Category: writing

Relocate. Reset

Mom said sh’e leaving Dad
can’t take it anymore
we move.

Relocate. Reset.

Bullying at school out of control
can’t take it anymore
we move.

Relocate. Reset.

Truancy a problem
then the rape
school says I have to go.

Relocate. Reset.

Sister move back home
one unhinged, the other battered
Moms says it’d be better if I leave.

Relocate. Reset.

Shuffle boxes from relationship
to relationship, change careers
like hairstyles – is this boredom?

Relocate. Reset.

Never did grow roots
too good at packing up
trouble comes…

Relocate. Reset.

Tell you more, but we’re about
to pull out, the road is calling…
you know how it goes…

(Relocate. Reset. first appeared here in December, 2017. I am submitting it here, edited, for my weekly challenge: I’m bored. All welcome to join in. Image my own.)

Reflecting and Rebuilding

Considering
refurbishing
childhood home

Unrecognizable now
numerous makeovers
and even re-purposing

But my heart is invested
and well, I can see potential
and, oh…I know it will take work

All the walls I’ve torn down
and the excess furniture
and how I’ve imagined duplicity

Is this folly on my part
this revisionist thinking
see…I’m sure there is treasure

hidden amongst the forgotten
buried perhaps in the attic
or other overlooked nook

And as I remember it,
the backyard is an oasis –
Yes! I think I’ll do it!

Reflection and a good dose
of elbow grease, and I’m in!
Recreating an upbringing.

(for Eugi’s Weekly Prompt: reflection. Image my own.)

Finding Home

Do we have to be away
to find home?

Not the mortgaged
two cars in the driveway
double-income kind of dwelling

I’m talking peace
in the heart, comfort
in the soul, blessed home

I have felt Presence
in nature, witnessed Spirit
in a newborn’s eyes

beheld reverence in a dying
sister’s final breath – fleeting
glimpses, nothing solid

I seek an eternal sense
of belonging, of atonement
to radiate a knowing, holy calm

Don’t speak to me of books
or passages, or a brother
with the voice of God

The home I seek is
an inner sanctum
a whisper, a cry

a longing answered
only in moments of pure
simplicity, in stillness

this noise we create
this distancing, is only fear
and forgetting: products

of original separation
a projection of abandonment
remembering, experiencing

the numinous, the sacred other
brings me back home
and I am no longer lost.

(Finding Home was first published here in February of 2017. I resubmit an edited version for Reena’s Xploration challenge: sacred space. Image my own.)

Wasted Time

It’s Monday again –
days passing through
my hands like sand,
no receptacle in which
to catch the granules –
why this sense of urgency?

In high school, I played hooky
wiped away the hours in empty
places, sought answers for
questions I could not articulate,
chased dust while other formulated
dreams – how is this any different?

Am I not just recreating the pattern,
painting over efforts with adult hues,
donning the pretence of self-importance
while occupied with vapid tasks – time
continues to slip by, and what have I
to show for it other than incessant panic?

(Wasted Time was first published February, 2017. I resubmit here for my weekly challenge: the chase. Image my own.)

Hiding Shame

When did guilt obviate
the need for sustenance?

This deipnophobia paralyzing
heartless stares dredge up

my truth: insatiable hunger
need to stuff down emotion

the certainty that I deserved
the abuse – endless shame

My fork traces the outlines
separates food groups

My mind makes mental notes
of what I’ll gorge on later.

(Deipnophobia is the fear of dining in public. I watched my older sister avoid eating when with others, and then gorge afterwards. I had not known there was a term for it until I came across this prompt. Image my own.)

Dreaming Archetypal

She rises from the river –
a culmination of my prayers
and tears, I suppose

Eyes glow with a ungodly hunger
Is she predator or night prowler
I wonder, frozen from fright

Disinterested in ego, ignoring
perfection, she multiplies
her energy frenetic

I try to harness her,
tame the primal, raw force
fear I cannot house her

But she is no one’s property
moves with fluidity, a shapeshifter
mythical in her stride

Like Eve, she is original sin
searching for deeper meaning
beyond this man-made paradise.


(Image and poem originated in a dream. Not sure I did the message justice but it begged delivery.)