Autumn: A Paradelle

Feel the stare of the scarecrows deep green eyes.
Feel the stare of the scarecrows deep green eyes.
Autumn running through my hair, like your fingers.
Autumn running through my hair, like your fingers.
Feel my hair through your fingers
your autumn eyes running deep. 

With straw on my skin we are harvesting ideas.
With straw on my skin we are harvesting ideas.
They will fly away, one afternoon, like a kite.
They will fly away, one afternoon, like a kite.
My ideas are harvesting
like a fly on afternoon skin.

Now the moon is too high to ease your strained neck.
Now the moon is too high to ease your strained neck.
Perfectly plump, the pumpkin you picked but never got.
Perfectly plump, the pumpkin you picked but never got.
Never perfect,  you strain
to ease your plump neck.

We are harvesting with Autumn.
Feel my fingers running on your skin,
We will fly away.
Easing your neck,
your green eyes stare at the moon,
That perfect pumpkin.

Night Terror

A blanket of white snow made the earth hum.
The soft music was so pure and peaceful, 
the sound waves bouncing off of sun beams.

It was just you and me, in this dream,
not another soul in sight, 
the entire yard was covered in ice.

you were still my brother,
only ten years younger 
than you are today. 

The same stubborn little boy,
who insisted on wearing his bike helmet 
when Mom drove to the supermarket.

The same infectious laughter,
that spread every time you performed
your Pillsbury Dough Boy impression. 

The same curious attitude, 
like the time you applied Mom’s red lipstick,
to your chubby cheeks, eyelids, forehead and toes.

Time and characters transfigured as
Bottomless fire rose from the middle
of the ice and you were gone. 

The snow was falling so fast,
it covered any steps your tiny
Osh’ Kosh feet could have taken.

And while no tracks led me there,
I knew where you had to be.
I dove, head first

into the flames, free falling
as the shrills got louder and louder

I woke in a feverish sweat.
My red curtains filtering the light
in my bedroom. My hair smelling of smoke. 

If Walls Could Talk

The walls of this old house sweat secrets.
They’re moist, like skin at the nape of your neck
in the late, balmy nights of August.

Each step releases another story
through the cracks of the living room floor boards.

The secrets float

through the rooms like the stench

of menthol cigarettes and cheap perfume.

Their reflections bounce off broken mirrors,
lined with thin white crystals, sweet from the spoon.

The rusted faucet leaks dark desires,

they drip, drop

like your body to the floor.

Pouring in a puddle on the hardwood.

They rattle bones in the deep, moaning night,
as windows whisper “Your secret’s safe with me.”

Morning Coffee

I fell out of love, over morning coffee. I wanted to tell you that, I’m not sure, I am capable of loving (you). I took a sip of steam instead. 

You slurped up white sweet foam, taking a quick froth-lipped break to suggest we do this more often.

I lifted the warm ceramic mug to the cusp of my lips and swallowed a scalding hot, mouthful. 

Effortless Love

Stretched across a mound of sand at Lake Erie, I watched two teenagers fall in love. They disappeared behind gleaming sun beams and reemerged, blurred by dense lines of my Maybelline coated lashes. Like viewing the world through a fine tooth comb. I watched them and thought to myself, A love like that only exists in movies. They had something so vast and wordless, so full-bodied and in most cases, fleeting. I gave them six months.

Yet, as the layers of my being began to bronze, I found that I couldn’t take my eyes off of them. Just as he couldn’t seem to peel his eyes away from her. He packed a picnic for the two of them. Making commentary as he pulled each item from the school bus yellow lunch pail. “I didn’t know if you liked macaroni salad” or “My mom picked these strawberries from her garden this morning”. He pulled out a Jones Club Soda: one original glass bottle and two neon bendy straws. His affection radiated. He watched her delicately bite at the plumpness of a ruby red berry, leaving a trail of sweetness running over the curve of her bottom lip. He leaned in and kissed the juice. He wanted to breathe her in and I wanted to wrap them, like a red ribbon around my pointer finger. My own little reminder that maybe love does exist. 

