Infinite Poison
I shed
The skin
That bind
My hands
Are bleeding
Are reaching
Muscle
Tendon
Attached to bone
A web of movement
That need protecting
If you ever
See
Me without
My skin
You'll know
It's me
I'll be
the One
Still waiting
With
Thumb extended
Hitching a ride
to your poison
Even exposed and fleshy
I yearn
For the caress
Of your lips
Upon the expo
Of carnage
Even if
flesh
Lay upon
my mass
You yearn
For the space
Between us
To remain
Infinite
Hair
The first question I asked when my daughter was born, following the mandatory is she healthy inquiry, was about her hair.
"Does she have any? Is it thick?"
Turns out she had the kind of hair most babies have. A sort of haphazard fuzz sweetly ringing her head. Selfishly I was hoping she would be born with more. I wanted her to pop out with piles of hair with maybe a slight wave that grew thick and full. The kind of hair that would make people take notice. The kind of hair I had dreamed of my entire life.
Yes, I was living vicariously through my child before they had even cleaned the birth goo off of her. But only the hair part. I just wanted her to have what I never had.
To people who have thick hair this will seem silly. To my thin haired sisters it will make all the sense in the world. Hair is like the frame to the picture that is your face. Even more than that really because it can be seen from all sides of you. We are drawn to that thick tangle of hair. We love to see it in all colors and shapes. But mostly long. Women with thick hair know they won the genetic lottery and they rarely cut it short. They let it flow for all of us to admire and then act like its no big deal. The rest of us just like to look at it, in person or in commercials where it's blowing in the fake fan generated breezes. We all want to have that but it does not come in a can. So many products claim to help the thin haired ones but it's mostly a lie. No product can make up for what you didn't get.
Women with thick hair are in a different class. Thick hair means you can let it grow long and then casually put it up in a messy bun with pieces tumbling out. Because there is just so much hair it can't really be tamed. Thick hair always looks effortless. I'm not even sure the thick haired ones appreciate what they've got. "It takes so long to dry" or "Its so hot on my neck" are frequent complaints.
Thin hair requires lots of effort but it's mostly in vain. Hundreds of dollars spent on products that over promise and under deliver and you're back where you started. Looking at hair in magazine ads and wondering what it would be like to have a thick pile of hair that you could casually throw over your shoulders or lift off your neck because the weight of it was making you sweat.
I think my life would have been different if I had been born with thick hair. I know it would have made things easier for me as a teen. But I wouldn't have been forced to get by on my personality without that dreadful perm that promised to make my hair thicker but actually made me look like I had joined the circus.
The older I get the less I dream of thick hair. Yet every Halloween I pick a costume that involves a wig and for one day I get to feel that thick hair teasing my shoulders as I shamelessly toss my head about. It feels so good and I am sad when the day is over and I peel off the wig to my thin little strands.
As for my daughter? Turns out her hair grew in nice and full and I got to live a thick hair life through her. She can thank me for marrying a man with the most ridiculously thick hair you have ever seen.
Perfect Timing
When the noise in your mind
runs perfectly perpendicular
to the noise outside of it,
they cancel each other out.
These moments happen in small bursts way more often than you think.
The trick is grtting one to happen in the middle of a nice, warm bath so you can really concentrate on it.
The soul is fluent in the language of concentration.
Ruth
My grandmother always made me feel special and I adored her. She taught me to love books and made the best pussy willow Valentines Day card holder ever seen at my elementary school. I remember sitting in the back seat with her on family trips and cuddling close to her while she read to me. It was pure childhood happiness.
As I grew older I understood that my grandmother had a dark and secret side. She and my grandfather fought constantly and she would leave for months. She would usually find a nanny job in another state and I would wonder why those kids were getting all her attention instead of me.
We learned her darkest secret when I was a teen. A family friend accidentally revealed that my grandmother had been married as a very young woman. She had a son and for reasons no one knows she left them both and traveled across the country to start a new life.
We speculated about this endlessly, spinning tales and stories to match the little information we had. But no one was allowed to ask her about it. It was universally accepted in our family that it would kill her to learn that we knew her secret.
Still I wonder. What if we had asked?
"Hey grandma, about that other family you left behind. What's up with that?"
None of us had the nerve. So we let her take the secret to her grave. I still miss her and think about how tormented she must have been, living with that secret deep in her soul. And it amazes me to know that no one else ever made me feel as important as she did. I hope she somehow knew that.
Flora & fauna
Plants have taught me not to struggle too much because everything you need is right around you.
To be thankful to other creatures for helping give me a chance to live, to breathe, to eat.
I admire their fragility, but how strong they can be. They certainly outnumber humans.
They taught me that everyone enjoys being sang to whether it's babies, the elderly, animals or plants.
They teach me on a constant basis to be patient because a mighty oak does not grow in one day.
Most of all they taught me to appreciate life in the now because getting another day to enjoy is never promised.