THE MOST PRECIOUS THING

The most precious thing
The most precious time of day
My heat on your shoulder
In quiet afterglow conversations.

Silk and steel under soft lips
Fit against you
No gap unfilled
Damp skin shining like diamonds in lamplight.

Rose-gold through the bedroom window outside
Softening, cooling into milky, mignight blue
Times like these are the most precious.

© 6-2-2009

I'M TIRED

I'm tired.
Tired of fighting everyhing and for everything.
Tired of things not working out
In love
In work
In life.

Tired of seeing others move on,
Their lives playing out before me,
While my needle stays stuck in my arm
And in the same worn-out groove.

I'm tired of having lost the love
Of two really great men
Because of my addiction
I don't want to be going through this again.

I'm tired of having to fight for every little scrap
Of self-esteem and self-respect and self-control.
I'm tired of crying over my own feelings,
Long overdue for a good oen anyway
Because they spent far too long drowning at the bottom of a bottle.
I'm tired about worrying about not worrying about others' opinions
And just concentrating on my own well-being.

But if eternal vigilance
Is the price of my freedom over this addiction,
Then bring the battle on.

But damn it all to hell,
I'm tired.

© 3-28-2009

VALUABLES

When did you steal my heart?
No breaking and entering,
I was a willing accomplice.
I handed you the key and code to my security system.

I let you walk off with my goods:
My mind, my heart, my soul.
No hope of getting them back,
No three strikes for you,
But I could get life without parole for aiding and abetting.

I plead guilty.
Please, lock me up and throw away the key.
Just give me a chance to steal your valuables, too.

© 3-16-2009

FINDING FAITH AGAIN

I’m lying in darkness,
In bed with my husband, Hopelessness,
This endless despair cuts my heart,
And nothing numbs the pain anymore.

Doing some crazy shit
Like dreaming of slitting my throat
Lengthwise along the jugular
To make damn sure
Every last drop of congealed blood is squeezed out.
Finding myself passed out
On the floor of the bus,
Not even remembering what day it was.

Answering myself more than once or twice
My vice gives me GREAT advice
“Try doing that again.
Take another drink.
It worked for you before,
And maybe things will even turn out differently this time.”

Yeah right,
What kind of insane shit thinking is that?
Obviously, something ain’t adding up
Because I’ve lost, am losing, or stand to lose
Everything that matters to me:
Money.
My home.
My possessions.
Gainful Employment.

To say nothing of what should matter to me:
My sanity.
My integrity.
My morals.
My friends and family.
The men I loved.
My LIFE.

I mean, obviously something in my thinking
Is stinking to high heaven to begin with
When my priorities are so skewed
That I put money and things over you.
But damn, I don’t know
How to untangle this web I’ve woven.
How to wake up from this nightmare I haven’t woken up from in I don’t know how long.
How to figure out what I’ve done wrong
And how I can set those wrongs to right.

Damn, I’m in for the fight of my life.

Another person said, yes you are.
But admitting that is the first step.
Now, you have to see how the old ways haven’t worked.
You tried it yourself before.
And look where and what it got you.
No money.
No home.
No possessions.
No gainful employment.

You stand to lose everything still,
If you keep stumbling down the same dark road you’ve been tripping down.
But look what you still have despite everything.
Morals, loose as they are.
Integrity, shot as it is.
Friends and family, distrustful as they are.
Your life, though you may feel like dying.

And love.
Yes, despite everything you put yourself and others through,
You still have love all around you.
And, whether you believe it or not, there’s love above you, too.

Doing it your way didn’t work before,
So now, maybe it’s time for a little something more.
There are plenty of shoulders to lean on
Of those who’ve been exactly where you’ve been
And of the Almighty, who’s seen just about everything there is to see.
You’re not unique, and that’s the beauty of it.
Have a little faith,
He does, and they do, in you.

I’m in for the fight of my life.
But I need to have faith.
Have a little faith,
He does, and they do, in me.

(3-2-2009)

WILL I SEE YOU SOON?

I thought I caught a glimpse
Of something a while back.
A side of you I never saw before,
A feeling I never expected.

It knocked a small crack in my preconceptions,
Put a little foot in the door of my heart.
Who knew what you could start?

You got me started
Thinking about what-could-be's,
Please,Let me see you again soon.
Meantime, I sit here waiting,
Anticipating That one heart-stopping moment
Wondering if my heart will stop,
Skip,
Or if that moment, that feeling
Will skip on by as if it never happened.

(3-1-2009)

POSERS AND LOSERS NOT WANTED AD

Wanted: one good man who knows a woman's worth

Hip hop, gangster, and DJ posers and losers
Need not apply for the post of "significant other.

"As Paula Cole sang, "Where have all the cowboys gone?"
Where did mamas & papas go wrong
In raising MEN?

Most applicants I've noticed
Only want a token white chick
With a J-Lo ass, worth one good screw.
Puhleeze, I'll pass.

To them, beauty is only skin and va-jay-jay deep
.They never bother to look beneath.
I have a mind, a heart, a soul,
That make my size-18 ass look petite.

My mind, they'll never be able to wrap theirs around
Because they can't grasp the finer points in life.
My heart, they'll never have because, like the grinch, theirs is two sizes too small
(Along with another part of their anatomy).
My soul, too expansive for their feeble existence
Because they're not even as two-dimensional as a cardboard cutout.

So you see, while I may be advertising for a man,
YOU are the reason why you will never see my ad on Craiglist.

(2-20-2008)

FORGIVENESS

"What if..."
In my opinion, the two most destructive words
In the language of the human heart.

"What if" this?
"What if" that?
Mind going a million miles an hour
Down a million different paths
With a million different possibilities,
You get lost.

"What if..."
Mulitply that by two,
And you get "What could have been."

"What could have been?"
Spending so much time mired in memories that never happened,
You can't dig yourself out.
They say, "If you have one foot in the past,
And one foot in the future,
Then you're pissing all over today."

Life is too short.
For regrets.
For resentments.
For dislikes.
For hatred.
For heartbreak.
For pity
Especially of self.

Forgive yourself.
Forgive myself.
Then, let's forgive each other.

(12-16-2008)