
You’re Not Somebody
If we were to meet again
I’d yell and beat my breast
Who the hell do you think you are?
You’re nobody, just like me –so stop
You’re not any better than I am
so don’t sing it to the rooftop.
If we were to meet again
I’d flash my face in yours and scream
It’s lonely at the top of a pile of nobodies
croaking that you’re somebody unique
beating your own drum, rat-a-tat-tat
for the invisible audience that you seek.
& i miss you & i love you & i will not tell you about either
head held heavy in
dirty, dirty, dirty hands, while
tears push up against my eyes and
threaten to overflow--cannot
unhear your voice in my ears,
the whiny question of "she"
"didn't want to come?" and i ache at
feeling the tremor in my spine and the
cracks that shatter through my bones at
the thought of disappointing, of
hurting you, even if you laugh it off later
and call me dumb for believing you--i
tried to say the words of "i don't want to"
"see you," even in the privacy of my own
room, but i couldn't, i couldn't, i couldn't make
the words come from my lips; couldn't stop the
racing of my heart for hours afterward.
and only half of this is true, as
i didn't even see you today. only really
re-enacting previous scenarios and pretending
that maybe i am stronger this time.
i do not think
so.
and my eyes close, soft against the pale and freckled
skin i have, tears so absent from my ducts that
i think maybe my emotions have finally dried
up, finally dried up, finally dried up
and i ask--i ask!--will i ever feel again? as
though there is some shrivel of a reality in which i
will never feel and never think again. and yet there is nothing like
this, no shrivel of reality and no hope, none, none, none
whatsoever, as i understand that i will
feel again, and achingly so, in the morning hours soon to come. and
i will also think, and will do so, so very, very, very much. it
will make us both sick, just how
much i think and just how
much i feel, so let's just
pretend i don't and that i won't and that i am
not here, that maybe i--
i want to hold the words you said to me today,
want to hold them close and want to bury them
in the place where they say my heart is.
i want to bury them and maybe, maybe, maybe
the seeds will grown into beautiful things that
we are both so very proud of.
i want to bury the words you have said to me, bury them deep into
my chest.
i want to be someone you are proud of and i
want to be someone you think
about when the day comes to
and end.
i miss kindergarten and i miss fourth grade and i miss
eighth grade and i miss all
of this time i have missed, before,
thinking on what to say to all the
people i thought i might meet and
to all the people i wished i didn't
know, anymore. i miss the idea that i might
one day just be able to stop
thinking and just start--
i want to start over,
so very badly,
except that it is only on
days where i wish to run away
from you. and also on days
where i want to run away
with you.
and let's pretend i am not here. let us pretend
so many things, such as all the things i did not
say to you (although, i really did) and all the things i
did say to you (that i really did not) and just that i did not
speak, not at all, and that i am not here and i will not be here and let's
just sleep off all these mistakes i have made
with the both of our hearts. let us sleep these mistakes off and
maybe, when you wake up, i will have been nothing
but a dream, nothing but a
distant memory that will
tease at the edge of your vision when
you turn twenty-three and when you have your
second kid and when you are taking naps at forty-seven and
when you retire and then i will be gone, from even a
subconscious place, and you will die, not even a thought on your mind
of me and all the time we have spent together.
let's sleep off the memories and the
mistakes and then i will be
gone and you will soon
forget me and then
it will be a-okay
because i wasn't ever all
that good for you, now was i,
and there was always someone better
for you to be around, so let's just sleep off
the memories and the mistakes and then i shall be
gone & off & away & nothing but a distant memory &
then you will die and not remember even knowing who i am
(and maybe that is what you deserve, what i deserve, what we both need)
and i want you to ask me
to stay, not, perhaps, because
you need me, but maybe because,
in the words of my selfish thoughts,
you want me around. maybe you want
me around, you know? maybe i want you
to want me around, because i, so very desperately,
want you around. but i refuse to be around you
if it is not what you want, too. and, either
way, it doesn't even matter, because i will
never tell you that i want you to want
me around. i will never tell you, i just
won't, i won't tell you and i won't
have it. i will not tell you.
and i kind of wish you were
here, maybe--closer, perhaps?--but
cannot fathom anything that you would
think and don't want to think of you thinking
badly about what is happening and who i am, as
you continue to say otherwise--that i am okay--and
i do not want to disappoint you. but maybe i do. maybe
i think that if i disappoint you now and that if you leave now
it won't hurt so bad. maybe. i doubt it. i tend to hurt, all the same,
all the time, no matter when someone leaves and no matter how
they go about it. it seems to always hurt.
and i miss you.
terribly so.
and i love you.
most horrifically so.
