As the Crow Flies

Straight as an arrow.

The arrow of silver, Tiffany spun, you surprised me with, waking me from slumber–

Slipping into my room as I lay sleeping.

Never have I been so delighted.

Moved.

Shook.

I thought of that arrow today, it’s flight suspended between my clavicles, pointing to the stars that spangle my chest.

(Just added another one this past Friday)

Tempted to point out the fresh ink, the pink clementine orange of it, picture it, kiss it, and shoot you a photo of it with a wry smile.

Yet.

I did not.

I blocked you out, off my heart, off my soul, oft without you I have walked so long, why would it be any different now?

The crow flew over Jefferson Square park, a short walk from my house, dogs frolic in the late afternoon sun, and the murder gathered in the eucalyptus trees to spring full into the air twirling against the February sky.

Plum blossoms, pale pink and lavish purple, like bruises against the sky, tears of petals hanging from dark tree limbs.

Like the limbs burning on my back.

More work on the tattoo.

The one you inspired.

Two crows.

One cherry tree.

One heart.

Sometimes I think the pain is like the ghost of your hands on the backs of my shoulders.

Where you would hold me, whilst atop me, pushed in, face buried in my neck, arms under my shoulders, holding me as we became one and inseparable.

Yet.

Separate.

We are.

The crow reminded me of you, I said hello, carry my wishes forward to you upon the wind, but not my calls, my love letters or cards.

I am not sending them anymore.

I deleted you.

I blocked you.

I let you go.

Off into the high sky, like pastel balloons escaping a flower shop on Valentines Day.

Sigh.

Valentines Day.

Last year.

When I reached out to you once more.

That’s why, dearest, sweetest, dreamiest you, I deleted, blocked, and erased you, so I would not set the motion in momentum forward again.

No more.

No more calls.

No more poems.

No more kisses on your sweet face.

No more staring into your eyes.

No more falling in love with you.

Not that I believe I will fall out of love with you.

The love, I sense, does not die.

But it goes, it flings itself in a blue box in a drawer, like the blue sky against the wing of the crow as it flies away from me.

You have flown away from me.

I do not expect your return.

I never knew a love like this.

My exquisite corpse.

The crow in the copse.

My heart in my mouth.

The sky.

The sky.

The sky.

Like your eyes I fell into once upon a time.

In a land far, far away, The Sunset.

The sky is the only blue I will look into anymore.

Good bye my love.

Good bye my crow laughing at a funeral.

Good bye.

Sun Burst

They left their car behind in the Pan Handle of Florida.

Broken down along the side of the road.

Tin can from a Chunky’s Chicken Corn Chowder soup barely holding

Together the rotten muffler.

Love.

Flashes like heat waves rolling up from asphalt

Pavement, as smoke eddies and drifts from a lit

Pall Mall filter Gold Light 100, grasped like a lifeline into

Another time where glorious naivety

Flexed in her 19 year old calve muscles.

Feet strong and unweary, propped on the dashboard watching the

Moss dipped trees roll along outside the window while Jethro Tull blasts from the radio.

These stories written in the power of youth and the glory of

Summers wandered through decades ago.

Her skin tattooed now with narratives and bygone memorabilia.

Literally.

She, her, I, wears her heart on her sleeve.

(Left side inside wrist wreathed with cherry blossoms)

She, her, I, has not forgotten the sunshine splash of freckles

Constellating his face and the desire badgering her heart to kiss each one.

Love rises like mist in a swimming pool at night in

Saint Augustine awash in humidity and the susurration of wind in palm leaves.

Song of flash pan memories born on the wings of cicadas,

Bark of a worried dog, crackle of fire on the edge of night,

Embers glowing on her (my) face, fronting strength under the curious

Gaze of heroin junkies and good ol’ boys with running mates and prostitute

Companions holding bent Budweiser can carburetor crack pipes.

She, her, I, will dance, never the less, none the less, dance now, dance then

Beneath the swelter of stars, amid the whispers of sexy, sexy, sexy

Spilling from the mouths of men unable to grasp her, attain her, hold her (me).

Love, lost like a plasticine slipper in the dusky playa at sunset.

