24 February 2024

On neurodivergence

She said, "you can only hold
one thought in your head at a time,"
like a small bird
that falls out of a nest--
fragile, its breaths urgent.

But as she is stating this "fact,"
I do not think that she is correct,
as each of my thoughts
darts
fully formed,
flashes of hummingbirds each time,

and each time, that sharp
little flutter
frightens me
when I mistake it for something else,

then it transforms
and finds a friend to fly with it,
each bird defying what makes sense--

just like each thought begets another--
related, but not always--to tag along.


05 February 2024

Pompeii

before the river of fire 
swept across the lands, 
flames fell from the sky, 
and we took 
to each other's arms 
for shelter.
in confusion, we wept,
our hot tears leaving 
deep valleys 
in sloughs of skin.

this is a lesson we cannot tell you.
it has to be shown.

we exist to care for one another. 
it is written in our bones, held 
in our graves as testimony:
large skull, small skull, no flesh--
a mother's long limbs, fingers, 
hold close her child, whose tiny frame
is forever five years old--
whose mother so loved him 
that her last remaining instinct
was to protect him
from elements beyond her control.

it is futile; it is terrible.
it has to be shown.




09 January 2024

The American Trauma

It's the same reason
the attic isn't decorated,
or why guided tours
of sausage factories
do not exist.
We hide truths.
We store them
not just in metaphors,
in figures of speech,
but in muscle fibers,
in blood,
until the resentment
isn't just some burden
but a punishment
in waiting,
curlers wound
a little too tightly
to the scalp,
invoices folded
into little sharp thirds
before they go off in the mail.
This is how the truth is inherited,
one small bundle
passed down
then passed again
until bones
are wittled into nothing
and daughters are left
missing their fathers.



20 December 2023

a place that I can't get to

In a room, all I feel
is the cold that you left.
Through the air, all I see
is your face full of blame.
What's left to see?
What's there to see?
...A place that I can't get to.


Red House Painters, "Song for a Blue Guitar"



Who am I but
an impermanent object
shrinking
into something
I don't recognize,
dreaming of a place that
I can't get to,
where every grain of an idea,
every morsel of
a tedious ritual
seems like a waste of time
because you aren't there?


12 December 2023

rest

with the same voice,
you would coo at small animals
and comfort your adult children.

with the same eyes,
though colorblind,
you would sort laundry
and choose school outfits.

with the same hands,
you would tidy Grandma's grass and trees
and bury beloved pets
when they passed from this realm into the next,

leaving their vessels behind
for you to carefully grieve,

for you to lay their empty limbs down and rest
as comfortably as possible.

with my soul, with my heart,
I hope you can know
I am so thankful.

rest, dad.