Stinging Sand

My hands are sticky, sliding in sweat over the faux leather steering wheel in the stale, burnt air of my car on the highway. I turn the radio off as I pass Akron because the radio show host has a shrill and cheesy voice and too many opinions. The rattling metal cage accelerates and I press the rough pad of my foot harder into my sole, watching the dials before me spin with the self-indulgent smile of the destructive. I relish the sound of my poor little car straining under my control and the irritated faces of passengers passed. When I get to 95 I release the little foot-press and let the car rest as it slows.

            I want to stay angry. I want to curse love and God; curse life most of all. I want to hate the choices that I never thought I would have to make. I want to hate the person that I never meant to be. I want to hate the enlarged and hollow heart within that let my goodness and love leak out from its thick walls like an oil spill to poison me. Yet I can’t hate the soft flesh of my sadness. I can’t hate the truth and beauty of my broken heart, flagging like the lost, shrinking, purple balloon caught in a maple’s unfeeling arms. Like its ribbon-string I let him go.

            Thinking of him is like remembering the day that my baby bunny was eaten by an orange tabby. I was seven. 

            The little broken bones lying bloody and still were reflected in a full length mirror. Every step closer dropped another heavy rock in my belly, and as the warm fur of the cat pressed into my leg with affection, the hot ropes inside me wrote the rabbit’s name in a cramping cursive. I cried for hours, but my tear-stained face smiled wide and sang with a dimpled falseness onstage that night. I cried again at curtain.

            I carry on driving through the thick traffic and wonder why there are so many people in the world and why everyone seems so weary but never wants to talk about it. When I talked to him about my weariness his gentle green eyes were crystal serving bowls of flooded peas. The ocean flowed from us in a car hot like this, on a day like this; in the same year, same month, same breath as I take now. The salt blended on our faces as I let him kiss me one last time.

I run my fingers over my paper chapped lips as I grip the steering wheel tighter and blink my swelling eyes. I light a cigarette and pull the explosive poison in waves that fill me with the blackness that I want so badly to become, as if hate would cover my sadness or bend my guilt. I think of him. I think of the bunny. I think of the play and the false ease of being someone else for a while, before warm lights and darkened faces and realize that I’ve grown. I sigh, sliding my sweaty fingers through my greasy hair and refocus on the road and the rocks clicking in my belly. I am sad. I am angry. I am honest.

Dinner with Mother

This morning she cried. Now she sits calmly, staring over our endless tabletop. The clear pastel of her eye carries continents, oceans, eternities. Their blue hides a vast and lonely space, punctuated by the light of old thoughts; turning. Her lace sleeve graces the dirty green tile as she stirs her cup of ocean. Brushes the feathered freckles from her cheek with her eastern hand. Plucks the heads from broccoli and drops them on the floor. She sighs like an apology and runs her cool hand against my face. I wonder why she wants to paint the walls white again. Why she shivers when she’s angry. How on earth she breathes so deeply. Yesterday at breakfast, I asked her. She smiled warm and wide with yellow teeth and said nothing.

Flush

Like a feral cat in the sticky heat

I stalk the gritty pavement.

My bare toes, as Maraschinos,

paint their sweet cherries to its rough face,

gushing and red.

Like the pounding beat from the flesh-filled bar,

I’m distorted in the humid haze.

Its skin tastes like the dripping sweat

of the Mayan chocolate melting in my pocket,

peppery and rich.

Like the bruises bared on my tender wrists,

The blue night encircles and pulls me.

Its wet mouth spits blood to my cheeks

in the air like syrupy medicine,

intoxicating and strong.

Like an arching spine on a basement bed,

my parting lips curl slowly

to kiss the shoulder of my cigarette’s slender arm,

drawing in the glowing combustion he clutches,

fiery and quick.

Exchange

O p  e    n

ing the entry,

 I pass over its margin.

The door leans close to observe its wooden frame.

The flat, stained tree swells beyond its binding root;

it barely fits. The lock

sets in its tarnished hinge,

closing me in with my own. Art-

ful hands glance the doorknob,

Brassy and Loud. My paintings glower

down with hot resentment formed like a string of volcanic islands or

children of neglect. Full mother

To each I lay        dormant        in my

fresh

crumpled sheets. Loose paper

winks at me with the wrinkled face of the old man

who orders a large coffee with extra coffee

and tells me my dimples make me look

like Shirley. My temple dances

with the soft

beating

      dying,

old

rhythm

of my youthful offer-

rings. Around the roses,

dried and tied with a worn shoelace, gather

dusty memories of their bloom and the young, painted hands

who tied them to their beds. Of wilted petals

my room is shaped. Like the forgotten

sculpture set to dry atop my lonely

piano, quiet

and cracking, my fingers

arekissed

with ink. Bleeding colored phrases

to this fresher canvas,

my pen draws

C   l  o se.

Opening

I am saving frilly words for future posts. This blog will be the outlet for my creative writing. I will first post my latest and favorite work, which may consume an overwhelming number of posts in a short period of time, but first things must always go first. I have always loved to write, and I dearly hope that you will love to read.

Merry