i. consolation

I’m not a movie star

Not a doctor 

No world-class pianist 

 

Haven’t fought in a war 

Don’t drive Nascar 

Or overdose on Jesus 

 

I don’t have a lisp 

No dimples

No diabolical disease

 

Can’t stand heights 

Or hate 

Or bourbon 

 

Never been in a fist fight 

Won’t settle for less

Can’t resist a good song 

 

Not a wallflower

No superpower 

Haven’t seen a ghost

 

Never gotten arrested 

Or divorced

I’m not a refugee 

 

No plain Jane 

But can’t shake daydreams 

Or juggle anything 

 

I don’t have patience 

Or speak softly 

Cannot conceive of life on a whim 

 

Don’t cry much 

Or think before I speak 

Still no easy target 

 

People have called me 

Scary 

Hilarious 

Life of the party itself 

 

Impenetrable

Singularly beautiful 

And plenty more 

When I couldn’t hear 

 

Yet behold 

A December baby 

Capricorn rising 

Made in the southern winter 

 

Ten fingers ten toes 

At the mercy of it all 

Thriving nonetheless

 

I check the directions

Open my cards first 

And arrive fashionably late to a fault

 

Preferring to eat dessert 

On a rainy mountain morning 

Alone with the windows open 

 

My soul 

All nooks and crannies 

Intricacies hidden away

 

Left frustratingly

Humiliatingly 

Undisturbed 

 

A miner now 

Treasure hunter of dreams 

My back to the sun by day 

 

The luck 

The deep-cut ruts 

The loneliness 

 

A cinematic reel 

Or a synopsis 

Painted by number 

Will have to do 

 

My unread prose 

My unwritten reality 

As vibrant textiles stacked 

Atop giltwood and oil on plaster 

Doggedly preserved for the ages

Must suffice 

 

Let’s hope it’s enough

Though pray tell 

What does she win in the end 

 

The lifesaver broken free from her throat 

As she dangled upside down 

From her mother’s hands 

Just inside the doorframe 

 

The little bow 

She tied for herself

On purple pants 

At nap time 

 

Mint chocolate bunnies on  

The Curio cabinet enrobed by 

Invisible Halston clouds 

 

Dead doves tumbling 

Out of camouflage 

Fresh off adolescence 

On a tear 

 

Peeled grape eyeballs 

Fallen to the floor

As she ran screaming 

From every haunted house encounter 

 

I remember 

Latchkey living 

Terror hitting me

So I hit back 

 

My head down on a desk 

Eyes closed 

Lights dim 

 

A story streaming in

Soothing the resting 

Through a resonant voice 

As I pretended to find 

A little Indian in a cupboard 

 

Escape having sweetly made 

A narrow space there 

Just for me 

 

And my pilgrimage did indeed end eventually 

Delivering me here in one piece 

Certainly nothing to sneeze at  

 

Yes I am 

Holding myself up 

Laughing through the lunacy 

Now composed primarily of 

Dramatic anecdotes in perpetuity 

 

I’m wishing  

Maybe stupidly

To heal 

To feel 

 

Hoping to see

Before time runs out 

Whether these loose ends 

Will ever meet

 

Wondering what your eyes are like and 

How you could think to deny me

Any possibility to better know myself 

Through you 

 

But I won’t linger here 

Where no warm breast shelters me 

I am deserving 

Just can’t believe

I have to say it again 

 

So please  

Love me properly  

Or leave me to be 

A prize unto myself