Among Post Oaks

But if the brown leaves had not

released from

every branch and twig

to disassemble the canopy,

which now looms gnarled 

and blunted

and exposed

and monochrome

in the morning,

You would not have seen

through them 

the brilliance of the sun

at the horizon 

with blinding

layered complexion

of peach 

and grapefruit 

and mango

Rays reaching your chest

invite you to rest

in this lonely season

still offering watercolor

fit for a storybook

sunrise centerfold

(but only to those

who choose to

look ahead).

slippery slope

when the air is still

and quiet

the puppy I brought home barks from her crate in the bedroom

(feeling sorry for herself)

I no longer desire to fill the silence

layered between us that is

ignored

like dust laden cobwebs in the corners of a skylight

out of reach and otherwise too much trouble to address

each argument a pebble

spit from my teeth

popping and rolling to a stop where it is

laminated by singular conversations

that go nowhere

and where are we now?

separated by a mountain of invisible pebbles

imprisoned within an intangible matrix of weeping serum

in the best of times

you don't reach for me

(and I don't reach for you)

you've never taken it before

(this is new)

but

does it speak to you

(does it speak of me)

that 

the first thing I do is check for your toothbrush?

relationships must have an expiration date

and ours is curdling

it is of greater concern that you might come back

in the middle of the night

disrupting my current with heat and turbulence

rather than stay wherever you went

I don't care where you are if it's where you've chosen to be.

love is a verb

twenty eleven

I knew I shouldn't have divulged like that.

So early, in the dark... With the lights out, his facial expression was concealed (if he even had one).

I love you. I said, though I couldn't be sure it was true. He just felt so big to me. Like someone who could finish what he started. Like someone whose arms fit right around my damage, my weary, my hope.

Before that, all he had ever mustered up to say was I think I'm falling for you after three or four too many drinks. Since the first night we met, it was no secret that I don't play hard to get. I was there for the taking. But instead I found myself giving (against my therapist's advice).

He didn't respond right away (he never does). But at least he held my hand through the night.

twenty fifteen

No one has ever asked for the privilege like that.

As if this were our first time and he wasn't sure if I might regret it in the morning. Tonight, it is my expression that is hidden.

May I make love to you? Plain words, but disarmingly sincere. He whispered in a voice very new to me. To be honest, the phrase make love solicits a somewhat hostile disfavor. It sounds trite. And it reminds me of New Year's night years ago when my sister was a baby and my step-dad insisted on making love to my mother in a hotel room so small I could feel their breath from the adjacent double bed. So, I guess that means I much prefer to fuck. Perhaps because my ex husband treated me like a B-side porn star. Perhaps because then, at least I know exactly what currency with which to bargain. Perhaps because I don't know the difference between a good love and a good fuck (giving it, getting it, wanting it).

A barely audible yes.

in the first degree

first glance

first kiss

first touch

first chance

Where does love go if it does not die?

If it never fizzles, fractures, or morphs into something ugly?

If it is not burned at the stake or strangled empty of all its good intentions?

If two people choose to walk away from a worthy thing because love is not enough?

Where does love go when we are simply…

over?

Will my lost love be shunted into a bank of unclaimed property, collecting dust until something triggers memory of its existence?

Will my saved love burn holes in my pockets and trickle out the bottoms until I have nothing left to give?

Or will I give it away too freely to underserving beneficiaries, uneducated of its value?

Will my quiet love find peace in another heart, in another town?

Will I bury it within my body, only until I explode with the madness of missed possibility?

Will I rest it on a shelf, high above arms reach, so that I can see but cannot touch?

(Please, God) Will this love fade into something more tolerable?

Or will it become impossible to say his name without resentment?

I am quite sure that love like this cannot die of natural causes.

No, love like this must be murdered. 

Caitlyn

It's my first day at work and this young girl is an eager stranger
yet something unnerving clouds our introduction and all I can remember is her mouth.

Her mouth with the corners that turn down in a way that makes my stomach sour
even though she has a pretty smile.

A pretty smile, with full lips and straight, white teeth, unaware that its particular phenotype only reminds me of another mouth on another girl.

Another girl who used to be my friend with another mouth that used to laugh with me
and share wine and secrets and shadows.

Shadows now hang low over my brow as I try and focus on her questions
though all I hear is the blurred sound of air pushed through that mouth.

That mouth of a stranger that makes me want to slap her for being such a hypocrite
with the laughing and the wine and the secrets.

The secrets that she didn't tell with her mouth turned down were actually the most telling
...but this young girl is just an eager intern and it is only my first day at work.