Burnished with desire to kiss the bottom lip of his mouth and vanish into the

Streets of the Mission District, oh my sweet San Francisco how unexpected

Summer night strewn me with ghost kisses of fog being sucked in over Twin Peaks.

She, her, I will climb the hills back towards the sea, remember her (me) her face

Aswirl in dark curls, your face writ with awe, once again in her (my) hands.

Oh bluest eyes

Peering back into mine, this blissful fantasy a phantasmagoric feeling all

Ephemeral and moon washed will haunt you, I, me no more.

For yes, oh yes,

My darling.

This too shall pass.

Love Letters

To a ghost.

That’s what he feels like now.

Ghostly.

It is still painful, I just teared up thinking about him as I was having dinner.

Being ever so careful to make sure that my musical selection to accompany dinner was nothing that we ever listened to together or music that reminds me of him.

Let me say there’s a lot I’m not listening to.

Somethings are pretty safe and I have absolutely no affiliation with the music to him.

Mike Doughty, which is cool since I’ll be going to his show this Wednesday at the Great American Music hall, is one.

My French house music app Bon Entendeur is another.

Although occasionally, as it happened to me tonight, something will just drift in and remind me of my love.

Cue tears.

I’m not crying unless I’m writing about him or talking about him.

Or thinking about him.

Sigh.

I know it will pass but it still feels raw and sad.

I have been wanting to write him a letter, nothing that I will send, but I have this notebook full of love letters to him that I had hoped one day to give him.

A great big full hard bound notebook full of love letters.

I thought about sending it to him in the first week that we broke up.

But I told on myself and it was suggested that I not do that.

That would, in effect, be courting contact when I said no contact.

And yes, I’m not going to lie, I wish he would contact me.

But I have motives and desires and specific wants and he wasn’t able to give those things to me.

I can’t imagine that really has changed in three weeks and one day.

But yeah, sometimes, too  frequently to be attractive, I do have this dream that he calls me up or shows up at my house and tells me things have changed and we can be together.

It’s stupid and it just hurts my heart to entertain the thought, so I don’t, or I don’t try to let myself entertain the thoughts too often.

I have wanted to write out a letter though in the notebook, but I wanted to have passed through the anger and hurt and grief and betrayed feelings I have and just have it be a sweet and final goodbye.

Sure.

Not one he’ll ever see, but just the process of closure for me.

I also recognize that there is still this flame of hope that things will change and he’ll come for me and if I was writing in the notebook I’d be somehow flaming that fantasy.

He’s not coming back.

Move on.

I haven’t been able to write poetry.

I think it would just hurt too damn much and I’m barely hanging in there.

Of course.

I have to mention I’m tired and the grief sneaks in when I am tired.

I was up this morning at 5a.m. to take my car over to Berkeley to get an oil change at my Fiat dealer at 7a.m. and I wanted to make sure that I had enough time to get over the bridge with traffic.

I got there with plenty of time to spare and ate my breakfast and drank coffee in my car waiting for the dealership to open.

So it’s been a long day and when it’s a long day and the tired hits the emotions do too.

Plus, I didn’t really have a day off yesterday.

I had to grind hard on a big paper that I’d been working on for a few days and really get it done.

I can’t remember a paper that I’ve spent this much time working on before, but such is life while pursuing a PhD.

Big, tough, all-consuming papers will happen.

I got it done, my laundry, met with a ladybug, met with my person, did food prep and cleaned my house, finished the huge paper and sent it out.

I did not have a day off.

So just diving right into my week by having to get up at 5a.m. to get the oil change was not how I wanted to start my week, but I am grateful its done.

I didn’t want to risk going too long with the oil change light coming on and the dashboard lighting up and telling me I needed an oil change every time I started the car.

It’s done.

The big paper got turned in last night and I’m already at work on another paper for another class that’s due this Thursday.

Fortunately, this second paper is more in align with what I like to write and I was able to get a lot of it done at work and I spent an hour in a cafe after work writing too before I went to do the deal.

And all along.

He was in my mind.

I stumbled upon an old text chain I didn’t realize was on my phone.

Said text corresponded to when I started writing him the love letters in the notebook.

He told me in one of the texts he wanted to read those letters.

(God damn his texts were always so freaking sweet)

Honestly.

