Rooted

when autumn arrives

and leaves begin 

to fall i 

remember that i 

am the tree

not the golden 

leaf spinning gloriously 

to the ground

Waterboarding

Would you love me more 
if this body was thinner 
his thinning hair thicker
her thickness less sexy
their sexiness more tame
his tameness more fierce
my fierceness less fiery 
her fire more water
our watered down selves 
so dampened
that we drown ourselves 
without seeing you’re 
holding our heads underwater 

—

April PAD - Poetic Asides Day 2 prompt: what does the future hold 

Love is

Love is watching from afar
letting him struggle
because he has to learn himself

Love is taking the 3 a.m.
call because his
anxiety is spinning out and

dark thoughts are creeping in
Love is always
knowing that you'll pick up

the phone and never expecting
a thank you
because it will never come

And being OK with that

--
April PAD - Poetic Asides Day 21: love or anti-love

operating system

is it just a quirk
in the system
that those who are dying

on the frontlines of injustice
across our country
are mostly black and brown?

or is it built into
the system to 
oppress those with skin tones

darker than the colonizers who
stole this land?
I'll say: it's no quirk.




--
April PAD - Poetic Asides Day 22: quirk

My nature

The forest calls
beckons me to 
stand beneath the

canopy, drink in 
the evergreen expanse 
feet planted like

roots, one with
nature because i 
am nature, i 

am the primal
predator buried in
my DNA, my

home is here 
among the redwoods 
and ferns, fresh 

air, fresh water,
fresh thoughts, fresh
mind, free, free

free, free, free



--
April PAD - Poetic Asides Day 18: message

circulation

we're all just breath
breathing each-other

--
April PAD - Poetic Asides Day 19: 6 words

Zookeepers

There is nothing exotic 
about caging tigers or people

poverty is a zoo 
and the keepers long ago

threw away the keys
allowed the wealthy to watch

the destruction of the 
poor, parentless, miners, minions, slaves

calling the infighting feral, 
innate in the incarcerated as 

a class (a species 
inhuman and different from themselves 

completely), and not due 
to their unnatural imprisonment 




--
April PAD - Poetic Asides Day 17: exotic

Unbounded

I don't like checking boxes
(I'm an "other")
or drawing inside the lines
(let me free!)

I don't like tucked sheets
(it's too constricting)
and "don't do ___ signs"
(now I want to)

But the older I get
(please don't ask)
the more I crave ritual
(but not routine)

Turns out, I like structure
(predictability not monotony)
and prompts and poetic forms
(forced, focused creativity)

Until I don't.

--
April PAD - Poetic Asides Day 14: form/anti-form

Bottled spirits

They say he
had his demons
I saw them
on his face

anguished, angry, ashamed
they feasted on
the memories he
could not share

there could be
no exorcism for
the pains he
would not speak

only the spirits
he drank released
them temporarily until
they became our demons too

--
April PAD - Poetic Asides Day 12: spirit

World pieces

There might be dark forces
currently at play
but there is also light

--
April PAD - Poetic Asides Day 5: purpose

He persisted

It was another good date
We went back to his place
I pulled him close

we kissed
we groped
we fumbled

It was a good time
Until things went too far
I pushed him away

he groped
he fumbled
he persisted

It was no longer a good date
Back at his place
He pulled my legs apart

I fumbled
I flailed
I cried

he persisted

--

April PAD Poetic Asides Day 3 - stop / don't stop

IQ test

"Oh, you're a smart girl,"
he said, as
if I was somehow less

attractive because of my intelligence.
"I guess so,"
I said and walked away.

--

April PAD Day 5 - Poetic Asides prompt: intelligence

Blooming

we bloom in secret, stretching
our faces closer
to the sun each day

--

April PAD Poetic Asides Day 1 - secret

Casing the joint

I sneak
I watch
from the outside
from afar

I look through pictures
I look through junk
to catch a glimpse
to understand

the woman in the mirror

--

April PAD Poetic Asides Day 4 - case (blank)

Exercising your rights

I used to think rights were like my skeleton
god-given, sturdy, and strong
the foundation of being a human

But now I think rights are more like a muscle
pliant, moveable and changing
needing to be flexed to remain strong

---
April PAD Day 25 - exercise

Dead end

It was no secret that
he beat her
we all saw the bruises
heard the excuses
knew she wasn't as clumsy
as she purported
to be

---

April PAD Day 30 - dead end

Morning breath

The cup on

my bathroom counter

holds two toothbrushes

and the memory of 

minty breath and 

mornings spent cuddling

under that pearly 

white down comforter; 

of lips on 

the lookout for 

a surprise attack

on cheeks or

forehead or any

patch of kissable

skin, which shivered

each time you 

smiled at me. 

Take off

At the beginning
there's a rumbling

a flutter
of excitement

as we run
hand in hand

toward some
unknown destination

where we will
both soar together

or soon
crash land

---
April PAD Day 27 - take off

Diem Perdidi

Inspired by Julie Otosuka's short story, which I read for the first time today and was tremendously moved.


I was in fifth grade
when I learned what
it was to forget

that my grandmother would
sometimes misplace her keys
or lose herself completely
in the space between thoughts

She once drove a car
into the side of
their motorhome when the
space completely seized her

my grandfather screamed for
her to stop but
she wasn't present to

hear him yelling her
name at the top
of his lungs, "Whoa
Tei! Stop, Tei, stop!"

He raged at the
damage, the fear of
losing a woman he'd
loved for 40 years,

and at the space
that stole her a
little more every day

a forgetting that would
not stop or slow
but plowed into her
like she had that

Airstream and that seized
all of us when
she could no longer
remember any of our names

 ---
April PAD Day 21 - responding to another poem

Black holes

I saw this hauntingly beautiful piece at the Portland Art Museum today and was absolutely struck by it; the hair, the ears, the neck, the shoulders look just like my son ... and the anguish just moved me nearly to tears. It's like someone took a psychic x-ray or the human I love most in the world and this is what they saw. Heartbreaking.

So, of course, I wrote about it ...


sometimes
I see death
when I look
into my son's face

there's
an anguish that
could kill him
clawing just below the

surface
of his skin
a zombie eating
his brain from inside

sometimes
i see the
look of anguish
as he claws at

life
begging to be
freed from the
killer inside, the black

hole
in his throat
that's so big
it chokes out life

---
April PAD Day 6 - ekphrastic