Goodbyes and Hellos: Weaving My Tapestry

This collection of poems details the movement of people in and out of my life, the "Hellos," and the, "Goodbyes," and the "See you laters."

Tapestry

The strings of her loom are pulled tight,

Stretched in perfect balance like the lines of a musical staff,

The chords of telephone wires.

First woven, over and under, was deep mauve.

Mauve helped formed the pattern that other colors would follow

Valleys, mountains, ups and downs,

In and out.

Then came the piercing, manic orange,

Fueled by cocaine and liquor,

Bloody, reckless, exhilarating.

She wove in the orange with shaky hands,

Secretly at midnight.

Bumpy, chaotic, messy.

For something so hidden, it screams the loudest on the loom.

Red holds dominance in her tapestry,

Stretched out for miles.

Blood red, the color of hearts ablaze.

She spent years and years and years of weaving red,

Over and under,

Over and under,

Through autumns and winters and springs and summers,

Decay, death, rebirth, warmth,

Hands moving in familiar repetition,

The yarn becoming more frayed as time passed

Eventually breaking, worn thin and tenuous.

After red is a bare break in the tapestry,

A paused moment,

A time of collecting,

Of stretching out sore fingers.

Then, bright, canary yellow makes an appearance.

It flickers in and out in short bursts,

Like shooting stars over the landscape.

She laughs as she weaves him in.

He keeps her light,

Fingers buoyantly bouncing.

The tapestry has been suspended in deep blue.

The most elusive of the colors.

When woven in,

He frequently slips out through her fingers,

Afraid of capture, of being tangled up,

Of being part of her fabric.

She tries to wind, to grasp.

Then she lets go.

The string hangs teasingly off the side of the loom, 

Unsure of ending or beginning again.

She leans back,

Gazes on the complex beauty of her tapestry,

Woven by her hands

And the hands of those who have traced her body

And held her breasts

And stroked her cheeks with love.

She surveys all of the empty space that is yet to be filled,

In wonder of what colors will dance across her empty strings,

Early in the morning over a cup of coffee,

Late at night under blankets,

Deep, deep, deep in the cavern of her heart.

Haymarket 

Hiss of hot water as it filters through grains

Chatter of books and weather and college classes

Cigarette smoke wafting in

Here we sat,

Our backs butted against her walls,

Pretending not to cry,

As we placed our love, our marriage, on her table

And crumbled it in our hands,

Like clumps of brown sugar.

Your coffee was dark and pungent,

Matching your acidity.

Your angles were softened by the round rim of your cup.

I sucked my strength up from my toes,

New baby strength,

Weak and wobbling,

Unsure of its new legs.

And we walked away,

Two roads diverging.

Now my voice fills her hallow underbelly,

As I sing songs on her stage.

I meet my lovers here,

To exchange first words, first coffees, first kisses.

My words flow from head to heart to paper,

Spurned on by the frantic push of caffeine.

In her, I am whole.

With death of heart comes triumphant rebirth,

This café incubating me,

And delivering me from her warm womb

Out into the world,

With high hopes

That I will walk, strong and steady,

Over the changing landscape of my life.

L-Bomb

It dropped out of the sky,
Whistling through the air as it fell,
Out of my control,
And it landed with a heavy thud between us.
We stared in shock, in awe,
Our faces frozen,
Mouths locked open,
Breath suspended.
We both jumped back to avoid the splatter.
I hang my eyes, exposed and embarrassed.
You brush the blood off your legs and arms.
I apologize for getting my heart, heavy with love, all over you.



Ballet

I crouch in the corner, anticipating
Watching and waiting
For a smile or a kiss or a smoke signal from your cigarette
To let me know that I can step into your space
And briefly entwine our pulses, our legs
Letting our blood flow together
In syncopated breathing.

At the first sign of your hesitancy,
Your retreat,
I leap out and crouch back in my corner
To play the waiting game again,
Always guessing at whether you will dodge
Or slow dance with me in my kitchen.

I dance around landmines that other lovers have laid,
That you have so carefully placed
Sprawled out on the floor of your apartment.
You keep me guessing.
How much can I say?
How much can I touch?

I’m one pirouette short of blowing this whole ballet to the sky.



Samson

Blonde curls fall to the floor.
Samson sits naked on his throne in my kitchen.
My last act as Delilah
Is to cut his hair,
And cut me out of his life.

Skinny Love

Hello world.  I'm writing this post at Cushman's Market, next to a father who is reading a story to his young daughter.  My, what a beautiful world we live in.  It warms my heart to hear their tender interaction.  I am reminded of when I was with my mother in the hospital in September.  Every time a baby was born, they would ring a lullaby charm throughout the hospital.  It reminds me of the cycle of life, death, birth, love, hurt, passion, introspection, light, darkness, sun, and moon.

So I know I've been posting lots of darker, "emo" (cringe- I hate that word) posts lately.  As my friends and family know so well, I'm a woman of ever-changing moon phases.  When I'm in my full moon phase, I burn bright and shine my sun.  When I'm in my new moon phase, I turn introspective and examine those black, cavernous parts of myself.  I've been in an introspective, new moon phase over the past several months.  And I appreciate all of your love and support as I continue to navigate the changing landscape of my life.  I continue to amaze myself with my resilience.  My therapist will often have me identify my strengths during session, and I tend to place singing, playing music, writing, or art at the top of my list.  But, in thinking through the past 27 (almost 28!) years of my life, my resilience has to be listed at the very top of my list.  Through death, cancer, sexual assault, illness, broken hearts, broken bones, divorce, poverty, grad school... I continue to take the blows of life.  And, somehow, at the end of the day, I manage to stand up, dust myself off, and prepare for the next chapter.