My mind retreated to the last time I believed in a palpable love. I thought of my Fisher Price doll house family. The one with the perfectly proportioned blonde wife and the handsome husband, who never said “the wrong things”. They would bend their bodies to acute angles to sit at the plastic kitchen table. They would feast on fresh made cherry pie without lifting a finger. They never chewed with their mouths open. They had an effortless love. The kind that allowed them to sit in comfortable silence. But that was before the husband worked night shifts at Polly Pocket’s playhouse. Before the mother laid alone in her paisley, plastic bed—her eyes permanently painted open. 

That was before I believed that love is as illuminating as the glimmer of goldfish scales, which send sparks to the water’s surface. Before it was so breath taking, so simply complex, so mind-altering. Being in love, is the hardest thing in the entire world. It’s painful. It’s ugly. It’s entirely and perfectly, worth it. 

Spring

Fresh cut grass, budding cherry blossoms, clean linen, smiling cocker spaniels with walnut-tinted eyes, clear cerulean skies, dried mud with fresh green poking through, the sound of water gliding over edged rocks, blue spotted butterflies, daisies and dandelions—- Spring is here, my darling. And we’re alright. 

What Lasts Through Time

When the caffeine and writers cramp wear off, when the early Spring mornings fill with songbirds, when the sun is too high but then crouches down to a frost covered dew, when the days are slower than the years, when we are miles apart and miles to go— Will I remember? 

Will I remember staying up late, watching movies that transfigure me into a different place in time, drinking coffee at midnight, singing, spinning, laughing, crying in the arms of some of the best friends I’ll ever have and then walking home alone, bricks beneath my toes, silence wrapping around my thoughts as I strain my neck to look at the stars— Will I remember you? 

Will I remember the stories we whispered between stolen kisses? What am I bound to forget? The facts. The feeling of collapsing onto bridges and beds, feet dangling nonetheless. Will I always be terrified of the future? 

As Neruda said :

“What lasts through time is like an island, on a ship, in the sea. Perishable. Surrounded by dangerous fragility and merciless waters.” (Ode to Broken Things)

Remember what I say—- bring on the waves and waterfalls. Submerse me. Watch my words float to the surface of your mind and flow off the tip of your tongue. 

Atlantic Ocean Lullaby

For Marie,
In Memory of Stephen Robert Mummert Jr.
2-16-86 to 11-15-07

My thoughts are wrapped around you, every day.
Memories of you have become my guide.
I see your face although you’re far away.

Looking for you, I went East to the bay
and wrote your name in sand along the tide.
My thoughts are wrapped around you, every day.

When the ocean breeze made the water sway
you gently placed your arms around my side.
I feel your touch although you’re far away.

As the waves came crashing onto the bay 
I thought our worlds would finally collide.
My life is wrapped around you, every day.

Like your eyes, the bay fades blue green to gray
and stretches like your smile, bright and wide.
I see your face although you’re far away.

You are white foam waves at that break of day.

You are eternal, like the changing tides.
My thoughts are wrapped around you, every day.
I see your face although you’re far away. 

Pale Blue Eyes

The small stretch of woods near my apartment, where you and I once explored, each other among whispering pines, is now grey and deserted. The only color is seen on cars parked forever in the lot, where while sitting on the roof of your Intrepid, you whispered lies about loving. 

The picnic tables remain in the park where we played in the rain, your head thrown back as drops rolled down the angle of your jaw. It hasn’t rained for days, and the tables have since splintered. 

The man I used to know, the one who preferred to sleep on the cold side of the pillow, like a sweetness in my side; the man with piercing blue eyes and dew covered skin is no longer the same, or he may be, but not within the context of being… mine. 

For the conceivably perfect pumpkins we carved and the red delicious apples we craved have since rotten, like my affection for your ink splattered muscles, for your pale blue gaze, for your falsely endearing sense of security, and passion, and possibly,love.