—I WAS FAR TOO SCARED TO HIT HIM, BUT I WOULD HIT HIM IN A HEARTBEAT NOW

 

 

Another Brooklyn—Jacqueline Woodson

 

--I know that what is tragic isn’t the moment. It’s the memory.

 

--Where would we be now if we had known there was a melody to our madness?

 

--Who hasn’t walked through a life of small tragedies?

 

--…the four of us sharing the weight of growing up Girl in Brooklyn, as though it was a bag of stones we passed among ourselves saying Here. Help me carry this.

 

--No judgement is a lie.

 

--Maybe she had already forgotten, the way years allow us to.

 

--And as we stood half circle in the bright school yard, we saw the lost and beautiful and hungry in each of us. We saw home.

 

--Whenever a good song came on, she swayed like waves being poured.

 

--She was sloe-eyed and wide-mouthed, a beauty that could have just as easily not been so.

 

--Maybe this was how it happened first for everyone—adults promising us their own failed futures.

 

--When boys called our names we said, Don’t even say my name. Don’t even put it in your mouth.

 

--Death didn’t frighten me. Not now. Not anymore. But Brooklyn felt like a stone in my throat.

 

--And she whispered how she was the queen of other places.

 

--When she showed up again, I’d introduce my friends to her. I’d say: You were wrong Mama. Look at us hugging. Look at us laughing. Look how we begin and end each other.

 

--One day my body would tell the world stories beneath the fabric of my clothes.

 

--And everywhere I looked, I saw glass shattering into truth.

 

--Who could understand how terrifying and perfect it was to be kissed by a teenage boy?

 

--I was fourteen and nothing mattered but hearing I love you and believing he meant it.

 

--When you’re fifteen, pain skips over reason, aims straight for the marrow.

 

--Once I came very close to saying, For a long time, my mother wasn’t dead. But I didn’t.

 

--This earth is seventy percent water. Hard not to walk into it.

 

--Two steps to the left or right or back or front and you’re standing outside your life.

 

—I’M NOT THE FIRST ONE WITH WOOL OVER MY EYES

 

These F**king Poems, Man

 

Another poem likes me

better dead, better embalmed or

keenly scalpel-ed, indecipherable,

drowning in lurid words of Spanish wine, 

while only the author or executioner

knows what’s just, and what’s not.

it’s funny or not 

to be tossed in the air

by a cyclone that doesn’t

know your compass or 

half your genome sequence,

limbs akimbo, then torn apart like 

a heart that wants too much.

And still, another poem wants me 

recused because poetry either

heals or crushes the writer underfoot, 

no warranty attached, no questions asked.

Like every poem I’ve ever written,

this one thinks I’m more popular than I am, 

that I know the answer to so many things I don’t,

that I have stories to tell which are

different from yours, though you and I

both know the half of it, don’t we?

—I FIGURED OUT A LONG TIME AGO THAT I NEED HELP

 

 

Milk Blood Heat—Dantiel W. Moniz 

 

 

--She hadn’t realized empty was a thing you could carry.

 

--“Baby,” her mother said, laughing a little, cupping her chin.” You don’t know what you need.” 

 

--The baby was the size of a Washington cherry when I lost it.”

 

--“I’m a sucker for beggars.”

 

--Nothing stays new, she wants to tell the women.

 

--There are so many ways to be filled.”

 

--And wasn’t that the most coveted thing? A pretty woman content to be near you?

 

--They gathered to pierce Frankie with their eyes whenever they could—another’s shame being the truest spectator sport.

 

--Later, everything tastes like something.”

 

--“Just stay a minute,” he barked. Why didn’t anyone ever stay?

 

--Her mother had let herself be shamed, like a bad pet.

 

--They couldn’t touch me. I trailed my laughter like a flag.

 

--It was an illusion, that stillness. Nothing ever stayed in one place.

 

--It was a relief to leave the bathroom, our apartment, cramped as it was with all our unmet needs. Our blaming silence. We never called each other anything other than baby, and now, like this. It was as if we didn’t have names at all.

 

--“You said it wasn’t me.”

--“It’s not. But then you make it that way.”

 

--“I saw what my face would look like if I died in surprise and fear. What my father’s face must have looked like. There’s nothing scarier than that.”

 

--Snow nodded the way we do when we doubt what someone else has said.” 

 

--I started to deny this, but stopped when I realized what it meant about me—that I could be both a victim and a perpetrator of a gaze.

 

--My body felt made of stars.

 

--Easily, I could imagine him as a lover, and what that quick pink tongue would do.

