paralleling

I am still thinking about
fruit flies.
Fruit flies and Octobers and pennies,
and I know these things
are not alliterative

but they feel that way.

swarm

I automatically think 'fruit flies' when the cloud of dust flies up around my feet and when the flock of starlings lifts away from the roof of the old hospital next door. It's a familiar feeling, probably because the same swarms of little winged thoughts have been circling through my mind for weeks now. I'm setting traps, and the flying things are so easy to fool into complacency with sweet fruit, but they're never quite all gone. Just when I think I'm clear another I catch sight of another cloud poised for liftoff.

flight delay

I am setting my alarm for 4:15am and looking up directions to the Baltimore airport and trying to temper my grump by being thankful that, were our roles reversed, my brother would gladly do the same.

[TITLE UNKNOWN]

I will take me away
To a foreign place

Where a language
Is unnecessary.

                       I
Shall move my mouth
In deepest darkness,

Sculpting sentences
That none shall hear:

They are mine alone.

A place where the one voice
That is heard is the wind

In strange trees, rustling
Branches of gaudy leaves.

Perhaps there is a sea
To respond--softly,

Implacably: a duologue
Of sibilance and fluting.

We shall collaborate.
(Me atop a barren hill,

Arms outspread, gesturing
To the sea, the dark sky.)

We shall indulge ourselves
In deepest conversation:

Wordlessness, movements,
Fullest comprehension.



-David Joshua Sharp

shattering

I'm trying not to be superstitious, but I'm about to leave for the funeral of a woman I never met and early this morning I broke a hand mirror and last evening while my brother was saying a blessing over a meal and was just at the part where he was mentioning my... (HOLY CRAP) fiance and me by name, the untouched dinner plate in front of me exploded outward like it had just been detonated, shards flying in all directions with a noise like a gunshot. I sat very still and sucked the blood off of the pad of my finger until all the sharp pieces had been brushed from my arms and legs and swept and mopped away.

Perhaps it was the ghost of Edgar Allen Poe.

betrothed

Didn't really think that my reaction to seeing a diamond ring being held out to me by the man I love would be 'what the hell are you doing?' But then, when this same man first told me he loved me, my response was 'you're crazy.' I will have to work on these reactions of mine so that when the time comes to say 'I do' it won't come out 'schwaaaa?!'

I am not good at shorthand

but it feels important that I put a stamp on what I've just been living.

I want to make sure it's all real to me: the sinus infection that took me to a fever and the passing of time and love that brought me back. And the trip to the north that followed.
I think I have always told myself that I am capable of one day having Big love. Well. I am feeling it every day. I am feeling it in the old friends who have in them a lifetime of stories I share. When I am with them I always wish I had another day or two to spare to let my me out and to catch a little bit more of their them. And I was feeling Big love at the wedding by the river last weekend. By far, my favorite. The bride and groom walked down to meet each other in the middle of a circle of green to the beat of the music coming from my horn and from the mind and body of the man at my side. We do that well. I loved so much the bride, the bride who found treasure deep inside me long before I could see the reflection of worth in my own eyes. I was there to lace up her wedding dress and fasten the pearl necklace and settle it down on her strong collarbone. I could cry picturing it because she was that beautiful and I was that close to it all when she was opening her hands and heart and taking her lover inside. I know that look, because I have it, too. I have it, too. I am hilariously loved. And for a year I have been in three minds about how I should be and how I will be but now I know. I know by the way he brought me painkillers and kissed me even when I was sick and I know by the tone of his voice when we sat on the rocks watching the river run past us talking about our futures and I know by the way the sunset reflected off of his cheek and I know by the way much later into the night we snuck away from the party to dance alone, just the two of us and the stars. I know: you are the one.
I don't understand and have no way to pay for this gift, but my life has been just given to me like this and it's not only mine, it's ours and I can't wait.
I have been full and humming with I-like-you. We kept celebrating this weekend: birthdays and Holy Shit, One Year and bonfires and jello shots and red velvet cake, and yesterday before finding our way back to the highway four of us had lunch together at a place I'd like to take along home with me with a waitress who said 'yous' and made me smile because that sounds right. I wish I could always let it be written in my face and coming from my mouth how much I love your welcome and your time and your lifetime friendship. When I say thank you and I'll miss you what I mean is: y'all are like little pieces of my heart.
S and I drove home in a car that smelled like spilled wine and pasta sauce down a highway with potholes and traffic jams and I am sure again that he is real because there's no one I'd rather be stuck in traffic with and lost in Frackville with and nose to nose and toe to toe with once we're finally home.

on the road

I am feeling... sleek with love and pointing my bare feet toward the highway. I have been overwhelmingly blessed.

VII (I do not love you)

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.


-Pablo Neruda

burning

I am awake at 4:00am because I have a fever behind my brow. Behind my left eye. In my neck. Down my back. My toes are curling in disappointment as the rest of my body sinks deeper into the mattress.
I have yet, in my more than three years at the library, taken a legitimate sick day. My fingers are tempted to flip the switch, but what stops me has always been what stops me: I can. I will wake to the alarm and slip myself from the bed and fumble for my glasses and slowly, slowly creep to the office and spend a few quick hours making a difference before skulking back to bed. I almost certainly will.
I have a day and a half to resurface and to clear the heat from my vision before S and I are to take a trip up to the top of the country for loving and bachelorettes and birthdays and anniversaries and a wedding--and playing the processional as my favorite bride walks down the grassy aisle. I cannot be There and not be Well.
I can't sleep--my heart beats too quickly and my arms are covered in goosebumps. There's no way to skip this part, is there? A cool cloth for my eyes, an allowance of time when the morning comes. There is something so human about fevers. I'm being offered up.