A poem is a gesture toward home.

It makes dark demands I call my own.

Memory makes demands darker than my own:

My last love drove a burgundy car.

My first love drove a burgundy car.

He was fast and awful, tall as my father.

Steadfast and awful, my tall father

Hit hard as a hailstorm. He'd leave marks.

Light rain hits easy but leaves its own mark

Like the sound of a mother weeping again.

Like the sound of my mother weeping again,

No sound beating ends where it began.

None of the beaten end up how we began.

A poem is a gesture toward home.

I feel like

I opened a door

And walked through

Without looking

So I didn't notice

It was a door

To nowhere

And now I'm falling

In darkness

With no end in sight

Except

There is pain

So much pain

So it's more

Than just falling

It's also

Being ripped apart

At a cellular level

I'm not sleeping

I'm not eating

I drank last night

Even though

I promised myself

I wouldn't

Not until the end of January

(Plus four days)

But now

I think

I just give up on that

Maybe

It really doesn't help the pain

And is probably

Very unhealthy

Since I'm not eating

And not sleeping

I wish

I hadn't found out

And I could live

In blissful ignorance

With his arms around me

His breath on my neck

And my heart full of love

But,

I don't really

Wish that

Because it wouldn't change

Who he is

And what he's been doing

I feel despair

Honestly

The cessation of hope

And I hate

That I gave

This man

That much power

Over me

But I did

I gave it all up

All my trust

Love

Dignity

Everything

I laid it at his feet

And he used me

As a doormat

As I pick up

The pieces

Of my shattered heart

As I walk away

From the future

I saw with him

I try to remember

The other side of love

The side that doesn't feel like this

I can't.

Curse you for not lifting a finger

The black line up your back

Show-cases your crime...

Curse you in your prime!...

Pencil pusher, why don't you erase

Something besides the ever changing world

That now races past your power-point

As you flaunt a flawed perspective...

Ain't it easy to fall backwards?...

Ain't it easy to talk like you're walking so pearly sure...

I lost the trail, and went off crying to myself

Until a new way opened up...

My teeth fell out, the back molars, and then the eye-teeth

As I confronted my grief...

Did you not catch the sign that sprung out of the invasive

Thicket?...

Maybe now we'll move with it

As the stars fall in great gobs from the clouds,

And we crowd around the bodies...

Beware not of the filth of the tongue, but the dry fungus

That attacks the lifeless glands

Causing you to erase...

...You must not displace

Your total sense of new, it's so truely intact

behind the black shivering curtains that are artifacts

of your thought...

Take the time.

©

1/18/21

Bunny Villaire

I hear the warm air

Lifting

Pushing down the cold

I hear the

Emptiness

Of South Street

On Sunday morning

I hear the

Quiet breath

Of my youngest

Slumbering soundly

I hear

The flood of tears

Behind my eyelids

I hear

My mind reprimanding me

For this folly

I hear my heart

Shattering

Section by section

I hear my heart

Shuttering

To weather the storm

I hear my fingers

Typing

The first of many

Heartbreak poems

Sure to come

Ah,

Now I hear

The tears dropping

Softly

Steadily

Onto my comforter

I hear my comforter

Calling me

To snuggle back in

And feel its warmth

I hear my heart

Crying out

"But he was my comforter!"

I hear my mind

Admonishing me

"Nevermore"

You drown the silence

With your music

And movies

Simultaneously playing

Until my head is spinning

And I forget who I am

Maybe this drink

Will help the noise

Maybe this edible?

Nothing helps

I lose me

When I'm with you

And some days

I am grateful

For that

But

When I want to live

Instead of hide

I can't be with you

You dissolve life

Into overindulgence

You beat balance

With a stick name excess

And I sink

When I'm there

And my heart

Cries out

I love you

While my brain

Begs me to leave

And now it's quiet

And I cozy up

Under my blanket of sadness

And sip

My tea of solitude

And sigh

The color of pain

As I pick up the pieces

Of my broken heart

And begin

To puzzle them together

Again

Hey up there! I see you. Could I come up and share a moment with you, before you jump? Was that a nod? My vision isn't so good. I will come right up, just in case it was.

