throwing Stones at Blood and Bone

Throwing Stones at Blood and Bone

A part of me is a gypsy.

Fluid, electrifying and homeless.

She’s a siren out of water

She’s a magical mess.

A part of me is a preacher.

Cursed by a soulful obligation to giving

She’s a charitable loose cannon

Unsure of how to treat herself like she is living.

I see what it is to be a gypsy.

She is happier than me

Because she does just as she wishes.

She loves only when one needs her love-

And I grew up shy of gypsy kisses.

I see what it is to be a preacher.

He is sadder than me

Because he isn't with whom he belongs

He manipulates a success wherever he’s invited

But we've both missed home all along.

I’m anxious and full of motion

Somewhere in the middle –

A loose cannon treading water

With no destination in sight.

She says I’m a bitch and a liar

Maybe she is right.

He says I’m a pistol and a philanthropist

Maybe he is right.

I wonder if a gypsy is always a gypsy.

A free spirit, never eternally bound.

She will go when the wind wills her away

But she is the fastest at settling down.

She acquires quite the tribe of souls in her ways

She is a wolf mother-

She leads a pack of strays.

She is a settled gypsy now,

Leaving her soul food outside her door

And she resents that I need not be carried,

That I don’t eat it anymore.

I wonder if a preacher is always a preacher

With story after story to tell

He’s both exaggerated and nonchalant

He’s impossible to know very well.

He holds close to his pod and his responsibility

He is an orca father-

Who passively protects his whole family.

He is an aged preacher now,

Who has told all his best history

He’s waiting for something before he goes home

I’m not ready to know if it is me.

I’m swimming in the depths

Somewhere miles from the shore.

I am working my way inland

To a place I've been before.

The gypsy in me takes the long way

But I’m slowly going home.

So I can settle with whom I belong-

And wait to make history of my own perceiving.

There is a preacher who deserves home

And a gypsy with a lot to learn about leaving.  

"Take Me in Tender Woman"

Fear:

I forgot that a wolf is always wild.. I guess I got lost somewhere in the heartwarming process of domesticating a wild animal and I took for granted its willingness to bite. I trusted him. I pet him. I loved him and held him and put a collar with a name on him. Beneath his rough fur I convinced myself he was no more dangerous then a soft stuffed animal. I was wrong.

I found my wolf under the steps of my house. He was crying, a weak and needy woof, and I felt for him. I loured him inside my house with some dog food and a blanket and let him sit on my living room floor. He sat quietly. I watched him for quite some time,waiting for him to bite me, waiting for him to growl, waiting for him to tear a hole in the couch or something. He did nothing. He sat and looked at me, and eventually he fell asleep on the blanket I'd set up for him with this head in the bowl of food. So I left for work. I knew then that he was a wolf- I knew then that when I got home he would attack me- and I knew it would be my own fault for letting him in. I slowly opened my door, and he got up to greet me. I was shaking with fear. I stood just inside the doorway, the wolf next to me, and as my breathing got heavier I knew I was in more and more danger. He went outside, and I collapsed onto the couch. What was I doing with a wild animal in my house? What was I doing alone with a wolf? Why had I possibly trusted him? Why had I been so lucky with him? Why hadn't he already bitten me? What if he was sick? I found myself wondering if I could even walk into a vet with a wolf and have him treated. Then he knocked. The wolf was back at my door with a robust bark, asking to be let back in before I had even mustered enough thought and comfort to get off the couch and unpack my work things. I let him in with no hesitance.

He wagged his tail as he came through the door and sat back on his blanket. I petted him, kind of hoping he would bite me. Not because I wanted to bitten but because I knew that if he bit me just then- I could guiltlessly put him back outside. He didn't bite me. So I loved him, I called him into my bed and I loved him. I pet him and I kissed him all night and I thanked him for being so kind and gentle. I told him I wasnt sure which one of us was wild- because here I was with a wolf in my bed! I told him he could stay for as long as he wanted to and I slept well holding him close.

I bought him a collar and a crate and I came home to him every night for a year or so. He became a pet to me, he became a best friend to me, I called him Duke and he seemed to like that. Then one night, a Thursday night, I let him out after dinner and waited for his usual bark to be let back in- but it never came. The next morning I got up and couldn't work- so I searched for him all day. I called his name, I looked everywhere and I couldn't find him anywhere. I was devastated. I had trusted him and I shouldnt have. I had loved something wild against all my better senses and time caught up with me and forced me to learn my lesson. Sixteen nights went by without him. Then I heard it, his bark outside the door that meant he was ready to be let in. I answered him.