 

--He was so familiar, so good at it. Billie pushed the dog off the bed and closed her eyes, unbuttoned her jeans to give him more freedom. Lifted her hips. Almost let her conscious self fall away. 

 

--"You learn to be who you are, or you die as someone else. It’s simple.”

 

--"Isn’t this how all the trouble started?”

 —IN MY MIND, YOU’RE ALWAYS THE BRIGHTEST PERSON IN THE ROOM, THE ONE EVERYONE SECRETLY LOVES, AND WANTS

 

 

…I don’t normally post out of order (every M, W, Friday) but I need to get a jump on Monday, because this is going to be a busy week.

(Also, it’s close to midnight right now, on the cusp of Monday, so I'm not exactly that out of order.)

 

…I loved the book below, the carefully crafted stories, the lines that slay, the subtle and not-so-subtle ways she allows you into her head and heart, the thrum of danger.

It taught me a lot, for many different reasons.

She’s a writer to watch, for sure.

This is Part One of my favorite (dog-eared and underlined) bits…

 

 

Milk Blood Heat—Dantiel W. Moniz 

 

 

--I feel blurry and grateful—how much love it takes to hate this much.

 

--The lights are off in the bedroom. I am six and the dark is a jaw around me.  

 

--“Life’s a circle, you know? You can’t go anywhere someone else wasn’t first.”

 

--But Billie wasn’t fooled; she knew that, worldwide, money was the cult over all things, no goodness or sin excluded.

 

--Certain of her own complicity, Billie got into the habit of picking up stray litter in the parking lot. Every day she checked for dead carp.

 

--The sky ahead of the road was streaked purple and felt a little like driving into nothing, made them feel immaterial and a little spooky, like maybe “self” was a myth.

 

--What would the world be now if women had been allowed more freedom to wonder?

 

--Even the most basic scars no longer faded entirely from her skin.

 

--“You think anyone really knows what they’re doing?”

 

--“Sorry,” she mumbled, hiccupping into the bowl, but she knew that it was only a word, that it excused nothing. 

 

--Colette bent over Billie and rubbed her back and Billie thought, maybe even anger was a kind of love.

 

--Billie considered that maybe anything could be a portal—a black hole, a body, a choice.

 

--He sighs and it sounds like a storm.

 

--This always delighted me, how extraordinary things could look outside their flesh.

 

--She said gratitude kept her young.

 

--I heard, and thought, If she’s still a girl, when can any of us be women?

 

--I estimated the number of boyfriends she might have had over the years, the many children she had swallowed as seeds. How painless. I wished I’d been eaten, too.

 

--She was laughing, unaware she was about to swing into the sky, about to be lost, a pinprick among clouds.

 

--She told us you could be a ghost in your own life, and sometimes that was worse.

 

--And when I blow out my candles, just know what I’ll be wishing for.

 —WHAT I’D REALLY LIKE DAD IS TO BORROW THE CAR KEYS, SEE YOU LATER, CAN I HAVE THEM PLEASE?

  

                           THE THING ABOUT BEST FRIENDS

 

       People laugh when I tell them that one of my best friends is fourteen years old. 

       They think I’m pranking. Making an odd joke. That maybe I’m toasted and my edges are fraying.

       When I tell them that I’m not, that I’m sober and serious, they chuckle again, but in a sort of stilted manner, which right away lets me know they think I’m strange.

       But I get it—fourteen and my age—that’s a heady differential. What they’re thinking is:

       How would that work? 

       How much could you possibly have in common?

       What would you even talk about? 

       And always, at the end of it, they throw in something like, Anyway, you know he’s fourteen, right? And you’re what, 95?

       (Not 95 yet, but getting there, hopefully.) 

              That best friend in question is Dane, my nephew, a fascinating person who I adore unabashedly. We’ve known each other his whole life-time now, and, so far, it’s been pretty great. Mostly, it’s been epic. He’s him, and I’m me, and we connect.  In so many ways, we’re a lot more alike than different, despite the chasm of years.

       The thing is, this guy makes me feel like I’m fourteen a lot of the time. Or younger than that. Or, he makes me see the world like a fourteen-year-old does, which is infinitely better than an adult’s view of things, mired in network news, which only portends catastrophe and end times.

       Some of the hardest laughter moments I’ve ever had have been with him, with Dane, and the majority of those were before he turned fourteen. 

       Last week, we saw a movie. Afterward we had an early dinner and for dessert, we ate a mountainous Almond Joy Sundae, which means I wouldn’t need to eat again for a week. During that time, we laughed/cried about JILF’s. We reminisced regarding our anguish together at a screening of “Roadrunner,” the documentary about the late Anthony Bourdain.

