It’s one in the morning.
I zoomed into Lisa’s room
and threw myself on the bed where she lay reading
in a near virtuoso, Fosbury flop.
She bounced, jostled by my mechanical bed wave.
“I hate goodbyes,” I said, indignantly.
“You’re not strong on hellos” she said, not looking up.
“They’re so bone-marrow deep,” I went on, “they steal hope away.”
“Did that sound pretentious?” I asked her silence, a minute later, somewhat self-consciously.
Lisa took the yellow, #2-pencil out of her mouth—just long enough to answer.
When she studies, she chews on them, seemingly eating them like french fries.
“Yeah,” she says, “but I get cha.”
“I know,” I said, smiling at the ceiling, because in a rooted and real way, she always has.
I’d be a different person if we’d never met.
I feel very grateful for that.
“Your boy’s flown?” She asked, using her pencil to hold her page and finally looking up.
It was an ironic, near-rhetorical question, she knows he’s gone and she knows I know she knows he’s gone.
“Yeah,” I admitted.
.
.
Songs for this:
4am by girl in red
Don't Stop The Music by Rihanna
blushing! by BETWEEN FRIENDS
The avocado’s belly-heavy body
splits clean, revealing its seed, polished
like a child’s marble, or the tooth
I left under my pillow
before I learned what parents keep.
The flesh, yellow-green,
curls in on itself self-consciously
exposing a betrayal of aging—
edges browning.
I promised to make guacamole,
but the blade waits patiently,
and no one is watching.
How does one resist the temptation?
I dreamed my way here
I’ve had my cringe moments
I feel pressure, I lose perspective
I’ve wholeheartedly failed
I misspeak, underthink, overreact
I try to do the right thing
the right thing isn’t always clear
I’ve tried to hold on
I’ve let go with grace
I’ve charged ahead
I’ve stepped aside
I self-sabotage, then try to do better
I’ve self-consciously retreated
I’ve stood up for others
I’ve backed down and apologized
I’ve rinsed and repeated
I’m a chameleon, but I’ve never been perfect
I’ve under-reacted to challenges
I’ve overreacted to the ordinary
I devalue likeability
I indulge the language of play
I share my human experience
I don’t know what else to say.
Dimmed Eyes crack their shells first.
You rise up in the half light of a fading moment.
This is the plane – wait, tie a rope
hitch it to a trading places moment.
When you passed away
leaving a layer of makeup and clothes strewn
upon a tilting floor
the mind went wandering on its own,
it returns now with the debris it found
loosely bundled into a persona.
Twist some knots into memory.
Plan a-head, then insert body
as an Allen key does into the right
socket.
Be sure to leave your big red heart plug
jammed tightly into this matrix of
electrified reality.
Loose ends can dangle for a while.
You’re within a workable shape now,
you’re fingers in a glove.
Time to shuffle self-consciously
from behind the lens,
let eyes see what no other being can see,
for your hand-made once more,
spun-out into an opaque silk by mind-moths
and now can fly blind
utterly unnoticed.
There is something in your eyes
That seduces my inner self consciously;
They set my soul free to fly,
And leave my body alive surprisingly.
My heart falls into your eternal trap
Love me good and I'll make you forever mine;
Give me a chance for my spirit to tap,
Into your life so I have you in my mind.
Love me good and I'll give you my time
Kiss me good and I'll give you my spirit;
Keep me forever in your melodic chyme,
And I'll make this experience worth living it.
Make me fall under your spell
Keep me in the comfort of your arms;
Never release me from your life so swell,
Because you fixed me with your charm.
Family Portrait
Do you see
It's nineteen seventy
on the pier in Dún Laoghaire
We self-consciously facing his camera
his rasping plastic camera
And us together with
smiles scattered by blinding sun
Six of us in the sound of gulls
the applaud of surf
Worlds of timeless ancient rhythm
whispering constantly whispering
Time hidden from us all
Did you get it
Did you get the picture
Yes he said...
And at last we move as if statues frozen
for a thousand years
not to know time would not wait
Late for the Nativity
I stand among the throng
Self-consciously
Singing with the angels
Quietly
Sensing the future
Yearning out
In front of me
Revealed
Symbolically
How it will
Always be
Odd one out
For all to see
The only angel
Without wings
by Gail
Oh Say, can you see?
What it's like at fifteen,
Hair's greasy gleem,
Pimples burst in the night...
What so self-consciously
We hide,
By Clearasil's cosmetic paste,
Gave truth to our fear,
That our friends might
Whisper in each other's ear...
"See that mountain on his nose?
And he hopes nothing shows!
O, say he's a jerk,
If he thinks that stuff'll work...
Soon a crater will lie there,
And he hopes no one will care,
Distracted by his hair's greasy gleem,
Yet we will all stare...
At that sad looking face,
He looks like a disgrace...
A teen leper for sure,
Until they fine a sure cure
For that ghastly teen curse,
And this will be the last verse....
One day he will outgrow,
That fear and he will then know,
That a smile is the best distraction,
And lead to female attraction.
Tethers and chains attached to my brain
Never have I been so aware of…
Lack of control
Gnashing and gnawing on shriveled remains
Constantly aware of…
Misplacing my soul
Shrouded and veiled to cover the stains
Self consciously aware of…
Failed attempts to contain and conjole
Denying and slighting all of the pain
Seldom aware of…
Evolution into characters and roles
Clawing and clamoring for some refrain
Deliriously unaware of…
My fragile mind’s mechanisms of control
Creating and substituting; personas to gain
Self awareness…
Gone; what once was whole
Now cleft in twain
As the lights die down in this old town
I sit and sip my beer;
Self-consciously I wear a frown
On the loneliest night of the year.
The revelry spills over distant hills
As the midnight hour looms;
Resignedly I raise my glass
To toast the lovelorn tombs.
For the buried days of all her ways
Seem to animate in my head;
Despondently I plead them live
And come back from the dead.
The sweetest face I cannot replace
With an ocean of spirits and wine;
Convulsed with tears, I taste her mouth
And grieve for she was mine.
Acting tough is never enough
And neither is alcohol;
Unfulfilled I fall to bits
For she who meant it all.
I sit and stare at an empty chair
And find that I believe
In self-destructive self-pity
On this coldest New Year’s Eve.
The fire goes out and I fully doubt
That the passing of a year
Might signify some bright new hope
For love and life and cheer.
I will drink some more then hug the floor
With nothing else to do;
For nothing is all I have become,
Nothing without you…
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