Old News

The rain keeps coming.  I saw all of the people waiting in the entrance way yesterday and wondered why the entrance way?  Why not the place?  But today I was in the entrance way, talking to Stephanie on the phone, doing the exact thing.  One foot in, one foot out, waiting for it to stop.  Last year I started thinking that it doesn't drizzle any more, that it mostly pours or does nothing.  This year seems different.

When Heath Ledger died I remember hearing about it from my boss at the time.  He was talking to Elise and he broke the news.  It was a joke.  It wasn't relevant.  But what he said was, "Go ahead Elise and shelve the books.  Go shelve the pain away."

I took comfort in that memory when I got off the desk and had a half hour to shelve some children's books at the library.  Jordan came in and couldn't chat but asked me how my day was going.  I gave a so-so hand shake sign.  He said he hoped the rest of it went better. 

Earlier, when I was on the desk, I read an email that my coworker had died.  I sort of gasped and then walked around the block for a minute and then came back.  There wasn't a release it in, it wasn't that kind of moment.  It was more like the settling in of a lingering cloud, a permission.  A go ahead for the small encroaching gloom.

I found my coworkers excruciatingly annoying after that.  They were separate from me and this thing happening at this other workplace.  I told a few people what was going on and they gave a little pause, but it was like, "life goes on, yes?"  There's a little girl reading a pamphlet in the aisle.  She doesn't know how to read, but she is reading.  There are other small people coming into the world, like August.

I'm really excited about Auggie.  When I think of him and his parents, my heart fills with joy.  New eyes are opening all over the place.  Life goes on, yes.

Bill's death seems different then Tom's.  Both coworkers gone this year.  When I think of Tom, I think of carelessness.  Footloose and fancy free.  Not giving a fuck.  Eating rubbish and staying up late. High cholesterol, genetics, that kind of thing.  But when I think of Bill, I think of toil.  I think of a black man in America trying to support too many people with a warehouse job. Doing custodial work. Stressing into the phone.  The fake gun he took off his son and put in the towel closet. Being responsible to everyone and trying to hide out from it.  Driving a minivan.  Hanging up Christmas decorations on the fence. Stringing things together.

Maybe there was more triumph than that.  I bet there was a lot more than that for both of them.  Icebergs even.  But we only see so much.  Coming in here.  Chatting over coffee or almonds.

The thing about death for me is one day the person is there and then the next day they are not.

Zion is standing next to me at the computer while the rain keeps me in.  I hadn't seen her in about a year, but now two days in a row.  She noticed that too.  As I turn to leave she turned to me.  She held out her arms and I walked into them.  I hadn't told her anything.  We had been standing quietly, side by side.

It wasn't a stranger's hug, it was a lover's hug.  It was a mother's hug.  It was a best friend I wish you well.  It was an I'm sorry for your loss.  It was a sometimes the world is heavy I know kind of hug.  It was a reminder.  There are all kinds of people who work in all kinds of ways, and sometimes they happen to find each other.  

Instructions for Recovering from Court

Text your heartwarmer.
See the girl on the bus lift the stranger's baby onto the seat.
Find fancy leftover party food you were too sick to eat, but now can.  Dip the chip.
Find a dog and love her.
Open a letter from a friend that has lyrics from your favorite singer (your favorite lyrics even) written on the back next to a Chinese proverb stamped on it that says, "One generation plants the trees, another gets the shade."
Sit on the rug.
Scratch at flea bites.
Remember being a person.

Second String Abe Lincoln

Come by and sit for a bit, there is some food on the stove.
hesitant tomato mouth sinking into the dirt,
cars are okay conversation, yes?

your short legs glide over the windowsill
into an inaugural chimney sit.
we came here for a reason
and it isn't to smoke cigarettes.
heartbreak revealed and understood.
moving forward regardless,
curious, but cautious.

something basic got fucked along the way or
all along the way.
you learned affection can't be measured by projections of gravities of loss.
you learned mutuality is the end goal, the elusive happening.
I learned a synonym for great is "galaxy-class".
I learned your story is all too common.
I take a breath and consider.

the cupboard holds the remainders of
sticky s'mores galore.
the water ran brown in the sink off my hands.
I fear those marshmallows are endless.

In a moment I will open a book
and see how Nikki Giovanni wrote that Gwendolyn Brooks wrote
"But common things surprise us."
I don't know why I like you, but I do.

We're dynamos you and me,
characters ripe for comic books.
One romantic gesture leads to the next.

Did you know? or
How could you ever have known?

No More Wishy Washy

Me and N pinky swore and I liked what he said in the car, and it ran through me at the post office.  It was something like, why be anxious chasing new things, when you could just love what you already have? These friends, you know?  His best friend is moving away.  We will talk about it some other time, cause right now, he has nothing nice to say.

We hung out for an hour after the dance.  I crawled into a cubbie mistaking butterscotch for sweetened condensed milk and got called on it.  What is this color?  How many gross words can describe it?  It's not even gross in the end, because it's probably the color of your gross, because in the end I am shifting around on my toes trying not to have a new crush, eating snax, failing horribly.  It's hard trying to decide to stick to what I decide when what I decide could take ten years and no part of my life wants THAT right now, you know?

I got in real close and told him real sternly,"There is something you should know N. People want to hang out with you not only if they are bored, but because you are cool.  You don't have to qualify each invitation with that."

Oh splendid recovery.

The best part of today was the laundry list of the best part of today. The best part of today was everything.  But mostly that time when we were saying goodbye and everyone was coming over to begin again.  When we showed D our symbols for courage and she laughed and laughed.  When P knew about your energy work because I had told her; that somebody knew something about you and that I had helped.  When I remembered we had hung out earlier and melted, the sweat on my upper lip, the polar pop for 74 cents, my first anchovie!  I was scared I would vomit but you of course had advil that O had given you.  Of course she called you to bring some because I told her you still had it. How you asked offhandedly before you left if anyone else needed any, and of course M did.  It felt like caring for each other.  It felt like D's first kale smoothie.  It felt like B admitting he had found one on the table and one in the fridge and he had eaten them both.  Everyone was glad that had happened.  Even me.

