I Would Leave Me If I Could: A Collection of Poetry(11)

And in all of these things I could finally see the difference between what is the blood and what is learned.

I knew my cousin had walked the same stairs, he had smelled the oil and touched the brushes, and now we both sat on an antique carpet, cursing the same thing the painter stole from us.

I looked up at the wall, at the little naked child made of tiny tiny dots still held captive behind a glass frame on my aunt’s wall, and I wondered what the painter had stolen from that little boy too.





MIND THE GAP


Flying above the quaint little houses under Heathrow.

London looks dirty, but I keep this epiphany to myself in the baggage claim.

I land to a red-faced drunk at an outdoor pub.

He swaggers with unwavering confidence.

The brewing tension of a street fight.

Each step is like broken glass exploding on cobblestone that has seen quarrels centuries old.

Slated in nostalgic hubris.

A nation birthed the oldest child.

It’s too cold,

and too mean.

But poets,

they hate everything.

So I keep calm

And

FUCK OFF.





GUTS


I got this bad habit where I don’t think before I speak.

I fall in love like every week.

I keep a pistol when I sleep inside my mouth

so I don’t fight my tongue for saying all these things, like how I saw you in my dreams.

(I really did)

I’m getting bad at it.

So I just numb myself instead.

I’ll cut my hair and dye it red, and hope you get it through your head that I’m in love

and it’s bleeding through my skull, but I’ve been hurt before so I can’t tell you that I

keep this image

in my mind

of you sleeping

late at night.

I count the lashes on your eyes,

keep my legs

between your thighs.

I could never tell you, even though I’d like to.

I swear this never happens.

You know I’ve got a way with words.

I’d put a million in a verse, but still can’t bring myself to face what I feel.

I’m scared of something real.

I should spit it out and maybe get the guts to tell you.





LAUNDROMAT


My mother would round up my brother and me, Laundry baskets on her hips, Like the National Geographic portrait of a mother Carrying water

And her babies

We would march foot by foot in the scorching heat

to the Laundromat

At the bottom of the hill

Of the apartment cul-de-sac.

The hill was massive.

It would be slick with ice and snow in the winter And the big kids would sled down it On homemade toboggans

Made of cardboard boxes

And laundry baskets.

Little rocket ships

For the poor kids.

We’d dive to the bottom

and ricochet across the parking lot where the hill opened up into lawless concrete and pavement.

The wind would slice our cheeks raw red like sushi.

And beautiful girls

with beautiful button noses turned pink like peppermint candy would cheer from the landing.

In the summer the hill wasn’t so charming.

My little brother is dragging his sneakers across the curb nasty little thumbsucker

He used a pacifier till he was 5

And even as he slept,

his mouth would pucker and suck on nothing Oedipus baby. Mama’s boy.

I spit mine out the first time someone tried to put it in my mouth I wouldn’t be silenced

Infanticide!

We are marching

To the Laundromat.

We arrive and immediately

I run to a familiar friend.

A big black cracked leather couch with yellow stuffing seeping from duct-taped holes.

It looks like a giant monster in the dark corner under the decaying lights.

I stick my arm inside

And fear large teeth will bite it off at the elbow.

I imagine myself pulling out my arm and it bleeding like a stick of salami.

The first time I ever saw a whole lot of blood was when my babysitter Jessie invited her friends over to my house while my mother was at work.

She told me to shut my trap and she’d let me watch any movie I wanted on TV.

I picked The Shawshank Redemption.

They sat outside the apartment complex and 3 boys arrived and smoked cigarettes on the porch One girl came inside.

She was bleeding between the legs.

Dripping in thick strips like the syrup I used to make strawberry milk She asked to borrow a pair of pants I was half her size

I pictured her bleeding legs and imagined my arm dripping with the same crimson.

I waved my pretend amputated stub around screaming for my mother.

She didn’t turn around.

She threw our still-damp clothes in the basket And we marched back up the hill.





THUMBELINA


I am so thankful that your mouthful of 88 piano keys charmed itself into my ear.

I am so lucky to have a handful of chocolate brown hair in a bushel,

bunched up,

brushing my fingertips when you lie in my lap.

Your mouth slack and your pink lips parted ever so slightly.