and i dance with her and i dance with my daughter and i sing to my son and dance with him as well and i move through the house my home and i listen to the song and i feel moved and i move and i listen and i dance with them each in turn and i sing to them each in turn and i am trying to tell them something about what i am feeling by what i am listening to and although the words are not mine i try to sing them to make them my own and i try to fit my body into the rhythm between them and i am home it feels like i am home it feels like they finally are welcoming me home
Category Archives: internals
thoughts, musings, life, etc
across the divide
the burnt offerings of her heart like shark’s teeth blackened by selfish anger and the skins of snakes left abandoned on your doorstep. you try to fit the ashes together into a coherent whole but instead breathe in the soot of all that you were and could’ve been. old. older. sitting by the window along the highway watching cars skid through the onramp as hubcaps shot out and clanged against the curb. tears welled up in your eyes because you knew even then that your innocence was gone, you were already gone and it was only going to get worse. remorse without regret, regret without remorse, or something else entirely? he had married your mother just before thirty and all this violence that you now are has been rearing it’s head since you did as well. when will he stop dying? when will you learn to live peacefully and without pain? an accumulation of wounds and the wounded, of guilt and clenched teeth, the rage goes on indefinitely and your children grasp at your fists to make them into hands to hold across the divide.
ruiner. faker.
there has to be a way to rebuild a future and pick and choose pieces of the past. did i not say this already, i didn’t i say this before? didn’t i wish for this? i’ve destroyed so much. ruiner. faker. crippled. how to begin again, how to begin without a beginning? nonsense, pebbles in the mouth, dirt between teeth. mumbler. liar. stain. carved out, hollow, even in your son’s eyes, looking at you for something, looking for anything. your daughter on the other hand sees delight, your daughter calls you, your daughter hugs you impulsively. dreamer. believer. hope.
as her mother leaves
as her mother leaves she has to wonder what monsters lurk for her in the dark, in the light of day, in her home, in the eyes of her husband who has betrayed her. she wonders what lies ahead for the rest of her life now, watching him place the suitcases into the back of the car, her daughter rambling about around them, feeling a slight sense of nausea go through her. here she is, alone, and there he is, nothing he ever was, only an ever was. he turns to her, sees her watching him and he would smile for her if he didn’t already know all the damage he had done.
when cornered
you know nothing of me you will never know me look all you want search all you want you will never know you do not want to ever know the rage i hide behind this thick skin the instinct to protect what’s mine after all that has been taken from me i will protect this i will mutilate myself i will scar myself until the outside matches the inside to keep them safe from the devil within me from the infection i was and am and always will be from the sickness that cracks the world in me into rust and bleeding and puss and garden shears struck through pried palms and tongues frozen on barbed wire fences and tires burning thick black plumes into nostrils cleaved open you do not know the lengths i have gone through over nothing what i’ve done to anyone when nothing even mattered but here and now with all that i have left i will gouge you all i will render you all i will bare my teeth and i will howl and i will show you the sort of animal i truly am when cornered and nothing that ever threatened my own in this world will be safe from harm
sight unseen
my daughter drags me into the living room to show me patterns of shoes she’s made on the coffee table, toe to heel, heel to toe. my son smiles and coos and razzes at me as i walk towards him and he excitedly swats his arms left and right in his bouncy.
does he see me, does she see me, does anybody really see me at all?
what do we really see?
the world in my mind, my mind in the world – Igor Aleksander
we see something, it shows up somewhere, back there, literally in the back of the skull and then filtered through, filtered outward throughout the whole and it registers as something else. we see and do not see. we feel what we see, we think of what we are seeing and it happens so quickly, apparently so effortlessly, it’s transparent. we make meaning all day long. color is a meaning, shape means something, it takes hold: clenched jaws shaking us about.
there is no reality without meaning. constant and pervasive, we are shackled, i am shackled into making meaning out of everything. there is no sitting still.
all that it threatened
i dreamt of an ocean that did not know the trespass of any land, no jetties broke its surface, no island climbed out of its depths, and the sky was a dark and thunderous violet just before nightfall or dawn, and in the distance there was a rumble that growled across the horizon and streaks of lightening shocked everything into a pale white, and i did not know where i was but i looked for signs of my body, some stray limb, some motion, some sense of nausea and i found only a perfect stillness with all that it threatened.
and I wish for new things & old
and I wish for new things & old, for simultaneity and purpose, for an end to grief and despair, for the hope of daylight, for the promise of a bright and clear dawn.
write about him
write about the cold and wet, the chill and the unshakable feeling you’ve been here before you’ve grown tired of it. write about the sound of this voice as it gurgles up what you so desperately want to hear but cannot make sense of. write about the feel of his limbs, the flap of skin as it wraps around the bone as you grab hold of him before he goes. the soft feeling of new leather that’s been beaten over rocks and casino tables and the touch of women who forgot his name. write about the few strands of hair stuck to his skull and impossible to clean. everything begins with a promise he breaks but ends with you keeping it.
the little one chokes
the little starts to cough that turns into a choke. playing poker i am frozen looking for the color of her face. someone says, do the heimlich and i get cross the room looking for color and see a face full of panic. i wrap behind her and tilt her forward, two fingers just below her sternum and wonder if the placement is right but i push anyway. once, twice, i don’t see anything come out but she starts to cry. can’t cry without air, she starts to cry and i am relieved. i pick her up and hold her tight and she bawls that she can’t breathe. i laugh a nervous tension and whisper in her ear, if you couldn’t breathe, you wouldn’t be able to tell me.