From Last Year

"A New You"

I find it funny how I recognize you and yet not. As if I thought memorizing every look once would be the completed set. Would mean I had total access for the lifespan, and now I am caught off guard, disturbed and dazzled (?) by a new photograph... is it you? I cannot sense the true weight of things, the temperature, the static in the air... cannot sense the warmth in your breath that urges me to believe such a thing, this mimic of your moment is it real? I'd have to hear a confirmation from you to know for sure and even then I'd wonder, what did the sun feel like that day? What were the noises that kissed your ears and who's eyes and who's love attempted to embrace you with a gesture, who's longing to remember these serene moments with a picture kept them from touching your soft skin, your supple lips, your sweet taste? Who made the subtle mis-calculation that kept you enshrined, a digital alter, a token gesture of worship the same mistake I've made a million times rather than gluttonously devour the moment with each sense, and revel in the pleasure, discomfort, torment and ecstasy of the presence of heaven's sacred creation, you.

My dreams of you are not my hands reaching to hold you, but my heart still pumps to keep the blood you offered warm. In the warmth within me somewhere there is still a sectioned labeled "home" with your name on the mail box, and forever and ever a welcome mat (and at least dreams of hugs for your homecoming).

"Stress Coaster"

It’s funny how stress waxes and wanes

like tides and the moon or the amount

of chocolate I consume, but

to be clear it’s not the stress itself

that rises but the level to cope

with surprises or even the expected.

For instance, during summer I neglected to

keep my coping skills blazing so

while lazying about, I lost my ability to deal,

then as the end of summer neared the feeling of tensions crept up my calves, through my limbs and my lower back, and eventually my shoulders which rose to the occasion and completed the picture of me hunched over tight shoulders and burdened with nothing truly unpleasant, nothing unbearable, not rare not painful, not malevolent, uncaring but rather something exciting, productive, enlightening

The return to school though I felt it like glaciers on my frame,

but isn’t it just more of the same- so why so stressful?

When sedentary for so long it sometimes feels as if I have never done anything. Like I am the dirt, my planted roots take the form of the house and it feels like I could never leave, like I have always been. She says this house is 80 years old, it’s my cranky knees but it'd be so easy to set me adrift tornado, strong wind blow me over, I could be anew. I am the walls, I am this city, I am this job I am secure and unchanging. Revolutionary ideas are surprises, taste of excitement like good poetry, make you feel alive the way you aint been. Am I so symbiotic, I didn't notice becoming part of you, didn't feel you infiltrate me, I thought I had my own long hair, my own wild tongue, my own joyful smile, meanwhile I find you chipping away at my teeth, the fibers of my pants, my many faces all with eyes that reflect you. I forgot my song, started humming a plain one. I thought I was a new born, now find I am ancient or at least middle age. I turned to look over my shoulder and saw what I had been, an adventurer where did he go. I thought I had engineered a new path, find me now a paved one. I been paved on, oil slicken easy, rain slides right off me, aint soaked with passionate sorrow just stained in the meanwhile. Where is refreshing fragrance, where is impassioned discourse, zealous beauty chasing, falling into the plain modelesque notions of pretty, forgetting uproarious laughter, forgetting cosmopolitan color, forgetting statued staring at passing people, forgetting uncomfortable scary, forgetting panic punches to the gut and esteem, the confidence building of day surviving, the chasing of simplicity, the grandiose proclamations of understanding fully and simultaneously knowing fully that nothing can be known so simply. I forgot about dressing scandalously, supported in my ferocity and the casualness -laid back style of being brilliant, brilliantly not normal. Gleam in the eye special. Gleam in the eye everyone. How have I been so detached from my humanity. So blessed and appreciated into comfort, couch pillows, blankets. Not a bum's bindle, not a gifted hat, not a crocheted scarf, an entirely different fidgeting stomach, not tenacious, not disgusted, not angry or in love. Easy to see something is different, the question is how long will I swill it?

How distracting it is

to sit here waiting

always a book or work to keep

me company, but despite my

stated purposes

I come here for you.

And see you in chatting lips,

across filled tables,

what is it you're saying?

and in cheekbones

jaunting out from

Books, I want to know about.

Find in curls and locks that hide

your eyes for a time,

and in your fancy boots

that have their own story too,

and in postures

which attract but,

don't show back

temptation.

So here I sit,

waiting on glances lit

with not just light

but question,

For I know my own have

signaled forth, to every

woman present.

Familiarity in each stranger's face

am I insane?

My memory faltering,

my senses opening to strange beyond

underneath your material guise, you're my friend

my past and future friend.

Only the present then,

is an illusion.

But in every science journal,

I read the opposite

frequently the sacred texts

opposite too.

How I am to trust my senses

listen to my breathing

feel the tightness of my muscles

the dizziness in my step

the queasiness in my stomach

if the underlying, music, is too beautiful

for my unperceptive ears

the truth so magnificent

my eyes blinded

by its flame

either we are one,

or, I, am insane.