Adventures in Roadtrips

So.

Piedmont Slam (minus Kross and E, plus iShine and Mel) are heading to DC for the Beltway slam, which is a good time, but is full of inside jokes I'm not really privy to. And so, instead of feeling lame the entire trip, I pulled out the notebook and crafted this little ditty. No title yet, but I think its more or less finished. Enjoy.

Before my brother or I
were ideas in candlelight
my family folded into eastern Kentucky
like a 20 dollar bill in your first money clip
that will not go emerald at its edges
The photographs themselves are storybook enough
for a bedtime story or a history class
and the couch from these days sits in our garage
like a relic from earlier times
And something about the tattered and thin
still feels like home
Like the view from I-64 at sunrise years later on a mission to shed your skin
in the arms of a lover who curves your body like a swan dive into still water
Home
is the first swell of oxygen
in a body blue-blooded to the tips of its fingers
and the cold in its touch
reminding you sometimes
away is the only direction
In Kentucky
is the only poet I know who is ever more honest than me
along with a broken heart
The tattered and thin of its atria
just a few beats away from arrest
and I have stopped willing myself not to miss you
I see home in the smiles of our photographs
like a romance novel I've not finished yet
And they are still doing construction on I-64
There was a rock slide after our last goodbye
It put something solid on the fissure in my heart
And this is how we never love the same way twice
Not like skipping stones on the smooth of a river
Or curling yourself into a favored chair
Not like thumbprint pressed to the edges of a fading photo
Not like this
Not like home
--

Peace Be

Adventures in Violence

So.
A blood vessel burst in my eye. And after the initial trauma of envisioning myself blind, hypertensive, an ultimately dying from some sort of brain bleed, I (along with a medical professional) decided that it was no big deal. except for the itching. and watering. and the fact that my eye was so bloodshot that other people began to look pained and nauseous when they glanced in my direction. this reaction, inspired me to wear sunglasses until such time as my medicated drops can do the magic of medicated drops.

The experience of wearing shades at all times has provided some interesting commentary on how the people I interact with on a daily basis perceive violence - specifically when i'm perceived to be a victim of violence - which is to say several of women from my church and most of my male students came to me and whispered in hushed tones: "Is everything ok?" And when i responded that I was ok, they would come closer and say, "No really...is everything ok....like...did someone hit you?" I found that whole exchange to be oddly sweet, especially when it was one of my students - because I understood that they were trying to be protective in some way. What proved to be more disturbing, was the men who would see me from a distance, ask rather loudly if i had been knocked around, and then chuckle as they passed by. Who....does that? Why would you imagine that it's ok for you to announce something so personal and appalling and then laugh about it?

I remember the first time I was really hit by a boyfriend in high school, and how horrific it was, even though it was an isolated event. There are people close to me who've had to experience the trauma of living with an abusive partner, and I just can't wrap my mind around how there are still people that can react to someone has been victimized with anything that veers away from the side of empathy.

Most of the men where I work are jerks.

Peace Be

Adventures in 26 - 28/30 - the look. i'm doing my best edition

26 .

middle school students
are a study in chaos
entropy revealed

27.

i have this tendency of seeing beauty
where other folks see mistakes
like the rubble of almost floating
near a lighthouse after a storm
and i have always said that you
are the most beautiful i've ever seen
which is warning sign enough
for anyone paying attention
so tell me what my firsts are writing
at dawn when the moon is still full in the sky
my heart is a fault line on the brink of crumble
and i tire
of making things pretty

28.

he  may be as cute
as he already believs
when his voice changes