Open your legs

I won’t look

I won’t tell.

Close your eyes,

I’ll close mine

I can follow the smell

Heaven scent

So intent

Softly move your hands slowly

Slowly down

Touch your skin

Feel my breathe

Now begin.

With your fingers,

My lips,

Feel my kiss,

You’re so wet

See that look on your face

I will never forget

Feel my hands

Taste my kiss

Taste yourself on my lips

I won’t tell

I won’t say

How you acted today

Just do what your mind begs

Slowly

Open your legs.

A man in a bar

Said Aha!

I’m sure that I know who you are.

I’ve seen you on TV

He said

I said you can’t have

Because I am dead.

A man in a bar

Said “My car”

“It’s new and it hasn’t been far.”

I don’t care a jot

I replied

As I said to your friend,

I have died.

A man in a bar

Held a jar

Of something resembling tar

The smell was so strong

When the lid was released

But I couldn’t smell,

I’m deceased.

Do these men in a bar never listen?

Don’t they see how my skin doesn’t glisten?

There’s no glint in my eye

Do you want to know why?

It will happen to you when you die!

If you were to drown

You would finally realise

Drowning is not poetic.

The gentle sea does not

Softly suck you under.

Drowning

Is not

Poetic.

You would have your breath sucked from you

As your ears burst

And you would finally realise

Drowning is not poetic.

You would regret

Telling people to have fun

Romanticising

A terrible thing

That would make family and friends scream in anguish

Just as you would scream inside yourself,

Begging

For another chance at life.

If you were to drown

You would urge the whole world

To never drown

Or think of drowning

Or even write of it,

These writers with their magic words who glorify death

But can never do it justice

In the reality of its pain and horror.

And you would say

Never drown.

Pop on his head

Made of snow

The scarf round his neck

As you know.

A carroty nose

Some eyes, I suppose

My snowman is ready to go!

She sent me a text

Saying I don't love you

I sent her one back

Saying

I love you too.

She left me a note

Saying please go away

I left one for her

Will I see you today?

Her voicemail specifically

Said please do not phone

I called her right back

Saying

Are you alone?

Here messages fill me

With hope though they say

She will call the police

If I don't go away.

While I attempt to fall a s l e e p

And I’m d

r

o

w

s

y

With exhaustion and cynic thoughts,

Please hold me tight.

Do not let g

o

Until it’s morning,

The sunshine emitting into the bedroom,

P E

*My eyes fluttering O N meeting

Your own.

“It is what it is.” -Unknown

I used to cringe when those words left her lips. My mom said it as some sort of mantra. Often, she’d say something hurtful, then in reply to my pain she’d say, “it is what it is.”

The mother daughter-relationship is truly baffling. There are no sharper blades than the words spoken–no softer fabric than the love woven. We were no different.

Some days, she was a saint and I’d think I couldn’t admire anyone more. Other days, she’d make me feel worthless or affirm the words of those who thought so. As she got older, she became sweeter but I hadn’t gotten past the hurt and she hadn’t finished hurting me.

In her last days, we didn’t speak much. After 22 years of just inhaling the hurt and holding on to it with an iron grip, I told her that I was moving away, so she couldn’t hurt me anymore. I lived in such a black and white world then. I had held on to everything she did and everything she allowed, without seeing everything she did and everything she allowed.

A week before Thanksgiving, I got a call from my sister. She told me that this would be my mom’s last week. I rushed to the hospital in a confusing state of pain. When I saw her, I sobbed, “I’m sorry”, knowing I’d never get the apology that I needed.

After she was gone, a fuller picture was painted, as my family told stories of the pain my mom endured from her parents–stories that she’d been too prideful to tell me, stories that I cannot repeat.

I was confused because while I’d known my grandmother to be especially horrible at times, my mom always took care of her and defended her. I couldn’t understand how should she could stomach to be around her. I’d walk around with my nose up like I was better than my mom, but I left the presence of a dying woman who did her best to love and take care of me. And her best sometimes left me in pieces, but it also made me strong enough to fix what was broken.

In therapy, a truth came to me–maybe when she spoke hurtful words, she was passing down what she thought was mine to inherit.

The extent to which her mother betrayed her cannot be matched, but it does not excuse the pain that I feel and did not deserve.

Today, I have “it is what it is” tattooed on my back, as a reminder of everything I should and should not be. As a reminder that life and love are complex. As a reminder that pain can be healed but not erased.

Handy dandy blues clues plain

all purpose favorite refrain

i.e. "impossible mission"

courtesy complimentary doppelganger

G.I. ("Government Issue", "General Issue",

or "Ground Infantry") Jane

in tandem with Alyson Chain

comes to the rescue attempting

to describe entrenched nonproductive

crippling psychological mindset ascertain

most any reader would consider insane

embedded deep within

genetic code possibly

inherited maternal grandfather,

who emigrated nineteenth century Ukraine,

he (purportedly tailor by trade)

only spoke Yiddish, language used by Jews

in central and eastern Europe

before the Holocaust.

Originally German dialect with

words from Hebrew, and

several modern languages and

today spoken mainly in US, Israel, and Russia.

Mental illness, (or predisposition thereof)

linkedin courtesy heredity,

supposition nuts so crazy nor insane,

yet nothing further about biology

Iberia lee kant hex Spain

emotional status concomitantly

intertwined with possible causes

such as: Autoimmune, Behavioral,

Cognitive, Neurological,

Environmental - inextricably lodged

within cerebral domain

manifesting as countless

fixations, I disdain

(in retrospect) precious time forsaken,

and absolute zero benefits to gain,

and inflicted severe strain

father and mother felt helpless,

especially when anorexia nervosa

nearly imperiled life source villain

rent asunder body electric drivetrain

brought corporeal standstill

loosed maniac running

rampant within brain

emaciation delivered me

at death's door

prescribed medications Mellaril and Elavil

nsync with psychiatric intervention plus

mother as licensed practical nurse wayne

wright me malnourished body nutrient fortified drinks,

I passively did abstain

eventually grudgingly gained

weight buffering scrawny skeletal

skein knee membrane definitely

stunted growth plus chain

reaction impacted livingsocial

courtesy thank you me private Charlemagne

promoted cultural revival known

as Matthew Scott Harris'

Carolingian Renaissance.