Can I tell you?

Bird Watching

I’ve been watching birds-
counting Cardinals,
thinking of Harold while humming the
Eastern Towhee’s red-eye flight call.

Today I heard the crow’s song,
different than before, it sounded like you
singing in harmony with me-
a haunting siren’s song of
fledgling trickery.

Why did you fly back to me
when I am so happy?

April 10th

It’s day twenty-two.

Your knees are dried bloody and you let her see.

Your mother knows your secrets now

and she saw you, didn’t she?

April 8th

April 8^th and the day sounds lucky but

it’s not.

John Prine went home and we

received rotten cabbage in our rations.

We couldn’t save a single fruit.

We missed the pink moon

and we used all our string to sew

the wounds on our backs back together.

You’ve been keeping count

and I hadn’t thought about it until just now-

when I slow down, when my one-liners run out,

what will you make of me?

April 8^th sounds like a lucky day but

              it’s not.

When my roots turn to rot 

will you send me home?

If Pain is a Lesson, What do I make of this Mastery?

The other night you told me how you

learned about suffering

when you studied hot yoga

in Mexico one summer.

We smoked cigarettes (mine menthol, yours red)

 and I said

you’ve lived so many lives and

you said

you have too.

I thought about Watson, Illinois.

All the small spaces

where I learned about suffering

in so many places and in

so many lives.

Have I died so many times?

I just don’t learn my lessons.

April 2nd, 2020

April 2^nd, 2020

Two weeks in quarantine and everything is a dance now.

We waltz across the wooden floors toward the open window,

careful to appreciate the passing pastel pink

and lavender paintings performed each sunset.

We do not believe in god but we believe in something.

Sometimes I don’t understand irony. (Thanks Alanis.)

      I wonder if it is this-

I was cut to the raw root, pruned

and potted again and against all odds,

I’ve taken bloom. My scalp is healthy.

The other plants pass disease.

The rest of the world is dying or crumbling

like the Twin Towers or Kinetic Sand Castles.

I am a rose under a vase like in Beauty and the Beast.

Safe in my own glass castle growing green.

Is this a fever dream?

Is this the hook, line and sinker?

I get to taste true love like bait

before we are gutted and filleted

on ice skating rinks to keep us cool.

Oh well,

I don’t care.

The joke is funny and I’m busy

Laughing.

Too Sick

When you told me your therapist said
I shouldn't be in a relationship because 
clearly I'm still too sick

I wondered what you told her.
I wondered all the things she knows that I never got to hear
Your anxiety or your worry or your fear
or maybe just how you wanted to get away from here


When you told me your therapist said
I shouldn't be in a relationship
I wondered how you long you convinced yourself
to come to that conclusion
or how much you needed that second opinion
to affirm your allusion 

I wondered why you scoffed at my commutation
but i never heard you talk
never knew how quickly and easily you planned to walk
never heard a word of how hard it must be, to just be with me

i read the notes you left, the i love yous and i love your smile
they didn't mention the soul sucking pain
my mental illness seems to drain
all the words it seemed you wanted to say

but i thought i heard you say
i was good enough for you to stay


When your therapist said i was too sick
i wondered, to what? to love you? to be loved by you?
i wondered what you thought
or what you already knew

People with  mental illness are deserving of love
by someone, but not by you
by someone strong, by someone who
can handle the warmth of the sun and cold of the moon

you called me more than a constellation
you called me a whole network of twinkling fire
my own meteor shower

i didn't realize you must have meant to emphasize
the fall, the debris, the devour

did I end up burning too bright
did your therapist say
I'm no good for your eyes
I'm good for someone who can handle traumatized

A crooked lover can show you all the love in the universe
but will always fall flat it's a curse
and they may need help cleaning their bloody knees
once in a while
but you don't have to, you don't have to.

i wonder if your therapist knew
how much i loved you
when your therapist said
I shouldn't be in a relationship anyway

