Update

For the record, I'm finding there is so much to write about, so much duende taking over my life, that I'm overwhelmed (pleasantly) by the mass of thought regarding this grace, this beauty, this pain.

So this is the first day of spring. It was fiercely bright-- I was seeing spots after looking at the sun too long-- yet it was that strange kind of March warmth in which you actually feel colder than you did in February.

I have a feeling. About this time coming up. About what I will tackle. About what will tackle me. It was only a matter of time before love reared its inconvenient head again. Who do I love? Ha. Who don't I love?

I'll write about it. I'll let you know. I'll be over there for now, taking care of business.

I was taught a long time ago
(in a small white house
with a blue front door)
a set of conflicting sensibilities.

From those I love most
I learned that no one
and no thing
is undeserving
of a place in one's heart.

From the one I hate
I learned never
to let any one
in-
ever
again.

I could spit
on the people
who say
the things
you experience
over and over
are things
you
haven't
learned
yet,

because I
learned young

and yet the lesson
appears again,
this time
when I am calm
with my wine
and unsuspecting.

I would love
to live back there,
safe in the understanding
that the dialectic
makes the door blue
and the house white.

Or maybe I never
want to see
that house
again.

A Book

I've done this
so many times
I could write a
book
Whether there is a
ring
or soon will be,
I know
better
from the get-go.

And yet,
and yet.

There is a
voice, a
voice
that insidiously
encourages me
to make this bad
decision
over and
over
to love the
straight
girl.

i used to throw rocks at the boys
on my grade school playground,
but never had the guts
to jump on anything spinning.

too fast, too fast,
and nothing but rocks
to break my fall
(if i do fall).

you took me at a time
when i may as well
have been a child,
and judging from the wounds,
i think you threw rocks at me.

years upon years later
i find i am picking pebbles
out of scabbed scrapes
and sailing
on a merry-go-round,
the blood spinning
in circles behind me.

C

your eyes dropped
when you spoke to me,
and that's when i knew
that if i gave in
and showed you my face
you would see
how fast i learn to love.

Legacy

i see you behind me, the ugly, unwanted

daughter of despair.

though i am red-faced and dripping,

and despite your insistence,

you cannot jump on my back--

my attentive parasite.

your footsteps are like wet concrete,

heavy and malleable,

lacking direction unless molded

by a caring hand.

i am still red-faced and dripping

so i cannot help you

to be more than your legacy prescribed.

Polarized

the whirling in space
of planets together--
or was the small one a moon--
brings me to a place of wonder.

i have heard of gravity,
learned physics
from the Discovery Channel,
and have read on relativity.

yet no answer satisfies me
in my persistent questioning:

two objects in the great darkness
find themselves moving on the same circle
so close to one another
but obviously in their own space--
is what keeps them linked
that which pulls them apart?