The Beginning of Dementia

Her eyes were distant
But there was enough real in her
To touch me
As she wandered in her mind

My father was brewing, frantic
French
Onion soup

But she no longer understood dinner

He was sweating
Like the onions

Sure, I’ll open the wine
I stole a sip straight from the bottle
Like a boy/girl
Sand
Sifted

In the bathroom
She wanted me to help her
Our roles reversed

Of course,
I expected this

But when she covered her eyes
And cried
The child in me
Could not
Untangle her
Tears

I am barely a person.

Ash

His white dress
Shirt
Is suspiciously
Wrinkled

He’s been sleeping
In his Lexus
On his Lunch break
At 10:17 a.m.

He pretends to stand
Like Janis Joplin
Lovely and disheveled
His thoughts pace in circles
And I can feel
The liquid
Of his swaying

The drowsy influence
Of his bones

Oh, ache is so simple

But it’s more like absence,
Not finding enough human
Inside.

Alter

I enjoy
What makes me
Into what I am not

The fluids touch my synapses
Controlling the beat of my blood
Into neat lithe lines of life

My body is wringing
With the satisfaction
Of being

As I sip this morsel
Of alteration
My brain throbs
And with a touch
The spasms
Calm
And thoughts
Melt
Into this.

It’s okay
To be who I am
The sweat and shame
Becomes me

When did I become
A portion of a person
The doubt and perception
Shapes
And wrings my soul dry

I stood by the window
Waiting for my parents to come home

As they shopped
Three
Four
Five?
Hours

And my siblings played
indifferent

I stood

Stuck to the window
Overlooking the driveway
Fear and loneliness
Pulsing
Through my nine year old veins

Where does it begin?

The abandonment
And loss of self

This is how confidence
Breaks
I think
Because I never knew
For sure
They would come back.

Beauty

I think it was a man’s
Shirt
Casually hugging your female frame
Light as a parachute
In its throes
Of flight

The skin of your neck
Skinny and taunt
Was a clean, soft
Blade
Ripping
Through the fabric

An unbuttoned
glimpse
A gift

I ogled and felt no guilt
In my desire

On the Rocks

I wanted to drink
Whiskey
Wishing for the eroticism
Of elegant,
Trembling hands
clasped around
Crystal
Desperate for the once familiar
Feminine bestiality
Of my brain,

But every sip quenched
Crucial, required words
Like an amber venom of mediocrity
I felt

The lift of cliché

Fill me empty

And I let it sink
Hoping to drink
Myself out
Of the hollow
Silence of this block
And back
Into the comfortable stability
Of sentence
Structure.

Scalding Inspiration

My eyes feel the center of my brain
Ever since I lost the substance
Softly
Circling my skull

I do not feel blood
Unless it is freed

And when I spin
I seldom
Come Back
To the routine
Heaviness
Of myself

Missing

I have lost
The soft
Scent of my mother
Somewhere under the earth
of Southern France
Silent
And safe
I am left
To carry this grief

The loss
Is hard and heavy
In its silence

She would have smiled
At the soft weight
Of her own paradox

I miss most
The tenderness
Melting from the crisp blue grey
Of her eyes
Equivalent to a touch
Though surprisingly warmer
And the powdery, soft coolness of her face
And neck
The scent
Of Lavender
Sifted

She never raised
Her voice
Ever
But I hear it now

Singing.

Lunch

This is more than the wringing
Of hands
There is napkin shredding
And fork shuffling
And compulsive drinking
Of ice
Water
With lemon

Sitting with semi strangers
Men mostly
And I
Pretend to be
Who I am
On the phone

Conversation is mostly about them
Tell me this
That
About you
This is how conversation works
In this tiny little world of theirs

I dread
The reversal
When they ask about me

Don’t

My demeanor must scream it
The tense bones
And sweat

I am not theirs
To know.

Half of us are English majors
Forced to pound numbers
Into soft curves
Searching for shares
Of belonging
Here.

My Mother's Words

I am reading her
Manuscript
And every word
Is a slight sliver
of her

The depth and even
The softness of her touch
Is in that ink

I idolize
The page numbers
Hand
written
From her own

And the few notes
In the margins
Are remnants
Of her thoughts
Another layer
To complete the hidden
Grappling
Part of her.

She is with me almost
Completely
Now.

Raskolnikov

I will always remember
the sweetness
of his psychosis

the way he paced
on the page
like a tangled string in a storm

I craved the keen understanding
of misery and darkness
shattered skulls
constantly aching from the overflow

I thought daily about licking
the ink from the print
of his voice
to taste the truth of his brain
to know
what it meant to be truly
mindful

I was sixteen
Advanced Placement English
and in love
with aberrations
and the lapse of social constraints
torn
by the thrill of thorns
words and hands
and the insane perfection of their places
in sentences and skin

my lust was shameless and new
a crime unpunished
every swelter justified by the infringement
of my youth
and the vodka in my veins
and yes,
I became a person
then.

Gossip

If a whisper
Is overheard
It is about the one on the fringe

I hear the shadow
Followed by the sizzle

And I am sad with its silence
Suffocated by the drip
Drip
drip
Of salacious insecurity

Borne out of boredom,

fear

Mixed with a slick desire
To be more
Than what is less

The slushing sound of vowels
Swimming and shushing in the hallway
Drown
The buzz
Of my computer conversation

I am alone here