What Humpty Dumpty Never Knew (REVISED)

Crack it open
I’ve smashed this shell against
the wall, yellow heart runny
smeared with strokes of hope.

When was the last time I
believed in my gelatin center -
sunny-side-up, soft enough
to allow their entrance, solid enough to know
I am whole, encased in the white
of my truth?

Now, hard-boiled,
I let myself crack

enough to create
a mosaic of falls,
shell marked by the breaks
the beginnings of repair,

enough to let them in
when I need help,
and lead them out
when I need me.

Role Models

She tastes each moment like
I do chocolate, slowly and deliberately,
licking every last morsel that slips away.
As we walk to the park, she
waves to the leaves, dancing to their fluttering-
their freedom of expression, a song
she has rehearsed to perfection.
She points to the shy moon,
inviting him to take a chance-
run whole and exposed across
a sun owned sky. Looking down
at her, I’m chasing brown pebbles
that fall deep into her eyes,
holding on to them like buoys,
holding on to my life, refusing to drown
with the weight of maternal arrogance.
And I wonder who the hell ever said
adults know more than children. They’ve never
asked a child.

Two For One Special

She’s here for a headache
fashioned to fit her pain, her head
like the perfect hat, wide-brimmed
deflecting the glare of truth like an expert goalie.

The problem is the ball still makes it into the net –
meshwork of lines criss-crossing her life,
holding her here to ask her headache

what the deeper wound is,
the soul kind that stings her into awareness
into the next life, pricking her scalp
like water droplet torture.

She thinks her husband may be the culprit
from a past lives, living with her again and again
and again, reminding her as a date book does
of her appointments as a wife and mother, a professional
East Indian Female well trained in the art of Subservience.

In fact, he is next door in a gown, humbled
by his human flesh and imperfections,
his asthma, his inability to breath
beyond his own East Indian Male Stereotype.

I am with her now. Soon,
I will be with him. I am in between
the connection and disconnection of human bonds
and karmic rehearsals.

I am The Healer in this play, but I
do not ask the audience for applause.
I ask for their wellness and my intuition to kiss,
as they must have
when the hall monitor was not watching
two lovers break the rules.

Questioning Definitions

I’ve never had sex the traditional way,
the phallic way
and actually enjoyed it.
Semen filling a hole, a woman’s inadequacy
as if it would dry like cement,
the pothole repaired.

I am that damn pothole –
bump in the road, drivers cursing,
people who know me asking
when construction will begin.

But my lover doesn’t. Instead,
he licks me like the latest
lollipop flavor that’s only in season
when we make love.

Pink tongue, wave breaking
against labial shores,
breaking tradition,
salivary foam filling that pothole.
Never fill me with anything less.
Never ask me about penetration

unless you mean these words
scratching your skin and boiling your blood,
relighting the Pilot Flame to ask
your deepest desires to surface,

and love is a torch you use
to burn the books of your past,
the smell of smoke your high
to feel yourself again.

What Humpty Dumpty Never Knew

crack it open
I’ve smashed this shell against
the wall, yellow heart runny
smeared with strokes of cowardice
when was the last time I
believed in my sphere – gelatin center
sunny-side-up, soft enough
to love, solid enough to know
I am whole, encased in the white
of my peace, letting myself
crack, just enough to let them in
then sealing them off to ask
the source
how to trust
myself
hard-boiled
how to stop
the break

Sense

wild curls reach out
feelers for the air, the earth
for water and people
ten fingers, ten toes, two lips
are not enough
to kiss the moment
intimately
to say

she was here

1AM Thoughts

Before watching Spiderman 3, I turn to Braveheart and ask him, “What amazed you about me when we first met? Is it still there now?” He said it was my kindness towards strangers and my ability to be fair in an argument.

Hmmm. Kindness towards strangers. I realized this is easy for me because I don’t know them well. I can’t inspect them up close for flaws that reflect a deeper weakness. I can’t see the ugliness in myself.

I’ve been cold towards my Mother. Her anxiety, her fear are illnesses I want to desperately heal with writing, yoga, meditation, therapy, medications, anything that will help me kill the dis-ease. But I don’t want to kill her or myself. There must be another way.

“We all have choices.”

After the movie, I thought of Venom, a black alien that constricted its hosts so tightly in their own darkness that they lose themselves completely in its evil embrace.

Get away from me. Get away from her, from us.

We’d rather reflect each other’s fear, each other’s humanity, and trust that one of us will choose to learn.

Venom was never an alien. The darkness is a door in our own hearts we always keep locked. The light is on the other side knocking, asking if we are ready to let ourselves in.

Asking if we are ready to embrace it all.

Midlife Change in My Thirties

I bought new earrings today
the kind that dangle, like a child’s lazy legs
in a swing, not caring which way they go.
They’re loud, showy, and so not like
the kind I used to wear – short, invisible,
too scared to be noticed, too ignorant to believe
I actually mean something.
They’re in your face, in your eyes
blinding you with a glare brighter than
a solar eclipse. That’s right.
I want to blind you, cut off the world
for a moment so you can see
me,
and how I want leave my color
behind,
long after I am gone.

I'm thankful for...

I'm thankful for Kindergym, for teaching me that my daughter needs me to listen more intently and not push her too hard or too fast.

I' thankful for the pat of me that is fearless, the part that just wrote this in my Mother's Day card to Mummy:
I hope you are happy. I hope you don't feel guilty, and learn to communicate your needs with us. You have always raised me with love, and in the best hands, including your own. I hope that one day you can learn to hug me the way I hug you.

I'm thankful for my husband's logic. though we clash like Titans when my emotions are on over drive. Sometimes I am so emotionally charged, that I don't hear anyone else, including myself.

I'm thankful for The Sun, especially the Readers Write section. Here, ordinary people share their extraordinary stories of suffering and enlightenment in just a few short paragraphs. It's therapy at its best, making me laugh and cry and marvel at each writers truth

I'm thankful for Mummy, who shares the burden of the day to day grind in raising our toddler. Because of her, I can be a fun mom, too, instead of the 'I'm too busy taking care of you to really get you' mom.

I'm thankful to MotherVerse for publishing my poem. Approval is born within, but it sure is nice to see yourself in print.

Kindergym

Today she asked me to be a child, forget what I have known, and learn with her again.

Blue

I am the sacred water that flows through me.

I am the tears released as rain, as pain when clouds can no longer hold me.

I am the cleansing of my patients, my daughter, myself as intuitive waves break against illness, receding back into the source.

I am the mermaid who traces her fin in ripples left behind these words.

Memento

he’s typing, he’s programming
i’m typing, i’m bleeding
these words and sadness
through silence

he’s trying to save money
for a house or a planned murder
to kill a history of poverty
with cash

i bought a scrap book today
and some stickers yesterday
$70 wasted
$70 exchanged
for adorning the sea
our daughter, vacation

a memoir i will make
a journey back
when our daughter comes home
from college or her new family

a Mother’s art
a Daughter’s hope
the past will not die in vain

Multitasking

doing everything
aware of nothing
sleeping awake

multitasking
fatigue and pain asking
me to stop