Chased

I
Watched silently
As a shadow
dodged across the street
Chased by a chatter of leaves –

No one
Could know
but you.

All
Of the well-meaning
All

Turned,
Curled to
A fetal ball
And bared their fangs.
Chased by a scatter of dreams –

.


-issa

Mural

YOU PAINT YOUR PAIN ACROSS THE WALL –
HURRIEDLY TRYING –
GET RID OF IT ALL -
YOU CAN BE POLICED AGAIN –
GREAT WAVES OF BEATING, BLEEDING GREENS,
THROBBING YELLOWS,
ACRID-SOULED METALLICS THAT POUR
POUR
POUR –
ENDLESS? –
GRAB UP THE NEAREST BUCKET –
DELICIOUSLY LOUD CLATTER
AS YOU THROW IT WHOLE ON THE WALL –
BUT REACH FOR IT AND FALTER,
FILLED AGAIN,
AND THE NOT-DISTANT SIRENS –
o
HOW THEY WAIL AND CALL –
WAIL AND CALL –





For my sister.

Carmen, Revised.

The hushed quiet here is because of smothering.

Thick pile carpet swallows footsteps while the mantle clock ignores all comings and goings completely. tick... pause... whir... tick.... Looking around, even with child eyes, at everything painstakingly in place, you know there will be no laughing and no loud young voices tolerated.

What did she do here? A red-haired beauty foolishly marrying into this? Or wait, is that wrong? Was this her own stern family frowning down?

A hallway, an etagere with a figurine of two hands in prayer atop a doily -- probably both homemade. More framed faces here and there along the wall.

A bedroom, an elderly woman dressed in flowered flannel sitting primly on the bed, reading. The younger girl I am with – a blonde beauty wild like her mom – tries to make an introduction. There is silence after her words and my hello. Is she perhaps a little deaf? The child rushes up to the woman. Gramma, Gramma, I want you to meet my friend.

Is this all it takes to unmask such deep silence? Somehow the pin is pulled. The woman is up, advancing quickly toward me as I back up into the hallway; she waves her bible and yells.
“I-KNOW-WHO-YOU-ARE-”
I am trying to get Carmen to stay behind me, not understanding what is happening, but trying to protect her against it. She will not have this, slips between us, shouts back at her Gramma.

The older woman raves – and it is about me. About my mother. How my mother is trying to tear a marriage apart. Through the shouting, I understand this much only. A thick anger, but I can't overrule my silence in time --

Two people come to intervene -- my stepfather and Carmen's mother, who were talking quietly together in the kitchen... now more yelling.

She retreats. I am fine, but they are upset. Together they try to hug me and comfort me, but it is they who are crying, it is they who need comforting. I tell them, it's okay, but they cry and cry and insist it's not okay, not okay. I am bewildered by their guilt and smothering in their arms.

I look up and wish for this scene to quietly end.

tick... pause... whir... tick....

Swagger and Fall

I've swaggered myself.

too far.

many times.

arrogant arrogance,

but really bravado.

Yet as I lie,

embarrassed on my side,

I say that my fall

is the best of them all-

o arrogant arrogance

(but really bravado)

.

-issa.

Reflection

New prose writing:

Reflection

It seems all wrong somehow.

I scan the wasteland before me. Burned out cars; bodies left in the positions of their final agonies; one other person still alive, but dazed, wandering through the rubble numbly, walking nowhere.

It isn't the death scene before me. That is right, a product of the time and place, fated.

Some acrid chemical pervades the air, so the deep breath I take in burns to my core. I sit down where I am; the debris around me hugs closer. I lean over, look into metal shards that used to be structural, and unanchored tears come. I try to think about it all – a plan from beginning to deadly end; a triumph for people who can't believe that the variety of this world might not be a conspiracy, a personal affront targeted to insult them. A siren calls distantly.

I rub the tears into the metal with my sleeve. Rusty shards of my reflection stare up at me, bright, startling, awash in perverted sunshine.

-issa.

Just in Case

Just in case this is how you know that I love you, I will try to feed you more than you could ever eat; I'll put the paste on your toothbrush at night; ask if you're okay with the slightest sigh you make. I'll wash clothes separately since you're sensitive to dryer sheets – and the music you like will be what I play when we drive – all so just in case you wake up one day and wonder if my love is fake, you can tell yourself, no way. Only a true-felt love would undertake these tiny pains – would make sure my brush has toothpaste and pack my travel suitcase. Just in case. But what if this is not it -- not how you know this love is real but what actually gets under your skin and makes you feel itchy and ill? So for today, I won't – no cooking, no toothbrush, no questioning face... Just in case.

-issa.