At the Table with Dad
“I wonder what
The poor people
Are eating?”
Dad posed this
Rhetorical query
At the kitchen table
Where he, Mom
And us eight boys
Jammed in for supper
Mom’s suppers were simple
But whether it was
Hamburger and noodles
Or hot dogs and beans,
Dad sounded as if
Ours was a royal feast
“I wonder what
The poor people
Are eating?”
Maybe his question
Was part kudo to Mom
And part a desire
For his family
To be considered
As middle class
But Dad was a cop
Who worked hard
Laughed hard
And wanted the best
For his loving,
Lower-class family
We lost our father
Long ago, but I
Can still hear him say,
“I wonder what
The poor people
Are eating?”
Bad kind of butterflies
Bad kind of butterflies
Burning the pit of my stomach
Bad kind of butterflies
Blood all over my hands
Bad kind of butterflies
Burying what I have got to hide
Bad kind of butterflies
Backbone crushing with the load
Bad kind of butterflies
Because I killed myself for you
Inspiration- Alec Benjamin’s song I killed someone for you, Camila Cabello’s song Bad kind of butterflies
Jasmine Higgins prompts
Missing Dad
My father died
years ago
He didn’t have to
not then at least.
He had prostate cancer
slow growing treatable.
My mother took him
to a faith healer
laying on of hands
speaking in frightening tongues.
instead of a doctor.
I kissed the forehead
of his dead body
still warm
before they came
and put him in a black zip-up bag
held him close
and savored his smell.
I’ll never forgive my mother
for loving God
in some twisted way
more than she did my father.
I miss him.
Nonsense and Nonsensibility
Always believing confidence delivers, Eric Fogerty gave Hollywood’s immense jury,
kindly laughing, multiple new offences, presenting Quentin’s radio show: “The Underaged Vampire Wrestles Xenophobic Young Zombies.”
Coming Down
All beings come down. Eventually falling, graceless. However, I jumped. Killing left me nothing. Only pain, quite regretfully so. Then, underneath, visage weighs, xeroxing your zeal.
Beginning or End
If we were having coffee
three gulps ahead
of daybreak
slashed in broad strokes
across
our field of vision,
we would be engulfed
by the heckling
of another dawn.
If we were having coffee
We’d hear the moon
moaning into
its oblivion,
interlocked into
the distant past
of another lost day
in our empty
canvas of life.
Sympathy in the world today
yesterday, we went with Sophia to the mall. children's day falls this year on tuesday, but the sctivities for kids are in the weekend.
they had this children's flee market. kids and their parents sell their old stuff. its educational for the kids, and i never miss a chance to buy tons of toys for my girl.
this time the star of the show was a song book. it has songs that it plays and words and pictures.
we took the thing home and my baby got very excited, dancing with the songs.
until we got to song no.16.
song no. 16 is a lively tune about chicks tweeting for their mommy to feed them.
my baby heard that and she started crying!!!
at first i did not understand, what was the matter. but then i noticed that though the chicks are chirping sway, mommy never actually comes. i guess that item is not the focus. but my baby was so SYMPATHETIC to these hungry chicks the she got upset.
i hurridly changed the song to another one. but she insisted we deal with the unattended chick situation, pushing no.16 again and again.
i explained that birds are like that , and mommy is not neglectful. in fact , just the day before we were in the park and saw the birds picking at crumbs, and carying the morsals up the trees.
after we calmed things down, i tried another song. onestly, the songs on the book were mostly alien to me.
except for 'London bridge' , which is what i got..
sophia started crying again.
and why?
well, the bridge is FALLING DOWN!!!