I've been losing keys as long as I've been using them like perfect clarity, a key won't stay. If you can keep it in your pocket hey, you'll open doors the same way every time. But lose the key and you'll be sitting on the step or emptying your purse. So when I write I take my wallet out and scatter coins to see if perfect clarity could have been hiding there. I mean, I had it yesterday! Why have I lost it now? I really, really need it for this door!
this is the blank page called the rest of your life pick up the pen and write the old story on those brittle yellow pages will no longer do for this crisp place that is the future you will write new stories for, in dark red ink from veins of gold that can no longer be the limits of your vast imagination in the future there is love unending, there is joy unbounded, there is pain with soft enfolding wings and tears that streak your face but do not run into the cup called shame but water those white fields with scarlet poppies where the golden veins of morning light the sky and you pick up your pen and write
I’m going for liberation by June it’s not an original idea I ripped it off a guy so ballsy to suggest that what I thought you had to hush and hold with receptivity and quiet hope could somehow actually be “gone for” like a peak you set your sights on and attain I’m going for liberation by June it’s my idea now like a map or like a virus liberation might be catching and it travels through the fingers when I thought it was a thread you try to squint at through a needle and the angels dancing on it will decide for liberation I’m going. It’s become a song now beating rhythm in my head, if he can do it, and can will it, and can make the freedom come by putting one foot after one foot on the mountain maybe someday I can do it too by June
the body worker found her resting somewhere near my tailbone first, then curled around my heart the warmth still there and asked me “what’s with all these references to dogs?” she is shining on, so why am i surprised? but still my body must be talking ‘cause i haven’t said a word “she died last June” i say it once again, the way my tongue keeps flicking at the cut inside my mouth that just won’t heal “i’m sorry for your loss” it’s what they say, what i say too the closest we can get to someone else’s grief i feel her in my body but i never find her in my home my fingers holding the last bite stupidly for no one and my feet avoid the memory of her faithful in the dark beside my bed there she isn’t, there she isn’t, there is where she rolled onto her back and squirmed with joy to see me home, her body would be talking even though she never said a word and there the last place where she laid her head upon my lap and sighed, its always happening again there when i step across the doorway yes i always feel it in my throat, my hands, my eyes while new age music plays the body worker presses on my shoulder, “that’s the reason” she is smiling “all the references your body makes to dogs.”
looking back i can’t remember if the interest was romantic or was just a moment when i found a missing fragment of myself inside another person looking back
abandon hope if you would dare to enter here this isn’t the story of a great romance there are no happy endings here or anywhere, no feeling can last forever abandon hope if you would dare to really love it isn’t the story you saw on that screen happy ever on is not the point true love opens up and breaks your heart, now abide these three and the greatest isn't faith or hope
can we please do nothing ever except sing? like musicals, where there’s a song for when he breaks your heart and there’s a song for when you lose your shoe or when you get lost in the woods, or when you narrowly escape becoming dinner for a woman eating plant whatever happens, there’s a song because some things just can’t be spoken can be sung so can we please do nothing ever except sing? like cowboy ballads, where the stars get in your eyes and someone guns you down but you keep singing even when the hangman tightens up his noose and love is lost forever you’ve still got your horse, your boots, your voice, and your guitar can we please do nothing ever except sing? like hymns, a song’ll carry you to heaven on the wings of angels in the arms of Jesus in the harmony of saints a song is all you need eternity is in the melody, the voice is my salvation, please! I’m asking can we please do nothing ever except sing?
