anxious

it's cold out tonight
not unseasonably
but still
it is cold
and it is drizzling
the way it's supposed to
in November
but it's December
so
it should be snow
But still
it's only drizzle.
I keep catching myself
watching for your car
whenever there's a strong wind
which is more often than not.
And I just want you to come home.

spectator

she's younger than I am.
she's younger than I am and engaged.
I suppose I shouldn't care
shouldn't be surprised
shouldn't feel less than
and deflated
but it is something that I can't help most times now.
"That would be me if only ..."
as if that means anything.

It's more than me
this feeling of unimportant
how pathetic is that?

We live out our lives in comparison
and never realize that we're always better off than someone
except the one of us
who isn't.

I've come to envy all of them
all of us
the pretty
the happy
the engaged and moving on
the grieving
the trying
the failing
those of us
we can't ignore
because their pain is too loud
it would be something
and I would belong to them.

But I don't.
and I'm older than she is.
and she's engaged.

and another thing

i really am doing my best here.
i'd say it hurts me that you won't see that-
but i know how much that would bother you.

ramble

it's autumn here
and we are slowly winding down the year
the countdown has started
and it's hot when the sun shines directly down
and there is no wind
or one is indoors
as I should be
and only then
the rest of the time
we exist in what is unseasonably cold
for this time of year
though we remind ourselves
to be thankful
that it is a cold breeze
and not a slow-moving chain of tornadoes
that ripped open the heartland last week.
and we are
I am
thankful for knee socks
and hot coffee
in paper cups with cardboard sleeves
because they create a momentary
break in the otherwise
almost unbearable cold.

And it has been unbearable.

the first six months
we thawed from the sudden frost
that coated our exteriors
and cracked against the everyday strain.
The past five and half months
we have spent in pensive dread
keeping ourselves busy
hoping we will wake
on that day
and forget-
be washed clean.
it's less than four week away now
I don't want it to come
and bring another influx of news crews
but it would be nice
to stop treading water
and swim
or sink
anything is better than this now.

start again

the leaves have been orange for weeks
and they trip over each other
on their way to
wherever they end up.

I feel like I should know this.
poets are supposed to know these things.

But I honestly have no idea
what happens to the leaves when they die
where they will go where they're gone from here.

They go to the ground
and after that
I don't know.

a saturday off

I wrote yesterday.
finally.

behind the foundry

there's a pavilion
by the river
if you can call it a river
behind the coffee shop
the third coffee shop
that I've counted
next to the old country antique store
that is still an old country antique store
even though the foundation is crumbling
and I've never seen another person in there
besides the owner -

there's a spot
on this pavilion
where the fence is broken
and I have a three foot wide
unobstructed view
of the water
as it rushes in the spring
after it tires of being snow
in the summer it skips and jumps
over rocks in its way
and by fall
it grows weary of traveling
it talks and talks and talks
then sleeps a while
until it wakes again next spring
and it all starts over again.

the water doesn't care
for troubles-
it doesn't have the time
for pain
or sorrow
it only wants to move
and roll
past me
on the pavilion
by the hole in the fence
where I can see everything

leaving me behind.

and tomorrow is October

I had such hopes for today.
This afternoon,
I thought
I would spend writing
editing the next
great American novel
that I have yet to coax into a second draft.

"I will write."
I thought.
"I will write
and create -
sit in quiet
with only the brook for company."

But I grabbed the wrong notebook
the one where I had drafted
that letter
and saved the final copy
the letter to the community
last year
when I thought the world would end
after I knew about Lauren
before I knew about Ben
and I wouldn't have minded
the world ending then
everything was so cold
and dark
and I wondered
if the light would ever find us
show us what we were missing
while we were missing
who we missed.

But it started before the notebook
before my hand took liberties
made my handwriting
unrecognizable.

It started before I'd ordered my coffee
even as I started up the hill from the car
my mind already awash with new thoughts.

I might have still been on the highway
wondering if it always took this long
to get here
to the brook and the trees
and the rocks across the water.

It may have started that morning.
It's been nearly ten months now
and I still ache
for some sort of reconciliation
as if I have something
to admit
to confess
that I still feel guilty
for greiving
people I didn't know
and barely knew
so much so
that I don't create new memories
with people who are here.
I just hide in the shade
by the brook
down the hill from the cafe
where the coffee is always fresh
but never tastes the same way twice
and the country store
that is somehow still open
after everything.

Yes. I had such hopes of writing today.

It's too bad.

