My Little Army

It takes all that I have to beat
down the cultural
timeline of my past,
of my mother,
of her mother,
of the centuries women walked through head
down
bundled up
hidden.
Power still comes with hips
swaying from right
to left
to lean back a shoulder and look
with heart but now
its all wrapped up in
two piece suits and
tight ass jeans
and pitting my life against hers and
wondering if you'll ever be that perfect
person
with the perfect life
and become who I am meant to be.

It is a force you feed, and mass
like a small army
those deadlines of
life
baby
man
house
perfect diet.
We stage all out wars with best friends and
magazine covergirls
we house our insidious soldiers in our
hearts and when
all three ventricles are full
they spill out into our lungs.

Lately I've been fighting them on my own
with a bat,
the wooden one that my father used
to teach me how to play
baseball
in the backyard
in summertime
in no rush to grow up.
I was someone dirty
and carefree then,
dreaming more than I slept,
and now
I'm rushing to hold on
to her.

After the slaughter,
I find this punishment to be too harsh,
the brutal force used against my
ideas of what-should-be
conter productive,
and in my anger to define
my life
my body
my dreams on
my own
I have culled everything,
even the most positive messaged culled.
the generations within
me gone,
cut away the voice boxes of the
women who birthed the woman that
birthed me
lost all connection
and suddenly I'm not a child
rebelling and free
and I'm not an
half-grown adult
running blind

and then suddenly
I'm sitting on a cliff,
far away from who I thought I
was
supposed to be,
the cage I built for my self
destroyed.
Here, there is
No trail in sight
no sign posts either.
Breathing into the
vastness of the sky,
I can begin again.
Sometimes
not knowing the way is the
exact
place become whole again.

Inheritance

I have a way of folding into myself
like poppies at night
hiding
from the chill of reality.
This happens when all trust has faded
all goodness seems to flee
out of the pores in my skin
leaving my body to sit
on the branches of trees I pass
singing to me of what
I could have been-
all happiness abounds,
while I shrink further in my dry skin.

Some people loose faith in others
or god
or the future looms to great.
I loose sight of my feet
and hands fade from view
and suddenly
I've lost faith in myself
and am unable to laugh at the
sheer human-ness of my
crisis.

How many people have lived through
this plight?
This breathlessness that comes from
feeling not worthy.
Crowns are passed down from father to son
Mother to daughter,
but we also get their pain bound tight within,
one more attempt for redemption.

To walk tall and proud,
you must allow yourself to be worthy and
scream those words out
even when night has fallen and loneliness
is the only companion in sight,
I am worthy,
I am worthy and
laugh again at the silliness and pain
of being human.

Kitchen Cut Outs

Who are we - the walk
away type,
the silent yet yearning masses that
want to pull
down
that fence
jump off into
nothing
but cannot find the
strength of
soul to
change course.

All my mother does is
dream.

Places she has wanted to
visit and touch
are only magazine cut outs in
our kitchen
are only whispers and
temptations - I say
I'm better than
that
but I steep in my
own imagination's
trails more
and more these days
wandering to no end.

It can all add up.
A green meadow caught in
fading alpine glow,
his smile,
laughter bigger
than I knew.
When will I take the
path I am already on,
and stop looking for a fork to
lead to far away mountains?
I'll lay down,
on this uneven ground, and
dream into
reality
dream of a life chosen
and walk away no
more.