Because I can't fly

I run because I can’t fly.


I’m always finding a poor alternative for this one life, this one heart, this one mind, this one.. dream?


My muses aren’t alabaster breasted Greek goddesses, fickle, and dancing gaily in autumn mist, with flower wreaths around their majestic heads,


But the double headed serpent, always ready to forsake its double.


The cicadas, resurfacing after their seventeen year old sleep, to taste life once more, drowning the wilderness with their tenacious forlorn love song.


The hawk that nests atop the twenty story building where I live, because it’s the tallest tree around.


These geniuses taught me to run when I can’t fly,


to own all my foolish old selves, the dead skins I shed, to carry on.

Rich Hot Taffy

I’m my most triumphant in the morning, waking before the sun.


The satisfying click of the leash on my dog’s collar. Our vigorous pants, running through morning mist.


A red breasted robin chattering, calling us to look up. My face ruddy and flushed with the dawn’s clean cold air.


My cat welcomes us back with a long pink yawn, his luxurious clawing stretch on the velvet sofa, the cold still nipping at my ears and nose.


The fierceness of the shower. How many heads before mine lifted their faces to this forceful source of calm? I imagine a Sandra, a Gary, a Sophia, a Ray; the same gesture of thawing rigid bodies under the caressing warmth of water.


The sun rises especially for my benefit. The energy of the blender, the stove, the washing machine, and the steaming coffee pot, an efficiency irrelevant to the chaotic beauty outside.


I had deep profound words last night, as my mind slowly came apart before sleep. Like rich stretching taffy, sweet and thick. My third black bitter coffee molded my sugary words into to do lists, and whipped my mind into shape.


At dusk the sky puts on its best show. Thoughts that were rattled and shaken, tufts in a snow glob begin to settle. I let go of a breath I didn’t know I was holding. This is what the world can do, this is how beautiful and peaceful the world can be, outside my messy noisy mind, besides the pain, fear, and horror the news screams throughout the day. Nature can rebirth itself, the world can calm itself once more.


My aching body tells me how hard I’ve tried when I lie down to sleep. My mind slowly disintegrates, hot sugary taffy, thick and rich.


I will remember these deep profound thoughts in the morning I convince myself, too lazy to reach for my notebook and pen.

Faces of Men

I remember my gay student’s face showing me how he self-harms.


I remember my father’s face, the ugly way he bites his lower lip, eyes widened with anger, fist raised in belligerent disdain.


I remember my ex-husband’s face, kissing my feet, asking me to forgive him again after he hit me a third time.


I remember the married man’s face, trying to convince me that his wife has become no more than a sister to him.


I imagine Freud’s face, fucking his mother in his dreams, then writing on suppressed desires.


My trans friend’s face, a glimpse of a man’s face staring back at her in the mirror, had she not transitioned.


My lover’s face, the first time I actually enjoyed sex, how we searched for joy in each other’s eyes.


The last concert I attended, the violinist’s face soft with emotion and shadowed with longing.

Only Feathers

What do we do with feelings?


Walk them off

Walk them off

Walk them off



For no apparent reason a man I don’t like or care for crossed my mind yesterday and I immediately received a text from him.


I was walking Jasper. Yes, I have a dog and his name is Jasper. I adopted him a few days ago and he’s perfect. On our walk, we saw an Eagle clutching at a Goose, the Eagle had killed it, and was standing over it, claws digging in the dead breast of the prey, fresh blood, pulling and gnawing at the brown flesh.


The sun was bleeding its way out of the sky, setting the gory background for the above seen, it was at once the most violent and most beautiful thing; the ferocity of nature.


What does the man I loved and cared about do when he crosses my mind every day?


Today, we passed by the dead Goose, nothing but a carcass, brown stiff blood splattered on scattered soft feathers. The sun was gentler in its setting; elusive rays of light came through tufts of clouds, like friendly spirits. Sparrows settled on the maze of phone wires, small fluffy bodies, black against a faint lavender sky.


Nothing left, only feathers, blowing in the cool April breeze.