If Only Once

I once loved someone, sincerely.
I once loved you, exclusively; a black-and-blue psyche
renders such passionate consequences.

My paper heart has been torn by a set of sandbag
evoking fingers and his carpenter scissors, and glued by
a pair of ebony-infused, amorous, discreetly sexual
hands…hands that I must miss forever.

Sentiments take over leisurely, craving for you, the man
of my swollen thoughts, to hold me over tightly. Securely, into
the symmetry of my weather-beaten mind, and out the basin over-
looking the gates above days of childhood sunrises.

My emotions lose themselves, wildly, without reservations.
No longer do father-daughter tea party invites find their
way into that decrepit brownstone mailbox, neither
does my essence into your warm blooded, African American, Marine embrace.

Will you ever think of another, the way he has?
My incessant cries of sorts will they ever depart, happily
arriving in mirrors of constant joy lying within you?
Will a green river of yellow breezes ever lead me
to your brazen Rastafarian deep?

Will you ever seize my heart, the way my father held on to another’s?
My shoulders wince, the caramel-colored sky-
lights to my core release their tension, the hold
on my heart is not patient, in times like these it never will be.

Whenever you call, forever will resound, strident
in my ears. A gift, one that left you dazzled, myself
restlessly unopened.
Time heals all wounds, I lie, it rarely does, and I speak true volumes.
You will forever be stagnantly vivid in my memories, even if I
have to wait forever, a constant motion never
to be lived, to set you free.

Even if.

Why?

Sometimes you think you know what it’s all about. You wonder what purpose we all, as mortals, have in this life. You have tried, ceaselessly, to understand the business of waking up to the sun’s incessant rays each and every morning, when the light at the end of your tunnel is as dim as it can ever be. You have pondered upon figuring out why some of us, as mere mortals, struggle to make ends meet when others simply identify the amount of hard labor it takes to rent an apartment as nothing more or less than chump change. Without a clear revelation as to why exactly humans must succumb to the brutality that this world obviously harbors, you have continued to push, at a level a notch higher than that of a woman in labor, ever since you walked across that threshold as a graduate and received your high school diploma seven years ago, and you have yet to reap any of the benefits that this country, America The Beautiful, swears to offer.
You’re lying in bed, but not in your own. You just finished eating dinner in the kitchen, but not in your own. You’re listening to that plastic realm of time bolted to the wall as it ticks away, though it is not your own. You remember the last time any of these commodities truly belonged to you, though they were not your own. They belonged to your parents, in the bedroom they gave you, in the house they raised you, all within the life that they worked so hard, or so they believe so, to have blessed you with. You’re parents are full of crap. Your father was a deadbeat, forget the term father, your sperm-donor was a deadbeat. Your mother was a narcissistic, vanity driven, beauty school drop out.
You have recently gone out to seek restorative help in beginning your journey to the land where all your bitching never conquers anything important, most definitely your vitality. All you ever do is bitch about everything and everyone gives you shit for it. You think these people definitely do not know what constipation feels like. If there were careers in bitching then you’d become one of those people whom you spend more than half your time bitching about: those who project their dismaying and unsuccessful lives upon you.

You feel as though you’re headed nowhere down a cold, twist turned, upside down spiral, and you’re headed down relatively fast. You wonder why you are like the way you are, and why you don’t have any friends. You blame your beautiful mother for it all. You think if she had pushed harder, then you wouldn’t have to. If she had married rich, you’d be rich. If she respected herself and refused to be cheated on, you’d have respected yourself the countless times you were cheated on. If she loved you she would realize the difficulties you have as an only child with no monetary support, trying to get a degree with multiple courses in a demanding major upon working 25 or more hours weekly only to steer away from becoming another beauty school dropout like her. You wonder why all this? What does the man in the moon plan to walk away with and why test you, of all people?

