Better Company (and other newer poems)

Better Company

Slicing into a tomato at the counter there is a question:

What language is strong enough? I remember my father,

and vegetables, and vegetable gardens—turning on

the sprinkler—turning it off—the soft fuzz of grass cut

days before swathing and sticking around my ankle bone.

Father, I think of you, yes. I wonder how much of your hair

has grayed, and if you remember how long it has been

and if you really were afraid of me when I raised my voice.

I still want to stick it to you, like the green painted spade,

a trellis the morning glories are climbing up. I want to take you

down, as far as I have been, your hand twisting my wrist

until I couldn’t feel my hand, had I been paying attention

to it, not combing the clear brown sea of your eyes for weeds

for things I was hoping I would find, floating, like kindness,

tenderness, some sign that you are human, that you have always

been made of something, but I never found any of that,

did I? I ask God if your eyes will ever make windows, and would

it be a good idea if I brought you over a dinner plate so,

for once, the beer in your belly, and the yellow sludge

from of other waste, will have better company?

Here's the piece that was in the recent issue of Fishladder:

Web

Sorry about the rabbit turds

that will inevitably smoosh themselves

into the tread of your shoe.

Because of the rain, the snow melted,

and because the snow melted,

the turds are there, and the air smells

the way that old cow barn across the street

did before they burned it to the ground.

The air smells like straw and mud,

like rabbit turds, but sometimes the air smells

like your hairspray, and when you turn

to look into the hands of that maple for the Blue Jay

you swore you saw fly up there, I am flooded

with the smell of your hairspray.

The smell of your hairspray pushes my breath

back into my throat, and it combs my throat

the way cigarette smoke combs my throat,

and I feel almost as if I am eating your hair,

but I can see your hair in front of me.

When your hair gets caught in the tree branches

while we are walking the sun hits it

and it looks like spider webs in the morning.

Your hair feels like spider webs, in the morning,

on my face. It feels like sticky spider webs when you

haven’t washed it the night before, and your hairspray

is still tangled in it, the way dew gets tangled in webs.

Your hair feels like spider webs, sticky with hair spray,

sprawling my left cheek, on the mornings when you haven’t washed

it the nights before. It sprawls my left cheek like a web

sprawls tree branches because you have moved so near to me.

When you have moved so near to me in the night, your hair

suffocating this day’s first breath, curling your thumb at the base

of my neck, the way a kitten taken from her mother too soon

curls her paws into any softness, I cannot help myself.

When you are curling your thumb at the base of my neck,

your breath so warm saturating the deepest well of my ear,

I lift my heavy hand and I take one long coil of hair

from your neck, and I wrap it and unwrap it in my fingers,

and I lift it to my nose, though I smell it already,

though it has already stopped my breath, I lay it across my mouth.

And I wrote this one...in between:

In Spirit

We are afraid she is not touching the bed,

our mother, levitating again,

lifting in her old bones lying

there, her mothballed nightgown

inflating as if it were a great

lung, her whole body pitching itself

to the slope of her voice, coming up

out of her like the fin of a fish

cutting the dark surface of water:

Do not kill me.

Our tongues are stuck to our teeth

while her voice stretches to us,

standing around her in suits, black,

we were tired, until she came at us

in spirit, yes,

is she here?

Her body lies on the bed, and I think of sliding

my hand beneath her shoulder blades just to see,

just to see if she has died yet.

I hope you enjoy them.

Spilling

I haven't written in a while. Been having this inner conflict about spilling the beans. When is it alright to bear it all? To open out, say, "Here's the struggle. Look at it. Touch it. Feel it. Know what I've known in the deep, deep--the dark--and whatever spots of intense light my spirit has recorded these last few days."

I've become incredibly self conscious recently. More than usual. But...something happened a couple of days ago, when a friend of mine sort of spilled to me a sad sad story that turned out very happily. We were in my car and he was beaming about how he suddenly felt so loved by God--he motioned toward the stars through my windshield and described how he didn't need anyone to tell him that they loved him anymore. Because the person who made the stars loved him. His face got so brilliant. I felt so soft, so grounded listening to his story. And I decided, when I got home, that I didn't need to be affirmed that night, I didn't need to feel accepted by other people, I just needed to rest.

It was wonderful. It was a great wide night, and I've felt so much better since.