It has been almost fourteen weeks that Duke has been in the house again. He somewhere outside lost the name tag on his collar, and I have yet to get a new one made. I shake when he sleeps next to me, almost as bad as I shook while he was gone. I am hesitant to pet him now, though I sometimes do, because I know he can smell my fear- and worse yet, I know he likes it. I know he likes knowing I can no trust him and I can not turn him out. He likes knowing he has the upper hand and that he could turn on me at any second. He likes to come up to me like he still loves me even, he likes to rub his head on my lap- but then he likes to growl. He sometimes doesnt come back for a couple days, because he doesnt care when he hears me calling. Ive even seen him stand just on the top of the hill at the bottom of my street and howl at the moon instead of me. He likes to make me feel inadequate like that, he always wants me to know I will have never done enough for him. He wants me to know that he will never consistently love me, that he will never consistently come home to me, and that I wall never consistently satisfy him. He wants me to know that just because he wants my pets doesnt mean he is my pet, and doesnt mean he is any less of a wolf- or that I should be any less scared of him.

I am scared of him. Scared that he will hurt me. Scared that he will leave me. Scared that he will wreck the home I have built for him. But most of all, I am scared that each day will be one of the days he doesnt care about me. And thats how it is loving a wolf and letting yourself forget just what he is.

looking up to you

I remember standing in our entranceway in our federalist style house in Virginia Beach. I remember that we were supposed to be doing anything but what it was that we were doing, and I remember loving it. I remember the way that my barefoot feet felt on top of your sneakers and I remember just how far back I had to stand in order to not hurt you as you spun around and around on that wood floor. I remember how great it felt to know how special I was to you. I remember you dancing with me in our entrance way- I remember it because it was there that I learned the truth of your nature.

The truth is, you’re always celebrating your children. You always feel compelled to spin us around and show us off. You respect us more than we respect ourselves, you forgive us before you know what we have done, and you have bigger dreams for us than we can imagine. I know you want a house with a four car garage for us each, but the tiny apartments and trailers we all found at one point or another never made you anything less than proud. You celebrate our small victories and you tactfully fail to remember our times of shortcoming. I’ll never forget that I locked myself out of my apartment and you came and lent me your car because I needed you- but you’ll never forget. I remember all the checks you wrote for me, but you don’t. I remember, though I fail to acknowledge it, just how much you’ve always celebrated me- and the truth is I am lucky that it is in your nature.

In all honesty, you’re absolutely crazy. You’re high mantinenace and unpredictable. You tell way too many stories and you lie too often. Youre too modest and you keep too many secrets. You call your family more than you need to, you give us way more than you have, and you live a top dollar lifestyle on a dime. You make too many excuses for the people you love. You don’t ever protect yourself. You don’t get mad at us often enough. You are too forgiving and generous to a fault. But truth be told, I’d be absolutely proud to take all your bad habits if I meant I’d grow up to be half the person you are.

Truthfully, youre a great role model. Youre an aging man who went back to college, who saved his money for something he loves, and who took in his siblings when they needed him. You’re generous and loving and forgiving. Youre old but you’re vivacious, and optimistic whenever you can be. You love children and animals and you love your kids. You’re a hero and a godsend and I don’t take that for granted. Truthfully, Honestly dad, I still look up to you.

I am an independent adult, but I still look up to you. I am no longer a little blue eyed blonde standing on your sneakers as you spontaneously dance in our entrance way, but I am still your daughter. I still want to grow up to be the woman you’ve always hoped I could be and I want to give you real reasons to be as proud of me as you already are. I want to dance with you at my wedding and spontaneously misbehave when we are both much older and im sneaking you out of your nursing home or letting you drive after they take your license. I want to thank you for celebrating me for no special reason as often as you do. I just want to tell you that I love you, and this is the best way I know how to spontaneously embrace you. This is me, stopping in the entrance way and spinning you around to no music. This is the only way I know how to make you understand how special you are to me. This is my thank you, this is a party for you, this is my father-daughter dance. 

I Won't Mind

I was sitting next to you

With your hand in my hand.

