Author: poetryfest

If I knew anything about my mother she didn’t buy the shoulder bag the year it came out.
Found it on a clearance rack somewhere:
Orange, brown, cream and fuschia floral quilted diamond pattern
on a cotton blend “Carnaby”
-part of the 2009 collection
Taking in a breath, I unzipped the shoulder bag.

Silver change purse:
4 quarters
14 dimes
3 nickels
4 pennies
1 haphazardly folded dollar bill tucked inside

Cell phone

Crumpled and faded receipts:
Wegmans $3.17
TJ Maxx $42.38

Tic Tacs:
When she was my age her bag would have had a pack
of Merit Ultra Lights and a lighter alongside Tic Tacs
-It took a heart attack for her to quit

Tide Stick

Lipstick: definitely not my shade

Reading glasses

Rosary:
Thought it was jewelry as I reached beneath the wallet
She’d given up going in the ’80’s
-Seems she got tired of wearing sunglasses at mass

Key ring:
Holding the keys in my hand to feel cool metal slide between my fingers
and the weight of it all, grateful she’d been the one 30 years earlier who’d reached the
keys before me. 15 since she shared what scared her the most in all those years with dad
-Said It was the look on my face as I screamed: drive over him

Camel colored, leather tri-fold wallet.
Opening her wallet felt like reading her journal, like a box loaded with bricks made of
secrets too heavy to lift.

Medicare card
Library card?
I loved reading books to my boys when they were young
read to them into high school
would read to them still, if they’d let me
I don’t recall my mother going to the library
-I do recall her mentioning she didn’t enjoy reading to us

Citi Mastercard
USAA member card
dad was in the Army for 2 years- says he got out because mom
didn’t want him in Viet Nam
drove down to Asheville, taught from the mountain until the morning
they didn’t expect him to live to see the next.

Going through his desk:
found his father’s honorable discharge papers but never
found dad’s
found fifty years of Father’s Day cards.
found a bill from Dr. Berkey stuck between letters from mom

13 years of counseling:
Individual
Couples
Group
It hadn’t saved their marriage but did save their friendship
-Figured if mom could forgive him so could I

Macy’s
Nordstrom
Guest ID: The Villages
-My uncle’s had Alzheimer’s for years

Appointment card from Dr. Gardner’s office.
She’d driven; an uneventful ride to Springfield, on the way home, she’d run
through stop signs, a traffic light. With a chuckle, I reminded her to stop at those
big red signs
-she just laughed.
On the back was the name and number of a neurologist
She’d seen a neurologist two years earlier who’d given her a clean bill of brain
health
-she couldn’t recall the name

Shane: a single picture of her youngest grandchild.

Love you, Mom. Can’t wait to see you in July. Save this one for me.
-Finn

A note worn thin wrapped round a gift card to Coastal Flats
I don’t know how many times we’d eaten there gatherings
from 2 to 20 depending on who was around
-She always ordered the Filet Tips.

In the clear plastic sleeve:
Driver’s license:
dark, wavy, short hair,
ivory skin with barely a line on her face
hazel eyes,
McDermott nose
-I don’t know where mine came from
Organ Donor

I cupped the license in both hands, held it a few breaths before pulling out my wallet and placing my mothers license behind my own
-Where I go, she goes

After Dianna Vega’s“boy laughs at my period-stained skirt”
(Contains the verse“a bleeding woman. don’t” from Vega’s poem)

Making eye contact with the
very male Target employee
as I place tampons in my basket
and as I walk away I have to laugh
because he looked like he saw what
he wasn’t supposed to.
I should apologize right there
in the fluorescent aisle for this marring
of his innocence.
But I don’t.
I just add chocolate to the pile.

Once, Dad, the same man
who burst blisters on unwashed feet
after hour-long hikes in the hot
New Mexico summer found
an unused, fully wrapped tampon
in the car cup holder and exclaimed with
disgust. A scandalous secret of the other
sex. I think, is this what it is
to be a woman?

Mom tells me to lower my voice
when I complain of pain in my middle
because my brother is coming down
the stairs and God forbid he hears me.
Lest he know that I am
a bleeding woman.
Don’t let anyone see that
there is life leaking from
between your legs.

I pay for my items alone
at self-checkout.
Why should I be ashamed?
It is not just women
who bleed.

I think you know
how much it hurts,
being this close to you,
but you’re staring at her.

I told myself you’re off limits,
at least for a while,
but you set my heart racing
when you approach with a smile.

Each time you lean close
with a nervous face,
I’m hoping for a kiss
or a warm embrace.

You’ll pass me or dodge
from someone’s view,
and I’ll turn around
finally seeing the truth.

She’s standing there,
Her hand in his,
and your heart’s hurting now
I know it is.

So I play the friend
and stand by your side;
now I realize finishing last
isn’t only for nice guys.

