Four Easy Payments

This cake is tree-shaped, so authentic
squirrels will scamper up it! Woodpeckers
will plunge their beaks into its frosted trunk!
The tree-cake even grows caramel apples--
but if you eat them, they don't grow back.

*
This cake is a calming blue-green ocean.
It will buoy your spirits with gently rolling
swells of gelatin and negative ions. It emits
a white noise that no spousal whining
or even screaming fights can contend with.

*
This Cake is built to the exact specifications
of Noah's Ark. This Cake includes cubit
upon cubit of barnyard fun: candied yaks,
peanut-butter workhorses, chubby white
sheep & goats in cream cheese. Two (2) each.

*
This cake is a cross-section of your head.
We use top-notch magnetic resonance technology
to image your thoughts & re-create them exactly
in marble cake with chocolate-truffle filling.
Bet you didn't know regrets could be this delicious!

Hey, at least I'm writing!

She speaks honestly and from the heart

"I have my own thoughts."

Well, as long as you keep the hurtful ones to yourself and only say those that will help someone in their growth process. What the hell am I saying.

Transitions are hard.
Change is tough.
I'm not going home for Christmas.
I just want peace and quiet
I can't take all the yelling.

Just let it roll off.

Dude, I don't get paid nearly enough for this.

I am worth more than this.
Is this what my life has amounted to?

A steady stream of babbled gibberish on continuous instant replay.
I'm pretty sure I'm doomed to have a baby with developmental disabilities for the shit I've been talking.

I feel

crazy
exhausted
like my head is spinning
confused
like I just flushed my head down the toilet
the love
all around me
despite
the madness

I hold on to

the pen in my hand
that allows me to maintain
some shred of dignity
with my
compulsive notion to scrawl everything down as
it happens
It's a control thing

Pieces

Night soaks into the corners of her room
The pillowcase soaks in the brunt of her tears
Left alone with her thoughts
she breaks into tiny pieces
No crime has been committed
but still, she is devoured by the wracking guilt
felt by an accidental murderer
Under a different set of circumstances
she could have kept you
In a different context
there would be no regret, but joy
In a different time
she could have helped create a new
kind of life
Tonight, there are only pieces
and no one to reassemble them
No one to fix what has been broken
to save what has been lost.

I am from

I am from "Oy vey" and "toughen up"

Magnolia trees I can climb higher than you 

bike races and 

when we got older how long did you exercise today? 

 

Productivity 

are you doing something productive? 

I am from Irish Canadian Russian Jew 

I am timid 

Almost afraid of new situations 

I feel that lifelong learning is very important.

Still Here

Spent all summer bathed in monitor light
Search engine hits like soft kisses
The endless sound of keystrokes
My bittersweet serenade

Over the years I have come to need
This aching hunger
When I gaze at the world
All I see is sickening complacency

The soul of a social psychologist
Can slowly grow numb
When his friends are not out in the sunshine
But instead tucked away on hard drives and digital databases

Ever since ninth grade
I’ve known what emptiness feels like
When young and the people you love suffer
The common currencies lose all value

I was a hunter
Searching day and night, unquenchable
Mauling my prey for any quantifiable clue
Any insight that could save us

By fifteen I had left God behind
I had to do something
My eyelids never safely closed
The world was just too much for this little boy

In the intervention literature
All that matters is change
This scrolling on the mouse is just a perpetual prayer wheel
Calloused knees, begging to see others improve

I was born again in those days
The times I felt pain
Were just fingers pointing to the Moon
Reminding me that I am but a reflection of the world

I worked twenty-four hours a day
Cataloguing the ways to make peoples’ lives better
The stress of caring sometimes made me want to collapse
My worried heart, forever afraid I would have nothing to say

The line has always been blurry
Between self-improvement and bettering the world
If I want things to change
I need to always become better

After an entire summer of staring at statistics
Determining the predictors of improvement
I learned most not about the science of human behavior
Instead, it was always about the scientist

If I didn’t believe I could get better
This skin would be a lot colder

December Theme, a Trifle Late

December Walking
The air outside is so cold
it makes me cough with my first breath.
walking the three blocks home I
feel myself shrinking from the frigid wind
hunkering down in my fur-lined coat
wishing I could slither inside my skin
or underneath the matted snow
and hibernate like the gophers do
with full bellies and dreams of spring.
The ice is thick and tricky beneath my feet
one wrong step and I will fall
I wish for the gracefulness and ease
of a skater showing off on a frozen lake
but instead I shuffle along with the tiny, skittering steps
of someone just trying to get home.
I cross silent streets of white
climb up mountains and down again
take tiny comfort in the steam of my breath against the scarf covering my face
twitch my tingling fingers so they won't go numb
and useless as twigs
then the keys are in my fumbling grasp
the lock gives on the first try
my
door is open and warmth is there to hold me.
I unfurl, I grow tall and languorous
with relish and relief
I stretch, I jump and spin, kick off my caked boots and dance on the air
I preen and purr like a cat.
Then I sink into the comfort
of feeling human again.

An Ode to Winter

Courtesy of Kathryn S. (thank you facebook)

cough cough sneeze sniff sniff
slurp swallow sigh rub eyes
I hate being sick





I just couldn't resist. It was too good not to post here. ;-P

A Primer in Starting Fires

(alternate title: Champagne and Judging bad poetry created this)

Did I tell you about the time
In fifth grade
When I had “Uptown Girl” stuck in my head for three days?

There is no getting rid of Billy Joel
He’s good for about five minutes
But the better part of a school week
When you’re ten?

And that is what happened to the school, officer.

(xposted at mah blooooog)

hibernation's end

How do you know

How do you know when you’re home

When you’ve been gone for so long

But you’ve made it finally

With presents wrapped tightly

Mom, Dad, 3 sisters, 2.5 brothers

The .5 is an in-law

But he’s alright

We’ll round up.

But how do you know

That college, grad school, and 2 stints of expat life--

That that time, that non-linear time

That stretches, compresses, and skips beats at will

Did it have time to remember you.

Door opens and cradles you with light and sound

Sensory overload--

Split wood piled near a woodstove, fire’s going

Persian rug, wood floors, and people

Oh so many people

Smiling.

Welcome back

Welcome home.