***

Would you like to sit down? Oh, right here on the edge? Okay, I can do that. My name is Mee Jong. I don't know what circumstances brought you here, but I wanted to tell you that I do understand the feeling. Did you want to talk about why you're here?

No? That's okay. Do you mind if I hold your hand for a moment? Thank you.

***

There were times in my life when I felt so lost, so alone, so unloved. There were times when circumstances took on a life of their own and I felt tossed around, beaten-up and left for dead. There were times when I thought it would just be better if I was dead.

I wrote stories about killing myself. About being murdered. I dreamt about it. I wrote suicide letters. I stopped feeling and gave myself over to a hollowness, an emptiness. A living dead state. People avoided me and my obvious pain and sadness. I planned my final exit from this world.

That's not to say I know you, because I don't. But I wanted you to know I have felt the sort of numbness and despair, that would lead a person here. Our experiences are unique, but our feelings, they are more universal than one might think.

I understand if it makes no difference to you. But, just in case it does, please know...

You are not alone.

Feelings change. Circumstances change. The world changes. It didn't always feel like that was true for me. But, when I allowed myself the time and space, when I found the strength, when I reached out for just one connection to tether to my own life, these truths became known to me. Giving yourself over to one moment is easy, and sometimes, that is what gets us into these dark places. It's allowing ourselves the opportunity to move through these places, which gives us the strength to go on, day after day, in this crazy, beautiful, scary world in which we live. Until we don't.

Oh, you're crying. Here, let me hold you. That's right, let it out.

***

How are you feeling now?

Love is the absence of emptiness.

I look at my hand

Holding nothing

And my heart

Tingles its remembrance

Of your hand

In mine

And I know

This is love

Love is logic's greatest obstacle.

I think of my future

My goals

My dreams

Logic tells me

Altering my path

To be with you

Giving myself over

To your goals

To your dreams

Will curtail my own

But logic can operate in a vaccuum

Love cannot

Love is the most tangible intangible.

I'm not sure what is second.

Sadness?

Pain?

Anger?

Anything we can express with an emoji?

It's hate, probably.

Love is the antidote for hate.

I raised the glass to my lips. It tasted like freedom. Freedom from the day's troubles. From my overactive mind. I offered you the glass. I wondered what sort of freedom you tasted.

When it's just the two of us, I try to remember - too much freedom can be disastrous.

Sometimes, I think you enjoy freedom even more than I do. What does that mean?

I do like tasting freedom with you. But my mind on freedom is a dangerous place. So many pitfalls.

There are times when freedom brings me to tears. You don't like this.

There are times when freedom brings me to hysterical anger. You like this even less.

There are times when freedom brings me to shed my inhibitions. You love this.

So here we are, tasting freedom again. Where will tonight's journey take us? Do you know how close I am to offering you true freedom? Freedom from our relationship? You probably don't. But I do.

Will I have the freedom to tell you?

At the intersection

Of Comfort and Discomfort

Where Denial

Hid my Perspective

In his back pocket

I listened with an open mind

Only to find

The words couldn't penetrate

My closed heart

So I queried the stagnant air

How can I get back

To the time when love flowed?

The air closed in around me

And I took a deep breath

And noticed how the air moved

And I realized

It is I

Who creates the flow

So I became a pickpocket

And stole back my Perspective

And I cried for a moment

Over my lost love

And then opened my heart

So that it may find its way home

This morning

My thoughts turned to rain

And fell from the sky

I didn't seek shelter

I didn't ask why

I just danced in the deluge

And tried not to cry

I am aware

That endings

Are new beginnings

And

When one door closes

Another one opens

But my thoughts

Were consumed

By moments with you

And the knowledge

Those moments

Are all past

I will always

Send love

In your general

Direction

But when this rain ends

So

Will my mourning