I always get anxious in public, but I blast heavy metal in my ears heavier than my thoughts, so I don’t hear myself think. I love the silence that’s always hiding behind the chaos—I love the silence that I only find when I’m soaring through the skies. I haven’t processed any of my traumas this year, and I’m quite frankly good! or at least functioning? Considering my struggles with getting up in the morning, heavy on the crying when it’s storming. Everything seems pointless. I don’t have a purpose, I don’t even know how people find shit that deep within themselves, it’s like I’m the one that’s out of service. All I’ve found were bleeding open wounds, the product of being abused when I could’ve been swooned over. All I know is that I’m something called a ‘human’ living on a floating rock in space, those are the proven facts. The rest of the memories of myself are blacked-out nights and drug marathon trips or binge popping or snorting or sniffing or huffing or puffing or crying on the bathroom floor in a party, but it’s dark and I like how the floor feels cold against my skin, exactly the opposite what I felt like when he was raping me when he was pushing my face against the burning pavement, now he’s just an engravement. An engravement he is on the walls of my brain that rebleed every day. But it’s just me in the end, just me at the end of that tunnel. It was just me who held my hair up when I threw up. Just me when I forced myself to purge when I took two too many. It was just me when those I loved betrayed me. It was just me when my heart felt like nothing but a hollow cave that echoes forever and ever. It was just me who cared too much. It’s always been just me and an eternally lasting engravement of him.

The sun isn’t always going to shine.
Rain is going to fall, like teardrops from the sky.

The pain her words felt left scars on my heart.
Alone in silent agony.

Cigarette lit, pills popped, blood drips, tears fall.
I close my eyes, but not to wake up at all.

I stand in stillness
A neighbor whistles a song
Joy rides on the wind

I can’t remember when we met,
but I’m glad that we did. I do remember
making mud pies together in the garden;
playing kiss and tell and writing
the answers with dirt on one another’s
backs.

Puberty is a cat
sneaking up on its prey, and
my breasts fluttered into being
in a blink. I know
I was jealous of your boobs first.
How they sat like soft-serve ice creams,
waiting, speaking to me in tongues.

In college I kissed a girl
but it didn’t feel like I thought it would.
I thought from then on
that maybe my body was only
meant for men seeking an ocean.

I can tell you friendship
is a strange moving thing,
a buoyant shapeshifter and I’m still,
it seems, a curious maker of mud pies.
The first and last time I tasted her
we were adults, bodies both
a seashore and seabed.

And yet, somehow
she was also tart peonies in summer,
taking me back to the garden,
to the way we so carelessly
touched and laughed. It was so
easy.

Realisation was like
rubbing grains of sand off your hands,
stepping into the dairy to buy ice-creams
and being happy to know
you’ll love any flavour.

I heard your voice
like thunder through the air.
Before I could think,
before there was a flinch
you appeared.

The storm doesn’t scare me,
especially when it sounds like you.

Regardless of what things look like,
you soak through my skin.
I don’t care how heavy my clothes get.
I don’t care how hard the wind blows.

It doesn’t push me back.
Whichever direction I walk
they all point towards you.

Like I belong in the middle,
somewhere closer to you.

I walk in you
until I am the only thing you see.

Before the thought of flinching
at the sound of your voice,
I remember
you are what and where
lightning kisses.

Before every storm,
there is a breath
that caresses my face
sweet and warm.

Soon after,
you appear.

I eagerly wait
for the sound
of your voice.

My blood
Contains my past
A voice for my forebears
If only I learn to listen
Guide me

Money
We all want it
Meant to free us at first
But instead enslaved us to greed
Worth it?

Maunga
Tarawera
Beautiful, terrible
Night sky burns, our world ends
Help us!

Stormlight
Smell of ozone
The taste of iron on my tongue
Hairs raise on the back of my neck
Goose bumps

My Dad
Strong hands and heart
Still near at hand you feel
Love you until the stars burn out
Miss you

Half caste
Impure? Unclean?
Between two opposed worlds
I define myself from now on
I’m ME

Tossed upon an angry sea
Waves an avalanche
Neptune above hears no plea
For mercy or lenience

Turmoil and fear
Further darken the void of night
No rage like nature’s so severe
Or so justified

Huddled below, dread his lone companion
Despondency thick in the air
Fervent prayers not withstanding,
Teetering on the edge of despair

An indifferent ocean’s decimation
Belies singular resolve in the din
A ship hand’s furiously scribbled narration
Of the catastrophe herein

How this calamity has come to be
The sum of his life’s amount
A hurried witness to history
A single eyewitness account

As the lone forsaken beholder
Of this night’s dire tragedy
Testimony lies heavy on his shoulders
As he hastily records for posterity

Details unknowable to all except one
This now amounts to his purpose
For when his writing is done
At least his life will have purchase

The responsibility, the exigency
Of finding meaning in the madness
He will not die alone at sea
If he can find the exactness

To describe this chain of horrible events
The world will know his pain
He will survive through these contents
He will live a’gain

Closure will come with the written account
Of a ship wrecked at sea
So he writes and he recounts
So as not to be lost in history

His entire being condensed down
Into this singular goal
Of marking the details of this night
So he dies not in vain or alone

The bow creaks, a feared shift
As wood splinters like glass
Solid matter breaks apart
Weightlessness a moment before the crash

The finality sets in as hope flees like a dream
Life holds no greater meaning
Or hides some sweeping scheme
Of a benevolent God poised to intervene

These words will not survive
And none shall know the truth
The last moments of life deprived
Of a legacy left to soothe

All is overtaken
By the churning tumult
Water heavy as lead
Bears down without fault

Words so recently written
In haste and urgency
Now slowly and silently sink
Below the surface of the sea