Helmet ...

(Theme: August rush/Impatience. This story is all true, events from Monday - Thursday) - 2023 August 24

My therapist tells me

That maybe I shouldn’t rush

Into the next relationship.

—Like he knows me so well.

My three closest friends

Also tell me that I need

To slow down, not get lost

Launching into the next—

          Feeling loved and irritated

          Distracts me from lunch,

          So I people-watch: wrrrrrRRR...  here comes

          A college kid on a battery-powered skateboard.

                  “So fast,” I think, chewing while

                    I admire his thick blonde hair flapping,

                    Body canted forward like a bowsprit,

                    Eyes squinting against the breeze.

                              He passes me. “___Ohhhh!! … SHIT.” I hear

                              A chorus of young college dudes behind me,

                              Then turn to see, along the street,

                                        A white shoe…

                                          A palm-sized remote…

                                             An orange-wheeled board 

                                                        slowly rolling to a standstill…

                              But he’s not on the board, 

                              nor the street, 

                                                     anymore.

                    He’s trying to walk, grabbing his head,

                    Falling at a dizzy flail into a locked bike instead,

                    Before succumbing to his limits

                    And sitting on the spinning cement.

She tells me I should delete dating apps.

          And what?    Go to a sports bar?    or line-dancing?—   No.

He says 

“You punish yourself with partners.”

        She pops in 

“You’ve too much empathy for people who hurt you.”

                    A homeless wizard kicks his skateboard toward the road curb.

                    A black ponytail brings over his jettisoned shoe.

                    The bike police come, and call the van police.

                    I walk over, too, after I finish lunch.

She doesn’t just say “You did this to yourself,” so I listen:

          “Go slow and easy,   before screwing your two worlds    together.”

My therapist makes it a prescription: 

          “When a boundary comes up,

             See how they respond—First—as a buffer 

                 between you being together and partnership.”

Like a helmet.

                    He’s still grabbing his head. 

          “That was a hard crash,” I say.

                              “I can’t really Hear you,” pointing to his right ear,

                                  “I hit my head hard. 

                                      They’re taking me to ER.”

          “Take care of yourself,” I wave; 

          he waves back, eyes squinting between his pain.

                    He’s not okay… brain-walls swelling 3 

weeks before school 

                    starts.

“I can’t hear you,” was also me to my friends, 

          3 weeks before that crashing 

                    heart.

She says I always go head-first, 

every love like an August rush.

So I’m tightening a thick-strap head-pad—

  since the ground 

     likes to kiss me 

                        so much.

The 12 Kinks of Xmas ...

2023 April 17 {video here.}

For the first kink of Christmas, my partner gave to me—

     A tickle with a feather! Tee-hee.

For the second kink of Christmas, my guru gave to me—

          Two tantricas teasing…

For the third kink of Christmas, my Domme gave to me—

               Three pinwheels poking…

For the fourth kink of Christmas, my cuckold gave to me…

                    Four faux-fur floggers!

For the fifth kink of Christmas, my to:::p gave to me…

                         A five-fingered fiiiiist!—Oh!

For the sixth kink of Christmas, my servant gave to me—

                              Six “Oops! I dropped it”s…

For the seventh kink of Christmas, my pe::t gave to me—

                                   Seven furries mating…

For the eighth kink of Christmas, my Daddy gave to me—

                                        Eight belts asphyxing…

For the ninth kink of Christmas, the boy-scouts gave to me—

                                             Nine ropes a-binding…

For the tenth kink of Christmas, my bottom gave to me—

                                                  Ten gaping golf balls…

For the eleventh kink of Christmas, my neighbors gave to me—

                                                       Eleven voyeurs viewing…

For the twelfth kink of Christmas, my true love gave to me—

                                                            Twelve hours of aftercare!

                                                           Eleven voyeurs viewing…

                                                         Ten gaping golf balls…

                                                       Nine ropes a-binding…

                                                   Eight belts asphyxing…

                                              Seven furries mating…

                                        Six “Oops! I dropped it”s…

                                  A five-fingered fiiiiist!—Oh!

                            Four faux-fur floggers!

                    Three pinwheels poking…

              Two tantricas teasing…

     And a 

  tickle with a 

 feather! 

     Tee-

            hee.

Free & Clear ...

You can always run away.

Just one more time—

                                         Like when your family moved,

                                              Miles beyond your reputation.

                      You worked out every day,

                      Until “Remember me?” made her eyes go wide.

                            “I didn’t recognize—you look…different.”

You swallowed spotted fungi & paper tabs,

Then crawled to the bathroom, sucking air as loud as an ocean cave,

Looked over the sink and introduced yourself:

          “That’s an alien; that’s an animal. I don’t think we’ve ever met.

            I. Am. Thisss.         {breathe} Are you too?

                                               Heh—right on.”