You remember high school and how happiness emitted through your pores, the pores on the freshest skin that any junior, freshman, sophomore or senior for that matter, ever had. You remember the joys of coming home in tears, due to being the one and only outcast in a school of over 2,000 beautiful girls and boys, and plopping down upon the only component that made you feel whole and imperative to this world composed of teenage angst, your heavenly comforter evocative of Adam and Eve’s Garden of Eden. You remember the innate knack you had for interior wall designing and how your bedroom walls welcomed all the pin-up eye candy belonging to the Hollywood realm of that time, simplistic serenity never left you frowning. You remember the corkboard that donned stunning pictures of your childhood buddies and high school companions, and you close your eyes in wonder of what happened to them, and if they still think of you.
You are 24 going on 30, and you would give anything to live just another hour in those old school Puma’s you wore that first day of junior high. You would give it all up to see the ones who made your life as special as it ever was, when you were 12. You ponder upon the notion that you will no longer find any friends as worthy as the ones you had back then, and before the hard sweat releases itself from your drained, lifeless eyes, you ask yourself as LaChance’s character did in Stand By Me, Jesus, God in your case, does anyone?
These are the years that you have spent. These are the tears that you have cried. These are the memories that refuse to let you be. These are the recollections of a life that you were forced, by the graces of time and your bickering parents, to say goodbye to quicker than you had the chance to live. There are no more two sentenced phone conversations that begin with Hey Lily, want to come over and play with Barbie, and end with a Yes! No more hearing your parents tell one another that they love each other. No more anything trouble-free, just the unforgiving truths that those responsible for your conception never prepared you for.

The Truth

She knows what it's like and how it hurts to live. To all of you who wonder about me; my family, friends, etc, I guess reading her memoir will only bring you one step closer to my broken mind. I have overcome any shame. This is me, this is how I speak, and I refuse to be what you want me to be. I am depressed beyond my control. I have an illness that has taken over the past 9 years of my otherwise ethereal existence. I am terrified, and shaken to mysterious shades of childhood gray with every initial breath I take, daily. I am fatherless, and do not tell me otherwise until you have lived a second in my duct taped high tops. I am not dramatic, I am real, and my fear is redundant in abundance, tenfold. I necessitate embracing uncertainty, however these demons have ignited a blazing fire, which traps me within the peach stained hallway of Sunny Brae heaven, a blistering red upon my toes, sparkling fuchsia, that refuses any proposal to quit.
Don’t tell me anything. You simply do not know. I am not like everyone else. I am not special. I do not need any guidance. I need to be let go of, to be surrounded by people; friends who think of me, a mother who trusts me, and a father who can articulate three little, yet infamous, words fast enough. I am not her, my beautiful aunt. I do not need Lithium, though Morphine, my arm, and that crystal I.V. became fast friends years ago on that splendid Christmas Eve when I was 18. I follow the scent of peace and realize that it lives vividly, yet only in my memories. If one more person tells me to move on and live for the future, I will have to tell them to fuck off. People swear that I feed off this negative energy that plagues me, summer in and autumn out. Why would anyone find pleasure as a fear-abiding citizen in this country of opportunity?
“I start to feel like I can’t maintain the facade any longer, that I may just start to show through. And I wish I knew what was wrong. Maybe something about how stupid my whole life is. I don’t know. Why does the rest of the world put up with the hypocrisy, the need to put a happy face on sorrow, the need to keep on keeping on?... I don’t know the answer, I know only that I can’t. I don't want any more vicissitudes, I don't want any more of this try, try again stuff. I just want out. I’ve had it. I am so tired. I am twenty and I am already exhausted.”— Elizabeth Wurtzel. I am 25; still wondering where all the time went. I am embarking upon this final thought to a restless sleep in an intangible dream state, circa 1991. I am clinically depressed, and if that obvious statement via facebook changes your thoughts of me, I no longer apologize. I am frightened, alone and absolutely controlled by a higher power. The reason for my sadness is not, I REPEAT NOT MY FATHER, NOR MY MOTHER, and NOT MY LACK OF A SOLID FRIENDSHIP. It is life and its difficulties including the aforementioned that breaks my heart and severs any ties I may have to a normal, self-sufficient future.
I am going to find, or perhaps not find, peace someday, but I refuse to hide any longer. I will meet whom I want, and for instance if it were a nice Jewish boy and I had the undying need to speak of my life, then I would…and if it were to ruin things, then I will remain no stranger to failure.
I am beautiful and potent beyond appraise. I will not sustain a life with the loud, echoing beats of my untamed heart, forever. Let it be known, regardless.

In His Hand-Me-Down Memory

I no longer help mother sow up
holes in his Home-Depot carpenter-associated
sweatshirt, sweat stained pits-incorporated by flannel .
I no longer shed salt, the spice of life, emerging by tear
ducts, water no longer dampens holes into
tissues. The box of my Hello Kitty kleenex
cries over its remnants. Our adolescent moans
no longer intertwine.

