Poetry

If I had known you were there, I would have stilled my mind, quieting the stories it spun for fifty-four long years. I would have been the daughter I never knew you wanted. But trapped in a prison of lies, was "better" ever possible? It was so long ago— too late to anchor myself in the "if." The bridge is crossed, the water has run its course. I see you through a brighter lens now, because you are still here, loving me with the same heart you held fifty-four years ago. You are "Papa" now— a shining star where a void once lived, a space no longer shrouded by the thorns of old stories. The hole is filled; you are here, and I am, forever, your Angel.

  I kicked at the broken glass of words in the condemned building, where sonnets and poems were once written, where there were once books and notebooks of ideas, where there were once book shelves full of books  now  replaced by broken glass and broken  dreams once words birthed as ideas in the air. A generation of ideas put to paper and spoken to audiences- -everywhere- Shattered memories at my feet seen once as beauty. I ask myself why I’m here in this condemned building Where nothing can be resurrected but fleeting memories of what once was. On the floor now as broken words from a time long ago. What I thought of as a golden calf cannot prosper  as that idea is dead and broken like the glass of the condemned building. I see past it where true life lives in real living breathing words that cannot die. Words that forgive and see past my own folly of false idols and false beliefs Never to be believed at all.

"Frigid" doesn't quite capture it— this gray, internal dullness settled behind the eyes. Black soot and street-trash blanket the drifts, choking out the pristine until everything is just frozen and ugly. My mood has nowhere else to go. It simply hangs there, stiff as the icicle hooked to the end of my nose. I manage a dry, rattling laugh. Too frozen to speak, yet I see the joke.

As sure as the harvest moon, and sure as hell, I wasn't immune to the shrapnel of your violent heart. I let mine harden until it was brittle as November wood— so you could hear the crunch of it under your boots as you walked over me. I played the part. I told myself God would save you, once He’d finished tallying the heinous marks you left on me. I knelt. I prayed. I had to excise you like a fever— not for my soul, but for the bruises on my neck, and the "falls" that left me bleeding on the floor. I hated how I still struggled to love you. I hated my own stupidity. But when your heart finally quit, I knew my evil god had fallen. I didn’t have to pretend anymore. I didn't have to hide the joy. Instead, I simply told the neighbors that God had finally called you home.

The Ascent at Casino Pier The boards of Seaside Heights creaked underfoot, a mile away from the surf I was too afraid to catch. I came to face the wheel— a spinning crown of iron and neon that reached for the NYC skyline. My stomach did the work of a circus performer, twisting at the sight of the summit. I saw the shadow of Sandy in the surf, imagining the plunge, the salt water, the end. But the sun was too bright for cowardice. I traded crumpled bills for a ticket. I argued with my own mind— Will it break my back? Don't be a fool, it's a wheel, not a whip. The gate clicked shut. A captive of my own will. "I can do this," I whispered to the salt air, ignoring the laughter of the children in the gondola below. We climbed. The world shrunk; the ocean expanded. At the apex, where the wind bites hardest, we stopped. I looked down, then I looked out— and instead of falling, I flew. Wings out like an eagle, eyes locked on the horizon, I felt the drop and welcomed the rush...

I don’t t exactly remember  when I became a slave. I thought it was my birth rite according to my view through the cave. There were no barriers to speak of that hindered my release, it should’ve been obvious. I could’ve walked out any time, but I was oblivious. If you had told me it was an easy escape just straight head, I would’ve said you are crazy. I would’ve said stopping my trained pacing back and forth would be lazy. My isolation in the cave  created the lens of my worldview. until I dared to believe my escape  would eventually lead to You. You came inside my cave several times as I would allow until You made me angry that my cave was to be disavowed. I screamed at You  that my soul didn’t need to be saved. Of course, that would be my mindset  in my view through the cave. I would then get angry with myself As I thought I wasn’t worth saving, even if it was the Way out of Perdition  I've been craving. You told me outside the cave  Is the Way out o...

While growing up, I listened to Karen Carpenter songs. I love her. I miss her. Don’t we all? A few of her songs defined my whole life. This included  the song “Rainy Days and Mondays Always Get Me Down.” As Mondays go, I dreaded they’re  forthcoming. Laughing at myself knowing they’re inevitable. How silly of me. As rain goes, it served as a disappointment that stopped all the good in life. It ruined everything. Barbeques, outdoor weddings, slippery slopes to trips to the mall. Rain became the trope of my story. I filed my life  under D for Dismal. Especially after I was served a diagnosis for severe Bipolar disorder. I thought BPD was for others, and not for me. I looked down  my nose at it. Until I found myself simply looking down. If I didn’t know better,  which I didn’t, I would have known how BPD could  contribute to  the positive stuff  in my life, creating a new life for me to become a better  version of myself. I could learn to love a...

 When they sent me to the rubber room, I didn’t realize the staff wore the straightjackets too. It’s a glitch in the logic— the way they draw needles and offer a rainbow of pills the moment I wake in these drab quarters. A room with a view of a bathroom stripped of its locks. They’re convinced I’ll find a way to end it behind a closed door— as if I’d spend my afternoon jamming a finger down my throat, hoping to choke on my own history. Dinner isn't exactly steak and eggs. It’s green-tinted pizza and a pile of slimy spaghetti writhing in a watery, questionable red. And the arts and crafts room? Please. I’m a bit past the age where finger paints solve a soul-ache. I should have kept my mouth shut. I shouldn't have admitted I wanted to play the Queen of Hearts and call for my own head. But it was never really my life to take, anyway. Now, I’m here, singing "poor me" to a psychiatrist who calls this a sanctuary. I call it a warehouse filled with people just slightly more ...

I walk. The heavens above hold no promise, bruised and heavy with the weight of a modern plague— a silent, circling Death. The concrete grit beneath my boots grinds a hollow, rhythmic rasp. I am alone. Or rather, I am the only thing moving that still has a pulse. I feel the Great Eye on my neck, a gaze too vast to be human. I try to blink it away, to shroud myself in the thin veil of disbelief, but the sky does not blink back. There is no dark throat of an alleyway to swallow me, no rusted sewer to offer its foul sanctuary. I would trade this air for the breath of vermin, for a damp grave among the rats, if only to be hidden. But there is only the slab. Here is there; there is everywhere. I walk on— watching, waiting— for the clock to strike Inevitable. No engines thrum in the distance. No windows glow with the warmth of a life. The world has been hollowed out, leaving only the motion of my legs and the stillness of the void. I am a prisoner of my own skull, denied the mercy of a bird’...

  As September comes- I remember you telling me, How Jesus Christ is the King, and those who know Him will never die. I was sitting on your knee, maybe I was six or seven- we were sitting in the kitchen looking out the glass doors into our backyard In Spotswood. I couldn’t stop my questions, running out of my mouth in rivers as curious children can be. I asked: “Will He forgive people who are evil, those who will wait until the last possible second of life for forgiveness?” You answered: “Only God knows a heart, so only He will know if a person  really asks for forgiveness, and means it.” I remember you- a silhouette in the sun  wearing a straw hat, God knows where you got it- to protect your head and light skin while vacuuming the pool, or re-filling the chlorine. I remember smelling the chlorine, and knowing you were out there making our pool ready for a family swim. I knew, as I ran to my bedroom window looking out to the side of our house. That’s where I  dreamed...