They float in with the light
the ones who left
Not in reflections
Not in words
Gestures and turns
opposite from
everything I ever
planned
prayers condensed
still etched and smudged
Clean the mirror
and my face is still
only now
I don’t see before
Can’t remember yesterday
Maybe around the eyes
When I’m tired
I see then
Lights out
heat up
Looking for before
again
floating in
forever
Staring from the
Introvert side of the window
Not really wondering
Why
Unlovable
Unlaughable
One in the crowd
Not seen for the
Roses
Or
Thorns
Not fit for the bouquet
Not good for forever
Maybe a season
Likely less
Watched me fall
Never raked me up
A dried addition
To a spinster’s
Kitchen beams
Waiting for the withered
Fingers
To match the
Inside
Not really wondering
Why
Unlovable
Unlaughable
One in the crowd
Not seen for the
Roses
Or
Thorns
Not fit for the bouquet
Not good for forever
Maybe a season
Likely less
Watched me fall
Never raked me up
A dried addition
To a spinster’s
Kitchen beams
Waiting for the withered
Fingers
To match the
Inside
Why
Unlovable
Unlaughable
One in the crowd
Not seen for the
Roses
Or
Thorns
Not fit for the bouquet
Not good for forever
Maybe a season
Likely less
Watched me fall
Never raked me up
A dried addition
To a spinster’s
Kitchen beams
Waiting for the withered
Fingers
To match the
Inside
Requests are refusals
Needs are needles
Wants are worthless
Asks are assumptions
You didn’t deserve
Fine
I didn’t deserve
Better
Spirals
Like lost stairways
Where trinkets of us
Fall between cracks
And left behind parts
Follow them
Calling out
For lost limbs
every time
A ghost touches
The railing
If I don’t know
Enough to mistrust
Who is more
The fool
Fools don’t know
They are crazy
Or is it the other
Way
Round
Dressed up in a
Harlequin motley
Of
Over
Emotional
Sensitive
Ir
Regular
Rational
Respective of
The rules of
Court
Is the moth that
Fights the draw of
The light
Resilient
Or dishonest?
Will she bear
Sharp teeth
Or begin to swim
If pressed
Begged
Provoked
No
She flies
As she must
Perched to
Rest
And flies again
Knowing
It is her
Doom
When I was in eighth grade, I got detention. The only one I ever would.
With another girl who also went on to be a writer. A good one. A real one.
We were not detention girls.
The plan was to create a time capsule. Capture the essence and sparkle and unrest of 1991and save it from decay for a rainy day.
Keep a time that was so hard in the living but might be passingly pleasant with distant remembering.
What about putting something precious on a shelf while you still want it in your hands
Like taking freshly delivered flowers and hanging them upside down instead on a wall instead of right way up in a vase of water.
Keeping something to remember before it wilts. A memory of beauty before you put your hands around and turn it ugly with oiled prints
Shelf out of the way
Shelf I can’t see
Shelf I’d like to build in my heart if only
I had the support beams
To handle the screws
Close
Enough to get a hand on
Enough that if it fell the
Memory would break
At least one bone
Want to know it’s there
But not know
Because I don’t know
Leave it there long enough
Might be there for
The next tenant
Cobwebs and dust
Encroach and envelop
So it becomes part
Of the timber
That maybe you’ll forget
When you pack your boxes
And downsize
When your life
Moves on
Or you pry the wood
And take it
Splinters
Brackets
Paint chips
Reaffix to ribs
And fascia
Soft
And brittle
Carry your shelf
Until it becomes
You
Dust in your veins
Cobwebs in your valves
And the memory
Is all that lives
Dark Yarn Productions 