In the time between my road trip and the present moment, I've been blessed to have a plethora of interesting, terrifying, beautiful, and new experiences.  I've continued strengthen my sense-of-self.  For me, part of building my core is turning dark and introspective from time to time.  These past 4 months have found my heart shaken, but my core stable and strong.  I push on in my quest to live wide open.

And, as always, I leave you with one of my favorite songs by Bon Iver (and some poems by me):

"And I told you to be patient 

And I told you to be kind

And I told you to be balanced

And I told you to be kind

And in the morning I'll be with you

But it will be a different kind

Cause I'll be holding all the tickets

And you'll be owing all the fines

And now all your love is wasted

Then who the hell was I?

Cause now I'm breaking at the britches

At the end of all your lines

Who will love you?

Who will fight?

Who will fall far behind?

Come on skinny love, just last the year."

-Bon Iver

  

-Dried Up-

All of the men in my life rip in like tornados,
   Strong, whipping, intense, and gone.
You,
   Were a gentle rainstorm.
You rained your softness on me
   And on the fertile chambers of my heart.

One day, you dried up.
No words, no lingering trickle.
You had blown clear out of my sky.
I searched for you under pillows,
   Between the sentences that you read to me late at night,
      In the river where we played,
         In your written words,
            In your mother’s eyes,
But there was no trace of your soft, gentle rain.

And so I carry on, wondering about your curious ways.
My heart is left a little parched,
   Cracked and dry like the caked dirt of the prairie without its summer rain.
I look over my shoulder,
   Feeling your presence,
      Feeling some hint of a heavy, dark rain cloud behind me,
But all I see is my sun.
And she’s beautiful.
But sometimes she burns too bright for my eyes.
You, of all people, understood that.

So let’s meet each other, love,
   On some soft, rainy day.
We can kiss and you can water my heart again.
I promise my sun won’t burn you down,
   If you promise not to flood me again.


-Cars-

I woke up this morning and tried to shake my head clear.
I heard the sounds of the cars as they splashed through the rainy day outside my window.
And I confused them for the stable sound of your breathing,
Which has serenaded me through the past six years.

There is this little place on your chest where I would lay the palm of my hand,
Butted up against the groove of your sternum.
It is my favorite place, and sometimes I find myself reaching for it in the night,
Only to have my hand fall limp on the pillow next to me,
Or on the chest of the one who has taken your place.

There are days where I forget how to put one foot in front of the other.
And there are days when I run.
There are days when I'm struck by the cold emptiness in our marriage bed.
And there are days when I sprawl out, completely content.

We hurtle across the Earth's crust in these metal objects, these cars.
Sometimes we crash into one another,
Our metal melted, twisted, and tangled up,
Flames smoking,
Spectators crying.
They call the ambulance to come rescue our Selves,
To pull us apart,
And make us whole again.

The Anthropology of Love (PG-13 again)

Old stuff and new stuff and medium stuff.


-2 Ay Em-

Sleepy eye slants
Arms criss cross bodies
Chests against backs
Kisses plant freckles
Shy gazes into blue pools
Lips graze cheek bones
Fingers dance in hollow shoulder pockets
I am drunk in your 2am beauty


-Number Two-

You don't deserve my words or thoughts or a poem about you.


-Anthropology of Love-

I open the chest and pull out my artifacts.
Dried flowers, love letters, polaroids.
My only hope for keeping my heart in and my head out
   Is to pretend that I'm merely a casual observer of this game.
You told me that my milk and honey are locked deep away,
And that no one has dared taste it.
No- that I haven't dared to open door and let it overflow,
  Out into the streets,
     Out where children play
        Out where sun rays dance
           Out where he waits for me.
You say I live with wild abandon
   That I traipse in and out
     That I sing my siren song.
How can I give my most beautiful parts to careless lovers
   Who fumble and drop and trip and stab?
Heart in head out.
Or, better yet,
   Heart out, head out.
I'll seal away the mementos
And I'll keep my milk and honey for myself.


-Rumi-

I will hold you softly in my arms.

I will kiss the places where the sun has kissed you.

I will wrap my fingers in yours and entwine our pulses together.

I will fall in love with you.

Sometimes I’ll doubt if you’ll leave me or love me.

It’s not you, love.

It’s those who have walked and walked away before you.

Your heart wound is centered in mirror to mine.

We carry the raw between our breasts.

Maybe we can open up our heart wounds and let love heal and make anew.

Rumi said, “The wound is the place where the light enters you.”

You hold the sky in your eyes- infinite galaxies and eternal star shine live there.

Sometimes I can’t bring myself to look.

I’m afraid I’ll see love.

And what would I do with that?



-Moonlight Sonata-

We shed our clothes
The crisp air tickled our bare skin
Pale moonlight lazily trickled down through dark trees
My eyes graze your glowing body
Night is electrified by our sparks
We silently slip into the cool, still water
You pull me in to your warmth
Your tender kisses send molten pulses to my toes
Your eyelashes are dusted with moon beams
We hold each other in our own moonlight sonata.


-Journey to 7 Cumberland Ave-

I followed the orange cat
     lying seductively on the bottom steps of my porch
         his eyes flashing in the moonlight

He led me places
     punctuating the ribbon of time
         where steps are counted in twos
             and firecrackers burst above heads.

I tried to seek shadows
     and tread in the shrouds of ebony
                      away from pale, haunting faces.


-Pageant-

The dirt under my nails is from working with the earth.
Your hands are soiled from judging my worth.


-Easter Worms-

Sidewalk wet with new rain
The sodden earth smell rising from the ground
Her little white Easter shoes dodge the worms seeking refuge from the flood.