Mr. Sandman

but for a thin, deceitful fraction of time, in the disconcerting wake between the things you want and the things you have, I believed he was there, lying in bed with me

wake up

Or Bust

The elephant in the room has walked out. 
_________________________________

I've been writing this blog for about a year and a half now. On quiet afternoons, I like to flip back through the pages and see how the manuscript changed. How my own vision has progressed. What stories are still buried in drafts (or, worse, in memories). If you've read closely, you may have guessed that my prose of past and present are wholly intertwined; nevertheless, these bits are absolutely true as lived except for chronology. When it comes to the ghosts of men haunting these walls, there was S.B. (who could not be encouraged to speak the truth), there were "the in-betweens" - including Mike (who now finds it best to leave my messages unanswered) and my beautiful French chef (for whom stories are few but cloaked in mystery), and there is Jack. Humble, sweet Jack (with whom my heart is currently entangled in an impossible situation).

So, if you happen to stumble upon this house routinely, then you might soon find stories of "the afters" too. (Those are yet to be made.) My only hope is that I am not stuck in a loop already lived.

I'm done with the Midwest, for now.
Heading back to Texas.

Please please please, just help me untangle.

What might have been?

I guess that's what I wanted to say.

What?

That I thought we really had something here. That's all.

Me too.

So now it is I who should forgive the sweet liar (for no such optimism should go unpunished).

____________________________________________

He still tells me he loves me every morning

and as I emerge from a haze of restless dreams

I often wonder if, with each passing day, in these tragically sweet moments,

and before the commitment of dawn

if he means it a little less than the day before.

Overtones of disappointment punctuate our every move.
Our present is muted by our future and what might have been a great love recedes as quietly as it came. 

I study his face - 

his pores

the crinkles near his eyes
hints of silver at his temples.

He can stare at the ceiling, expressionless,
for so long

but when I ask him what he is thinking he says

nothing

and I'm afraid that I believe him.

Meanwhile

my brain is abuzz with sensation

constantly churning and negotiating and wondering

(overthinking)

and this is how I know he will do fine when I am gone for good.

Lies Our Mothers Told Us.

beauty, brains, and charm

you're a catch, they said

joke's on you, Gorgeous

we made no mistakes

Fingers crossed behind my back, I promised myself I believed in miracles

I made a choice.
And then spring came with a cool breeze and sunlight
(winter was gone)
and I wondered if I had made a mistake -

the kind of short-sighted blunder that romantic heroines pursue, only to come running back at the twelfth hour. 

No, he will never chase me. 

(I have to keep reminding myself of this simple and complicated fact.)

The humidity is almost unbearable now, but I'm holding out on the a/c for a while longer. He lets me lay close in the dark, even though he is too hot for covers.

He touches my spine, tracing the space between ribs. Rolling on my back, my leg draped over his - I pretend not to notice as his hands brush ever so slightly closer with each breathless, finger painted circle. He waits for me to invite him deeper and obliges when I cover his hand with mine, working softly to a place outside of my skin. He knows I cannot be saved but he pushes inside of me with a heart full of mercy so that I may at least forget long enough to drop off the edge of sleep.

Thank you. 

bête noire

carefully cupping a tremulous heart with blood feathers
caging its writhing muscle inside angular confines of pink bone
slippery pieces, thick with asphyxiation, slump against one another
and every involuntary pulse threatens outright dismemberment

firmly callused fingertips freshen indolent wounds that will never heal
because they have sprouted deep between the root of survival and my solar plexus
a low-lidded third eye stoically observes from above while viscus drips across barren hips
and it is all I can do to just breathe

haplessly peel back layers hopelessly papered to someone else's walls
salvaging star-crossed hands to prevent purple offal from colliding with silk
plucked from beneath tenuously timid toes as this chest lurches forward
and stumbles along to a whimpering score of weakly gurgling flow

(on the bright side, there is no chance of falling if you never bore full weight)

Constriction

slowly walking down the hall
faster than a cannonball...

standing forward
rushing upright
freezing cacophony
collimating light

deciding singular
generating forthright
focusing beam
shaping tonight

hushing whispers
loving slight
asking forgiveness

dysphoria despite

time is tumbling towards us

Disquiet nights and thoughtless turbulence -
disturbulence -
- it leaves me blinking into the grainy darkness.
There are three boys in my bed (twelve legs between us).
If I am careful, no one will be the wiser.
It's 3AM and "trying" to sleep is a perfect example of futility.

Yesterday afternoon I hit a wall. Expecting to stumble heavy and dormant into sleep ends with nothing but disappointment . Energy reserves caked with torpor invite only vague disinterest in going the "extra mile."

I need my clock to reset.

-- One final job interview. Did you know these things take three days? THREE DAYS.
That's three days of being "on." Being "charming." Being "engaged." Being attentive, and thoughtful, interested
(and interesting).

But how can I be interested (and interesting) when all I want in the world is to know what in the world I want?

___________________

We are so glad to have you. 
He reaches for my hand. 
Welcome back. 

Push Replay

Do you wonder what might have been?

Eight years later.
Metal band. Ruddy beard (Van Dyke). Extra tattoos to make it legit.
His face is familiar, but together we are out of context.
He thinks he still knows me.
My wicked breath in his ear,
                               I like to be bitten.

