Category: Poetry

displaying poetry I want to share

distracted

I don’t want to die anymore

but I’m still too

distracted by the futility of living

the need to search for meaning

overwhelms the search itself

and all I do is wander

without wonder

or direction

Invisible

it has gotten stronger
as I’ve gotten older
and I remember the run ins
with high visibility
a smart, poor black girl
a teenager with breasts
a lesbian in the church
a tech among men
an introvert needing connections
my super power is kicking in
and all it took was time

Open Broken

I’ve been here before
openly broken
any number of roads
available around me
all of them scaring the shit
out of me for their own special
and non special reasons like
some roads have heights I’m afraid of
or spiders or boredom or bosses
or ease or cleaning or stupidity
and I am standing here open
and broken and
well the first time
I desperately wanted to run
my car into a wall
I was choosing that road
then next time I buried myself in work
looking for work, measuring work,
hating work, getting good at work
I chose that road
now, here, again
ambition, motivation, determination
persistence, love
have left me tired and drained
and openly broken
now again, these fucking roads

who cares…

it’s one of those moments

it will pass, I know it will pass as

moments do but now

it is one of those moments

where I wonder who cares

about me

about this thought I am

having right now

that I am and will always

be alone

I am

for 46 years, so far

so good,

I am

hoping for a continuation

enjoying the now

Mother and Daughter

i call my mother once or twice a week
just to say hey
i love you, did you eat dinner

i am as old now as she was when i was young
and thought she was old
so how old she is now
continues to be a surprise
because she seems so young

I see my mother 4 or 5 times a month
she has a busy schedule
works, volunteers, goes to church
galavants with
the other women she’s met along the way
and of course her children
my brothers and sister and I
are old enough that she doesn’t
Have to see us everyday
she knows we’ll call and catch her
as catch can.

my mother calls me
once or twice a week
just to say hey
i love you, are you getting any exercise?
she worries
I don’t eat
sleep too much
sleep too little
spend too much time alone
she knows all my telephone smiles
and that some are just for show
even if she doesn’t know why

I call my mother once or twice
a week to remind myself that
she had a life, like me
before
becoming a mother
my mother.

20 years

20 years later
she* got up the nerve
to call Anita Hill
on the phone
She prayed for the
answering machine
and got her wish
She wanted to say

She wanted to say
I’m sorry
I know how he is
I knew what he was
But I married him and
I followed him
and I believed in him
like you probably did
before you didn’t
She wanted to ask.

She wanted to ask
how did you do it
in front of the cameras
and his friends
and the senate subcommittee
on keeping the priviledge in place
in front of all the bosses
you ever had
or ever would have
who sat across
from you and him
in front of all those people
who knew the truth
but stayed blind under oath
and pain of lost elections

20 years later
She called to ask for
help
for courage
for something she couldn’t
put her finger on
she called as if time
will have had some effect on
the truth

instead
she chickened out
turned the tables
like they’ve always been turned
when something ugly
gets thrown into
Light.

*She is Mrs Clarence Thomas who phoned Anita Hill’s office to ask for an apology.