Fuzzies

We spent those years huddled close as animals.

The scared hiding behind the frightened.

Cut off from a normal life of study

or play we worked and got by.

Around us, in the hollows grew a rich half life

Of fuzzies chasing sparkling lies,

“Yeeking” over dreadful “gookies”.

We nuzzled as hedgehogs do

slithered as snakes and came together

as kittens in heat.

 Our world turned upon a thought:

 Forever and always, we were.

Fuzzy bones

I’ve been loving you in the moonlight

Asleep, I wake in a tangle of arms and legs

Not knowing where I end, and you begin.

Making love, I look in your eyes, so they hold me.

You have a sound of frustrated pleasure

That changes to relief and sometimes

I look at your face flushed; your eyes closed

As you hug yourself and thank me, and

God, And oh yes, and my name

My name so loud, your eyes open

And I want to die, just at that moment

To become light and shining.

Heaven

On my lap popcorn,

popped in a pot, smothered in melted butter

We eat and drink iced tea

Heaven smells of you and popcorn

Fingers like this, thin, small nails translucent, strong

and chin shaped like yours alone

with your lips catching popcorn from your hand

pulling them in between teeth, so familiar, they taste like

Your eyes, your eyes are clear, and defined

and in the centers, I fall beyond them,

and into you and live

  You're wearing my shirt, or I thought it was mine

  I hold your hand not busy with popcorn or

  do you hold mine. It's yours, I remember

this one has your ring, and you watch tv and talk and

never notice that I look at you, your face,

breathe in your scent and feel you in my hand

not knowing until you turn and catch me

"Nothing"

                    "Is something wrong, do I have popcorn on my face?"

"You’re staring, what's wrong?"

"Nothing, you're just beautiful"

"Thank you, I think"

"I like looking at you"

"But you make me nervous"

"Can I kiss you?", "yes"

Something happens as our lips touch

I am living. Your eyes are open,

watching me kiss you, both lips,

then one, then two, bottom, top, caress of tongue, playful

then sweet, and your eyes close

With me inside them and you kiss me

one lip, tongue, mouth open, my teeth, your teeth

taste of butter and you my mouth, your tongue

I taste you and your hand closes on mine tighter

Then a touch, hot, sticky, two fingers on my cheek

Tracing, then my neck, and then you hold

my head and kiss me

My hand moves to your waist

fabric, skin, ribs above and hips below

tummy waist, warm, you 're sweating

I am too

And this moment doesn't stop

Your hand, my hand we hold, we kiss, we live

 in love everything is right

Twenty days

In twenty days, you pulled me close 

and sitting on my chest said “Fuck me ^“. 

I rolled you over and kissed your ear, bit it 

and laughing uh-huh, said let’ s “woogie!” 

You slid my shorts down with a hand and a foot 

saying "Yeek" and giggled as I kissed your eyes 

and hair, cheek, neck and chin. Tasted your lips 

and pulled away compressing your thighs between mine 

and slid chest and belly teasing to taste your neck, 

then shoulders, fingers in my hair, kissing, held my throat 

and I licked and swallowed as your chest rose, 

my hair brushing your breast and then the other as I nuzzled, 

you held me to your swollen breast, it leaked against my chin 

and sighing you said "it's been forever", hugging me. I said, "I love you", 

and breathed against your wet hand. You wriggled 

as I lay on your thighs saying to me "please" 

but I pulled you close and sweating met your lips, 

your heart beat your nipples hard against my chest for a moment, 

then sliding your legs, kissed again and sucking your lip, 

opened my teeth to your tongue. I felt your hand 

slide between our bellies where you still bulged 

and along your scar scratching me with your stubble, 

as kissing me your small fingers tried to pull me in just a bit 

as your breath caught and feeling your thighs push mine apart 

as I pulled back and you pulled me in again and said "please", 

grabbing my butt, your teeth pressed on my shoulder and neck, 

as second by second you pulled my life into yours, 

gliding while licking, pressing your thighs beneath mine 

and in another second your hands around my waist 

and pulling, I feel you slide and moving squeezing, 

then of a sudden "ouch" and I freeze, about to lick your ear. 

