You'll Make a Pretty Secretary

You can check your appearance in the glass ceiling
and sleep your way to the top.
The "top" is not very far down the hall.
Your dreams of the corner office will never come true.
You are "too blonde", "too pretty", "too female"
to have a valid thought.
Your suggestions are met with a condescending smile
and a "re-fill of coffee, please".  Sometimes you don't
even get the "please".
You wonder if you should cut your hair, wear power suits
and never smile.

Suddenly the glass ceiling feels too low and
You can't stand up to your full height.
You have to hunch down and pull your
shoulders in tight.
Watching the packs of men stroll by, smiling
and joking as men do, you realize
You don't want any part of this.
You don't want to cut your hair
Or wear the power suits

The glass ceiling can go fuck itself
and the men in the corner office can
Re-fill their own Goddamn coffee
as they jest about their golf swing
And where they will Summer this year.
You still don't know what you want to
be when you "grow up".
But not this, not ever.

reflected faces

My heart flutters while
Looking down the fluorescently lit hallway
passing empty desks;
inboxes full
outboxes empty.

My heart moves up my throat
with longer wing strokes
as I move further down the hallway
Eyes meet my own

At the end of the hall
through the window
they are my own.
my chest can no longer hold my heart

It bursts forth
forcing my mouth
into a contorted "O"
in the reflected window

I shut my eyes,
Turn away from the window
and its view of the world
to head back down the fluorescent hallway once more.

Unpacking Memories

I unpacked two years of memories
And hung them up in the closet.
Some of them were tattered and
Worse for wear.
I can mend, sew and weave
These tattered memories
Into a patch work of stories.
They will take on new
Lives and I will
Wear them out on the town
And suddenly I'm on Brunswick Street
Or Cuba Street back when these memories
Were being made and worn for the
First time.

The Loss

The feeling of loss is a dampness that creeps into your bones.
You can tell a day or two before it arrives
by the stiffening of your muscles.
Once it's there you cannot dislodge it
nor can you placate it with futile
thoughts of better times.

It knows all those tricks and is
onto you.
The fingers in your left hand start to ache.
It's a slow moving affront to your system--
the sadness moves up your arm
and settles in your heart with a
triumphant vise-like twist.

The pain does a dance--
A morose jitter bug with feet fast asleep
and continues it's slow ascent up your body.
It sits in your mouth and moves with your tongue
Your words become clouded and thick
until you can speak no more.

The loss has set in.

working girl

My fingers are tapping the keys, halfheartedly.
My brain has shut down
and my eyelids feel like lead.
Ah, to be working again.

The Dust We Leave Behind

It's strange the things we leave behind.
discarded.
one pink shoe, it's partner
no where to be seen.

Empty bottles, old stuffed animals.
Pictures of people we used to know
and wonder where they'd be now.
dust covered text books from 9th grade.

Somehow we thought we might need them
someday down the road.
So we held on like the dust,
entrenched in every crevice.

Autumn

The air cools down around me. Leaves fall in patterns while circling my ankles. It's Autumn and the water becomes darker and broods over the loss of summer.

The smell of wood fire is in the air at night and I bundle up against the cold. This beach community mourns the loss of the sea for the next four months and hunkers down for the oncoming winter.

The leaves start changing color, nothing like the intense colors I grew up with, but change nonetheless.

A Portrait of The Artist As a Young Woman

She pushed her long blonde hair aside and nervously fiddled with her rings
a small sigh escaped her lips. Startled, she blushed.
The older woman looked at her curiously. It was the kind of look
that would make anyone squirm.
The older woman broke the silence with a question:
"why are you here?"
The younger woman was at a loss for words. She
could feel them jumbling around in her brain
and worried she would make an even greater
mess of them once they reached her tongue.

She licked her lips and tried as best she could to get the words
out, straight and streamlined while the older woman
waited, a rock of curious patience. The younger woman
could see a growing amusement behind
her gray blue eyes.

The younger woman pondered the question asked of
her. It was a simple question with a not-so-simple
answer. She looked around the book filled room,
her eyes glancing off of framed diplomas.

The sun was setting and nodes of dust were visible
floating in from the window.
The younger woman realized she had no clue as to
why she was there. Life was so jumbled, a
jig saw puzzle where some of the pieces were missing.

She stammered an apology to the older woman
leaving the building and effectively leaving the program.
she knew a new adventure was on the horizon and
knew she's find the missing pieces somewhere out there.

flies of melbourne

the flies swarm the town.
one follows me for miles
trying to get into my eyes.
Oh, Melbourne!
your flies are going to be
the death of me.

