grandmother's wish

the sweetest of coffee brew feels like a
gentle mind to an insomniac. the lush encompassing
of fragrant berries, and as though i'm wearing
the clouds for drapery.

just last week i had five reasons to die. all of which in the end, kept me
alive. in its trunk bed of paralysis, the hope that carried with
it -
the laughter of my grandmother.

i am floored by her side, in memoriam, to adorn
this womanhood i once saw as burdens, and dance on -
once concrete tiles of revolutions, now, remnants of
the left behind. my duty,
i guess
i have no choice but to
life.

the purge

rush through recycled bags on a trip from winter minds.
how words through an epileptic
ride leave their glide on my tip. we ran home on the
verge of splinters, as i had every edition of the dictionary sprawled on its back.
flip the script - pages wired on
tiles,
in the bathroom i lay
careful of my lips to
kiss minefields.

look, my body is perfectly dressed
for a flashback
into you. and like a bulimic, there are battles
to clean from the insides.
heaving stocks of verses into plots of grim.
stains with evidence
on sight. a wipe from dirty and all remains white.
calculate the timing
immaculate. with the right hour i purge onto
overlapping lines - like no room elsewhere
will ever be found.

all the years on the clock strike dehydration. too
long a poem to count each hope.
the way of flower stems to mimic veins, on my hands, roots hold
wreckage ripped into pleasure.
and bodies of work in volumes of nutrients,
blood flow, white cells to regenerate the
mind from its own war.
the rubble of makeup of years.
not the be all end all
as i have years
to make the end fall to my satisfaction.

sparks: impatient, crude, dangerously feeling out the design of anatomy on a stranger i can see myself falling in love with. i don't know him. my hands don't know any better, but i'm ready to reach out and let be. i'm ready to greet his pulse with a falsetto key. piano recitals and the stage is empty for us to fill our desires. i want him so i can remember i am wanted. selfish scarlet painted on my wrist. he is mine. he is mine. mine, mine? but i won't belong to anyone.

Hey day,

my mother and i sit and talk, mostly about the weather. that's the only thing we have left in us. we discuss the varying temperatures. sometimes it's 63 degrees and we sigh with frustration, some days it's 75 degrees and we feel blessed to finally see the sun. sometimes we drink our tea and there is an uncomfortable dry air that crawls up my nostrils and makes me feel as though i am full of dust. (i haven't been cleaned in ages.) my mind stops and i sit starring off into the walls, studying every crack in the paint. these walls are ancient and so is our silence. she is always asking me if i want food or something pretty. a necklace. new panties. a new room? she is always asking. that is her way of caring. but i have very little responses. tiny head nods, and guilty shrugs. sometimes, i am safe in her presence. shameful for my past actions, but completely aware that she has forgiven me and accepts my shortcomings. though i still don't think she understands my withdrawal from displays of affection. i want to show it on my own time, at my own pace, at my own will.

and when the night gets silent, the little girl comes out to sing.

ahh my grandfather. The rebel, the drunk, the abuser, the prisoner, the poet, long deceased. He died in prison. He urinated on cops. He had mistresses all over town. He had violent outbursts and owned guns he stole from mobsters. He shot a man in the eye. He got stabbed 3 times. He was in gangs. He wrote incredible poetry. He was the life of the party. He was terribly exhausting. Dangerously opinionated. My mother compares me to him. Says I am an outcast of the family.

Just like he was. Who knows: I too might end up in prison with tattoos all over my body and a lonely heart.

I wish I knew more about the man. I wish I knew him when I was little.
I don't know much about my family. Everyone feels like strangers in non fiction books. All I have are names and photographs from the 60's and 70's.