I know that often, when I get scared, uncomfortable, whatever, I begin entertaining people a lot. I become funny. I am really really extroverted. Sometimes I'm being myself in those moments. Sometimes I'm generally just laughing hard, spinning into the joy of the people I'm with. But, sometimes, when I feel like I'm the only one, like I'm the one entertaining, like I'm in front of the eyes, I begin slowly losing myself. I go away after that feeling really ashamed and isolated and needy. I think the whole show--my hilarity--my song and dance--in those moments were meant to try and bring me some sort of confirmation. I like to make people laugh. And sometimes I think I use that laughter as confirmation that I bring joy. That I am worthwhile. When I bring joy because I already am worthwhile.

It's crazy finding out how many people share this. The neediness, sometimes. The panic that perhaps life doesn't have space for them. That they aren't a part of it. They are somewhere outside, trying very hard to get in. Trying to give some kind of show, in order to gain entrance.

I love finding that we're already inside. I love seeing other people find that they are already inside. I love their faces when they find out. Their softness. Their depth. Their silliness.

I am hoping I can live into this more. I want to love myself. Deeply. I don't want to go on with this constant re-thinking everything I've done. I don't want to go on planning every move, being as cautious as possible so I don't get caught in a space that may not want me.

When I think of living this out, I feel good. I feel very very much myself. I feel smiley. I feel warm.

I hope that you have found this way of life. I am so happy thinking that there are people out there who have become tender toward themselves. Who can laugh--very freely--and are not trying to buy love in any way.


LATER TODAY:

I just was going through pictures on facebook and I found these pictures of me driving my dad's tractor that my mom got in the divorce away from the house I grew up in. It was rather hilarious at the time. We were all celebrating getting away from that place...or the person that had hurt us all so much for so many years. We took pictures. And there I am, posing on the tractor. It was the last thing I drove away from my dad's (only a few blocks...down dirt roads...to my aunt's house). There was this brigade of my mother's brother and sister, my great friend Paula (it was her BIRTHDAY...and she helped me move my mom's stuff out. She's amazing. I needed her so much that day), all driving behind me. Smiling. Beeping. Waving. Helping out.

Today was the first day I realized that that was the last time I saw my father. Driving away on his tractor. It was about one in the afternoon. He was already drunk. Had nearly hit someone when he sped it out of the area behind his barn. He wasn't very whole that day. His girlfriend was coming over later. He was trying to corner my mom all the time and tell her how greedy she was when she still has hardly anything and he seems to own every toy he's ever wanted.

One time, I went inside, stood in his way and firmly told him to "Shut the hell up. " To leave her alone. I said, "Where the hell are your trash bags?" I was so strong on the outside. That's how I've learned to be with him. And on the inside I'm shaking, scared to death he's going to come at me...he's going to pummel me to the ground...and I'm going to be left, voiceless, again.

Today, driving around a bend in 44th, on my way to work, my father popped into my head. The image of him hiding, clinking bottles, peeking above shelves to talk to my sister popped into my head. The cold eyes. The eyes I've never ever known to hold real warmth. I thought of the things he's called us. The nights he put us through. And I felt very sorry. For him. I have been angry. I have wanted to see him cry in front of me. I have wanted to stare at him with the coldest eyes, and have him fall open, bawling at my feet. I have wanted that. I mean it. But, today, I felt sorry. I felt that this man is a product of something very big and very dark. I have never known what is beneath those eyes. I've glorified him and been let down before. But ultimately, he is flesh, and he is blood. And I am feeling the sharp pain he has inflicted. And he is feeling the sharp pain inflicted upon him. And perhaps, unlike my mother and others dealt very hard hands, he has not been capable of seeing his way to a different life, a different way of seeing things.

I am not going to go see him very soon. He would make me feel like I deserved to be punished. For what? I'm not sure. I'm still trying to get over the feeling that I am deserving of everything bad. That I have done something wrong all the time. That I am not worthy of anything. Of love. Of affection. I need to find my way to that first. But it is good. It is amazing, thinking that God does love this man I find so terribly hard to love, who I often want to hurt soo soo badly.

Imagine my mother and I with orange triangles on our butts...

pushing my car down Lake Michigan Drive. She still thinks we should have done it, rather than using our free towing service. :)

Yesterday was pretty bummy as I ended up having to shell out 200 dollars in unplanned car repairs. In the throws of absolute major panicky breakdown when I found out that I would have to have the thing taken in to a garage, imagining the money I've just started putting in my savings account flushing down the toilet bowl with graffiti on it reading, "God hates my guts!" I called my mother and she said, in between my sobs, "What? You feel like life isn't worth it because of your car?" By this time, I was on her doorstep, and started laughing at my absurdity. We got the car towed, and it ended up working out. I thought that I was going to have to come up with hundreds and hundreds of dollars, and in the end, I will be able to pay this.

