Pensive

I can still feel you
not something to be proud of, I know
but on lazy Mondays, or those
morning-afters
when I can’t remember where I am
before sleep runs from my bed
I indulge.
My sisters have never met you
and for that I am happy
but that means
they’ll never understand
the pull across my skin-
even in my mind,
making everything all right.

I’ve learned to make connections
(the sun shines in my window
caressing me with warmth and light
orangehot touch reminds me of you)
to carry me through.

Supernova Connections

I am a supernova
      -of ideas-
much to my sister's consternation.
Nothing is too sacred, 
     no moment safe.
Rewriting the bible,
   rewriting the church,
Spreading 'Harveyism'
     (for lack of a better name)
         across the land.

"No problem!" I say happily, 
     bold, "I'll rewrite them, Cliff Notes versions."
She sounds so serious
     when she asks, almost fearful of the answer.
"Oh yeah, how's that go?"
Grinning, I reply, "Be a good person.
Don't hurt others. Be happy and shit.
     If they aren't hurting anyone,
leave 'em alone. Everyone
     deserves the right to be fuckin' happy."
"Jesus never sounded quite so... Philly."
     came her droll reply.

"Yeah well, if He'd been more direct
     maybe people wouldn't mess it up
quite so much."
 I turn serious, for once, 
   -blink and you'll miss it-
"It makes me so sad
   that people miss the Truth."

The table I sit at is wooden,
     carpenter's son,
strange connections. Harrison Ford.
Red hair, sisters, strange connections,
     phone lines no longer necessary
digital signal bouncing from relay to relay
searching for connections.

"And what is that?" her voice calls
me back before I forget my proselytizing. 
     "If God is Love, then maybe
     a little less hate, would get us what we want-" I frowned, not
quite sure what I meant.
     "I mean Love, the Truth is Love." I nod to myself, tracing
fingers across wooden table.

Autumn- Digression

The leaves are changing again
             some things never change.

I am walking to the park
           alone, again,
    to see if maybe - this time -
I'll find your ghost
    hiding between
laughter and blades of grass.
Alone, in my head, my voice talks
        'maybe, maybe, maybe'
 but I know better than to hope.

The leaves go from green to red to yellow
  changing, ever year.

The ghost of myself stands in front of our door
       knowing you lied, knowing
I will never walk past
         and see your eyes smiling at me.
You promised me forever
  (forever, forever, forever
   the words echo hollowly
   in the emptiness of our house).
You are a liar.
      I am alone.

III

III.

We decorated our bodies
  with galaxies and stardust
and ate cosmic sunbeams
    for dinner.
Turning to me, face flushed, 
    eye bright and arms spread,
 "I've often wondered,
   what happiness was - is -
            could be."
Beautiful eyes, dancing with super novae, 
         and dark  matter -
I watched ever closer, for that change
   From dawn to dusk
because sunsets are 
          never enough
     and stars don't sparkle
          in space. 

The smile is genuine, cast in moonlight
      atmosphere coats us
   in metallic blues and purples
           as the moon rises, higher and higher.
Your sigh is heartfelt, I watch you-
       watch the stars, and say,
"If this moment could be preserved, 
        kept secret.
   I would return, night after night, 
   to when you held my hand
and let me watch the sky."

Conversations

I.

I walk in on her in the kitchen

 Clutching a knife in one hand

      holding her sad smile in the other.

        I watch as her eyes turn dark

     Before I open my mouth,
and pushed air between tongue and lip,

            silence
.she speaks quietly.

            “I like to watch the moonlight
as it streams in your window
  and decorates the darkest parts of you,
   the play of shadows- silvered and eerie.”

      She frowns, and even knowing
as I do, sighs.
'I revel in your secrets, in
how your touch is 

        so sincere 

and yet so-' the pause was murderous
       'so, irreverent.'

                She showed her scars then,
         wrists and forearms decorated
    with the lines of her life, her longing.
'Sometimes,' she smiled then, a melancholy movement.
     'I don’t expect you to
understand, but, sometimes
            I wish I could move in you
                  to know you from the inside

                          out.'

These Are Not My Truths, XI

XI

You told me
my choice of words
gives meaning to my past,
and clouds my future.

‘Intrusive’
isn’t exactly what you’d call it-

And I argue that it’s very nature
is intrusive,

Giggles wander down the phone lines
and I picture you grinning
holding back laughter
a veritable Yangtze dam
Until the spillways overflowed
and you couldn’t help but giggle

“But, that’s the best part!”

These Are Not My Truths, X

X

You always startle

me
with your naked
exuberance
(boxers, never briefs)

Even wearing
almost nothing
but your stupid smile
you make me feel little

(Not small, as I keep trying

to explain to you)

I told you, I don’t

‘do’

Love poems,

All you did was

Laugh at my air quotes

(Damn straight I use ‘em)

and kiss me ‘til I shut up.

When I told you, in all dread
of the missed.
 period

your eyes were happier
than I’d ever seen.
Even as you let me be
the eternal pessimist
and string theories together
of why it shouldn’t happen,
now, to us, in this world, ever…

(I can’t help but admire the strength you exude
not the outside, the muscles made strong
from years of heavy lifting
with your dad, the construction worker,
and not from the kind
the gym gives you after
too much work for me)

“Is this what it’s like
to live with your heart in your mouth?”
you murmur into my stomach
as though the bean sized…
baby
can hear.
I grin, this I understand,
(I whisper my truth, my fear
into your hair)
and reply, “Welcome
to my world. Population
two.”

These Are Not My Truths, IX

IX

All I have left,
i hold my hands wide, open,
outstretched,
are my train ride poems-
looking out.

Her mouth smiles,
his eyes do not.

“The first thing you need to learn, girl,”
the other women told me,
“Is never trust your heart,
it’ll always lie to you.

Always.”

I’ve forgotten that rule,
the wholeness I felt

Under his hand, between his
smile,
with words running like sand
in a desert storm,

Scouring skin.

“The second thing you gotta remember,”
they have my attention now,
“Is never let them see
how much it hurts.
Never.”

No idea how long it took me

To learn that one
But I’ve known it
my whole life.

Measure your misery, carefully,
and never start something

You can’t walk away from.

These Are Not My Truths, VIII

VIII

“Why did you call me?”

She asks, head tilted,

curious.

With arms around me,
protected,
I reply
“Because I knew you’d come.”

These Are Not My Truths, VII

VII

Her skin is copper

Beneath my fingers.

Tangled hair, brown-
her hazel eyes are beautiful

I watch them

darken

with desire.

Protecting her heart,

protecting her soul-

Muscles tense

under my hand.

I want to pull all her pain

into

my body.

Her lower lip trembles, quivers
I love it most of all,

Giving away her fear (and hope)
When she couldn’t speak.

She wonders
why

I want her.

Fire- reflections in her eyes

The delight there,

when I touch her,
Will always be worth it.

She’ll never

believe

She is enough.

These Are Not My Truths, VI

VI

Writing you poems
you’ll never see

because i never give them
to you
i’m afraid you’ll understand them
too much
and stop loving me.

These Are Not My Truths, V

V

see her eyes
glitter in the half-light

they outshine the stars.

i want to cup my hands together
catch the light
show it to her, beautiful.
i’d  like to paint her body
with whorls and sparkles
until she sees my truth.

But I don’t want her to cry for me,
don’t want her tears ,

It isn’t worth that.

(she cries for me anyway
even as she anchors me
to her body, with
arms and legs and
that undefinable
love.

all I have to give
anymore
is an air conditioned
train ride poem
that i composed in my head
and tried to give to her
in lieu of my heart.

it isn’t the same)