We had no where to go, nothing to do,

Yet I was more content then I’d ever been

In the timelessness beside you.

Therein is a tenderness not everyone does find

So if next to you is the most blissful I can be

I sure won’t mind

I won’t mind.

I was telling secrets with you,

You had stories falling in my ears.

You can tell me anything you want to

As long as you keep listening better than you have to-

To the secrets I let fall in your ears.

Our stories will build us a haven, me and you,

And if for eternity-to you- my truths bind

And no other sould knows a story of me

Rest assured, I’ll still feel heard, and I wont mind

I wont mind.

I am patiently waiting for you

To give me peace of and make up your mind

So someone can finally know what you want to do.

Though so many others can promise titles and security

Id still so much rather be mindless with you.

We’re co-writing a story with no outline

But as long as I know we still have a story-

Then I’ll wait for an ending and I wont mind

I wont mind.

I was doing all the little things for you

Getting you presents, “goodmornings, how are you,”

Not because you asked for them but because I wanted to

I was doing more than I have ever done-

And ideaing up more because nothing is good enough for you.

There is so much gratuity from being kind

And I wish I could get wealthy serving you-

If I could pay these bills with your smiles and “thank you,” I wouldn’t mind

I wouldn’t mind.

I was laying next to you

With your hand in my hand.

Though there were places I needed to go and things I needed to do,

I was too content to move

Because I was blissfully close to you.

Youre a tender timelessness I have been fortunate to find.

So If ours is a story that never sells,

Rest assured, you’ve been heard, and ill buy every copy with a smile and “thank you”

And I sure wont mind. 

All My Cats Were Strays

My next door neighbor is a miserable woman; I kind of like her. Her house is in pristine condition and her yard is perfectly sprinkled with matching flower beds. She drives a reliable family sedan with racing stripes down the left side past both doors. She paid a fortune for that stripe and the poor thing has seen about as many miles as one loop around a race track. She washes that car out in the driveway once a week. Once, my youngest son asked if he could help her and she let him. My older boy and his friends lost a baseball in her flower bed one afternoon last spring though, and we were paying to have the flowers replaced and a professional to come replant. What is hers is all hers, she deserves, and she holds to the highest of expectations.

She has no children. She has no spouse. We are probably very close in age though we have lived very different lives. My husband is jealous of her. Her five bedroom house has had two renovations in the five years we have lived next door and now has a Jacuzzi room and a fitness center she never uses because she prefers the high end gym on the corner of Fifth and Haydenberry. She works a consistent nine to five job as a foreclosure officer and is home every weekend. She owns a summer home down on the coast in Savannah and asks us up for the Fourth of July every year.  My husband refuses to go and takes the boys out fishing but sometimes I’ll sneak up for a hard lemonade and some girl talk. I think she needs it.

Last fourth of July She told me when she was seventeen her high school sweetheart snuck out in his parents car to run away with her. He wanted to wait till graduation when his BMW was inspectable but she was in love and she was impatient, and he would have done anything to keep her. He was killed by a drunk driver at the top of her street. She said her whole town tried not to blame her but it did no good with a conscience like hers. She hid for three days she told me, not coming out of her room to eat or anything, then rode with her parents to the service in a dress she planned to wear to prom with him that was labeled in dirty whispers by his loved ones as “disrespectful” and “selfish”. She stood through a third of the sermon she said to me, listening to all the chatter, and then she walked out of the church down six streets to Main and Maple, crossed, walked three doors down to his house, dug for the key to his beamer in her bag, and then started the ignition and backed out of the everything she knew.

Since then she has been divorced twice and lost all of the friends she ever had, four women and one man. She has walked out on them all after a fight or a lie or a scene. You can tell in her baby blue eyes that she still doesn’t understand why it is so easy for people to let go of her. She tells me of a time someone hurt her as though the separation that ensued was painful but obligatory on her part and then boasts a little about how she managed a large settlement in her second divorce or about how she got a couple grand off a furniture set for using her married name at the Aaron’s on Ninth because her first husband’s second cousin works there. I chuckle a little to myself.