It was fascinating, though. My inner dialogue was so ridiculous. I kept thinking, "This is your fault. You cannot take care of anything." And then I realized that that is absolutely ridiculous. I started to realize that so many of my thoughts come from things I was told long ago. And it's very sad. I remember realizing what was going on in my head, yesterday, and suddenly feeling this great compassion for myself. It was nice. I think everyone should have that every so often, a good dose of compassion for themselves.

Anyway, while my car was getting fixed, my mom took me out to Chinese, and then we went back to her house so I could fix her mailbox, which was hanging sideways next to her driveway. Supposedly she keeps getting hate mail from her mail carrier. So, after we pounded this stake in to straighten the mail box, laughing and being silly the whole time, she wanted to re-glue this wooden slat on top of the mailbox. After she glued it down she went around looking for something to hold the slat down while the glue dried. Finally she brought out this HUGE box of kitty litter with "Fresh Expressions" printed in big block letters across the front, and the image of a kitten pawing through grey and white pebbles. I had to pull out my camera. Seriously. My little mother trying to balance a box of kitty litter on top of her mailbox in the middle of a sub-division. And she just bought this house. I thought we might have to explain to her new neighbors, "Early onset of alzheimers. Very sad," or, "She was just trying to return it." :) I laughed histerically, and she did, too.

Then we played Mario Kart on the Wii, and drank chocolate milk.

I love my mother. Can I just say that? I love her. She's hilarious, and so warm. She was so good to me yesterday, and I don't know if I enjoy playing Wii with anyone else, quite as much.

Joy, deeply.

Last night:

In my mother's living room, I played Great Lake Swimmers', "Unison Falling Into Harmony," and danced around, finding out how difficult balance has become. It was interesting, dancing around by myself, on my own, discovering that it is nice to dream without expectations, without faces to put to dreams. I sang, danced, changed songs, listened for water boiling over in the kitchen, stirring mac and cheese noodles, calling down to my sister talking to her boyfriend on the phone.

Once, when going up to change to another song, some bluesy thing, Melody Gardot and Eva Cassidy, I noticed these clay hand prints my sisters and I made when we were young, and though it seems cheesy, and maybe it is, I put my hand in the print, and realized that once, I was very young. I was very young, once. I was small.

I have had very small hands.

I had this moment looking back into my memory, mostly composed of old photographs, thinking of myself back then, five years old, silly, restless. And I thought of how much my mind has taken over. How, back then, life was running. It was tossing about with my sisters in snow, in the yard. It was chasing the dog, and exploring color and new stones on the driveway. It was bending down to see. It was getting real close.

Looking back, seeing myself as this separate small person, helps me develop this compassionate view of myself. I have grown. I have been through legitimately painful experiences. I have survived, and I have learned joy, deeply.

And I have met people who are willing to bend near to me, to take me in, whatever I am, and love what they have in their hands. I love them, too. They are in my grown hands, and I am proud of them.

Inside the Panorama

I was driving, twisting my neck, craning around at the fields on either side of the road, the dusky yellow, everything laying flat, still. I thought it was beautiful, the sun cutting in from the clouds every few seconds, catching the bone corn stalks lying in heaps. I felt the landscape this great sad, broken thing, and at the same time, this fresh, supple, space. And driving through, I suddenly saw myself, my little car, closeups of my brow, my hairline, my ear, my eyes reflecting in the mirrors, and I realized, I felt that I was inside this panorama.

I feel broken lately. Slashed. Fallen. Splayed out on the floor. Splayed on my bed in the morning. Not sad. Just wanting to stay. Wanting to hold fast to that space, the wadded knots of sheets, the blankets swarmed like currents colliding. The lighting, the grey soft diffusion through my big window, through the wild branches of the oak standing out front. I want my bed. I want that softness. I want to sink and sink until all the coils have me, and I don't have to keep tense, keep holding myself up.

I'm guessing a lot of this has to do with working forty-fifty hours a week while finishing up my last semester of college. I realize I've done this for the past five years. I have worked full time, gone to school full time. Managed to make good grades. Managed to connect with people, make friends, experience so many new new things I never thought I'd try.