I no longer paint by numbers my adolescence,
paper-doll cutouts no longer relieve my
misfortune.

I no longer believe his plywood-infused
pledge. The fabric of his sweatshirt has
worn out, as blisters take hold of my childlike
fingers. Walking around, I hold fast to one percent
cotton, ninety-nine percent absence. Indispensable
paternal warmth does not come in any other
colors or sizes.

I no longer fight any fight. This game of rock,
paper, scissors must end,
bitterly. Forget any blankets, security has relapsed for
the final, inborn time. Mr. Koala Bear has been
resolutely, handed down.

It’s down to whom
in loss, will love him
more.

Hand-me-downs are never quite like the finest couture.

December 23, 2002

The calm of chaos,
its deafening silence tiptoes
welcoming me
with releasing
arms.
There is no dying
this time,
for you mother.

Go ahead, give into it, echoes my childish
subsistence, plunging
en route to its cuttingly saccharine
downfall.

Cooking her holiday feast met
its end, my fiasco
never seemed so
promising.
A glistening potion, administered
to fill my fatherless
emptiness.
Mother’s holiday pleasures
melted
by the smooth Hannukah gelt dampened
under the weight of no
medical insurance.

A death, so deep into its lonely grave, as
the sting of Miss Morphine lent
my corpse the sole decision

of

accepting a ride upon a weakly
lit haze
to the world of otherworldly
itches, unrushed
to any interruption.

Spirit and corpse intertwined, a moment
murdering this subdued pain.
Like a Vulture possessing candor, it caressed
my aches, without pardoning
my fears a clear chance
for parole.

Never Again

The nightlight of my dark cove, that plastic bulb illuminating

Barbie’s smile flickered

it’s last breath, many many nights ago…

Chalkboard inspired wallpaper,

and Mickey Mouse

covers beneath

mother’s green quilt, purple

plums and pink persimmons, a

quilted garden

like the sun above blazing heat,

moments found me lying
underneath its
peace.

Nineteen years later,

the colors bled through

the blistering sun and upon

your triple fighting heart, an

attack, your masculine fragileness

lost.

They always ask why I won’t let go.

Why must an unresponsive childhood lie

broken in the midst of time’s habitual

movement?

I answer

fathers, they always lie. Love refuses such ill thoughts.

Pop's Little Girl

Little girl, don’t forget his
face.
Close father’s hazel diamonds and lie
still, split seconds perpetuate aches,
delaying
goodbyes.

Spun out for certainty, peanut butter and jelly
forever reigning
over you. Thunder’s tears
watering
your not guilty plea
of sorrow,
to grow without due consideration.

Tap
Dorothy’s borrowed yet broken slippers.
Slipping, moments collapse
innocence.
Little girl, he will never define
release.


blemished, inevitably you will recoil
once again,
into thoughts neither
parting nor emerging.

little girl, he will replace
his lukewarm bareness,
someday. In cold death,
your only wish will
find you,
well.

Unconditional Time

Beautiful Child

Mother gave birth to me without a crib awaiting my arrival.
Fatherless, you and I, both
Immersed in doubt.
On the verge of twenty plus five, still
I wonder where you ended, and why I began.


Deprived Wife

You spotted her at In-N-Out in an Amethyst-infused Autumn, 1981.
Middle Eastern eyebrows arched so high,
Like the Fawcett you fancied on the wall of your Israeli barracks,
You knew you wished she were yours.
An Iranian Toman for your thoughts, a diamond in your rough Netanya edifice,
Open to slam and offer ill praise to.
My mother never knew subservience, until you.

Free-spirited Papa

You left at midnight on March 25, 2002.
The notion of paying child support; null and void,
Tantalizingly liberating.
My sperm donor; poor in possessing any fervor for love,
Positively absorbed by the lack of fatherly accomplishments.


Time

Bolted to the wall; its incessant beats compel me to inexhaustible insanity.
Along its deep watchtower I remain,
Buoyant in shallowness, yet to no avail.
Seconds,
They lie unconditionally.
Minutes,
They produce wounds, rarely healing.
Hours,
They wait for no one.
Years,
Loitering around, motionless, I breathe for them.