only a drop

if not for one little problem, this beach would be perfect.

when the tide comes we all have to run towards the fort and climb as high as we can and pray the waves don't take us.

a big wave came for me once. i ran to the palace of many windows. a felt a drop of water. only a drop.

when we were children

my cousin asks me if i still play the violin. we used to play music together. now he's a musician, a professional and i am just a girl who stopped. i shake my head. "not anymore," i say but i say it without shame or guilt because he's smiling at me with fondness. he believes in me. he will teach me what he knows and together we will play again like we did when we were children.

always

the new rooms are better than what i am used to

large with windows that overlook

black wires that cut a sad steady sky

these inherited uninhabited interchangeable rooms

i choose one and lose it so that i am always lost

everything shifts and i can see only up to a foot ahead of me

this labyrinth is in my mind

to foster this fear that is in me like my prayed-for child

even as i try i must find a room

any room that is familiar or one that feels safe

so i can sleep

not lost

i'm made to find my own room in the new house. i trail my hands along the banister as i ascend. my eyes scan rooms i know are not mine. at each landing i call out to mama to make sure i haven't gone too far, too make sure i'm not lost.

release

the nightmare is not that he is making love to another man. that is what fascinates me. the unknown room, flooded in light, white, shifting and nebulous, only sharpens their man-boy limbs. their lovemaking is adamantine. their rhythm, intent.

this other man, the one beside me, pulls me to him, wants to make love. he is a disturbance. i push him away, i hold him off, if only until the other couple finish and i see their faces twist in exquisite release.

not mine

i am told it is mine. the unknown room, the weird shifty walls, the unmade bed.

visitors come looking for me. i confront the empty kitchen, i look for food. i look for a place to seat them because --

i cannot admit that i do not know them. that all this is not mine.

the footprints that scar the polished floor are not mine and neither are these shoes i am putting on.

and when i laugh to mask my fear the laughter isn't mine.

plastic bunny ears

the big fat bully who read my diary where i called her fat will have her revenge by having me run with plastic bunny ears while she chases me, catches me, beats me up.

i try them on but i feel the first twinge of clarity, of not belonging.

my friends arrive. like me, they are in st scho uniform.

"where were you?" i ask. i show them the ears.

"we came from UP," they say.

"that's where i'm from now," i say. i mull over my own words. i'm having trouble understanding what they mean. now, now, now. the uniforms are a mistake. so is this place, the time, these plastic bunny ears.

she touches my back to appease me.

tethered

it doesn't cross my mind to doubt that i when i take this step i will leave the ground. and few more steps i will fly. over the city, the houses i have lived in and loved. i feel light and not at all cold like i thought i would be. there is nothing below to hold me.

and above --

and above --

i will myself to keep going. i will not be grounded. i will ascend. i climb the air.

my hair is undone. my dress, my ribbons, my hair -- i am lifted. i am tethered to the sky.

a lone gardener watches as i walk naked in a garden of thistles.

miserable but

i shake with rage. i stand in place shouting words my tongue trips over. feeling left behind, feeling betrayed and shamed, i sling accusations at everyone, hoping some will come true henceforth i will be miserable but correct.

it's a relief

to be home. to find that nothing has changed. the silence. the smell of fallen fruit. the softness of the ground recently watered. every time i come home, i come home to this house. i am still surprised to find that my room is still mine. the house is always empty, always dark. it has remained untroubled, untouched. the flowers still bloom, still give off that smell of satisfied languor. and at night the dogs still howl at the spirits of dead relatives that come home to sleep.

night

in the field. i count the stars. i walk slow.

The Four Generals

Stripped down to their underwear, long and lean, smelling like men, the four generals come into my room to surrender. Immediately I fall in love with one -- the one who looks at me in the eye, the one who understands that later, yes, I will make up excuses to visit him where he is kept prison. I am already rethinking my life all because I want him to take me like a man should. Forceful and fast. Without hesitation. Almost selfishly. I see it happening. I will run down the stairs, go past the garden, behind the chicken shed where the prison is. Maybe I will even learn his name.

air

it feels natural to fly, to soar, to be lifted by will. that they might see panties is a fleeting concern. to keep going until below is nothing but ocean, to see blue above and below, to fall back into air --

i am given red

i am given red. ribbons that are red. the room is full. it is gym. it is church. i don't have time. cut ribbons and give each one a piece of red. i see who they are. it is school. but i am not student. just me, just old, just someone with ribbons that are red. i am patient this time. i know i have left, can leave again. i know i can --

gunfire

i am lost in this shopping center that is about to close. gunfire. i am given a gun. i hide in a room full of crates. i have the sense to back up on the wall but i am shaking. they come closer. i see nothing so i train my ears to listen as i aim.

underwater air

the windows have to be complicated. sometimes you want to let the sun in but not the dust. sometimes you want the air but not the rain. i try each window and in the middle of doing this i see the pool. in the middle of the yard is the pool. the only source of light is this pool. i fall into it. i remember i can swim. i kick to float up. i can't breathe. it seems i will never reach the surface. i am forever kicking upwards wanting to breathe and just as i think of air i start to breathe. still underwater i am breathing, kicking, seeing the surface but never surfacing, hearing muted sounds, filling my lungs with this miraculous, acqueous, underwater air.

chasm

i don't know what to call it except "chasm." it goes deep. it gushes water. i step closer and closer to it. i am filled with awe.


And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
- Coleridge, "Kubla Khan"

just for me

i am getting married in the cathedral that was built just for me.

nothing is no longer in place

at my old school.