The in between

Some days the gravity is too strong

so I summoned the Eternal by looking at a picture of a bird in flight because a real bird wasn’t in my living room

and then afraid I was about to escape my mind I made hard-boiled eggs and ate one while it was still warm and soft and the scent of bird was there which made me sad that I was eating a bird

so I put that out of my mind and sat down with a hard-bound book and let the weight of it sit in my palms and brushed the cover with my thumbs to feel the hardness and when I opened the book and began to read 

the pages released my mind and it was gone after all

Some days the gravity isn’t strong enough

The erasure was forgotten

The erasure was forgotten

like a slow train

coast to coast

through trees and hills and blasted rock

forgets its ties

that fade into a single, distant point

around a bend

in time

when thought was free

inside your skull

you steel yourself

resisting

those arresting thoughts

powerless

to rail against

the police of thought

A prompt from http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com/2017/02/flash-55-plus.html

In this plain state

Sepia-toned Sunday

I move slowly through the house

Socks shuffling on smooth wood planks

Pausing at the kitchen sink to reflect

On this tiny backyard and its plainness

In this plain town in this plain state

Of affairs

I’ve had with other places this romance

Of what could be, of what I could be

When I was younger

It wasn’t a what-if fantasy that lasted more than a minute

Because I was up and gone

And now I move slowly

Through my body and through my mind

If only to show my heart that it’s ok

To move slowly

Through this romance with the world

As it could be

And the more slowly I move the more I see

The world as it is

And somewhere in the slowness of time

The what-if fantasy is beautiful in its dream-like state

Of affairs

I’ve had this idea that something bigger is happening 

Somewhere else

I was up and gone

And now the world seems smaller

As I shuffle in my socks 

In this plain house, in this plain town

In this plain state

I’m in

We The Tree

I feel like everything can be likened to a tree

The trunk

The branches

The leaves

The system of it all

Do the branches really only stretch as far as the roots allow

Does the trunk forever build its protective layers

Do the leaves turn to face the winds

I just realized I don’t really know how a tree works

The knowing when to die

And when to be reborn

Be hungry, be strong.

There are times like now when I feel the sameness flowing through us

And our differences are like those times when we are trying to decide

what to have for dinner but nothing sounds good and nothing sounds bad

It’s almost like we could eat anything or nothing and be perfectly content

And we meander through the grocery store saying to ourselves

yeah I could eat that but is it worth it, nah

I just don’t want it bad enough.

I feel like I could walk these aisles all night.

Love will come again

Driving in rural Midwest Winter

Between snowfalls

The skies gray and trees bare

Abandoned nests

Appear unexpectedly

Trees bare abandoned nests unexpectedly

Abandoned nests suspended at the ends of thin branches

The tree is a body

The branches ribs

The unexpected nests, empty

It's hard to imagine Spring

It's hard to imagine the nests among the leaves

It's hard to imagine the nests 

expecting

Because I couldn't march

I think some women realize that something isn’t right with the world. 

I think some women realize that we’ve made progress.

I think some women never knew otherwise.

I think some women feel all of these things and become confused.

I think some women feel all of these things and become angry.

I think some women feel all of these things and become enlightened.

I dress up in suits and meet with gentlemen CEOs and CFOs and all those titles

that command respect for their position and their ability to inspire fear in those below

And sometimes I feel like they view me as an equal

And I become positive and hopeful and it allows me to focus on bigger things like how to make the world a better place with my efforts and abilities

And then I see how they look below my eyes to that place that reminds me I am not equal

I am something less than

I am an object

I am something not to be taken seriously

Or they call me honey

Or they say something that implies I must seek approval of my male counterpart 

To justify my existence

I must justify my existence

They must justify my existence

And the good people of the world think I must be crazy to think and say these things

To bring light to these things that are said

To bring light to these things that do happen

Because surely in our just version of this world these things are not happening

These things are of the stone ages

These things are exaggerations

And I feel shame

And I feel sadness

And I feel impotence

And I feel apathy

From others and from myself

But mostly from myself

And that feeds my shame

And it feeds my anger

And it feeds my hatred

And it makes me think of them as objects

And it makes me one of them

And it makes me no better than them.

Despite all of this

I am hopeful.

These backward things drift away with the ages.

The sadness I feel is that I will drift away along with it.

I will not be around to see how young men grow into decent men

who look women in their eyes.

Who look women in their eyes.

Who look women in their eyes.