The Story of 5th Hour

A heart trouble indeed – aren’t most troubles so?

Mine have always been. And how many times did I fly

Weeping into the arms of my women kin because some such had torn me apart?

Was I looking for comfort or camaraderie, or was the game in its entirety enough

To satisfy the intense and throbbing boredom of my soul,

Such screamingly painful monotony, that “please, God

Whatever you may do to me in this life else, just take away this cup;

Bring any other poison from the circles of Hell but don’t

Allow me to lay here on my bedroom floor, waves of emotionless

Pain wracking my body for any one second longer!”? Here lies the journal

I kept in those days, flopped open to a page that is doting and meek

At the start, but runs the blue gauntlet down to an entry

Scrawled in all capital letters as by some demon’s hand

“I HAVE ANTS IN MY BONES IN THE VERY MARROW OF MY BONES!!!”

What is it that has been done to me? I was a girl once, that is to say

I was when I met him. The past two years had proven so tumultuous,

My crash landing upon my eighteenth birthday found me very timidly

But startlingly a woman.  And it is that way that he died,

Symbol of the other life I led, the one

Before, that time helped me, without regret, leave far behind

He lies buried somewhere I know quite well

Beneath books and student loans, peeking through

Facebook posts I feel no longer his essence in the night when I lie

Alone, or in the day when I hum a tune, his presence is finally

Divorced from me. I smile now, a genuine smile, a braces-free

Bursting-with-self-confidence-the-sort-of-person-who-makes-friends

And-keeps-them-hello-how-are-you-good-morning-professor

Hey-girl-deadbolt-your-door-I’m-coming-right-back-did-you-hear

What-happened-over-the-weekend-let-us-strive-for-that-which-is

Honorable-beautiful-and-highest-smile. A happiness, contentedness,

Interest, passion, romance, spirit of youth, spiritual experience

Long island iced tea induced smile. A smile is a realization

Of what we have been missing, it is in surprise that our lips turn

And our mouths stretch, the same bodily chemicals that shoot upward

Must both shock and please us, pleasure being inherent surprise

One hand assaults the left chest in a misguided attempt to control

What races there beneath; we close our tired, world-cared eyes

For only a moment to breathe in sharply

Then once more to exhale slower and slower

Until we need not worry about the things of this world,

Until we need not even live any longer

An independent smile fills its purpose

The Empress of Ice-Cream

I dated someone once, who smoked cigars,

He and his friends. They were constantly setting the upstairs ablaze

Until none but them dare come near it

Shame, now they are lonely and I no longer

Have to smell like the death of my grandparents

It is a sad thing perhaps, but as a child I enjoyed funerals

I loved to sit in the silent dim, smell the rustling

Overabundance of flowers, feel the magnetism of far-away

Families toward no-where, Louisiana, and each other

Some credit is owed my brothers who played with me

Quietly and patiently, “I Spy” anything other than the great yawning box

And my mother’s tears. Is it possible that life can be so much like death?

That when I die they will shade my “mortal coil” in sheets so like

The ones under which here we lay together? That at that moment

(Or so I am told) when I rest my eyes I will know

True existence, such as that I truly feel alive

Only when I’m with you? Beauty also in its rawest nakedness

Shall I feel, beautiful?

Like I never felt before until I met you. As I slip beneath this burden of life, I grow cold,

Which hardly should alarm you any more than my ice-cube toes, snuggled up to you

In the small hours of the morning. My silence I am sure will not perturb you any more than the usual

Way that my answers to your questions are swallowed up into the night. But

One thing I know: There will be no bright light for me at my last –

Only your face and the light of the street lamp

As it falls through the blinds into your bedroom.

243

There is solace in alone-ness
a sort of lazy warmth
that fills this room in the evening
lent to it by the streetlamps outside
a mechanical hum breathes
into the walls and seems to
playfully rattle the windows
At home, dusk like this was not pleasant
silence and closed doors
held only old demons
forgotten nightmares, or worse
nothing at all
Here they are like promises
invitations, to be opened
to be filled
shadows sprawl across the floor
not to cover secrets and fears
but to remind you
to turn on the light

Lover's block

Oh where is my flowing fountain?
my pen seems to have run dry
like my mouth when you are near
tripping over words that once
were but pebbles in my babbling brook
the ink skips and runs
my splotchy conversation paints
my face red
my page black.

Detachment has bred contentedness,
but contentedness doesn't breed poetry.

The art of getting over it

I pretend.
I pretend it wasn't you,
it wasn't me, it wasn't us,
some other boy and girl,
another couple,
another time.
I read your letters as if
I was reading a story,
a novel, a passionate romance,
a tragedy.
On your image and mine
I place those masks of drama
so the play in my head finally ends
and I can sleep again.

Thursday morning

I dropped my contact down the sink this morning
which realization caused me to fume
groggy and bespectacled
down to the breakfast table
where little brother sat absently
eating toast through a chapped-lip smile
gazing from his throne
toward the morning sunlight beaming
through perfectly formed lenses
buried deep in blue-green irises.
A cheerful sight was I, then
that morning at the table
and later when I forsook the world
returning to my room regretful
to start the day over
when unassuming little brother
stopped in to say
"Mom told me to give this to you"
grasping in a small pink paw
a little round clear blue
piece of plastic

All aboard the quatrain

Dearest, do not be offended
by my crooked little rhymes;
hence, my mind has recommended
I jot down the fol'wing lines.

Here, the purpose of my journey
art, and pastime, that is true
but a third I'm quickly learning
to express my thoughts to you.

Sometimes it is trying, dear,
you know by now, to talk to you.
I say what I think and feel here,
when mere idle talk won't do.

I know you don't understand it,
dear, I don't expect you to.
Only know this, that He planned it
all, so I'll always love you.