Green wallpaper peeled off the edge between wall and windowpane. Recklessly suspended in the air, pausing for breath. I lay strapped to my new bed; I entered by stretcher. They wheeled me in. Wired, I did not sleep. When do waves that roll in with the tide decide to turn back toward deep ocean? When you hear the sirens sound off from the depths of a volcano. Molten lava drops and destroys as it makes its way east. Eruptions from ash into more ash, until it is time to begin again.
Tag: creativity
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Ice Skating at Christmastime
Wind chimes dangle on a
front porch. We walked down
to the Commons, where people laced
their skates in celebration of
a fresh snow. Frozen fish
beneath the rocky surface
of a shallow pond. The darkness
of midnight. The ending
of all things.
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Magnolias at the Public Garden
A painting of ancient animals curled up in a museum. We met in a red dress. Pillars welcomed us through the entryway. The northern pond overflowed with ducks. Where does one look when searching for oneself? In the dank spaces between salt, sea water, and earth.
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Recovery
A glass of espresso rests on an onyx desk. The air is filled with acid and heat. You asked me to make it, to serve it to you. Anything worth loving is worth doing first. Creamy steam slips through the crack between the slabs of shower doors. A podcast blasts from the speaker you sat on bathroom marble. Hotel staff impatiently tap at the suite door. Burgundy-stained wine glasses scattered about symmetrical nightstands remind us that it was our door – for the night. Our once ironed, oyster-clean bed sheets. Our Chicago skyline glistening in the distance. Sparkles off skyscraper windows whisper it’s time to go home. You made time. We made time. I look you in the face and say, “I miss you.” I already miss the hit. We needed our fix. Once in a supermoon. Like drugs, like addicts. We wait in agony, until we can get up again, with sealed lips. What space in silence lasts so long, crossing terrain and time zones. I shake my head, willing you to answer me back. When I open my eyes, I’m on fire again.
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Sailboats on the Charles
Neon and white
boats flash across crystal
river surface. Like vacation
souvenirs. Sails serve
as flags waving away
summer’s end. A chill collapses
through with the current, waves
lapping up to the planks. What is
summer’s loss is gained
by the turns of autumn.
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Legends
Mama always said the illness smeared its oily sable ink down our whole entire family tree and did not stop or skip a single branch. Mixing brown cracks with sludge makes minds break, makes minds fracture into jagged chunks. Resentment turns to clarity turns to experience. The wise one knows no one can resist its slippery grip. I will not be the first or the last. What saves sanity and sobriety eludes us all. Brings fist fights, inpatient hospital stays, both the pipe and the bottle. Onyx tracks seep down bark, trunks, and trickles down through the roots.
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Domino
Sometimes, I sit in
my room, contented, like
a black dot on
a singular domino, surrounded
by ivory space, a diamond
speck on an elephant’s
tusk, a rare
delicacy, a forgotten
prize.
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Breaking Up
I crack
an unvarnished egg and
its ripe,
orange yolk falls
to pewter floor tile.
Absentmindedly,
I grab
the kitchen broom, then
come to my senses.
I try
to scoop the egg’s insides
it oozes
through the spaces
between my fingers.
Instinctively,
I think
to make a mask,
then reconsider.
Staring at mess,
I wonder
how quickly can things go
so wrong
Are all pristine things
made to break
too soon?
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Losing It
A small, wilted plant is perched on the charcoal countertop of a cramped studio apartment kitchen. From the confines of my hospital mattress, I will it to mend, sending mind waves to my old flat. When a soul breaks, does it splinter delicately like sea glass dropped on the surface of bronzed beach shore sands? Or does it split neatly into two chunks like a thick ivory porcelain platter meeting hardwood plank? Every single morning, I swallow my pills, and every single evening, I do the same. The nurses say it’s too soon to celebrate discharge day. So, we bleed into one another like the months on the wall calendar, like wet ink on damp notebook paper. Bleed like the wrists of my roommate patched up, stitched up, wrapped up in gauze. We float down psych unit hallways like misfit ghosts: professors, musicians, painters, restaurant owners, and radio personalities – shuffling in loose gowns from one scheduled group therapy session to some other, patiently commanding our psyches to convalesce. Every morning, sunlight seeps through frosted security windows with grated metal covers, gunmetal crosshatched over glass dense and sharp and clouded as icebergs floating across the Arctic. The wind whispers words that tell stories of freedom and peace and home – stories that patients like us will never profoundly know.
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The Lovers (VI)
Our love
is like dusty
land scorched
from arid heat.
A centuries-old
volcano, still active
and threatening
eruption.
We beg
the gods for airs
wet and sweet, but
the rain never falls.
How best
to describe a thing
so thick
and oppressive?
That fills
us up and lays us
out, bloated
and plump to the touch.
What leaves words
limp and inadequate,
yet binds us
forever.
Such sounds
insufficient – how many
ways to say souls
split then sewn back together?
heartbreak and cigarettes 