           You left a relationship,

                     heart flaking scabs, identity half-custody, soul geriatric,

                               And so dazedly climbed somewhere stinging hot/deadly high,

                               here traded smiles with another sweat-salted pair of cheeks and

                     remembered “Wait, I’m still 23.”

                               You drank numb your anxieties,

                               Until every moment not drunk was a buzzing tide-foam

                                         of “OhshitOhShitOhSHIIIT…”

                                         incoming.

                                                   You ate only vegetables and meditated,

                                                              Until every moment was Simple, still—

                                but that was unfamiliar, weirdly peaceful, lacking monsters, SO!

                 You went downtown and got in a fist-fight,

                  started talking politics and debating religion,

                          Until everything was a war of Right and Wrong.

You shaved, grew a beard, shaved again, ate bacon-wrapped IPAs,

ran off that bouncing sub-naval skin purse,

           Until you didn’t care what anyone thought,

           as long as you liked you—

                     and you weren’t 23 | or even 32 |anymore.

You can always run away,

Just one more time—

But what if?

What if you were free & clear?

Can you even imagine

Being fully you?

In every direction:

                                There is no kiss long enough,

                                       No sunset orange bold enough,

                                No loud laugh limb-jiggling violently enough

to convey

Everything in you, at any moment, conscious or auto-driven,

with and through the

once-you/will-you…

So pick a day.

Someone will call you crazy.

Someone will put you in jail.

Someone will laugh “that’s refreshing”

And if no one posts your bail…

           At least you were real.

You’ll sit on the cold floor.

Slow down all your dream wheels to nothing.

And feel.

—just one more time.

Sonny...

Sonny Liston. American boxing titan. He stood up for himself, took care of those around him. The public didn't like his brutish power or his desperate criminal past. So they made it his future, his fate, and his death. In private, with trusted friends or children or his wife, he was warm and gentle, smart and humble. May 1932 (Sand Slough, Arkansas) - December 1970 (Las Vegas, Nevada).

I don't look at you until I have to,

                                                             and then I use both hands.

On predators with gloves, or microphones.

                                                                          I wear scars on my back

                                                                        From when father thrashed

                                                                                   So I'd pull his plow.

Look at me now.

                                                           I rode tracks to another city

                                                                 at 13, on my own.

                                                 Where kids laugh at me,

                                                       quiet and solid—

dwarfing books.

                  Thugs and thieves smile at me.

                                  They like

                     my looks.

                                                                For God, I am rooted in the ground.

                                                      Jab a left,                                    throw a right:

                                               Press the air,                                    make them sway.

                                          Then hard stares,                       tight jaws

                                           all go soft.

                                            If I just lean into them

                                           in this quiet, honest way.

                                                                                              You don't trust me,

                                                               fixed on owning my path to survive.

                                                                                   Don't like me either,

  sliding home with                                          both hands on the prize.

But I am your champion:

                        I rejoice at                         unbroken children.

                                  I take                  the policeman's gun.

                                    Her                  gentle man.

                                Your              outcast son.

A Moment of Silence to Breathe ...

after the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and so many more, and the uprisings sweeping across the country ~ 2020 June 2 (also pictured: Emmett Till, Tamir Rice, Alex Pretti, Renee Good, Geraldo Lunas Campos)

It is a deeply human, and valid, response:

To feel pain, in our bodies, for others' pain;

To feel fear, at witnessing the mouth → fist disconnect

Of those whom we most desire to trust

(our neighbors, peace officers, national leaders);

And to feel anger for others' experiences of unnecessary loss.

It is understandable that people are rising up,

Using the language of riots where simple and direct words

Have proven time and again to be too-little, too-late

In that dire moment (“I can't breathe,” “I'm unarmed,”

“I am not who you imagined”):

So bodies and voices are amassing before the next ___ ,

Desperate to protect

Citizens we do not know yet

From becoming more unwilling martyrs:

Who mark on the road

How unsafely far we'll need to go

From where we are to where our cities look

Truly by and for us: our faces in the halls of power;

Our alarm calls answered before they fall silent

On our streets, in our homes.

Let us take a moment of silence

Together, in the midst of this

Terrifying turbulence—

And breathe.

Touch-hungry ... (Holden 2022)

We decide to be alone

For now, and we know why:

Most at peace when life is simply

Give, give, give and die.

We shrug off incoming praise,

with its trail of expectations.

We feel uncomfortable

In a celebration's afterglow—

We're first out alone when a roof-fall

Buries the church door, though.

Pink fingers melting a shovel handle's ice

Scoop and lift, scoop and lift.

People say “thank you,” walking out

And that is enough.

They welcome us in,

And that is a gift.

We long for their touch,

Everybody we love.

That's the wet in our eyes,

Shovel-head diving in

With “can I help?” “are you okay?”

A sun-cracked smile and nod.

Someone might touch us someday,

But we leave that work to God.