I want him to as well.

They are beautiful letters.

I write a nice letter.

Not to brag, I just do.

But no contact means no contact and they’re just going to sit here on my desk for a little while yet.

I have written him a lot when I think about it, heaps of cards, post cards, love letters, poems.

I could probably put together a chapbook of the poetry I’ve written about him.

Maybe one day I’ll figure that out.

Right now though.

I’m not writing him any letters, outside of the ones I compose in my heart and keep in my heart, to him.

I can’t bear to yet.

I just can’t.

I want to stop missing him first.

Otherwise I’ll just keep breaking my heart over and over and over again.

I don’t think I can handle anymore broken heart.

I’m too damn tender right now.

Too heart sore.

Too sad.

I miss him too much.

Too damn much.

 

Jarred

“What will I do when the flowers he gave me die?” I sobbed.

“You’ll buy more flowers,” he told me gently from across the table, sympathy in his warm eyes.

I will buy more flowers, I told myself today.

As.

I threw away the flowers that he had given me the last time he saw me.

Not one bouquet.

But two.

We had a two-day good-bye swan song.

Sad love-making in the sheets, the fragrances of flowers sweet.

I thought.

Maybe I should save a flower.

Press it into the pages of the notebook I have been writing in.

I have been writing love letters to him.

I do not know if he will ever see them.

Although.

Yes.

I did tell him before our goodbyes that I was doing that.

Filling a notebook with all my thoughts of him.

I told him he could have it when he comes for me.

How apropos then.

To press a flower from the last bouquet into those pages.

But no.

I could no do it.

It felt common.

And our love was, and is, I am not done loving him yet, nor may I ever be.

Our love was.

Uncommon.

No soft faded flowers between the pages of a notebook for him.

I threw out the wilted flowers.

I put them in the compost bin.

I tossed the old water into the bushes in front of the house.

I felt nothing.

Perhaps a twinge of weak sorrow as I closed the green lid of the bin over the bright flagging flowers.

But nothing more.

So.

I was surprised.

Taken aback.

Abject and sorrowful when unexpected grief visited me as I put away the dishes in the dish rack.

Two Mason jars.

Touching them I realized those jars held the last flowers I was ever going to get from him.

My eyes then as now, flooded with tears.

How could there be so much sorrow in a Mason jar?

They are meant to hold fireflies and butterfly cocoons.

They are the promises of preserves in deep winter that remind of summer bounty.

They are the holders of sustenance on my kitchen counter–brown rice, oatmeal, sea salt, coffee beans.

And now.

Mason jars mean no more flowers from you.

The tears on my face now a river.

Thinking of all the flowers you gave me over the time we were together.

Especially.

The biggest bouquet ever.

The one you held out to me full of pink and cream and orange star-gazer lilies.

They, the stems of glory and suffused adoration, under lit your face and splattered the soft glow of love shine in your eyes.

Your eyes.

So open and tender and terrible with vulnerability.

The last time I had seen those eyes they had told me how they were in love with me.

That bouquet, then, ws the first you gave me after the first time you said “I love you.”

Which was not said quite like that.

You actually said, “I love you too, so much!” and threw your arms around me, reaching for me in that moment that I felt you would always, always, always be reaching for me.

The love a fountain of flowers and light.

I will never forget that bouquet, your eyes, your face.

Even if I cannot bring myself to use that Mason jar for a while.

I know it is there.

The receptacle that held the love.

Which now.

Just holds memories.

Mementos.

The ghost flowers of love.

 

What’s Up Sexy?

Who the fuck doesn’t want to be greeted like that?

I know I do.

I smiled.

What’s up?

Indeed.

All the things.

Lots of work.

Lots of doing the deal.

Lots of love.

Lots of self-care.

And just a kiss of poetry.

I had a friend reach out to me as I was getting ready to wrap up at work and he offered to hear me practice my poems in between the here and the there.

I said hell yes.

I was quite flattered and very happy to have my silly little request to get some help coalesce.

Ask for what you want, you might get it.

In fact.

In my experience I often times get what I ask for.

It may not come in the package I was expecting, but I generally am heard.

Except when I ask for a boyfriend.

Ha.

