Memory «

December 13, 2009

OLD BOYFRIENDS NOT ON FACEBOOK

Once in a tempered moon
I type their names
but the searches return no results.
Only three of them
are missing. I look
on milk cartons and
vodka bottles, rouse
myself from muddled dreams
expecting a somber officer
of the military
to appear at my door.
The more they seem
to have vanished into thick air,
the more their legends grow,
the more mercy
I can offer them
for moving on when I haven’t,
not fully, these boys
whose desertion
leaves me in limbo.

17 comments

May 22, 2009

BURNING JOURNALS

for joshua, for me

Tonight we’ve reached the end
of you, the boy-man growing
inside of me for far too long,
umbilical-lined pages wrapped tight around my neck,
your phantom fetus drawing nourishment
from the leather-bound
books of us,
a breathing, fully-formed body of
work complete with tiny, beating heart,
the body of what you could have been to me
surviving long after you chose to be nothing,
my womb-psyche mutilated from
the many stillbirths and suicides,
the multiple miscarriages that left me
barren like the shelves now empty of our biographies,
ice-numb and drunk to you for the last time,
I terminate the words, lighting the match
to begin this late-term abortion.

23 comments

November 23, 2008

HE, THEM, THEY

He, them, they,
dipped toes into our water,
found it coming
to a rapid boil,
long enough
to change our density just slightly,
then pulled back
and walked away,
leaving our appetites
wet,
yet still hungry.

He, them, they,
do we remember
their names?
Their dialects? The color of their hair?
Were they less
than what the children of our recollection -
muddy-faced, sparkling eyes, crayon in hand -
create them to be?
Are they more
than hastily-written run-ons
in old journals full
of half-truths and justifications?

For me,
a Brandon, an Adam,
maybe a Paul,
countless nameless and faceless others,
an assembly line
of imagination and regret,
manufactured memories
built on the low wages
that they failed to affect me
through pleasure or obstacle,
but then,
I am here,
and happy,
so thanks are in order
for passing me by.

7 comments

August 2, 2008

THE LAST TIME

The blue rocks that made up the parking lot
of your father’s apartment complex were painful against my bare feet.
I tried to step lightly on them, shifting my weight
left and right.
When you’d opened the door,
my heart somehow recognized the moment. It beat hard
against my chest,
and I had to fight for breath.
I’d brought you coffee.
You had asked for espresso,
but I brought you something sweeter,
a café mocha (and my affection).
You took it, smiled, your eyes
locking on mine for a moment.
I can’t remember our parting words.
You shut the door and I drove away.
Later I remember wondering
what was special about that encounter?
Why had I felt so much?
Of course now I know,
Bittersweet, really.
The last time you saw me, other than in your dreams,
I gave you love.
Remember me this way.

Tag: Memory