Tuesday, September 11, 2012

The Breakup



I can’t be your friend anymore
I said
clenching my jaw which
I’m painfully learning
in some cases
is better than biting my tongue

I’m sorry, I said, though really,
at this moment, I’m not
But I can’t be your friend anymore,
because you refuse to hear me
when I say I cannot
keep storing your king size bed
in the  tiny urban apartment
that I now share
with my boyfriend
and besides 
keeping it this long
was never the deal

Now that sounds just silly
but it’s not.

Our friendship
began when our parents
would lovingly lay us down on their
king size beds in one another’s houses
so they could share dinner and laughter downstairs
and we would creep like burglars to the top of the stairs
to eavesdrop and giggle and imagine what
it’s like to
be a grown-up

The thing is
if she cannot even try to picture
what my apartment looks like right now
then she isn’t even trying
to imagine
the grown-up me

Copyright September 2012

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Remember


I. 

Some say,
When you find yourself
in darkness,
remember, it’s your choice.

 
I say,
What planet
can resist rotation?

 
How quickly
earth revolves
day into night. 

II. 

Memories must be mined
and stoked like coals
 

No use are they
hidden deep within the earth
we all become
 

Perhaps they’re right that
if we wake before the dawn
we will remember
all it lights.
 

III. 

Oswiecim
is one of many
Polish names
for murder

by no choice of
my foremothers.
 

Here burned innocence
stoking absence
scorched into the soil.
 

And yet the sun still rises
over fields of
hopeful cornflowers
 

So very long I’ve remembered
this particular darkness
in which I never lived. 

 
IV. 

So finally one morning
I inhaled beauty
like they in all
that dust did faith

My arms outstretched,
hope rising from city streets,
wires slicing through
a tentative prayer. 

 
V. 

Perhaps the answer,
is so simple: 

Speak love
in any language
no matter what
the time of day. 

And yes,
even when it must
be whispered.
 
 
 
Copyright September 2012