"No?" I whisper. But, shimmying your legs free you say 

"yes" and "I don't care" as the minutes catch up and your legs encircle me, 

filling me with your breaths and humming as I feel fully, 

and my hair meets your stubble and your yes's 

as I ease back the seconds and gently slide up to us the minutes 

and I feel the days as at 18, mother and father, we fill and empty 

and breath each other and I come to love your stretch marks 

as much as your tears when you try to say you love me 

when you hold our son and I hold you. But it's not that, 

now, in bed you hum and growl and roll me over 

to hide our faces beneath your hair and you knead my chest 

as I read the stories in your stretch marked hips 

then tease your back till you squeeze down on me and say, 

"Don't move, don’t you ever move.”

PLEASE

kiss the sweat in my hair

let my tears fall on your neck

hold me like this

smooth my shaking

whisper my name in my ear

as I try to open my eyes

to find you nowhere near

Come lick my chin

Oh, come lick my chin and ear

finger my face in the dark

let me kiss your wrist free of its scars

hold your pain to my chest

Pink Highlighter

I found this notecard first on the kitchen table

in our tiny first apartment a few years ago.      

It showed up today, behind some socks in your drawer.

A drawer not opened since you left.

Happy writing in pink highlighter

“See you later, I love you

                                  Dorothy “

this notecard, a filed image leading my heart

to an apartment lawn, to dance in lovely sweat,

and sweet flesh heat with you on a warm spring night beneath a thousand stars overhead

with loving tired kisses stored for now.

I search to pull out from the dust

Memories once put there fearing this day

Your hand in mine

closing fingers tight

I dumbly smile as your hair tickles my belly.

You smile as you slide your body up mine

to tell me you love me

crafty smile as you lay your breasts on me.

Seductive as your seriousness brings me to heaven.

Then you doubt your effect, laugh and

you say swinging breasts

“Get naked Big Boy”  

and I do

Notecards fall into place.

I reach for the filing drawer to pull myself up

And over to blessedly, unthinkingly, fly

To land amongst more friendly memories

The drawer is full of "me and you", and tumbling "us".

A heavy white sheet gets draped over the too well known,

Familiar features, now best left unseen.

A hand, long fingered and pale

Grasps the edge of the drawer

Not pulling towards, but pushing away from

The white ceramic tiled room and you

Colder than me now being filed too.

Pretty girl

Nice girl, pretty girl

Sweet girl

What is it your father whispers

In your ear now?

You told me he wanted a boy

You who climbed trees and

Scraped your knees bloody.

Hated the dresses

What will you do for him now?

Young, anorexic with hatred for

Every hint of your womanly figure.

You raced to win for him

Jumped your hurdles until your knee

Went purple and you called the other girls

Sugar cubes for not running in the rain.

Your dad was a stranger to you.

Always stuck at work, only hints of him.

He liked your sister more, you complained.

She was smarter, prettier and everyone’s favorite.

Hating her as much as wanting to be her,

You were torn apart trying to be her.

When your cousins lived with you,

One stole your things and the other

Stole touches in the back of the car.

Mom was a drunk, you said, hating her.

She called you a slut for dating,

Reminding you that your dad wanted a boy

While hitting you and screaming.

Then you grow too tall, too big and

She hugged you so you couldn’t breathe

Reminding you that your sister was better still.

You told me your dad did not care about anything.

Did not care about your mom’s boyfriends or

How you cried when she introduced you to

The one hiding drunkenly in the garage after school.

So, you were always hiding, always sick over

Your mom’s smoking and the allergies, weak.

Did you choose marriage to escape that?

Was I your doorway out, to being loved?

Once you escape, you quit coughing,

You ate and got healthy, no longer bruising

Fragile skin over knees, elbows and hips.

You were proud of your curves.

Now the creative one who was tough yet warm,

Loved and soon you believed it too as you grew.

Now you could cut out your mother.

You got attention from your father as

You became his smart, pretty one.

The only daughter left within his reach.

An escape from his drunken burden and

His tiny computers and toys.

Now he had always wanted you,

Now you were his best child,

The one with the grandchild for him.

Now he had a family worth retiring for, being home.

You have always been beautiful now,

always smart, always wanted.

Now you can have anything

Even to be the lost daughter returning

Now your dad has always loved you

Your mom has always loved you

Your sister now envied you

Aren’t you the perfect sweet girl?

Babies slept

I once believed that newborn babies

slept through the night.

At 2 a.m. though, I learned

much to my tired wife's delight

that hungry babies know there is only

the now and forever.