It took me a while to overcome my jealousy. I earn good money and work my ass off and have substantially less building and property to show for it than most women my age do. But then I remember that I have priceless roses on my birthday and mother’s day cards from hallmark. Sometimes I wish I lived alone and didn’t have a house full of needy people to take care of but as much as I am in many ways the biggest provider for my household, It takes everyone else to take care of me. I wouldn’t trade my husband for one night alone. Despite his two separate incidents of one night stands, his needy family and our constant bickering, without him I’d have to learn what I want in my coffee because I can’t walk into the Starbucks on Peach and say “can you make that with a little extra love today I’m feeling irritable, and can you seal in my flavor with cat hair and chaos?” Without my two boys I never would have paid 1000 dollars to take an adult learning algebra class to help with homework and I could have Sunday nights back to sleep instead of paint. I never would have had my house searched by drug dogs for cocaine my eldest was “holding for a friend”. But without those boys there would have been no tears when I finished my half marathon and saw them out of class early and skipping a game to stand with their father holding a sign with my name inscribed. I used to think without that family I would know nothing of mistrust, disrespect, and heartbreak. That’s true, but also without that family I’d know nothing of responsibility and loyalty, I’d know nothing of pride and appreciation.

My husband and I can barely afford our five bedroom on both of our incomes. We have the two of us, a sixteen year old hockey player mathematician, an eleven year old Picasso, My childhood best friend who needs a placed to call home when she isn’t away on business , my sister-in-law who has a pug dog and a disability check, and three cats that once were strays. We do not have a Jacuzzi or a fitness center. We don’t even have a membership to a gym. We have sneakers and a safe neighborhood though. My husband works as a writer from home and I teach a couple classes and wait table because I love it. We don’t have much time for leisure, much money for saving, or much food for sharing but we always manage and we’ve made ends meet no matter how hard it was for us for over seventeen years. When there is money to spare we trade in one of our three household vehicles for a newer used model or go on a quick vacation. Though my husband always wishes we had more of the tangibles our neighbors do, I just chuckle to myself- “Babe, if I wanted to be comfortable in life I never would have married you” I tell him again and again.

“That lady next door has so much to spend. If we just had more money this month we could take the boys…”

“it isn’t worth the price she pays babe, it isn’t worth the price she pays.” 

Touch

I could live on the way you touch my skin.Never before have i liked to be touched the way i like the way you touch me. I have never been one to cuddle, to fondle, to rest before you. never have the physicality of two people's body been more of an idea to half-heartedly toss around when i casually poke around with a vibrator. That was before you though, before i felt the way i feel about (your) hands on my skin.
I love how crazy you are. I love your tendencies towards fetish kinks and your poetic softness. I love your snowflake in a rainstorm kisses, hard to distinguish and too quickly melted and meshed into the cold concrete that is my skin. It is crazy how you torture and tease me and possibly ever crazier how much i crave that.
I love that you smell so easy. I love that your body and your axe deodorant never come on too strong when i'm buried as deep in the fabric on you as i can be. I love the way you smell my sheets and you smell my hair just to make sure nothing has changed. I love that i have gotten so used to your presence in my air that i cant smell you till i get back in bed, in the car, in your favorite sweatshirt of mine without you. I love the way your hands smell when they have been inside me. i love the sweet scent of your sweat as it drips down the nape of your neck and rolls over my knuckles. I love that your breathe smells so patient and careful. I love all the smells that come from being as close to you as you will let me be.
I love your body when you let me. I love your fingers when you intertwine them in mine. I love your fingers on my wrists, my back, my neck, my ass. i love the way your hands feel on the outside of my clothes as they beckon, on the inside of my clothes as they are invited, and on the inside of everything deeper that makes me myself and makes this body mine- as they penetrate. I love your nose muzzled into my neck. I love the subtle wetness of your moth tickling my skin and acting as a refreshing breeze- never too much to take but just enough to give me chills. I love the bones in your face atop my breast pressing as i breathe and softening as time passes. I love the tender torture of the way your body feels.
I love the way you touch my skin. Never before have i been so alive as when im tangled in your touches.

My Handwriting Isnt Any Better

My Handwriting Isnt Any Better 

I hate your handwriting.

I hate the way you inconsistently punctuate text messages and occasionally correct misspellings.

I hate that “how are you?” is never what comes to mind when youre done disclosing every detail of your day.

I hate that you don’t wear cologne and still manage to smell like candy and craving.

I hate knowing that you’ll never bring me home to your mother.
I hate that your family terrifies me because they are broken worse than my own.

I bet that given your situation, your mother is a bitch.