H called.  Their trip is over and now they are home.  What was that emotion at the computer?  I want to tell everyone and no one and overflow and gush with this. Oh yes, an appreciation for who we know and what we do for each other.  We should hang out sometime, I have some new poems to share and I am going to learn that song.  How do I know what the words are for this?  Because B called so I had a reason to talk.  "We're just going to post on the website and see if they get to it."

Hey girl.  Remember you ordered a computer part off of ebay without having a meltdown?  Remember you completed a 6 month budget report on excel without having a meltdown?  See. You have courage. See. You are growing.  You're like ten steps closer to having a smartphone with that maneuver.  So what is the wish?  What is the wash?

Self Portrait as a Storyteller

Before we become friends, there is something you should know about me.
I'm not an independent person.  I don't aspire to models of individual success.
This is what I need:
to cast vulnerable expressions in casual conversation
to know my desires have a place to land
to be reminded of lightheartedness and struggle,
of children and revolutionaries.

I didn't expect to know these kinds of stories.  I didn't see this for my life.  Stories of pain.  Stories of empathy.
I wanted stability, but now I am learning how to just be in the boat.
With you and whoever else is here and deciding that yes we are all being in this boat.

There was a dragon, and a lady holding a cup, and a battered soggy flag, and they were the same.
They did an experiment.
Where the dragon tried to make herself small
by slowing all of the avenues that led to pain.  As if these avenues were the root, and they would always lead to pain,
and an external strategy was needed to change the course.
The course was of the lady looking for a drink of water.  

The lady did not go very many places.  But each place she went, she tried to find out more about becoming herself, which looked liked learning to not have a self, which looked like becoming an ally to everyone else.  Becoming a mirror.  Becoming a sponge.  The flag ached for a slight cool breeze.

If we become friends there is something you should know about me.
I am not a codependent person.  I don't aspire to the loss of choice.  This is what I need:
to be the insatiable whirlwind
to walk and dance at the same time
to tell you everything that happened in this lifetime of a day
to speak up when you pause for a moment.

I don't want my quietness to be confused for thoughtlessness.
I am basking in the shades of our shared experience.
I am holding back because of my monster complex: the fear of being too much all of the time.
I know we haven't met for very long, but if you heard what I heard about poetry, you might know what I mean. It's all in how the brains go. And I love how you just go and go and go.

The lady eventually lived what she knew. That things could change at any moment.  That it wasn't all waiting. That there was water in potholes and in saliva. She wrung out the flag and collected a few drops.  The dragon grew because it was in her nature to grow and become everything.  The flag flew.  They started a new experiment, which was loving unforever things.  Which was letting go, I mean really.

The lady sewed a heart patch onto the flag because it was in her nature to reflect love wherever she went.  The allies found her, and the dragon beamed.

As we are friends, there is something you should know about me.  I am an interdependent person.
I aspire to the empowerment of us. This is what I need:
to listen to what you have to say
to remind you you are whole and sweet and strong
to absorb how you move into my own moves.
to utilize your metaphors and share your vocabulary
until there is no me for the sake of me,
only what we've made,
and a mutual understanding of how it is moving us forward.

A Long Road Home

Stick in the mud.  Stick along the fence.
I once gave a birthday present that was an exhibition.
It was at a church on 37th.
There are these tree branches.
They are all detached, and scraggly, and trapped in the panes of a fence.
I can't tell which was there first, or now, if they need each other.

It's St. Patty's day, Hip Hip Hooray.
I walk alone, around the warehouse, with my stick. wwwhhh.
I was never good at sound effects.  I was never good at facial expressions.  I thought I was good at a lot of things until you.
You proved hundreds of unforeseen variables.

My heart is broken.
I didn't know until my jaw started hurting sometimes, and then all the time, and then a lot.
I've never had such a strong body reaction to an emotional problem, but I've talked enough abuse and trauma and chronic pain to get it.
Sometimes when your heart is broken, your jaw starts to hurt.

The doctor thinks maybe it's bell's palsy.
She gave me some handouts on TMJ and told me to come back if I wanted some work done.
I didn't go back.
I started inventing poetry on the spot.  Toni Braxton was playing in the waiting room.  I have a lot of friends, and eventually it will all come out.

We love each other.
I only say it when you say something so perfect that I can't hold it in.  And you only say it after you get out of the car, just before you close the door.  But when I joked the world would be a better place with more yous in it,  I wasn't joking.

I don't know how this story ends.  I'm not a librarian.
I alone will not decide.  I'm not the writer.
I'm just a mirror, a minnion.  A sponge, a kitchen dweller, a super effective stander, a body inhabiting a life, feeling the tension between the two.
Basically a lady walking around with a cup,
looking for a drink of water.

Hey Pinky

After Tom died, I began hearing the expression "bucket list" in different places.  I decided to dye my hair so I could rest, knowing it had been crossed off the list.  Well I have a confession to make. There isn't actually anything else on the list.

The most unexpected thing that has happened as a result, is that all of these older women, whom I previously met many times but had nothing in common with, could suddenly reach out to me.  I'm not sure what it is.  I think it's something about the salon now being a part of our shared experience, or a want to change looks or do something different.  I imagined them younger, experimenting with their own shades of pink. I remembered talking about hair with C at Penn and Main, going to the grocery store in cornbread.  I don't know if we'll see each other when we are older, but I imagine us very much the same. All mouthy and with long, streaky old lady hair.