Tag: compassion

Dear Scott, 

Remember how I told you, 
“I am really only myself 
when I’m somebody else whom I have endowed 
with these wonderful qualities from my imagination?” 

I’ve been thinking, all those pieces of me 
are like pecans in a loaf of bread 
baking in the oven and as it bakes, 
those pecans get further 

divided by space 
and fluffy dough stuff/ 
think that’s why space 
with all its soundless, 
cold in-between 
was something 
I didn’t care for at first 

but now I look up 
and see myself 
in the reach between stars 
in the places of nothing: 
a soundless place 
I can speak and 
hear it. 

I am not silent in a clothes basket, 
4 years old and thinking I am hidden- 
no, I am un-shelving continents 
with my dancing 
with my love 
having everything to say 
and nothing worth saying, 
according to myself. 

When I went insane, love 
I was caught up 
being every version of me, 
a puppeteer holding the strings 
poised but unmoving 
uncertain in where 
this one goes or 
that one came from/ 

‘they’ see 
an effervescent, socialite 
dancing on tables, and 
I believe I’m showing daddy 
I don’t need hard work 
to build character, 
that my beauty is enough 
but, truth is 
I was working hard,

I could live off the wistful smiles 
on boys faces and be plump 
as a jelly bean 
stuck to their cheek, 
that sweet aching 
they don’t really like 
but take all the same.		 

I was many versions of myself 
scattered around a sun 
and I could feel a warmth 
but it was skin deep 
and these parts of me searched 

one tip-toeing on the event horizon 
with a spoon in her mouth 
flask of vodka on her hip 
and another draped along Europa’s 
smooth surface orbiting Jupiter, 
her tidally locked, lover 
 
(they say Europa spins faster than its orbit, 
because the stuff inside is unbalanced, Scott). 

Remember when I jumped in the fountain 
in my red swimsuit?	The space between stars. 
Remember how our feet burned on white sands 
bright as whiskey fire when we lived 
at the end of everything 

and the beginning of anything? 
That burning was close as we could get 
to finding the sun I speak of. 

I was most beautiful 
picking all the things I love 
about people    all the things 
I love about living: laughter, dancing, 
drinking- all the things that please me 

scant almost too much     
the way men turn me 
like hands turn the pages 
of a book 

a blank page 
opened in the night 
and wanting to be 
filled, or to know 
finally, what do you find 
between the stars 
and the sun? 
and was it enough. 

On that beach we lived for awhile 
where I should have felt some peace, 
my hunger just became greater/ 

all those versions of me I created 
and not one sun upon which to orbit 
like the pecans in that loaf, 
I am lost now 

foot stuck in an air pocket 
in that fluffy stuff and 
	                     100,000 versions 
scattered across the universe- 
the paths are all broken 

or were they just 
never charted. 

Before you sent me away 
sometimes I would think of baby birds 
when hungry, but I wouldn’t know 
I was hungry or 
I’d think of a zipper over the mouth 
of little girls and all the stories 
that could be told 

watching our daughter reading 
under the oak tree 
and didn’t know 
there was a sadness, 

I just kept dancing 
hours upon hours 
so I could be as 
worthy as you were 
to be alive. 

And, when I said to you, 
‘People look like ants in a bottle’  
I was just afraid I was the same as them, 
these people that looked like strangers 
walking in circles and 
that I was a stranger, too 

all of us like ants 
marching in straight lines, 
protecting the queen, carrying 
bits of leaf back to our anthills, so 

I needed to love you first 
and live incidentally 
and that’s really 
the story, 

don’t you think? 

Now, all these grown men 
try to fix what’s gone wrong 
with shots that make me shake 
with violence, 
and my mind is hoarfrost clinging 
to bare branches, 

my self, a ghostly butterfly 
too insubstantial 
to rest on the flowers/ 

I wish 
I’d stayed with the girl 
in the clothes basket. She 
liked to talk about happy elves 
in a make-believe place 
everyone told her she needed 
to leave behind, but she 

is real, can follow the path 
from her smile to 
the stories creating 
who she will be 
when she is stronger 
if she trusts 
she is strong 

and not a woman 
who needs you. 

I am the empty cup 
with no handle, 
the handle is somewhere?		 
Maybe 
it was your hand on my stomach 
as you slept    maybe 
I am a little girl you told 
could only bloom when 
you were sleeping 
so you could be 

F. Scott Fitzgerald 
without inconvenience. 
 
No one could have survived us, Scott, 
but everyone really did love me, 
didn’t they? All of my 
stars and the space 
between them, 
if I could choose again 
to chart the paths 
with someone by my side:

you, my family, this world
or even my own heart 
if I would stop and
feel this hunger.