I bet she is bitter on top of being all of the things I hate about you.

I bet youll be poor and irresponsible for as long as you live.

I bet you’ll never make it as a writer. Not because you arent good enough, but because you’ve never been well-behaved enough to learn the rules.

I bet you will stop singing when you realize that im the only person who loves it when you do.

I hate that I cant imagine your voice in my mind, even seconds after you leave me.

I hate that I anticipate hearing you with so much vivacity that I cant eat.

I hate that when I do hear you, I am suddenly full.

I hate that  we cant listen to country because your exgirlfriend did and you cant help but remember.

I hate that you show no inclination of remembering singing Jimmy Buffet with me before you knew her.

I hate that you don’t call me Reba anymore.

I hate that song “Country Roads”  because every time I hear it I am forced back to a time when it felt like you enjoyed me.

I hate how desperately I want to taste you and rebellion again.

I hate my passanger’s seat because you are the only person that matters who has ever sat there.

I bet that that you have never noticed I have a scratch-off ticket you won two dollars on above my driving visor.

I bet you don’t know that I cry every single time I see that picture of you taking a picture of me.

I bet you never even thought about asking me about the girl in the picture of a girl taking a picture of a boy, when you know damn well what id give to know the story behind the boy taking a picture of a girl.

I bet you don’t even want to know me.

I love that you told me every story you could about a boy in a picture of a boy taking a picture of a girl.

I love that I know why some of your stories are lies.

I hate that you constantly lie to me and I still think youre the most honest person I know.

I hate that I lie to you.

I hate that that one girl is not the only person I have bribed to be nice to you.

I hate that ive convinced everyone at work youre a douchebag by exposing you to them entirely, and I told you think no one knows.

I hate that I said I didn’t want to date you almost as much as I hate you for believing me.

I hate that I told you I wanst hurting myself when I was.

I hate that I convinced you my failures had nothing to do with you.

I hate that I told you I’d been in love once because I convinced you it was with someone other than you.

I hate that I told you I would be fine all three times you broke my heart.

I hate pretending I don’t remember everything you’ve ever told me.

I hate when anyone says your name.

I hate that you feel so much closer to so many strangers.

Im surprised by how close you get to me sometimes.

I am surprised by how much you do know about me.

I am surprised that despite the fact youre always judging me you haven’t abandoned my logic yet.

I am surprised by how much you let me hold your hypocrisy against you when we both know you get it from me.

I am surprised by how much you think you have a right to call me out on.

I am surprised by how often you respect my secrets.

I am surprised you haven’t noticed that I am the only person who will ever love you like this.

I hate that no one understands how I love you.

I hate how isolating supporting you has become.

I hate that my friends wont hear about you hurting me anymore.

I hate that id prefer to let you hurt me than have a world of people to help me heal.

I hate that having you has forced me to have secrets of my own.

I hate myself for putting you before my friends.

I hate you for thinking we are friends.

I hate you for making me so selfless.

I wish that I wanted to feel good with you.

I wish that making you feel good didn’t make me feel better than cumming ever has.

I wish that you offered to reciprocate sometimes.

I wish that you understood that I want to make you happy more than I have ever wanted anything.

I hate myself for wishing you the best with someone who I knew would never love you like I could.

I hate that your happiness is and always has been pivotal.

I hate that I cant go a day without missing you.

I hate that I honestly believe you’ve never missed me.

I hate that I didn’t start loving you earlier.

I hate that you knew me before I knew you.

I hate that I wish you had already been my first and I  loved you longer and younger.

I hate that I wasn’t your first.

I wish that I could have told you I was ready.

I wish that I could have taken some innitative and kissed you.

I wish you thought to kiss me.

I wish we cuddled.

I wish I could have left your hand on my thigh.

I wish I could have told you I trusted you instead of being so scared.

I wish I could have surrendered to you and let you prove your good character.

I wish you hadn’t said you used me- even though we both already knew you had.

I wish being used by you bothered me enough to stop wanting you.

I wish we had sex.

I love you for wanting to have sex with me.

I hate you for wanting to have sex with me.

I hate how good you feel to me and I love how effortless I am for you.

I love you for not filtering what you say to me.

I hate you for not filtering what you say to me.

I love hating you.

I love you.

I love you for being.

I love you for being who you are.

I love you for being who you are to me.

But I fucking hate who you are to me.