Apologies

I won’t bring you bouquets of gardenias

After i’ve made you feel small
I won’t leave pink peonies in your mailbox

When i speak in hurtful absolutes
I won’t clip the hydrangeas from the yard

In remorse for scaring you
I won’t pick sunflowers on the side of the interstate

To ask you to stay

I never want the innocence of new blossoms

To veil my attempts to cut you down

The blooms that bring you joy

To wilt with the painful memory

The sweetness of a flower

To sour with association

I will never bring you flowers

Arranged as an apology

I will walk through fields in repentance

Sowing seeds for new growth

You deserve gardens.

someday someone will

On the count of three

i didn’t want to forget that we seemed so happy

I remembered the July heat and singing strawberry wine 

the backgammon board set up all funny.

I told you i was a crippled pony

and you told me you led horses into the woods to calm them

but you must have forgotten that.

I started counting backwards days ago

3-2-1, I know

you forgot the songs we sang,

the jokes i told were getting old.

All the self deprecation you said you hated

you nodded along and thanked me

for admitting my wrongdoings.

The question that was never asked,

“Do we each deserve a sad prince

with our own dirty records?”

Will we bandage you but leave our war wounds bleeding?

You were the first person to cry with me

and say no, never,

you deserve something else (but not better).

I took down the note you wrote,

“I have your back.”

I believe you didn’t know it,

but you didn’t mean that.

Telepathy

When you are very sick

remind me

the Tanbark tunnel held me like a cradle
the womb that let me down so long ago
i turned the headlights off
and let her carry me

remind me why
you can't carry me
do i not deserve
the reds and yellows before the fall

no flying, just falling,
just dead and i told you
this morning
i still may kill myself

you got sick to your stomach
and swore it wasn't me
i wonder if we can keep
each other happy

She held me like the body that could not hold me
with uncertainty
remind me why
we can't be happy

Run

Two Choices, a haiku

contact solution, hiaku

Return.

Just as New Orleans whispers to the water

You whisper to me, “I mean.”

“We knew it would return.”

I thought maybe not.

I hoped 

I could keep the water at bay

but we become tolerant 

and our levees break.

I wish I didn’t want to dive in

but here I am

underwater.

Here.

This might be where I love you the most, here,
with your nose in the cupboard,
sniffing the maple syrup bottle and cocoa dust

Here, at 2:02 am, when I hear you stirring,
kissing my hand just because and I turn to you,
and you play asleep

And later, when you woke with a bellyache and
couldn't make it to the door
the wet on your face and your oil-spill eyes

When you jumped and broke the vase
and I scolded you for chewing the Winterberry
only to find that it was caught in your hair

I apologized.
Here.
I love you the most.

getting help

i am not mad at you

for self-medicating 

or lapping up your own blood

or shaving your head

thank you 

for standing in the window

and letting us watch

as you stripped naked

i think of you

Will your pick up truck make it up the east coast

if you still have that army green rucksack we can

walk into the woods 

pocket all the yellow leaves

pretend like nothing’s changing

i think of you before I feel proud of myself

any time i’ve made something beautiful 

i think of you when i sit cross-legged on the kitchen floor 

when I hang a picture frame or kill another houseplant 

i think of you

i’d be lying if i said i don’t know

why we fought over that blue speckled bowl 

it was a memory i couldn’t let go

i think of you when i watch people leave their homes

i dreamt we made love and we knew what we were doing

i’m always wondering if we knew what we were doing

we walked through a tornado and i lost myself 

i keep your teeth in a jar on the bottom shelf

when i see 

butterflies pinned behind glass

bits of my own handwriting

a room filled with mirrors

i wonder do you think of me

let’s take your pick up for a long ride

if it can make it 

we can drive

like we know where we are going 

pretend like nothing’s changing

do you ever feel that way

who do you talk to 

when you are real sad

i don’t mean

break up sad

i mean

is tomorrow worth it 

sad

do you ever feel that way
or is it just me