better than reality

A

So my grandmother is in the family way.

B

Wait. What?

A

She’s preggers.

B

Seriously?

A

Yeah. She decided that she finally had reached an age where she had enough experience and wisdom to really know how to raise a child.

B

But she’s. How old is she?

A

In her 70s. 78 I think.

B

How...

A

In vitro. It kind of experimental and she had to go out of the country to do it. But she loves to travel and hadn’t been to southern mexico. So you know, she went. And when she got back, well, I already told you.

B

Your grandmother… seriously. That’s ridiculous. There is no way a woman her age...

A

Hey. I think my grandma is the best person to know what her body can and cannot handle.

B

But she won't live long enough to really raise the kid.

A

You don’t know that. She could be vibrant and viable until she’s 120. Maybe this kid is the thing to keep her young at heart.

B

She should have grandchildren to do that. Or great-grandchildren.

A

Dude. I’m not ready to have a kid. She’s always been one to take initiative when she wants something. I proud of her really.

B

You’re going to have an uncle-

A

Or an aunt! Why do you default to male?

B

Whatever. You are going to have a … Your mom is going to have a sibling nearly thirty years younger than her own kid.

A

Weirder things have happened.

B

Name one.

A

UFO abductions! People claim those all the time. My grandmother’s child is at least real.

B

And still viable for front page tabloid.

A

Which is so cool. She said I could pose with her when they come to take the pictures. I’m hoping that Oprah doesn’t hear about this before Weekly World News! That’d just ruin everything.

B

You need your head examined.

A

Why? Is something wrong with it?

B

You think your 78 year old grandmother having a baby is a great opportunity to get on the front page of a publication that no one believes. Yeah. Something is definitely wrong.

A

Well, if it becomes something legit, I won’t be one of the few people in on the joke.

B

I still can’t believe that she’s actually pregnant.

A

That’s probably good.

B

What?

A

That you don’t believe it. Because it’s not true. She’s not pregnant. She has Alzheimer’s. My mom thinks I’m not handling it well, but I think I’m doing okay.

B

No. You need help. That’s was totally fucked. Why would you do that?

A

There are so many better stories to add to her life than the real one. I just want her end to be as fantastic as I know she could have dreamed it up.

B

But don’t fuck with people like that.

A

It doesn’t really work if you don’t.

B

I … You are messed up. I gotta go. Call me when you can act like a human being.

A

Understandable. Still, I could have been in grocery lines everywhere!

One of grandmother's was diagnosed this week. I may expand on this scene, but I'm thinking next week might be stories of her and for that are better than reality.

ooookaaaay

yelling transforms to hipster ennui
throwing books become percolated coffee
stripping canvas morphs to dancing guitars

The girl that quit or was fired was back at the coffee shop. I wonder what happened. They were playing guitars as I left. Previous poem is here.

where the fuck are my keys

Three times
Checked for the keys
Remember locking the door
Keep there
Each time
Keep checking
Still there
Last time
No more checking
You can always call the second set
If these
Spontaneously combust

I've only locked myself out twice. *knock wood* However, I occasionally get obsessive about checking for my keys. More often, I think "Shit, I know I left them." Then I check, and they are there. Maybe I just like the surprise/stress?

let me sleep

The muffled roll pierced the window and invaded her sleeping ear. that quick intake of breath coincided with the opening eyes. For the love. the bass vibrated the glass and eher blurred eyes saw 2:00 loud and red on the digital alarm clock. One minute later the watch beeped two quick beeps. She could never get it to stay on time. Three lours left to sleep. The car stereo serenaded the street and crumbled her of more unconciousness. Why hadn't they left? The green traffic light coloured her wall. Jaw tightened, shoulders tensed. Through the blinds, two people making out. Couldn't they do that without a soundtrack? Jesus. She contemplated yelling at them or throwing an empty beer bottle at the car but decided on cursing under her breath and letting her blood pressure rise.

Yes, this happened to me. Yes, I decided to just be angry rather than actually do anything. Yes, I still do that sometimes. Yes, it makes me angrier that I do that.

imagining virgina

I didn't know I needed to get out, experience something ordinary or at least something lighter than the Concrete City Madhouse. Nightly I dreamed of fresh air and open spaces and neighbors unable to hear through the walls. Maybe that should have been a clue.

It was impossible to stroll, especially in the evening. I couldn't imagine walking without my entire body listening, without constantly knowing where to run, without worrying that I wouldn't have time to scream. But I didn't carry a ready weapon because that would mean "they" were wining. Or maybe it was because I started wishing something would happen. I don't think I'm alone in this. You live with a palpable fear long enough, you get to where you just wish for it because at least then it would be done. You can deal with it and move on. The worry and fear, now justified, could leave. You - I - would be liberated from that specter.

I know this train of thought is bullshit. And I tried to change my thoughts. I've had many conversations with myself. How could violence reduce fear? Why am I casting myself as this passive victim? Why can't you even see yourself as a survivor in this made-for-TV movie you play in your head? My answer was constantly, "I don't know."

When the opportunity to leave the Madhouse happened, it was without anything I would define as a decision. I followed a lover who moved on a few months later. I remained.

The air here is crisp and loves filling a person's lungs. Grey is not the dominant color motif. It is still a city, and I still don't own a car, but I can see over the buildings to the world beyond its borders. I can look people in the eyes. My fears are not solved, but they finally do not infect my entire life. For the first time in my adult life, I call my location home.

I was campaigning in New Hampshire for John Edwards last year. My group met this amazing woman who ran a local diner. She had lived in New York City and had moved with her family soon(ish) after the Stonewall Riots. This monologue/story uses that bit of information as the starting point. I have images of the larger story this may become, but I need to let it grow in my brain for a bit longer.

seasonal poems

spring

I shed three teardrops on the dead earth
A tree blooms
Grey fades and parts its curtain
Vibrance
Unlocked: it is the world
Barefoot leaps across the wild plain
Drumbeats and heartbeats
Full breath, full sigh
I live again


summer

Pregnant trees and dark, deep oceans
Yellow sun burns
Floating out past the day
Caressed
The senses unlocked and mad with sensation
I am infinite.


fall

Brown, red, and gold
delicately float on the breeze
Balance precariously on my
head, shoulder, foot
The gentlest movement
continues the journey down
Crumpled siblings reunite
underfoot
I dance to their song


winter

My head a grey of snow
Dormant trees tap at my door
Their long fingers
Begging away the cold
I hide beneath the blankets

I wrote these for my family. They were going to be Christmas gifts. I was going to take pictures of each season in New York and make a collage with the poem in a frame or shadowbox. Time got away from me that year, and they all ended up with books.

a previous draft

The separation exsanguinated my life, destroyed my hearth, deleted my colors. The landscape a new, sharp, painful white. Lines blurred evn to my own skin. No longer was there contrast between me and nothing. My own definition re-entered the miasma where direction does not even know itself. Mountains and oceans merged and thereafter imploded and left me crouching on the non-earth waiting for the vertigo to pass, feabily straining to keep me even on four limbs. The dry heaving reenforced my own emptyness, blowing white sand onto the blank canvas. Impalled by nothing. Before completely succumbing to the death of Life.

Heart shattered into Humpty Dumpty pieces and settled in my stomach to grow.

The drug floods, overwhelming the system. I moved. I ran. I left bloody footprints and redefined land and sky.

This is the start of this is false. It's nice to see where things start. Also to remember that editing and work are very important. I think maybe I can come back to this image of bloody footprints as the start of rebuilding. I wonder where it will go?