Out of The Rabbit Hole

Sixteen years ago I ran away and hid.
I jumped so deep into the rabbit hole I forgot where and who I was.
I threw myself away and believed my circumstances.
Now I want to befriend those who hurt me,
because the poison I have been swallowing is only poisoning me.
I thought if I ran far enough away I could escape.
I rejected the parts of myself that had been rejected
and made myself half of who I was.
I let myself be small
and invisible
so I couldn’t be seen.
Now there is no time to hide.
There is only time to forgive
and become.
I've lived in the rabbit hole
long enough.

Red Dresses

This morning I had too many blueberries in my cereal
and now I am regretting them.
They feel like tiny spores embedded in my stomach lining
exploding at will.
Every few minutes,
KA-BOOM!
and I am sent
running.
I’ve been running for years.
Down hallways as a little girl
and later from bed to bed.
From Houston to Los Angeles,
and then from Los Angeles
to Nashville.
Each time staying too long.
Each time saying never again.
Nashville was a bigger mistake than L.A.
I got too restful here.
Lost track of time.
Forgot who I was.
In L.A. I was part of a crowd.
Writers.
Some writing crap, albeit,
but still writers.
I had the cache of U.S.C. behind me
and I could wear mini-skirts and not be looked at strangely.
Now I am in no man’s land,
a world where guns and cigarettes are touted as good things
and the average I.Q. seems to be double digits at best.
I miss my red dresses.

Originality

Each day
I tell myself
that I am getting out.
But each day
I am still here.
I tell myself that if I put in the right granite,
or stainless,
or curtains,
the right person will come.
But each day that passes I start to wonder
if they’ll come at all.
I am not like everyone else.
I don’t mind pink tile,
or white appliances,
or even fifty-year-old windows.
I like the original best.
I am tired of everything having to be new,
new and crappy.
I like what was laid down originally.
Our society is too quick to want nothing of the past.
It is a wonder we have museums.
You would think Picasso would be out of date.
Rembrant passé.
“Oh, I’ve seen him already.” I can hear some stupid suburbanite moaning.
You would think we have to put new artwork in our museums daily,
fill our galleries with Hallmark cards and cereal boxes,
just to satisfy these imbeciles.
“Yes, it’s a entirely new collection, “they would giggle as they run to their neighbors
to spread the news.
Good grief.

Mother

I am still trying to escape them.
They are the sore in my pocket.
The deep seat of fear
that keeps me rabid.
Each morning,
the call of her voice
in my ear,
the one that keeps me paralyzed.
Each night,
her self-assured domination,
the elephant in my dreams
trampling me
over and over.
I have fought to keep them away
like malaria,
like typhoid.
I have fought to break free as best I could,
but Houdini’s chains were never as tight.
I have drowned myself in words,
and songs,
and books,
hundreds and hundreds of books,
trying to escape into the page
Mother.
But I can not.
Still she comes
with her calls and her looks
and her threats.
And there is nothing for me.
Nothing.
I have been the shell in this game for too long.
Empty underneath.
My pea went missing long ago.
I have tried to contain myself.
Tried to curl up embryo-like
and escape the blows.
But I am tired.
I am losing the fight.
I have been pecked clean of flesh.
A lost beauty
hanging in the closet
with nowhere to run.

Hitting The Keys

He says I am obsessing
about the house.
And he’s right,
I am.
Each day I look on Craigslist,
and on Realtracs,
and in the newspaper,
at other homes for sale.
I look at what they are asking for them
and what they are selling for.
Then I compare mine to them.
“This one isn’t near as nice as mine,
it’s close to the freeway.”
“It doesn’t have a new roof.
You can hear highway 70 from that one. “
And on and on.
Yesterday, I noticed they just lowered the price of one around the corner
another fifteen thousand dollars.
That one has granite countertops and new stainless appliances.
Mine doesn’t.
I know it is wasted energy and wasted thought to keep doing what I am doing.
Each day I vow I am not going to go online and look
and each day I find myself hitting the keys.
I guess I’m scared.
I’m scared to just let go and trust.
I’m scared to let anyone else handle anything.
I’m scared that I will never get out of here.
It’s been over a year since Trouble died
and I’m still here.
I’m still looking out at the hill
that he loved
and wishing
I could move.
I don’t know if moving is the answer or not,
but it couldn’t hurt.
It would give me a fresh start.
Moving would feel symbolic,
like I was making progress
and heading in the right direction.
I could forget the accidents,
and his death,
and all the bad memories,
and just start over.