I know that babies require a lot of love and patience.

A smile during the toxic diaper changes .

A million small catches as they walked from Mom to me,

smiled and fell, and bumped, and smiled still.

Padded bottomed adventurers.

I want to believe that I will always catch him,

protected as he moves from you to me.

Child, forever.

Son

Do you remember our two cats?

Did I tell you how Mike cried

When Ike got hit in the road?

That night as I buried him,

Mike sniffed and walked around

and made this sound.

The same sound he'd make when

They accidentally got shut in separate rooms.

That night he made it again, and Ike lay asleep

dead and I cried.

Wet fur, he was still not there.

And well, Oh God.

I heard that noise again tonight.

That crying sound only Mike can make.

And you see now.

Mommy got you.

And I got support bills.

And you're not here.

And she's not either.

And Mike was on my lap

and he was wet and purring

under my hand. And it was me

making that sound. 

Heaven for Charlie

You are with me

we laugh and hold hands

sitting on a couch

Our couch in our apartment

with our son

A room away and quiet

We said our “night-night, I love you.

Dream of bunny rabbits and transformers,

of little bear and everything sweet.”

Asleep on his bed, a mattress on the floor

with blankets and pillows, bears and rabbits.

Standing there to turn off the light

I remembered the monsters

under the bed

that almost got me,

But he's safe

Busting

Son, where you can still laugh

and in my memories:

“Bust those ghosts”

"Daddy", you say "get the trap,

Quick, Quicker, NOW!"

and you stomp the trap and smile.

You want to help me build things.

Hit a nail fifty times and it barely moves.

Yet you put on your ‘seat belt’ of my tools

and try to fix things still.

I smile, inside, to see your mother's smile,

her eyes next to yours and

her laugh as she hugs you.

You carry my tools, but with them

I couldn't fix what was broken.

You try, so honest in effort. You try.

For you and your mom

I would have done anything,

I did everything I could.

Yet, we're broken still.

You can hit a nail fifty times

and still laugh.

When

When God? The only question comes

for you to be, simply be.

Then I no longer beg nor ask for help

doing better now, at least worthy of you,

the world is made of the wall before me,

carpet beneath knees, over floor

yet darkness now has more walls, doors,

and there are not just voices calling

nor mouths biting, hiding from pain and tears,

very alone tears.

When the brain settles,

nestles loving into cold fluid

in pan of skull and nerves connect feeling to knowing

becomes as it works from here to there

receiving signals of what is, must be,

that can exist in the dark behind lights

or are only walls, walls,

small moving molecules to make all this,

not dreams nor words that spell

to create what holding wants to be.

When truth settles over truth

Real hides dreams

wants of real fighting the real

until arguing demands hurt brain

once more and begging God to be,

to maybe just be,

listen if not to act,

but to fill spaces I can't,

to protect and build guidance of

light over loved ones

but my ineffectualness

towards them hides my failures with

God being and to maybe not condemn me.

Then thoughts come,

feelings go about one another,

past each other, moving

and forgetting that I am

and think of doing for me what is needed,

more than others want.

But not quite there

until confusion moves and hides me

from not being which brings pain

equal to my needs

I want the doing,

not crying or tears

want more of all

and less of some

and just to be, please.

Even I don’t like me

Even I don't like me mostly dead now

In tighter circles my blood journeys

Keeping me alive

No urge to move, to warm my extremities,

To flow to the dangerous outer parts

Even a pipe opening wouldn't

Be felt in this drought

Those paths are shunned

Riverbeds clogged by flood wash debris

Closed trading paths to bankrupt wastelands

Unfriendly input is given over again

The world shuns this unalive white flesh

Given over to settling

To sinking.

There’s a weird

Theres’ a weird obsession I have

Or cultivated, hold dear and dread

Maybe it’s a dream or a promise

Induced by delirium through depression

And still, I’m afraid to voice it

To pronounce it in prophet fashion

The women to complete the circle

Ten partners of all types to finish it:

Childhood friend, and the cheerleader

The stranger, the voice from far away

The endowed one still young

A crazy rich engineer

Someone small chested and daring

Someone large, someone older

Now only that one left and I will know

If it’s truth or a lie

Will it go full circle to the

Impossible beginning or

Will I be set free?

Maybe end short?

I’m confused by my certainty