It's been a good five years. But exhausting. I am burnt out. Legitimately. I never thought I would burn out. I thought I was stronger than that. And I hate the thought of burning out because it makes me feel very ashamed. I can do this, I think. I am capable.

But it's time for it to end. I am ready to graduate. I got another job today to take the place of my office job on campus, so it looks like I'll be able to save money this summer, and perhaps move somewhere warmer before it gets cold again. I really want to move. I really want warmth. Ohhhh...it would be so nice.

I just have to figure out where I'm going.

I read nearly half of Henri Nouwen's Life of the Beloved last night, while avoiding school work, and was struck by one particular line, "But neurosis is often the psychic manifestation of a much deeper human darkness: the darkness of not feeling truly welcome in human existence." I think that this is the major issue running through my mind lately. I feel so ridiculously undeserving. Sometimes, when I am alone, I literally start laughing at myself because I am soooo ridiculous. I am so loved. So loved. I think of Andrew. I think of Chase. Of Elizabeth. Of Amanda. Of Ashley. Alicia. Paula. And so many other people who tell me they love me. And they aren't awkward about it. It's just true for them. And it's unbelievable that I still experience these bouts of just wanting out of life, because I don't feel like it has any significant space for me.

I remember working at starbucks and how all the young girls had this radar for guys who I felt were not good enough for them. They chose guys who called them idiots. Who were possibly physically abusive. Who relied on these girls more than they should have. I started taking note of my own radar (romantic). When I walked on campus I noticed that when I found someone attractive, or interesting, I would tuck my head down, automatically assuming that I would not have a shot with those people. Or perhaps I'd talk with them, and remain confident, but I wouldn't continue being interested in them, I would still believe that there was no hope for me in the romance department with those people. For the most part it was subconscious, but as I paid attention, I realized just how often during the day I subconsciously say to myself, "I am not worth that." I noticed how very quickly I construct walls to keep my safe from having someone else tell me I'm unworthy, I'm not good enough, before I tell myself.

It's all about control, really. It's about thinking, "I'll just guess that I'm horrific looking, that I'm completely idiotic, that I am not creative, that I'm a poor writer, that I am totally scatterbrained, before someone else tells me these things. Because if someone else tells me them first, I will die. I will melt into the carpet, and dry up. I won't be here, because I can't handle that."

When I really think about myself, how I view myself, I like who I am. I think I'm more scatterbrained in public, when I'm worried about what people are thinking. But when I'm confident, I'm smart. I'm witty. I can do conversation. And beyond that, I connect with lots of people, and I love them dearly. I am creative, I love my imagination. And sometimes, I'm even a good writer. And in the past few years, I have even learned to sing in front of one or two people, and have danced like a madwoman.

There are possibilities for me. There is hope. There will be jobs. Will be love. Will be holding-close. Will be good writing. Success. Some falling-short. And hopefully, some real letting go. Less self-rejection. More believing that I am beloved, as is.

Don't Push, Don't Shove

Late night, again. Adrenaline, again. I'm listening to the album Andrew made me, this Gasoline Heart song called "That Girl," in which the vocalist sings, "This is where you are, don't push, don't shove." I feel so often this pressure in me, pressing against the walls of my lungs, stretching them, stripping them the way cigarette smoke strips them, the way screaming strips them. I feel tight, stretched, dried out. I am pushing. I am shoving.

The reason for all of this is this stark realization that I don't quite know where to go with myself in the coming year. I mean, I'll graduate. I'll try and save some money working at the cafe, at a fruit stand, hopefully, and move. But where? Should I apply to work at that monastery in California? Am I only thinking about applying because I want to put that in my statement someday for graduate school? That's awful.

I HATE the fact that I am still working to please people. To please grad programs. To look good. I think about this, this part of me and I feel violent. I want to be done with myself, with all the ways I keep from knowing myself, from doing what I most want to do, from even knowing what I most want to do.

Granted, working at a monastery would be amazing. It would probably be very good for me in so many ways. The environment would be great. But, would I get bored? I am such a stress addict. Really.

I've been thinking of all the ways our society works, that we graduate and if we're going to get retirement plans we're going to have to jump through hoops, we're going to have to flaunt ourselves, make ourselves these "professionals" and further remove ourselves from our humanity, our feeling of worth simply because we are here, because we contribute on a level deeper than filing paper, creating spreadsheets, putting together cubicle walls in a factory, doing more and more. I am SICK of this. I don't want to be a part of it. But, perhaps there are good aspects to it. I feel like a mess of thoughts right now. And there's no where to go with any of it. There's nothing to decide.