I won't do any of that now.

since ...

it was december that day
for so many days
it was december
and we sat and stared,
maddened
and sickened
denying what we saw
and all day long it was december
and the next day
and the next day
and the next day.

and the next day we stood in line
our toes pinched cold
and the Beatles blared against the frost
pushed back the sadness
"there are places I remember"
and the line was long
so long
and the moment was brief
but i meant what i said
though i forgot what i'd rehearsed
and as we left
i cried
because i knew what i hadn't known
what i would miss
and i ached
that i'd had to say goodbye
to a boy i'd never known
would never know
and the list of things i'd let get away from me
the names of people i'd forgotten
stretched out for miles
the whole drive home
and all that night
it was december.

december clung to us in sleep
infected our dreams
made one long day
of what had been two
and in the morning
we pushed into church pews
sat pressed up against walls,
on each other's laps
and i was angry
so angry at the reverend
who mispronounced names
and called on us to be thankful
told us to pray
and praise his holy name.
and i wanted to scream
i wanted to slam my fists against the marble
and cry out that
god isn't here
and
why should we thank him
and
how can we pray now
when everything is
the way it is
and for days
it had been december.

and everywhere else
it hadn't happened
everyone else
went shopping
and caroling
drank lattes
and cut each other off in traffic
and i sat and watched them
angry at them all
that their lives had not been altered
their routines were still routine
and i could not even enjoy a cup of coffee
because it could not warm me
it could not soothe me
and it seemed like it would always be december.

and now
i wash my face
i keep my hair from tangling
and i go about
the way things are
the way i have to do them
and i will watch and wait
and wait
and wait
for the ending of december.

and her in a little red car

I was never one for chanting
it always felt forced and juvenile.
never cheered along for the home team
never clapped
or rooted
repeated letters in some mass spelling bee
at least, not without feeling mildly annoyed
and getting a stress headache.
but it was different that day.
the day when she was twenty feet from me
and I could see her
thank her for her work
her bravery
her fight
that she fought for herself
and the rest of us
so we-
so I would not have to.
I cheered that day.
I cheered and chanted and screamed from the barricade
and was proud.

Thank you, Edie.

Thank you. Thank you. Ad infinitum.

5-4

in the morning I watched and waited
with baited breath
and fingernails bitten down
to rough, uneven edges.
And when the decision came down
those words from the nine
that voted five to four
for me
I cried
and you smiled
and we were equal.

everywhere. inward.

and i can't get her voice
the voice of a mother
i can't get that voice out of my head
when she explained
how her surviving son had begged
had questioned her
innocently,
the way that only children can
"But Mommy, you said you would always protect us.
You promised."

The Note

the address on the envelope was handwritten
and I stared at it
trying somehow
to decipher if it had been written
by a man or a woman
the father or the mother
of a murdered child.

It was not addressed to me
the card
but rather to the person
who sent the check in my name
and I hated myself for noticing
and more for wanting it to be my name on the envelope
written with decided care
and strength
each letter evenly spaced and shaped.

I concluded that it had been the father
based solely on the diagonal slant
at which the return address was written
and the haphazard placement of the stamp
that read

Justice.
FOREVER

The lighthouse on the card
was just a picture
a blue, embossed print
on a white piece of card stock
but I kept watching it,
waiting for it to light the way home.

powerless

it's a compulsion
this ache to please you
to make you happy
to not make you unhappy.

a compulsion.

i can't stop it
even when it's wrong
even when it's stupid
even when it makes everything
so much worse.

this compulsion

keeps me up at night
whispers in my ear
all the stupid things i have said
or have not said
to make you happy
to not make you unhappy.

and you sleep beside me
blissfully ignorant
until tomorrow
when all my work
comes crashing down.

not done

if you spoke of one
and only one
and spoke of one and only one
with seven days between
until you spoke of all
you would fill the spaces
that spread from January
to June.

the space of half a year
to speak of one and only one
one at a time
the same way they came
the same way they left
one
after another
after another
and another
until all that was left was silence
and sadness
and cries of someone to help us.

genius

did you ever get so angry
at one person
that you almost went to sleep
in the other room
before realizing that
the person you are angry at
is yourself
because you are
yet again
a fucking idiot?






just me?

too long

that is how long it has been

since i last did this

stupid, trivial thing

that everyone says they admire

but no one pays attention to. 

too long.

that is how long i waited

for something beyond "oh, fuck"

to tell me to do something

that might actually mean 

anything more than 

i guess i have to.

even now i don't want to

even as i do it

see my actions etched in the absolute foreverness

that is keystrokes

and the internet.

even now i can't really say that i care.

but i have to say something.

because i don't want what i said last time

to be the last thing i said.