Sometimes it is sunny.
Meaning: the sun is shining on my
home/town/part of the world/body.
Today is rainy.
Meaning; it is loud and wet at my
home/town/part of the world/body.

The rain, the wash bin, music from the neighbor's porch,
summer thunder, electric sky.
A plug, to a device ready to charge, 
or a cork ready to stopper the storm.

When i was little
the small boats trapped in bottles,
called my name to free them
and let them sink in the captivating waves.

Today is rainy.
 But there is no storm.
Only the rain,
and the wash bin, nearly empty.

But
i still say it is sunny.
Meaning: it is sunny on someone's
home/town/part of the world/body.
The someone is not necessarily me.

I want them to think this same thought.
Its a nice thought...

Today is sunny.
Meaning: i am walking alone,
in the world,

There's one thing you must always keep in mind:
no one is happy
all the time.

No one is the "perfect person".
Everyone cries, everyone feels pain.
It feels different... but it is pain.

Sometimes it is dull,
achy, grey clouds.
But I can guarantee...

Someone else feels the same way
at the same time that you do.

Sometimes the pain will be more like fire,
brush burn, sharp glass, coming train.

And at that same time
someone very different...
very far away,
feels the same.

The second thing you should know...
by simply being human
you are a murderer.
By being human you are
ancestry and blood.

But...

That doesn't necessarily mean
you are a bad person.
That doesn't mean you are accepting,
that doesn't mean
you don't try to be the good.

Third thing:

breathing doesn't mean

Poems pile up along with every pain in my body.
An eyesore they say,
the state of my mentality.

Everyday i pour my water to the plants
springing up in my journals.

At night:
thoughts wiggle through the cracks
where darkness should be unfolding
in the sleepless black.

Sleeplessness is my diagnosis.

Zoom. 
We are are guests.
Participants in a world
no longer willing to host.

Mother Earth has sent you a private message.

Corona has disabled chatbox.

Corona has disabled screen share.

Corona has disabled video.

Corona has muted participants.

Corona has ended meeting for all.




 

Where does it hurt?
Everywhere.

My eyes
feel too large and disproportioned in this world.
But you can see.
My tongue is too shy,
my lips caked in glue
from crafting something messy and scary.
But it rose above the bodies.
My arms are sore
hanging at my body's ends.
But you have picked yourself up.
My hands, too tired to birth a language.
But there are words enough for you.
My torso, stomach, insides,
are hollow.
An empty echo resonating
in my deep ocean depths.
But you can rebuild.
My heart is missing,
strung up, hanging from a tree.
Swinging
swinging
swinging
in the summer breeze.
But you still love.
You can relearn.

Where does it hurt now?
Only the part i haven't mentioned.

What part is that?
My world.


 

I just want to go home.
It's not the home your thinking of...
My home is my life.
I want my life back in my own arms.

I want my life beside me,
holding me hand,
face unmasked and hand ungloved.

Closer to me,
not hanging out of reach...
My arms are only so long
they can't reach six feet.

For my birthday
I just wanted something returned.
Something that should already be mine.
Something that was stolen from me.

My life is not something I personified
in my poems because I thought I was my life.
Now I realize corona hasn't stolen my life.
It has stolen me.

What price would I pay to get myself back?

Six for the feet swelling between us,
cold without the socks and shoes of mismatched hope.

Five for the hours we spend each night pretending
we're in love with a screen instead of each other.

Four, the flowers I grew in my garden,
each one watered by salt water and
fed with the dreams of a love not so forbidden. 

Three, the rubber bands my brother shot at us Sunday night...
The last time I saw you, the last time I saw anyone.
Blue ribbons becoming birds, learning how to fly.
We learned how to fly too that night.
The difference is...
rubber bands can't hold hands.

Two for the time, the fine hour of 2:00
hen I am released, free to be another virtual persona.

One, an ode to my left arm.
Harboring a jungle of bracelets along
with the 67 days I have been in quarantine.
Reminding me of the 1,608 hours
I have been without you.

I miss you like the sun pinches the horizon scarlet, 
I miss you like the hairpin clutches the braid,
I miss you like ripples knock over calm water
with a cacophony of chiming lotuses.

I miss you like my hair is wet and
leaves flower prints on my pillow while I dream,
(hairpin still stuck)
I miss you like the sunset falls through the trapdoor in the set
and we're all left wondering where she went.

I miss you like paint splattered faces and knees,
red hearts, blue eyes, some things don't really need more color.
I miss you like notes
slipt in borrowed overdue library books.
I miss you like
like
like
love...
I miss you like the ocean reaches for her deep.
 

My shoulders are weighty,
under the regular chasm of responsibility
and now beneath the heavy hopelessness
dragged over my neck,
causing an ache to spread throughout my chest.

A mask grips at my line of sight,
not saying anything...
just looking.
I can't tell if its body likes my despair.
Concealing all but my shining eyes,
feeling the tears slip under the lip of the mask
and past my cheeks.

People cross the walk when anyone comes near,
Six (feet) times ten (the times I have been told not to get too close to somebody)
equals the number of days I have been in quarantine.

But...

The sky is clear.
I don't hear motors growling in the distance.
Actual flowers are waking up
at never before plotted land.
I hear stories of city-dwellers who can wish on stars again.
But I think
(selfishly)
if my future is worth anything if its spent locked alone.

Hello
I whisper to my mirror.
I am talking to the chipped edges
and paint dabbling spots.
To the dusty, mahogany frame
and engraved eyelets.

I am not talking
to that girl in the middle,
standing alone in a dark room.
She doesn't look
like she wants to talk...

I don't think the mirror
likes the girl very much.
Seeming to warp and
discolor her shape.
Her beautiful, natural shape...

She frowns.
I want to tell her to find another mirror,
another voice to talk to.
But it seems the mirror's voice
is bigger than mine.

I watch
as she pushes the mirror to the ground
where it shatters.
And for a moment I am happy,
that she is fighting back...

But I know deep down,
it wasn't the mirror
she wanted to destroy.

In the folds of a long, brown skirt,
in a breeze drying tears,
in the first lilacs that smile through dew.

Mama
you are the city that fades into forest,
you are the coffee with cream in the morning,
you are the sunglasses on a hot sunny day.

Mama
is not a word
or a sound.

A phenomenon of love.
Lily pads rising from the green pond,
a cairn rising from the mossy woods floor,
a dawn rising from the end of night.
Mama rises, bringing with her
the sound of love.
No it is not a lullaby at sleeping clock time,
it is not a reading voice,
it is not the spitting pan on the stove.

It is her arms
clothed in love,
reaching for
that child of light.

The child of night already on her back,
the child of ocean swaying at her hip,
the child of air perched on her shoulders,
the child of fire clinging to her legs.