Passing By

There was no time to react
it all happened so fast.
One moment there were the normal sounds of the day
and the next,
screams.
I watched a hawk grab a baby from its nest
and fly away with it like a crazed pilot.
The baby’s parents followed with such ferocity
it was clear they had forgotten their attacker was three times bigger than they were.
The screams from the trees were worse than any human fight
I had ever heard.
Words and threats hurled back in forth,
rustling of leaves,
fighting and screaming.
From the sounds of it the hawk was in for more than he had bargained for.
One minute the parents were busy
hunting for food for their baby,
and taking turns with their vigil,
and the next,
they were in a fight for their child’s existence.
It was incredible how quickly things change.
Ten minutes later,
the screams just ended.
The silence was more terrifying than the shrieks
because I don’t know the ending.
Either the parents got their baby back
or the hawk got lunch.
I fear it was the later.
I wonder
what they will do now.
What will they fill their hours with?
Will they return to their empty nest
and hover above it?
Will they weep and wail
and blame each other like we would?
Or will they separate,
find another partner and start again?
There is no grief counselor for them to go to.
No source of wisdom.
There is only the day
and the hours and the seconds
passing by.

Counting Soldiers

I am counting soldiers
one by one.
In the field
and in the home.
They are piling up
outside my door
like old newspapers
I have forgotten to throw out.
Their blood and bones
are mine.
Their wounds are etched in my skin
like ugly tattoos
I can not erase.
Their graves are my graves.
In the morning when I step into my bath
it is their blood I bathe in
warm and salty.
It is their eyes I see in the mirror
when I look at myself.
It is their voices I hear
wailing outside my window
when I try to sleep at night.
It is their shoes I walk in
as I make my way down the hall
to piss.

Rapunzel's Ranch

Let down your hair,
Rapunzel.
Let down your hair,
Rapunzel,
and join us.
That’s what they’d say to her.
But she couldn’t join them.
Poor Rapunzel
was stuck in her fucking castle,
the one her mother bought for her.
The one her mother thought would be romantic.
All alone on the hill night after fucking night
with no way down.
Just her pen and her sword
and her needle
and the sound of nightingales
to keep her company.
Poor Rapunzel,
why didn’t some fucker bring her a ladder?
Couldn’t they see how lonely she was?
Why did they tell her to come down
knowing she had no way down
except to fall out of the window
and on to her pretty yellow head?
Miserable jerks.
Poor Rapunzel.
She sat there night after night
waiting and hoping she could find a way out of her
1950’s Ranch house,
the one with the outdated appliances and pink tile bathroom.
But no one would come.
No one would even look.
Why?
Because everyone wanted granite and stainless steel.
Sure her home
was safe.
And quiet.
But who wants that?
Not the guy with the Porsche
who pulled into the driveway briefly
then sped away
to the East
where all the new restaurants were springing up like toads.
If only Rapunzel had listened to herself and bought the little 1920’s cottage on Carden
instead of listening to her mother,
she would be rich now.
“That one had a sidewalk in front of it and new appliances,” she thought.
“I could have just walked out my front door
instead of waiting for someone to come and find me.”
Yes, Rapunzel,
you could have.

23 Acres

He tells me not to worry
over thirty or forty thousand
one way or the other.
“It’s just money,” he says.
If I want to move
I should move.
“What difference does it make?” he says.
And he’s right.
I know he’s right.
This is a man who was cutting deals for millions
while I was running around in diapers.
A man who had sixteen different partners.
A man who never worried about a dime.
He was bold
on paper.
I know.
A few weeks ago I flew to Houston to go through a storage unit
I didn’t know we had.
Inside I found my father’s file cabinets.
His entire business life
was in those two black file cabinets.
Every deal he ever made.
Every piece of property he ever owned.
Brazosport,
the Village shopping Center,
La Porte,
Pasadena,
and the 23 acres Charter bank took from him.
There was his letter to his partners in Bluebonnet productions
railing against them for their deceit,
his discharge papers from the army,
and his citizenship documents.
There were photos of his mother and father from the twenties
and postcards I wrote to him
from camp.
There was even a letter he submitted to the L.A. Times for publication about justice
and how justice is only for the rich.
Unfortunately, The Times rejected it.
Everything I never knew about my father was in those papers.
Papers that I was now dumping in trash bins all over Houston
while security guards weren’t looking.
I wanted to save them,
to box them up and bring them back on the plane,
to make sense of his life,
like I was Columbo putting together a puzzle
that would help me understand who he was.
But there were too many files
and no one to talk with about them now.
My father’s partners are dead
and my father doesn’t remember much.
I called him from the hotel
just to make sure he didn’t want any of his business records,
and to make sure that he hadn’t forgotten about some piece of property he still might own.
He said it was all gone,
all of it.
All those millions gone.
A life’s work just numbers on aging paper.
I asked him about his letter to his partners in Bluebonnet.
I asked him what happened and what they did to him
that left him feeling betrayed.
All he would say is, ‘the past is the past. What does it matter now?”
Yes,
what does it matter?

