For the Travelers
You will not come this way again, at least not exactly this way or in this exact way. You will be the miracle of a memory— a faded shade between the under and the over of the exposed, known by sea spray, bird song, the hint of a widow’s peak, a looming heirloom that is silver, yellowed, or frayed, a recipe that ends with a vowel, a song spilled across the kitchen floor and out the front door, tobacco on lips, the oxygen of ancestors, a warp in a wooden bench, a freckle, buttercups in a jelly jar, the other side of the bed, a crossword clue, a Sunday morning, a Monday mourning, words left unsaid, the punctuation of exclamation, the heft of light, tempered by the fullness of empty, and love—a faded shade between the under and the over of the exposed; you will be known by your love.
Nice Girls Don’t Get Angry*
Anger stabs me above my eye, but I don’t listen because nice girls don’t get angry Anger aches and shakes my jaw but I don’t listen because nice girls don’t get angry Anger severs the connection between my brain and my words. I can’t talk, but I breeze past it because nice girls don’t get angry. Anger seeps into my neck, shoulders, tense, tightening, curling, screaming. But I don’t listen because nice girls don’t get angry. Anger tries again, searing a highway down my chest. But I don’t listen, because nice girls don’t get angry. Anger descends to my stomach, a roiling, boiling, nauseous toiling, but I don’t listen because nice girls don’t get angry. I’m fine. I’m just ignoring my friend who tells me this is not okay. I can’t open the door, so I bar it with my body, sob while she kicks and screams, “don’t do this!” on the other side because all I want is for you to think I’m nice. *Originally published in “Nice Girls Don’t Get Angry,” poetry collection on The Sunday Morning Snuggle.
School Day
7:35am, Monday-Friday Where’s your backpack? Put your shoes on. No, you cannot wear sandals. Try to remember to bring home the blue jacket you left at school yesterday. I’ll fill the water bottles. Did you charge your iPad? I know you’re learning to tie your shoes, but let me do it because we need to leave right now. Please obey your teacher at rest time. Remember not to play in the bathroom. Do you want your hair in a ponytail? Your homework is in the purple folder. What friend are you excited to see today? Give your baby sister a kiss. Tell Dad goodbye. Don’t forget to find your blue jacket. Don’t forget to be kind. Don’t forget that I love you. I think of you all day long. I take the long way home from errands and drive past school just to catch a glimpse of you at recess. Did you know that? Have a great day. I love you. Oh, and the blue jacket? Bring it home.
Weeds are in the Eyes of the Beholder
Here you go, Mama, flowers. He gifts me a handful of weeds. His eyes are alive like first tulips budding. His smile bursts like resurrected azaleas. Make a wish, Son, something that makes you happy. I offer irresistible globes of iridescent puffs plucked from the side of the trail. Inhale. Exhale. Woosh! We blow seeds together Wind carries our hopes over new wildflowers coloring Spring dirt with white, pink, purple, yellow. What did he wish for? More hills for his scooter? Ice Cream on a Monday? I wish for my boy to always want to make wishes with his Mama for us to notice the wishes to claim for us to stop and stand face to face smile to smile wish to wish.
Risky Business*
No one would call her a risk taker but yesterday she ate the grapes straight out of the bag and on Tuesday she answered a call from an unknown number. Sometimes she forgets to lock the back door and that one time she got a pixie cut. Just this morning she gave her son the blue cup instead of the green. Then she kissed him and his brother and sent them out into the world in their own bodies, as if they weren’t once a part of hers. Every night she says, I love you, then closes her eyes not knowing what she’ll open them to and isn’t this (the loving and the not knowing, she means) the biggest risk of all? *Originally published on Instagram
Notes On Invisibility
I. Remember how I looked in tight jeans, red lipstick and a low-cut shirt? Remember that night you kissed me in the back of the bar? Sometimes I think I can still smell the whiskey - but no, it’s just old milk and the remnants of mashed banana Have I told you about this cool new thing I can do? I can fix eggs, wipe a runny nose, and read Where’s Spot all at the same time! Isn’t funny how you can hold a toddler in one arm and a baby in the other and still feel invisible? II. I fell asleep last night thinking about that presentation I used to give, the one in front of hundreds of people. Remember how I used to wear pumps and pearls, the easy command I’d have on a room? III. Today I ate the rest of our daughter’s morning waffle and I thought about the time we had gelato for breakfast in Florence and the way the breeze tangled my hair with its crooked fingers, and the sun danced on my skin while we laid on the grass in the garden that was still wet with dew. Back when time was nothing but an illusion, a problem for someone else to solve. IV. At the grocery store no one looks me in the eye or pays me any attention. I float down the aisle in yoga pants and a toothpaste-stained shirt, a Ghost of Motherhood Present. I don’t mind, really - invisibility has its perks. But I still stop and check my reflection in the freezer section, just to see if I’m actually there. V. Sometimes I think the most beautiful sound in the world is the creak of the floorboards followed by little feet pattering down the hall in the middle of the night. Sometimes I think love is really just a word for four people snuggled together in a king size bed. It’s true that I can’t fathom how there was ever a time when it wasn’t like this. What am I, if not a mother? Who am I, if not theirs? VI. And sure, maybe I used to be a mountain. Something beautiful to look at. But now, I am a river. And do you know what a river does? It gives you life.
In The World, Not Of It*
She is spitting urgent words but I have stopped listening— something about agenda, something about fear and danger and protection and retribution and God, something about being in the world, not of it, which is one way to sound kind and noble while portioning humanity like a pie. My own words sit hot on my tongue: we all find what we're looking for. Factions and ideologies, a maniacal, conspiratorial world, some dark shadow around every corner, some hollow scarcity slung low in our bellies, or a world where the infant is pulled from the rubble wailing and alive, where the mother twice our age holds our baby on her own hip for the pure joy of it, where you and I hide seeds in the dirt and trust they will one day feed us with abundance. Still, if it is important for you to be a gatekeeper more than anything else, start with yourself. After all, who is protecting your children from you? Who is protecting my children from me? Who is keeping them from marinating in your quiet fear, from taking in my anxiety through osmosis? Who is shielding their eyes from your white knuckled fingers holding fast to satisfying answers, from my own angry aching, from the days I cry in my spaghetti? Yes, the world is large and there are many things to be afraid of, chief among them our own selves. But let us not forget the gentle eyes of the man who serves us our Saturday coffee, or the cardinals in the brush who do not go hungry because of our tenderness, or humankind being held in the hammock of the universe by simple, dependable lights— the sun and the moon and the stars, even you, even me, even the world. *Originally published in “Even You, Even Me, Even the World", a poetry collection from To Tell You the Truth on Substack
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"And sure, maybe I used to be a mountain.
Something beautiful to look at.
But now, I am a river.
And do you know what a river does?
It gives you life."
Well there's my cry to start the morning.
Beautiful collection, ladies!
I love the school day poem - so relatable! A lovely collection once again ✨