I want to be a part of sweet full living. I want to make love out of life (as silly as that sounds). I want my good friends. I want more good friends. I want closeness. I want work that inspires closeness, that involves healing. I want work where I can share art, and make art with other people. I want work where I can help people find what they want, what they've lost. I want light. I want brilliance. I want joy. I want carelessness. I want floppy-soft-yellow days. Mornings. Days that look like mornings. I suppose none of this has to do with work, with business, with occupations. But, it's what I want in my work, my business, my occupation. I don't want to be stifled. I don't' want white office walls. I don't want hierarchies. I don't want regulations. I already feel like the past twenty-three years have been strangled by these things.

I think of Sabrina Ward Harrison's saying, "Make your own life." And I think, I have to do something different. I have to look deep and pull up my art, my real art. The poems I most want to write but haven't because I'm trying to write what will be accepted. The paint I most need to throw on canvases in configurations I've needed to set down, to lay out. What do I WANT to do? What am I going to make, if I am to make my own life?

It's somewhere in me. It's risky business. And I'm terrible with risk. But this is all I've got, I suppose.

Sabrina also wrote, "I'm afraid to show you who I really am, because if I show you who I really am, you might not like it, and that's all I've got." I think of this in terms of going out into the world, of putting my art out there, and this is what I have to stand by. This art, this work, is all I've got. I'm afraid. But I don't want to go out of this life as big of a wimp as I am now.

"Tell Michelle"

I had the strangest realization driving home from my cafe tonight. I was flipping through radio stations because I couldn't find the one cd I wanted to listen to, and I landed on this Christian radio station, and this song was playing about God's grace, and I actually liked the sound of it, so I stopped twisting the dial. While I was listening I remembered why it is I like this faith.

And I almost felt ashamed, well, I did feel ashamed, for listening to Christian radio (granted, there are some things I really don't like about it or agree with). I've realized that I've become very ashamed of expressing belief in anything, or even my opinion to people who might disagree. I try and keep my mouth shut.

I'm not out to evangelize at all, but I'm starting to realize that I stifle my own growth by trying to hide what it is I care deeply about. Faith is a vulnerable spot.

The strangest thing that came to me suddenly, that made my eyes feel tight and misty and a smile stretch across my face in the dark of my car was that I am allowed to believe things. I can claim something. I can claim belief. I am allowed.

I think I don't want to express my beliefs because I am afraid I won't be valued by some people for them. And I need to be valued by EVERYONE. I am desperate to be valued by everyone.

And while I turned onto my street I thought of something else, that I want to be a brave person. I want to be courageous, and very true to what I think, who I am. I WANT this. If I do not embrace what I am, I might lose it. And the truth is, I kind of like what I have here in this skin and bones. It feels good. Feels soft, tender. Warm. Light. Yellow. In the fibers of me, the me that I like best, is faith, is belief, is Christian belief (even), is some other beliefs, but mostly Jesus. It's true.

I want to take more risks. I have nothing else. I have myself.

In other news, my friend Rachel told me tonight that she's getting a tattoo on her wrist that says, "The Lord provides." I liked the phrasing because it's not "The Lord will provide," it's that he does, that he's doing it right now, and it continues. When she told me this, I had another smile stretching, eye misting experience. I don't think I often believe that I will be taken care of. I imagine myself most days, mouth bursting through waves for air, swallowed sporadically by white foaming curls of water. I am trying to survive. Emotionally, spiritually, physically, financially. I am trying to survive. And the business of survival has stripped me of my humanity. It has stripped me of my ability to believe in something bigger, because my eyes are not looking beyond this ocean.

The Lord provides.

I love that. I really do. It resonates deep, somewhere. It holds something at the base of me.

It makes me think of the middle-aged man (actually exactly twice my age) who visits me at the cafe, who brought me a stack of sticky notes that starts with "Tell Michelle" and lists tons of songs and artists he's heard during the week that he thinks I would love. And all of his recommendations are AMAZING. He knows me well. Though we only know each other because of the sweet little cafe I work at. And he cares enough to write me a list of songs on sticky notes. I think of my father who can't even tell me, can't write me an e-mail that says, "Merry Christmas, Michelle. I hope you have a nice day." I think of him and how he forgets my sisters' birthdays and middle names. Who cannot spell our first names. And I think of this man, and I think, The Lord provides.

Though I do not see him as a surrogate father, he has remembered me. I am provided for in this way. And it is good. And I am thankful.