       He told me secrets and I told him some of mine. 

       I think that’s what best friends do.

       We share music. His knowledge of music—every kind—is off the charts (the other day, he showed me some freaky Incubus videos/songs I’d never heard of, or seen).

       As with all best friends, there’s no fear of judgment between us when we share things. Or when we mess up. Or when we don’t completely get each other.

       What we have together is safety. An easy comfort.

       I also get a hard time from people when I say I have 7 best friends. “How can you have more than one best friend?” they’ll ask. 

       That’s a fair question. But I guess, in my mind, I think a best friend is the first person you want to share things with—the good news, or bad news, or something exciting, or interesting, or oddly curious—that comes your way. 

       They’re the first person you call, or text, and for me it’s this group of seven I feel very, very lucky to have. And Dane, my nephew, just happens to be one of those. 

       Why should I care that he’s only fourteen? Sometimes he sounds smarter than any adult I know. Sometimes he brings clarity to things too cloudy for me to see or understand.

       Whenever I do text him, he gets right back to me. (I think best friends are those that text you back sooner than later, and if they don’t respond at all, well then, they’re not really your best friend, are they?) His replies are always authentic—funny, or concerned, or sarcastic, sometimes with inside-joke verbiage only he and I understand.

       For example, on his birthday last year, he sent me this: 

       “Holy chair. I’m chairing thirteen! How the chair did I get this old? I can’t chairing believe it!!”

       In the Anthony Bourdain documentary we saw together two months back, there’s a part where a friend describes Bourdain as this tremendous lover of all things art—music, film, photography, books, architecture, painting—and whenever he discovered a new piece of art, the first thing he wanted to do was share his love of it with his closest friends. I’m the same way. Sometimes the art is really obscure. Sometimes it’s dark or bitter yet riveting, as with this song I’m now obsessed with:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzQ6g1j_pdI

       Dane may not get what a “snuff video” is or what “Bizzies” are, or what "WDP" means, but he got the gist of the story, the rancor, regret and angst. He appreciated the artistry involved, which I did, too.

       And then, right back, he sent me a video/song he was presently enjoying, though totally different, but I loved it as well.

       That’s friendship—sharing something you love with someone who you feel might find value in it as you do. And if they don’t love or enjoy it in the same way the sender does, that’s okay. The sending of the song/video was an expression of love, of trust.

       And that’s Best-Friendship.

       The thing about best friends—and, as you know, I believe you can have several, but not too many, because it takes a great deal of time and effort to be a best friend—is finding, savoring, and furthering expanding, your connection.

       It’s understanding how rare the relationship is, fortifying it with genuine love and attention whenever possible, and reaping all that joy together.  

       In fact, here’s a text I just got from him as I was writing this and we were giving each other chair…

       “There you go, chairing with me again…”

 —I START OFF SLOW, BUT I GET THERE QUICK, BUILD IT UP, BRICK BY BRICK

 

 

…This baby is about to have a birthday a month from now.

Here are some outtakes… 

 

  

“There are things about my childhood that I’ve never told anyone. Not even a therapist.”

 

“It’s tricky when you can’t trust your mother, and even trickier when you’re a child. It’s a bit like not knowing if the air you’re breathing is clean or toxic, if your food might be contaminated.”

 

“Sometimes it seems like alcohol has always been a part of my life, though really, I didn’t have my first drink until age nine.”

 

“A friend once told me I have trust issues. They had no idea how right they were.”

 

“The strongest relationships I have are with people who make me feel safe. Who take me as I am—broken, flawed, and all.”

 

“A few weeks ago, my daughter and I sobbed watching a documentary about child abuse, and now I appreciate the notion that we could do that, cry unabashedly over something we’ve both been through.”

 

“When I was in fourth grade, a bully at school used to taunt me. Being gangly, shy and basically friendless, I was easy prey.” 

 

“And the thing is, when Depression hits, I know what to do. Call someone. Get out of the chair. Move. Turn on the lights. (For God’s sake, turn on the lights.)

Yet I don’t do any of those things.”

 

“Here’s a fact—it’s actually pretty easy to say you love someone. People do it all the time. But proving you love someone is a lot more difficult.”

 

“I haven’t necessarily been counting, yet I know it’s been sixteen hours and thirteen minutes since I last cried.”

 

“Death does that to people it hasn’t yet taken. It leaves them rattled, confused and ineffective. It steals their sense of clarity, their hope, and it’s not their fault.”  

 

“Loneliness is a trick your mind plays on you. It’s crafty and insidious, and it doesn’t like to lose.” 

 

“The thing about wonder, or rather our sense of wonder, is we usually start to lose it right around the time we’re shedding the last of our baby teeth.”