Maid Boyfriend Restaurant

You can never go back.
Not to maids or boyfriends
or restaurants.
It’s never the same
as the first time.
Somehow the floors never shine as brightly.
The conversation isn’t as sweet.
Touching doesn’t give you the same tingle.
And that perfectly cooked grouper,
isn’t.
It’s like that.
The shine wears off.
You notice the dust balls in the corner,
and the dental floss left in the trash can,
and the underwear hanging on the bathroom door.
And what you thought was the perfect
Maid
Boyfriend
Restaurant
turns out to be a disappointment.
So you look for another
and another
each time falling in love
with the sourdough,
if only for an instant.
Each time falling out of love
only to be left hungry for the next
Maid
Boyfriend
Restaurant.
I’ve stopped eating out.

Bad Isn't Good Anymore

It’s getting less fun
to be bad.
I can’t drink anymore.
Half a glass of anything
leaves me drunk.
And what’s more,
I don’t even enjoy the sensation.
Last week,
I had a couple of sips of a Mojito in New Orleans.
I could barely walk a straight line to the bathroom.
The room was spinning,
my face was flush, and I felt like I might end up face first in my plate of black beans and rice.
It wasn’t pretty.
I didn’t feel relaxed and I can’t say I’m glad I did it.
Same goes for sugar.
It’s starting to lose its thrill for me.
Doughnuts and cookies and cake
used to hold me spellbound.
I can still see those giant deli coconut cakes
spinning round and round in Alfred’s glass deli case,
a giant piece cut out
and all that golden yellow cake and white cream
staring back at me.
Getting a slice used to be more enticing than a trip to Disneyland.
Now, the thought of cake makes me sick.
I can feel my head start to spin and my eye sockets start to dry up and I feel fuzzy.
More and more
there is less and less that interests me
in the “what I’m supposed to enjoy” part of this world.
I don’t know how other people do it.
How do they eat and drink and smoke and live
and fill their minds with endless distractions?
There must be a place for someone like me.
There must be.

Going In

The hardest thing is the beginning.
Settling in to that deep part of yourself
that longs to be touched,
that has to be touched
in order to survive.
I can’t walk around like most people
running
from thing to thing,
appointment to appointment,
scattered like grass seed,
trying not to blow away with the first strong wind.
I need roots
and the dark dark earth to plant my feet in.
It has always been like that for me.
Going in
is what gives me life.
Going in
is what keeps me whole.
Without it,
I am lost,
a refugee on a raft
baking in the sun,
my back red and blistered.
Some would say I am exaggerating,
but it’s true.
I need to go in
the way people need three meals a day.
I need to go in
the way a diabetic needs insulin.
I need to go in.
For life.

Yellow

Somewhere in all this yellow
there is a writer.
Somewhere in the walls
and wood and tiffany lamp
there is the heart of a pen.
I’ve seen it
lost
in the bamboo blinds.
I’ve seen glimpses of it
behind the white sliding closet doors
and under the chocolate futon.
It is in the sheet music on the music stand,
the page turned to the Beatles’ “Good Morning”.
I’ve seen it
in desk drawers
and in dark corners
underneath the calculator
and the calendar.
I’ve seen it under paper napkins at restaurants
and on park benches and subway stops.
It is there
always beating
always waiting for me.
It is there
in the car with the windows rolled down
and at the grocery store contemplating cabbage over carrots.
It is in New Orleans
in the French Quarter
silently taking notes of the Cajun and Creole
and on the powdered sugar dusted on beignets.
It is in the air
dank
and musty
and on the wings of the cicada
soon to invade.
It is in the vase of sunflowers by my desk
and in the Ninth Ward,
empty and deserted.
It is in the gallop of Eight Belles
and in the silence of her fall.

Bird Girl

The cardinals outside my kitchen window
are busy.
They don’t have time to argue
over flying versus driving
or what the realtor said or didn’t say.
From the first light,
they are up and out
hunting worms for their bald babies.
I watch them day after day,
one bringing food,
feeding open mouths
while the other is off gathering more.
They do this hour after hour
from sunrise to sunset.
I wonder how they keep from collapsing.
We complain about the smallest inconvenience
and we have everything right at our fingertips.
We want something to eat
we go to the grocery store,
or to a restaurant,
or to a fast food place.
We don’t have to scour the ground
in search of movement
and wait till the coast is clear to feed our young
or ourselves.
Our lives are ones of instant gratification,
and yet,
I would rather be a cardinal.
I would rather not be burdened with telephones
and televisions and email and infomercials.
I would rather not worry about my IRA or my retirement
or whether or not some critic liked my last album.
I would rather spend my days in flight,
in the present,
with nothing to keep me tied down.

