy.”
Not beautiful,
but sexy.

They see just the barest hint
of the smoking jungle
of the heart of my darkness,
and no intrepid explorer
has planted his mouth
at the tree of my spine,
has not scaled the mountains
of these breasts to leave behind some sign,
this country is deadly to the unready,

but this is not what I came here to say.

I came to say
thank you for showing me the way.
With your hands and the gardens of your eyes.

And for however long a moment,
lie still
and rest
in these arms
which would never seek to hold you


down.

 

Red

Added: 06/08/2008

It’s a tradition in my family.

My great-grandmother was the first redhead in generations, and she set the trend – 1930, fifteen years old and breaking free, heading off as if to school, but turning from that well-known path to hidden life of telephone operator job and boyfriend.

My grandmother wasn’t so gifted, she resorted to henna and paid her dues in other ways, denied education, joy, adventure, because a mind was wasted on a woman’s life of children and kitchen.

To spite her, my mother left ivy league school for roaches & cold water on Beacon Hill, Boston, no friends, only a rebel lover. She chose her heart over her head, only to learn that she too had swallowed the lessons of her mother before her, so suddenly, spreading jelly sandwiches with her fingers was no longer romantic rebellion. So for her child’s sake, and for love, she never dyed her hair, only finding freedom in the rooms inside her mind.

It is for my mother that I wear leather. It is for my grandmother that I got tattoos, wearing my life on the outside by taking in my pain. It is for my great-grandmother that I stand here before you, a woman, and free.

I go to extremes because I have a lot of making up to do. The blood of four women and more pour through me, and whisper to me when I wam weak with the hunger for love – keep to yourself. Guard your freedom.

So I go out, late, and alone, because my nana couldn’t. I commit to no one, because my grandma did. I am irresponsible, because my mother isn’t And they worry, and yell, because they love me, and you know what happens to girls who color outside the lines. But underneath their chidings, I hear their dreams. Run, run, be strong and fear NOTHING. Stand straight and tall, you carry us all. So I take the family colors, dye my hair, don’t dress my age, not married, no kids, still chasing dreams at an age when they were already halfway gone. I am cursed with the weight of this burden, desires so strong I leave the safe, warm, and comfortable for wet streets, imposed solitude, just to keep my edge, ‘cause that’s what I’ve got. I’m trapped, living my mother’s, my grandmother’s, my great-grandmother’s dreams of freedom and they don’t recognize it’s their thoughts I tread on lonely nights in empty streets. While they sleep safe by the fireside, it is my burden to be the one who walks and watches over while they sleep. I am strong for them, I am free for them, I live their dreams for them, and sacrifice my own ironic fantasies of husband and child to the wild-eyed night. I break the chain, mother only to fire and empty air.

 

Boston Irish

Added: 06/08/2008

(parental guidance suggested)

So for a moment, I was able to forget. For a moment, I forgot your name, my name, and swam in the soft pale skin, in the slick flow of muscles beneath heat, for a moment, I was able to forget everything but your body, and the night came in whispers or gasps.

So tonight, I say it’s ok, you don’t know I’m the Queen of Already Gone, I will remember this more and longer than you, my hard gentle lover, showing me rooves you’ve walked underneath the sky in the dawn, and right now, sitting, my thighs will shake from the effort of rising to meet you in the bed, in the morning. Rolling over each time into you awake and hard again whispering, “Tell me your name.” For we have forgotten in flesh what it was we were told to fear. It is basic. My tongue has spoken more to your cock than to your face in the dark, and yet I can walk away saying that I know you, I know what rhythms, what pressure, what kisses will make you cry out, I know how to touch you so that when I become a dream, when my name and my face are forgotten before my red hair slips past your window, you will remember the touch of a stranger, when you cross the sea, a piece of me will visit in the flat of your palm, in the small of your back, in the corner of the mouth of the next woman you kiss. Because these one nights are never just one, my soul stretches to carry the hearts of those who have lived inside me, however briefly, however beautifully, however heavy with the weight of their breath, we clutch each other in the dawn, toes curled and knees touch and arms seek their cradle of tired heads. And we are kind in the morning, still strangers, gentle questions and surprises and tea, and if it weren’t for Tuesday, if it weren’t for February, if the roommate hadn’t been listening, we might be able to carry this through, find a friend beneath the flesh.

But no matter. As I move into daylight, pull out sunglasses cabfare alone, I have already found you, and myself, in goodbye.