 

“I was lucky. I discovered books at a young age. In some respects, they saved my life.”

 

“A crushed heart or bruised ego is almost due to a rebuff of some sort.”

 

“I have also been spurned by someone I loved, or thought I loved (I was seventeen). It made me feel ugly and pointless.”

 

”What I’ve found is that everyone is starving for affection. Everyone wants to be affirmed, to know that they matter, that what they do is special, and that someone actually notices.”

 

“I have a gaggle of writers I’ve chosen as mentors. I don’t just read their work, I study it, tear it apart, question it, compare and contrast it with things I’ve tried in my own writing. I’m always learning, and they’re always teaching me, unbeknownst to them.”

 

“When you miss someone, your heart turns into something like a sunflower, bending toward the light it cannot directly reach. It’s a futile yearning. You wonder if the other person is feeling similar to yourself. You wonder when you’ll see them again. You wonder if they’re sleeping well. If they’re healthy. If they’ve laughed today or seen a butterfly.”

 

“The stark truth is, love’s a choice, not an emotion.”

 

“The truth is, love can be a little ugly. Suddenly there’s morning breath, flatulence you never noticed. There are mood swings. Selfish tendencies elbow their way in. Insecurities fray and unravel. It’s the same person you fell in love with, but now you’re seeing them un-Photoshopped.”

 

“People without pets often think those of us with them are nutty, starved for affection, likely barren, or socially inept. They may be partially correct on all accounts.”

 

“In those moments of togetherness, we are no longer awkward aliens, We sit across from each other, anxious to hear what the other thinks, and they readily tell us, and it feels like authentic kinship.” 

 

“The thing about forgiveness is, without it, we’d all be screwed.”

 

“It’s easy to hurt people. Even when you don’t mean to. Especially when you don’t mean to.”

 

“Without a sense of purpose and a spark of hope, all of us are wandering this earth aimlessly.”

 

“The worst thing that can happen to a parent is watching their child suffer. The only thing more horrible than that is not being able to do anything about it.”

 

“For some people, regardless of what the scale says when they’re on it, there’s the shame of weight, but there’s also the weight of shame.”

 

“Sometimes, in the shower, or on the couch dealing with a bout of insomnia, I’ll think of all the people I’ve hurt in my lifetime and it will make me feel despicable, like I’m a terrible person. A real piece of shit. Or worse. “

 

“The truth is, we live in a time of envy, and it’s not all our fault.”

 —SOMEHOW I KEEP CREATING NEW WAYS TO HATE MYSELF

 

scheming

 

 

I see the side of 

the moon’s face 

but neither of yours 

because you keep them

so cleverly shielded 

and I wonder why 

it’s so easy for you 

to milk the shadows 

crushing trust in the shade

spreading bile like manure 

or a virus you 

must hope takes root 

and kills

as Churchill said 

you’re an enigma 

wrapped inside a riddle  

I just hope you 

find your answers soon

or at least before 

either of us is dead 

 

–GOD THAT KID LOOKS SO SAD

 

                         What she didn’t say about the scar

 

       was how he threw the wine first, eye-level to blind her, then cracked the glass before stabbing the jagged crystal into her upper arm, grabbing a fistful of her hair next, trying to yank it out by the roots.

       what she didn’t say—that for weeks and months, different iterations of this followed, that she allowed it because what else could she do when she had nothing and nowhere and nobody else?

       what she didn’t say, was how one night while he snored like a drunk boar, she caught his throat with a letter opener, caught it dead-center and twisted, watching him spasm for someone else for once.

       what she didn’t say, is a word to anyone but me, that night we lay under jewelry case of stars, holding hands, mine trying not to squeeze against her throbbing pulse, or the key that it held.

 

—LATELY I’VE BEEN TAKING THREE SESSIONS A WEEK

 

 

foul

 

 

I flew with 

the geese last night, 

in a drunken tizzy, 

all that mad honking 

swirling around me, 

wings batting my eyes, 

and when I awoke 

you raised your 

sleepy eye patch 

and said, “You’ve got 

feathers in your hair” 

and I mumbled (…) 

and you said, 

“Oh brother, here we 

go again.” 

—THAT’S THE THING, IT LINGERS AND CLAWS YOU WHEN YOU’RE DOWN

 

Phantom

 

I fall in love

with your shadow,

the willowy outline of you,

elongated on the

sidewalk or beach, 

shading lawns gray, 

leaving an imprint 

on the bed sheets

as if a phantom sleeps there, 

endlessly dreaming and 

never once waking, 

your shadow who haunts me 

by never loving me back.