Yes

Yes
it would be nice
to curl up on the sofa
and sleep.
To let the soft yellow hues
of sunflower petal across my eyes
and into my dreams.
The rain
falling
down on my chocolate futon.
Here
I can button the dishwasher
like a lamp
and wait for morning
to come.

So Long

This time the neighbors know we’re serious.
This time they know it’s for real.
We’ve got the sign out,
the realtor sign.
No more “For Sale By Owner.”
No more black and white flyer
or rooms half-ready.
This time we’ve got all our ducks in a row.
We’ve got new pillows
and towels.
We’ve got white cotton shower curtains and park benches
and flowers by the door.
And we’ve got eco-friendly welcome mats.
We’ve got our floors scrubbed and our tables dusted
and our windows clean.
We’ve got every blade of grass cut
and yellow tulips planted by the mailbox.
This time we’re ready to leave.
The funny thing is,
now that it looks so good
part of me wants to stay.
But I tell myself there are better things ahead.
New adventures.
New places to explore.
Maybe New York
or Seattle.
Maybe I’ll live somewhere where the ticks won’t bite me in the summer
and the mosquitoes won’t know me on a first name basis.
Anyway,
I’ve been here long enough.
Trouble’s gone
and there’s no point staying in this house without him.
This was his hill,
and his yard,
and now that he’s gone
it’s time for me to go too.
He wouldn’t have wanted me to stay.
And so
I turn the page.

Talking To Liars

For three days we haven’t spoken.
It’s that way now,
now that she’s getting better.
The meanness is coming back
into her brain.
What made her soft is healing.
I can see the three of them
sitting on her couch,
sharing brie and Ritz crackers
and watching Dancing with The Stars
and talking about me,
and how horrible I am.
It’s perfect.
Let her keep her ring.
I don’t like talking to liars.

The Wasp Killer

He is no wasp killer,
this man I love.
Three different times now he has swung a newspaper
at the red-winged devil trying to build a nest at my back door,
and three times he has struck out.
Perhaps it is our vegetarian diet
that has left him unable to kill.
That instinct, that drive,
that leopard-like quickness, has been tempered by too much tofu and kale.
Now he is content to watch the ant crawl across the kitchen counter,
share space with the lone spider as he spins his web in the stereo cabinet,
and make friends with the honey bee buzzing near him on a park bench.
It is as if he has lost some “animalness” needed to survive in this world,
or rather what he is told he needs to survive.
I like him much better this way.

Petal Heads

How beautiful you are
with your big yellow head
and your brown eye watching me.
You look like a petaled periscope
on a mission from below,
a strange alien,
sent here to listen for life
and report back to your superiors all that you have witnessed.
What have you seen
sitting there in your glass vase?
Just the coming and going of legs,
voices rising and falling,
the strum of guitar notes
and frustrated fingers aching for more knowledge
than they have.
You have not seen much.
You’ve heard the ringing of the phone
and listened to the screaming of daughter against mother,
sister against sister.
You’ve seen crying and the pale face of betrayal
on the pillow beside you.
You’ve watched strangers come and go
with buckets and brooms and spray
and wondered what it was all for.
You’ve heard the t.v. in the background
and the evening news rattling on and on about politics
war and famine.
You’ve heard about the rising gas prices
and how women and men in countries
poor as Haiti are eating fried butter mixed with dirt to survive.
You’ve smelled garlic
cooking down the hall in the kitchen
and wondered how some can eat so well
while others have nothing.
You’ve swooned to the sound of the Bossa Nova
on Sunday morning
and thought for a moment you were in Brazil.
You have watched your relatives,
the other petal heads,
come and go,
tossed out with the garbage,
while you have survived.
You have wondered why they were so fragile
when you are so strong.
Your stems a hundred times wider than theirs.
You have listened for silence
and wondered why there is so little
to be found here.
You have not understood much of what you have seen.
Do not worry,
you are not alone.

Dead Trees

Dead trees are good
for birds to perch upon,
to land on and just rest.
Their bare limbs never hide the animals
that crawl upon their branches.
Dead trees are stoic as Army Generals,
never leaving their post
or changing their dress with the seasons.
They are always the same,
constant and immovable.
I like dead trees.