Not that I am lacking any sort of attention.

I’m pretty taken care of and that’s a nice thing, and I have options, and time and I’m allowing myself to have fun and be present and show up without expectations.

I still have expectations, but the faster I see them for what they are, the faster I get to let go of them and see what is really going to work for me.

Not obsessing about those who can’t show up for me or who have chosen to withdraw in ways I don’t approve of.

Like anyone needs my approval.

Nope.

Just me and my God, that’s it, and I get to do whatever I want, as long as I accept the consequences of those actions.

Like.

I’ll be up a little late tonight.

I’m jazzed over how the poetry practice went and my friend’s very insightful way of looking at the experience of how I wrote the pieces and I loved getting to speak them out loud to an audience.

Even though it is nerve wracking and I wanted to sound better and realize that no matter how good I sound I will always want to be better.

And that’s ok.

That’s something to shoot for, just being a little bit better.

There will never be perfection.

Well, in the idea that I am perfect in my imperfections.

But.

That there will always be progress.

That’s what I get to strive for and I am grateful for that.

Wildly grateful.

Full of heart and heat and desire to do more, be more, be of service, to surrender, let go, give in.

There is great beauty in that surrender.

And sexiness too, I think, anyway, a kind of beauty in that letting go that when done without thought for how it will be received is a kind of extraordinary thing.

I might have been feeling a little bit of that when I saw my friend just a little bit ago up at the spot.

And.

I also have to say.

I am grateful I was feeling sexy and saucy and sassy.

As I ran into a gentleman I had a brief intense date with back in February who completely ghosted me so bad that it was a touch disgruntling to be played so hot and cold.

I got to do some work around that, oh yes I did.

So.

Completely feeling my swagger, my messy pink hair in braids, my lipgloss freshly applied, my hips swinging as I dance down the block.

Oh.

And hey.

Ha.

What’s up mister walking your dog by the 7-11.

I got a “hey” and “it’s cold” and a quick sliding glance and a scurry by.

Yeah.

Scurry baby.

I ain’t got time for that shit.

You have yourself a nice ass night.

I smiled and wandered up the street, seeing all my friends coming towards the place and happy to walk into the warm glowing room and get greeted by my fellows, my family, my friends.

Fuck me.

I am such a lucky girl.

Really.

The luckiest girl in the world.

I get to do so much.

I get to be so much.

I get to feel so much.

“The good news,” she said, “is that you get to have feelings.”

Pause.

“The bad news,” she continued, “is that you get to have feelings.”

Right now.

I’m in the good parts of that.

I feel fucking fabulous.

The hair is on point.

Summer is starting out as something fun.

I get to go to New Orleans next weekend, I leave a week from tomorrow, for three days.

I get to hang out with people I like and love and care about.

I have friends.

I have a life.

I have a place to live.

Fuck.

I get to live in San Francisco.

That is amazing.

Especially on a nanny salary.

I get to write and dance and blog and be out in the world and seen.

I am seen.

I am known.

I am accountable.

I like these things.

I can isolate too easily and with no regards to the world and what is happening if I don’t take care of the basic things in my life and recovery.

I have to put the horse first.

Sometimes I have to put that so first, always really, I could do or have what I have if i didn’t, that I can’t even see how I will get through a situation.

I just know that I will if I focus on solution.

I focus on problem.

It only gets bigger.

I focus on doing the next action, getting into solution, loving, being of service, why the problem fucking takes care of itself.

And I didn’t do anything.

See.

My best ideas are ass.

I’m not capable of making great decisions for myself.

I have no perspective.

So I get out of my way, out of my blinders, if I can shift my perspective just a tiny amount, man, it’s amazing.

Transformation.

Utter and complete and astounding.

Magic.

Poetry.

Sex.

Sugar.

Love.

Music.

Star shine.

God’s kiss freckling my upturned face.

All the things.

Baby.

All the fucking things.

Amazing.

I can’t explain it, I don’t want to, I don’t need to.

I think that’s called faith.

Or.

Grace.

Shall we just agree to agree?

It’s love.

And it’s everywhere.

Just look.

I promise.

It is here.

It is there.

It is.

Right now.

It is always.

Love.

The new sexy.