[Excerpt: You're Entitled to a Life]

....




What, my dear, have you left opened?
A lock, a door, the drawer your gun's in?
come blazing
catch me at it
I just want to look around

I want to see if you've anything left of me
and what you've got now

I'll bet it's all benign and near-boringly plain
a couch, a chair, lots of books, her fucking hair everywhere
and your cats wondering, Who are you, dear?
Who am I indeed
wandering about


...






Excerpt of unpublished piece
AABAugust 2014

American Man

Full-time job

House
wife
kid

Car
truck
boat

motorcycle
cigarettes
gun


American
man
I know him

the greatest love
I never had


He is
nothing

& bound to
no one

he is
his own
greatest disappointment

redemption through
procreation


a man
a man
a man




AAB
December 2017

What It's Like to Be a Man

I have yearned in my heart to know you
to know what it's like to be a man

But I feel that you do not yet know you
or what it's like to be a man.

I dare not reveal I still love you
through your veiled smile
I taste your fear

Fear and woe and anger so deep, so deceitful
My love lost in the canyon between us
We misunderstand each other until the end of time
only aligned in our unique hate and pain
never again to cross with joy or happiness
I ache to not know 
what it's like to be your friend again.

Through my tears I know, I feel it
I am closer than you'll ever be
to be the hero, to be a whole man
who loves, owns kindness, and eschews cruelty.

Who wins here?  Who's the victor?
When I get to keep my love and woe
and you your indifference and secrecy?
Will I rise, even empty-handed?
Will love keep after time, through eternity
when unmatched, ignored, and deserted with firm purpose?

Although I am confused I understand
there is no why
there is no reason
and there doesn't have to be

But still I wonder 
what makes a man?  What makes a hero?
Do I have the strength to rise?
And be the woman, the hero,
my heart speaks to be?

May/June 2014

Atlantic Waters

I am the lover 

you are the loved

pedestal high

leviathan wide

distraught, burdened 

I have sinned

I have sinned

could not keep silent 

screamed it from the rooftops 

before my letters

met Atlantic waters 

drowned in you once

ere willing

to do so

over and again 

such is the tide,

the wake

Over and again 

Over and again

October 17, 2016

The Old Hutzler's Department Store

Photo: The Baltimore Sun Darkroom, 1987.

THE LAST time we spoke was on a beautiful spring evening in Baltimore.  I called to you as we unboarded the train, having spent the entire trip from Washington wrapt in the mayhem of confusion and my own heavy thoughts.  You had refused to move from the Quiet Car, where I had followed you, sat next to you, said hello, and then left because it was too damned awkward.  You did not join me.  I sat in the next car, near a jolly group of millennials, who were laughing and joking and having their after-work happy hour, as you explained to me previously, was acceptable on the commuter trains.  What a world.

So as we are leaving, I see you get out of your train car and I call your name.  I run after you and you pause for me.  You briefly listen.  The other passengers make their way around us; we are at the Camden Yards station, the last stop.  The sky is blue and the weather never better.  I say, "If there is a hatchet between us, I want to bury it."  And you say I freaked you out with my last letter.  Your eyes are dead and serious.  What had I done now?  I will never get it right with you; we will never have a friendship; you cannot see me for what I am.  I become ashamed and crestfallen.  This is not a fight or an argument - this is something I know I cannot win.  This is not quite hate, rather, a distinct void of love.  Between us is a great misunderstanding.  I want so dearly to know how I can make it right, but am lost.

You are on your way to the ball game; you are hurrying; you cannot stand to be near me.  Our conversation is over.  You are done.  You want nothing to do with me.  As you turn, I admit I got on the wrong train and need directions.  You point me to the local tram and ticket booth.  This is the last kindness I will receive from you.  You never smile.  You clutch your bag, turn your heels, and walk very quickly away.  I don't recall if you say goodbye.

I almost miss the tram, because I wasn't sure which one to board.

I may be in shock.  I am certainly dumbfounded.  I am beyond the point where I want to bash my head into a brick wall because I'm so stupid and sick for your approval.  I cannot exact in my mind what I did wrong, what I might have said, what I had written.  And I know if I try to pin it down, if I really try to analyze how I expressed my feelings, it will only make my head explode.  Because I cannot help being honest.  Perhaps I was too honest and you are not my appropriate audience.

I keep learning my lessons with you, each time a little too late.

My tram car is lonely, with only another woman and man at the other end.  They converse lightly, maybe flirt a little.  I can feel the tears coming now; I don't fight them.  They roll down my face as we pass the old Hutzler's department store.  This historic Baltimore, these gorgeous buildings and impressive architecture, my fellow citizens, rich and poor.  In the fading light of this lovely spring sunset I wipe my eyes.  A little girl is walking with her mother, who is pushing her stroller.  The little girl eyes the train and stops.  She waves to me from the sidewalk, her bright face grinning.


I wave back, smiling, completely sure what love is.











events 2014
written May 24, 2016

An Ongoing List

I want:

to pick up garbage
off the street
and by the stream

to be able
to do plow pose
and not feel like
I'm going to
break my neck

I want:

to learn how to do a
boneless

and to drop in
before I'm 41

and maybe do a
sideways
crow

I want:

to one day
do all the mending
in my closet

to garden the fuck
out of my garden
and beyond

I want:

to examine my discomfort
and for you to examine yours

to contribute something positive

to understand my experiences
do not define me
but help make me who I am

I want:

to stop romanticizing the past
and stop idealizing the future


I want:
I want:


I want:


to be here


now


and grow

with you.










July 2016

Didn't Need It

I didn't need it
but I got it
anyway

it's just a phase
it's just a phase
it's just a phase

stay with me


March 13, 2016

End is Nigh

I'd really like
to make up

before
the apocalypse





March 3, 2016

Resolutions

Allow me
to fuck up
again
and again
and again

and let me
get
the fuck up
again
and again
and again




January 11, 2016

What I Want

What do I want from you?
"What do you want from me?"

If you only knew,
if you could only see

with those damned
amber eyes

and that light that shines
from west to east
right through them



After decades, I can finally say:

A walk,
a talk,

a smile,
and a tomorrow.


And shall you
take a breath

and not know how
to love me
yet again,
yet again?


Oh, darling friend,
please, let's not
defend that sorrow.



What do I want from you?
"What do you want from me?"



A walk,
a talk,
a smile,
a tomorrow.






November 28, 2015