How it Could Not Work

I almost knew you.
Wishing I could take all
the little things I love,
put them in a box,
show you to yourself.
Your earnest excitement
at a new discovery. Your
sweet solemn frown
while playing music.
Your love for cherry ice cream,
gentle hands on your rats,
biggest doe eyes gazing at me.
How could I not love you?
Wouldn't that work?
No. I already tried it.
My love would not stay
in a box.

~September 20, 2010

Beast

There was a beast at my door,
and I let him in thinking
he was you.
He was not you.
But I gave him your name,
and now he stays.
And when you come I am confused.
Who are you?
Are you the beast that daily
hunts my thoughts,
cuts the meat from my heart?
Why is he curled up,
content on my hearth?
Of whom should I be afraid,
the beast or the boy I love?
Or the one who opened the door?

~June 6, 2010

Doll

I don't want to be a doll
but baby you just wind me up
and I go all day long,
smiling talking laughing walking
happy happy me.
At night I miss your hands
on my key.
Smile falters, laughter turns
to wails, movement slows to
a jerky
halt.
My words stutter and stop,
leaving an empty porcelain head.

~January 21, 2010

Snap

I try hard to
attenuate
my longing for you,
loosen the tension in
a long clothesline
between our visits.
But my heart still beats,
and with every beat
pulls tight enough to
snap, stinging all the worse
for my efforts.

~January 17, 2010

Blackhole

I am a black hole,
taking in matter in the form
of ice cream, cookies candy chocolate
cake funnels toward me.
I absorb salt-soaked chips and
grease-laden pizza.
I'll stretch peanut butter
and jelly out for a whole
loaf of bread,
stretch milk
for a whole box of cereal.
Nothing will escape me,
not even the light
of my lite power bars.
I am a blackhole!

Except...

I am not so powerful.
Items like celery,
lettuce and grapefruit
resist me.
Green pepper and
apples are left behind.
And I cannot turn
the energy of what I eat
into nothing,
or send it to another time.
It circles round me,
rings on a planet spinning
out of control.

~January 21, 2010

Waterfall

I'm sorry.
Wanting your forgiveness
is a waterfall, never stopping flowing
over the edge of the cliff.
Regretting what I did wrong
is drowning at the bottom.

~September 20, 2010

Speed of Light

Connection
was always the fun part about it.
I saw the map of my mind with
beautiful stellar lights lighting up,
and rejoiced to discover
another starry set of thoughts,
another beautiful mind.
What a universe we'd create.

Now I see the dark side
of the galaxy, when you
fall out of orbit but my thoughts
are still stars, still lighting up
places I'd rather not travel.
This spaceship I call my brain
making connections
at the speed of light.

~September 22, 2010