Sunrise recession, an escape back to Atlanta:
Salty with sins and the smoking gun of mouth-sized bruises across my chest, down my legs.

I think he expected some sort of love story. He wanted to sweep me off my feet.
I didn't want to be saved.
It should have ended there.
(But it didn't.)

xx

This Is How

Absentminded musings of time
leak between life and shallow pools of
unfamiliar sex and twilight cocktails.


Mingling among casual context,
chance surreptitiously takes shape
in the serpentine ribbons of heat unwinding
from citrus and chamomile and ceramic.


Inaudible whispers of pause separate the instance of
one thousand twenty nights,
and thoughts heedlessly venture forward,
slipping past well paid wardens of weakness,
to a time when the green sprinkles we bought yesterday at the grocery store
are expected to expire.

I don't think he noticed. 

Loyalty and Logic

If I could just let go 
of the feeling that 
everything would be 
lost -


I do best with decision making between three options. No more, no less.

Pink, green, black.
Mild, moderate, severe.
Wine, beer, cocktail.
Comedy, drama, documentary.
Chocolate, fruit, mint.

It sounds so fucking selfish to say it, but it's true. I have too many alternatives. Too many opportunities. More than three things to choose from.

I've waited nearly two months for a hard offer from the hospital in Atlanta. I've called their bluff on offers for other positions within the company. I've played the game and interviewed with multiple other groups.  (I'm no longer one of those girls who doesn't know what she's worth.) In fact, I'd started to give serious consideration to places I never intended on living. To job titles I never intended on pursuing.

Minneapolis.
West Lafayette?
San Antonio.
Las Vegas?
Australia.
(Tenure?)

Then it came. Then they called my bluff. With a deadline.
The clock ticks in Atlanta.
And now I am back to square one.

Fucking loyalty. Fucking logic. 

Also, I have missed you. 

..

Truth and Consequence

I've toyed with the notion of tearing a page from this place.
A gift of paper folded into paper.

I would sit cross-legged, facing him, and slide it over the (sometimes preposterous distance of) wrinkled bedsheets between my knees and his fingers.

A piece of me.

He would lift it up and carefully unwrap it, meeting my eyes for a moment before looking down to find that he is holding my insides between thumb and forefinger.

I imagine his furrowed brow trying to translate.. to make sense of the context for a time much longer than required to read it through.
Did you write this? he might think aloud.
Is it true? because he won't remember.

And what do you suppose he would do with the tiny story I gave to him?
Would he find value? Or indifference?
Would he find me there? Or just strung out words?
_________________________________

No one knows about this sanctuary of mine. Not Jack. Not Laila. Not my little sister (who might be too wrapped up in her own life to read for the sake of being a part of mine, but who should one day stumble into this darkness because we are two old souls lost in time).

I could delete that last paragraph. That would tidy it up -- a little nip/tuck into something simple, something more complimentary of the Christmas packaging.

I might die forever in the sins of such omission. 
Would you?
_________________________________

brittle

You are the most incredible woman I've ever met. 

Those eyes, dramatically painted in the color of royalty with lashes for days,
a pale shoulder slipping through an oversized neckline -

She will pull you in

and lift you up

  up

                p

          u  

   

and the world falls away
because you are the only person that matters

Mon amour...

You might become addicted to that rolling high
of everything she embodies
for you -
a challenge and a novelty, adventure and good fortune-
undeniably there is no one like her in the world -

yet suspicious
of all who came before and after 

presently
you may find yourself
passionately compelled 

to snatch her down and smash her up

claiming a piece for yourself
before she gets to thinking
she's got it all

with
or
without
you

10:21

I used to gasp and feign surprise, fingers brushing my collar bone. 

I can't believe you remembered, I would say sweetly. 

Season and space were irrelevant when the clock flipped. 

Twenty one minutes after ten. 

Ten twenty one.

Day or night. 

10:21

Happy birthday, baby! He would turn to me and smile so brightly he made strangers believe it was true. 

Of course it was a silly second of nonsense. But even then he was unhappy because my "birthday" came around twice in a normal day and his only once in the afternoon. 

I wonder if he still plays the game. For how many days or months or years will he silently think of me when the clock strikes while she is none the wiser?

Soak

She likes to feel the slow swell of freedom from the source.
Flooding from the spout to drown the day, hot vapors swirl overhead, clinging to quiet lips and settling into ghostly shadows on the glass. Flushed thighs demarcate a vulnerable shade of pink and she slips her toes beneath the tumbling heat

thankful to be alone.

Hooded eyes are cloaked with careless smudges of this morning's mascara but she does not bother. Legs slide against one another, smiling because they are smooth. Fitzgerald propped on the seat (desperate to be devoured) - but languid arms are heavy.

And when this rescue burns cold, it is cast into a scientific spiral of pity and lavender, recklessly slurping and sucking as she stands - it is gone. Saturated foot prints soaking into the hardwood prove that this sort of solitude is fleeting.