I should walk with fly spray
and spray your tiny body
until you spasm and your
body twitches with its last
breath.

I've come to hate you
more than any other living
creature.
yes, hated.
so, keep buzzing around my head.
I dare you.
I now sleep with a
fly swatter.

oceans pull.

"what's the point of this?", she asks
"what's the reason for breathing
if i can't breathe under water?"

she muses on that thought,
mulls it over in her mind
and turns an eye to
the roiling sea
and wonders what it's like
to be
a silent graveyard
full of life,
a turning tide of
simplicity.

turning her back
on the swelling waves,
she lets the wind whip
her hair into knots.
they fall, heavy
against her back
and keep her anchored
to this earth.
the ocean pulls against
her feet
but she moves them out
of reach.

she gives one last look
to the unrelenting sea,
brushes her fingers across her lips.
the salt that lingers is a gift.
she blows a kiss that meets the wind
she watches it fall into the sea
as a wave flips up
and swallows it whole
it breaks the spell she's under.
turning her eyes, she walks
to higher ground.

The streets of our youth

I knew I’d walk these streets and make them mine
Lay claim in the cement.
My initials are written across the footpath
& my front door.
Remembering the first pizza at Bimbos and savoring the
Last.
The gathering of sadness in the oil
Changed to bittersweet on my tongue.
My mixed feeling about Melbourne
Felt like yesterday’s news.
We chose to recall the good times
And forgot the melancholy and lackluster
Events.
We edit our memories, our lives.
The memories somehow become much
More than they ever were, the stories
Grow and we feel yearning for
Those streets of our youth.

The old (wo)man and the sea

Lost in the riptide
Out into sea
Floating
Waiting
To be rescued.

Only, nothing comes
No boat, no search team
Just the infinite ocean
And you.
Just you.

It’s so vast
All of it
Seems to go on
And on
You know it will end.

Both your life and the sea.
The sea meets the shore,
You meet your maker.
But for now
You are one.

These Girls

These girls--you watch them, they slide with easy grace
They fold around corners and weave in and out of streets and alleyways
As if waiting to be discovered. Their hair shines, like a beacon.
But, they don’t seem to care.
They shrug their shoulders and look mildly amused at your passing thoughts. Their
Black aviator sunglasses reflect you looking at them, as you should.
As you should.

Alice Jumped

our seasons touch--
your fingers frozen from winter
brush against my Australian sunburn.
northern hemisphere meets
the other end of the world
where nothing makes sense,
and water flows the other direction.
alice is down the rabbit hole,
she didn’t fall
she chose to jump.

ryan adams

had this in my head all day. I changed a lyric:


Up here in the city feels like things are closing in
The sunsets just my light bulb burning out
I miss VIRGINIA and I miss my family
All the sweetest winds they blow across the south

youth in motion

Sometimes I miss
My youth
Long gangly limbs
Small hips
Smaller worries
Wishing to be older
To start life
Not realizing
Life is happening
As you sit
Yearning.

tongues in their place

people have been speakin' tongues in my head
oh, why did I get out of bed
oh, why did I get out of bed
walkin' on down the street
tappin' a beat
yeah, tappin' a beat

even the lyrics seem outta place
replacing tongues in their space
with tongues in their place
this may make me seen insane
but it's all just the same
if i'm going insane.

The Other Shoe

Watching the other shoe drop
Is quite the sight.
It teeters and totters
And finally falls

No one can ever seems
To catch it.
They just watch, dumbfounded
At how far it falls.

My Pink Tongue

My pink tongue
Is caught behind my teeth
My words unable to form.

I watch your eyes
Dart from side to side
Looking for a way out.

I never remember
Saying “forever” or
Even giving you a time frame.

Your eyes tell me otherwise.
I wish I could unglue my tongue
And tell you that you’re free to run.

29

8.28.09 29


You must know I still think about you
I know you think you hate me and think
I should take the blame on my small shoulders.
But it just doesn’t sit right. The blame isn’t
Used to my narrow shoulder blades.
It can’t find a niche. You don’t seem to understand
My body isn’t made to take your shallow words
And growing guilt.
My frame is like a dancers and I’ve danced around
Your steady blows for too long.
I never let myself feel grief for you,
For the death of our relationship.
But the ending was mine.
Once the blame slipped the rest of
The way off.
I left it sitting in a pile,
Deserted. and
I walked away.