My Name Is Not Mavis

Forethought

Maybe you were a long slow
Burn of recognition
That I did not understand.
Until my hand quaked in yours
And my blood roiled with longing,
Then settled with satisfaction
In the arms of a tomorrow.

Can We Love Ourselves Best

Can we love ourselves best when at our most terrible?
When every word is a pinch and a hard punch to the head?
Can we have grace for the splash of mud thrown on our Sunday best?
Even without a backward glance of forgiveness?
Can we extend a steady hand to that which is odorous and tough as flint?
Sure we will be met with the snarling, hard bite of contempt?
Can we wash the piling laundry and sweep the floor of debris each week?
Knowing the clean lasts only as long as a meteorite’s promise?
Can we love ourselves best when at our most terrible?
Holding sharp stones of hope in each palm to keep our heart from faltering?

Pleasantly Insane

How delightful to reach an age
Where I can be pleasantly insane
On a daily basis and people are mostly polite.
Nodding along with an occasional pat on the back.
Agreeing that I am problematic
But not dangerous.

It is most lovely.

Especially as I am smart as a cat
And hum happily from the depths of my belly,
Pretending to laugh along
At the joke that’s not on me.

Nighttime Monkey

I can’t catch my monkey when it wakes me at baker’s hours.
Running around my bed and screeching about lack and regret.
Or regret of lack or lack of regretting. I don’t really know. It gets so chaotic.
The bedsheets twisted and the night air tinged with the scent of anxiety.
I lay quietly and feign sleep then death. Tricking it into settling beside me
To spend the remainder of the night eyeing each other warily.

Wouldn’t You

So selfish. So self absorbed.
So much about me me me.
Wouldn’t you?
Wouldn’t you like to know
How it is to sit in the cold shadows
And wait, witnessing time impatiently,
Until the sun hits your face and you are blinded
And bigger than you thought you would be?