I took it personally

Every time they shot a man, they shot you, and put a hole in my chest. They choked me, beat me, burned me, hurt me. My body, in pain, desperate for yours, to soothe, to hold, to heal. But your body, elsewhere, seeking refuge in another, painless.

HOW TO CAUSE A TORNADO

How do you cause a tornado? How do you create turbulent winds that cut through towns and make a witch of the old Gypsy? Is it when our laughter meets for the first time? Is it when our sweat and hot breath meet for the first time? Is it when we yell or we cry or we stand silent, noses inches apart? Is it when I leave the hospital and drive home with whisky on my breath?

Attachment

What happens to a memory when you discard the object that held it?

FOSSA OVALIS

Each of us is born with a cave in our heart. It's left over from the constructing you and your mother did to you. By the age of two, most people have sealed up their fossa ovalis, making their right heart whole. There are some, however, who spend their lives trying to find something to fit into that small, but important depression. And then there are those, even fewer yet, who realize the void to be a gift, and choose there to disappear completely when they find someone worth disappearing with.

Sad girl

Sad girl music doesn't help. I cannot make a poetry of dregs, no longer sharp, now flat and stale, a chore. I listen to women who sound like their mouths are full of blood from gnashing their teeth in rage and pretend I will smash my car into the back of a truck.

NAPKIN #613

Let your gaze drift out the window while waves crash upon the shore and freighting barges narrowly avoid collision, and imagine the moment on the bench in the bar when the bones of our hips hit and you made a smile through the moment of sharp pain.

Prayer beads

I'm alone again, my own again. A crabby, twisting organism, impetuous and impulse-prone again. I love things and live things by myself again. A bee without a drone again. I don't care about being someone's cool again. I'm my own bottomline again. I'm brown again. I'm blue again. I'm seeing green green green again. I like trees and cities more than people again. I'll be a wild strange body again, open up to new touch again. I'm recovering and discovering and covering myself in mud again. I'm bored with tepid love again. I'm deep again and raw again and healing like a wound again. I'm mad again and glad again. I'm listening to that old gal again. I'm defiant, on the move again. I love myself instead again.