my mind bears the imprint
his false heart's history.
no kiss or holy war of tears
can make him disappear.

i live with his denial
through hidden tequila bottles
and numb nights, but i 
don't know how to bear 

witness to my heart
puckered and scattered
across Southern Brooklyn

and his lies flyblown
to the steps of my 
Queens home.

street light facts #86

illusion's hiding
in the litter boxes
of alley cats and winos.

Another McKibbens exercise, an erasure poem (Prompt #27)

my heart is a co-
conut he cracks open for
the juice. he leaves the
meat to harden in its shell,
said this part is not enough.

* Another prompt from Rachel McKibbens. First attempt. I love this exercise and want to come back to it when I can get my mind to work again. (Prompt #29):

Are you my fairytale movie ending?
Have you thought about our lips touching?
What would be the name of our love?
What does it mean when you hold me close?

Have you thought about our lips touching?
Why am I not good enough?
What does it mean when you hold me close?
Where were you when dreams were being handed out to come true?

Why am I not good enough?
What would be the name of our love?
Where were you when dreams were being handed out to come true?
Are you my fairytale movie ending?

The cinquain I wrote today:

love is
scented markers
scribbled on backs of hands
and you don't keep going back for
the scent.

This is from an exercise I did when I went to a free class at Gotham Writers' Workshop this evening:

Love goes to the bathroom

...and she's a squatter.
She grand-pliés over the seat
hoping she doesn't leave
it wet, like her counterpart
Heartbreak who also always leaves
the seat up.

* Sort of a poem, but definitely a feeling.

When I eat pineapples,
I think of the sadness of my grandmother's children.
The first time I slipped a chunk in my mouth,
the mother of my father cooked ham, another first for me.

I was nine, on vacation alone with my dad,
staying at my grandmother's, sleeping with her in her bed.
I remember lying ridged next to her, making sure
we did not touch. I was scared that I would squish her,
already taller than her by nine. 

I knew she tried her best during that trip.
My only other vivid memories of her before 
that were at the age of four
and surprisingly ages three and two.

My grandparents moved to Florida when I was about four,
the only time I rode on a train 
that wasn't a dirty New York City Subway.

I know that I must have seen her sometime
between the ages of four and nine,
but I was homesick for a mother back home
with the same name while wondering how a father,
who was traveling right next to me, knew nothing
about me.

I knew her cooking the ham was her way
of trying to make me comfortable, of getting me
to eat. I do not like most fruits and veggies,
but I did fall in love with that ham soaked in pineapple juice.

I wonder if she would be happy to know
that I've been searching for someone who knew
how to make the perfect ham. There's been close
imitations, but that's all they were.

Nothing can replace the warmth of her hands
serving that pink glob of goodness. Or knowing
that at least she was beside me at night,
no matter how silent I was during that trip.

Those were the last of the memories.
I can't even remember if I saw her once after
in New York. All I remember is her voice over
the phone, especially after her stroke.

It was like listening to myself at three or four
before she moved, in a basement apartment
in East New York, Brooklyn. 

"How are you? I miss you. I love you."
I know my parents must have taught me
how to say that to her when I was little.
Now that's all she was able to say to me
after I said them to her over 10 years later.

These last memories we had of each other,
imagining faces we once knew,
but certainly have changed over a phone line
were now only capable of time morphs
thanks to the cruelty of the human body.

She cried every time she heard my voice.
I did the same.

I think we both knew that we would 
never get to see each other again.
"How are you? I miss you. I love you."
and salty tears on the rim of the phone
were our relationship until she was gone. 

I don't even know what her grave looks like.

All I know is that when I taste pineapples,
I think of the sadness of my grandmother's children.
If I, who barely knew her, could cry every time
I taste a pineapple, I could only imagine 
how often they cry.

*Inspired by Rachel McKibbens' writing prompts (Prompt #26)

You carry your father's habits 
underneath the curtains of your omentum,
hoping to stop the infection of 
your mother's impuissance.

You've seen your phone flash 
with missed calls from a jail cell, 
but you deny deny deny that 
you are worst as their hybrid.

Drugs land you a sentence so you might 
go down easier written as a liquid addict.

Bottle bottle on the floor, 
whose memory did you kick out the door?
Bottles scattered in boxes, 
under beds, in your vagina, 
but you got it under control, right?

Hold on there fancy child, 
don't you see your gut growing?
You're carrying too much 
rejection in your lymph nodes,
stuffing down your want, need, 
want, need because of you think 
everyone probably sees the witch in you:

The nothing-good-comes-out-of a girl 
who brands her liver with wine sales 
and club shots, hoping to magically bottle
pin-prickles of love to cure 
the loneliness filtering in her stomach.

forget rose colored, i have
love-colored lens;
      
      your skin, a veil over
      my eyes seeing a world
      of simply you, too easily
      bubbling to the surface

where each breath
each blink of the eye, 
evokes a universe of you
before moments are 
imagined, created, or lived.