The Queen

You stand up there
tall and proud
black and proud
with your nude lace up heels,
cheetah print maxi skirt
with a slit up the side
thick leather belt that
wraps around your black
skin tight leotard
covered by a light beige duster
with big tufts of fur on the collar–
I admire your look
and I admire you even more
after you tell the large crowd you are
68–
and then I admire you even more
as you begin to tell us about your life
how you left for four years
and came back just today
how people had run you out
when they were supposed to have
had your back
were supposed to have supported you
in your darkest, loneliest
most confusing moments
and instead, when you did not fit their
image of the “queen”
(which is what they called you
and you begged to differ)
they pretended you did not exist
and so you asked
(I ask)
what is this then
the program we call
a God-given program?
if we can’t see ourselves in each other
if we can’t remember that we are
all the same
that we all come from the same place
no matter our sexual identity, creed, religion
or lack of religion
and with that crack of your voice
the quavering of your chin
seducing one tear or more tears
out of my eyes
telling us all of your pain and suffering
I heard my story too
and his and her story
and probably everybody’s story
and I thought, well dammit
you are still the Queen
even if you are not in your eyes
but mine
and even if you weren’t or aren’t
the woman we should be bowing to
I still respect you for
being you
and sharing with me all of you
which makes me
a better person–

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Trust

this has been an off year.
something about it
always leaves a sour and/or bitter taste in my mouth.
I haven’t had a “good” feeling in a while,
and even when I am among my family
my sisters
my brothers
there is a lingering dread
the one that consumed for years
the one that told me that I’m not good enough
strong enough
pretty
enough
to make it through anything.
They say that a woman is interrupted so many
more times than a man
and that even if a woman says something
it is the man that gets the credit for it
they say we have to love our daughters in such a way
to teach them how to love themselves
without relying on the age-old edict
that they are “pretty”
or
“smart”.
We have to re-learn how to talk to them,
essentially talking to ourselves,
and I find myself questioning my motives
my inner-voice
my intuition
what am i really teaching myself
or rather
what am I really doing?
am I avoiding the lesson I need to teach
in fear that I am repeating the same mistakes
as my mother?
or am i really breaking the cycle,
creating a new chain
starting the beginning of a new line of me?
of us
for
eternity?

Go Away

I hate that you’re going out
the way he talks
in this almost complete living room
makes me feel like we’ve done so much work
and he has not
I hear the drugs in his voice
even if he’s not high
some past life creeping in
some desire to hold on to who we were
I certainly don’t want ANY of that
and yet I sense a sense of IT
Is it fear
is it lack of faith
is it your fucking annoying ass voice
that makes me cringe
Very soon
after this poem
I will go to bed
and hopefully I will be able to drift off into a beautiful
and soft sleep
a soothing slumberland
where your laugh doesn’t make me
want to pull my hair out
and I love everything and everyone
dare I say it
even you–

Dinner

I find my story falling flat
at the dinner table
wanting to add on
wanting to identify
realizing that the details
are too detailed
and maybe you don’t want to hear them
so you chuckle
awkwardly
because there’s nothing
else to do
as I keep fumbling
for words
as my voice trails off
as I pick at the
leftover
bread
crumbs–

Reaching for the Light 7:47

Pet land
Pet world
Pet universe
Pet galaxy
we said
is like a boutique

Too tired to write anything meaningful
meaningful
meaningful

The day’s been full of meaning
where I’m so happy for you
that in your selfishness
you allow another to grow

and shape in their own subtle time
with water and sun
into a beautiful budding flower
reaching for the
light–

Friends

on the horizon
a light, faint
lavender haze
descends
on the brain
into night
ness
less
time to suffer
more time for
ice cream
and
old
fun
timeless
jokes–

Mr. Holbrook

Synchronicity abounds
this weekend
in dreamy Pisces
I still see glimmers of you
images here and there
conjuring up in my mind’s eye
your soul
awakening and reawakening

You called my husband too
to take pictures of you
of things you loved–
Walls covered in love graffiti
warm, bright days
and blue skies with soft, white clouds–
Sometimes your voice and your
messages are so clear
we know what to do
and when to do it

Other times
we’re not so sure.
We don’t “currently”
have enough
access to the
ancient knowledge
or wisdom of the sages–
something you probably
have in your spiritual
back pocket by now
What were you trying to tell us
this past weekend?
Did I miss something
in the sacred hallway
or is everything just so
is everything
just right?

And your Dawn keeps awakening
in man to another
reality
This one here, just an illusion
Caught in between
two worlds
we saw another way
out
we saw
a sliver of
hope–

Before the Show, Valentine’s Day Part II

Except I didn’t
miss the full moon
in Leo!
It was there all along
me and you
allowing the love
to flow freely
and reverberate
through our jangly
dances and
lanky
leggy
finger
snaps.

Before the Show, Valentine’s Day Part I

Too busy
untangling wires
charging phones
eating noodles
savoring broth
walking miles
on city blocks
jumping curbs
wistfully sloshing
through muddy puddles

I missed the neon full moon in Leo
I wonder what those stars would have said to me
if I had just stopped and listened….

TDK 90

Missing puzzle pieces
but they all FIT back then
and somehow we thought
they didn’t–

Memories cascading
down the back of my brain
adolescent dreams swarm up
and then a phone call–

I see us on playground
park benches smoking
cigarettes and eating chips,
chips I’ve ended up loving

for years, dreams I wish I
had seen come true, bathtubs
full of and overflowing water
cocaine on mirrors we did not

want to get wet and yet I
would not trade it for the
world, for all the missing
puzzle pieces, I want none of

it because they never were
missing, not missing then, not
missing now, just my jaded
and upside down perception

of a perfectly perfect imperfect
world with scars and bandaids
and tissue galore, the tape needs
to be turned over. I think I’ve

heard this song before…