Clarity

Gray

The sky is grey and the sand is grey and the ocean is grey
and I feel right at home in this stunning monochrome
alone in my way
I smoke and I drink and I every time I blink I have a tiny dream
but as bad as I am I'm proud of the fact that I am worse than I seem
what kind of a paradise am I looking for?
I've got everything I want and still I want more
maybe some tiny shiny thing will wash up on the shore
you walk through my walls like a ghost on TV you penetrate me
and my little pink heart is on it's little brown raft floating out to sea
but what can I say I'm wired this way and you're wired to me
and what can I do but wallow in you unintentionally
what kind of a paradise am I looking for?
I've got everything I want and still I want more
maybe some tiny shiny key will wash up on the shore
and regretfully I guess I got three simple things to say
why me
why this now
why this way
with overtones ringing under toe is pulling away
under the sky that is grey
on sand that is grey
on an ocean that's grey
and what kind of paradise
am I looking for?
I've got everything I want
and still I want more
maybe some tiny shiny key will wash up on the shore

ani difranco

***********************************************

I was in church one Sunday not long ago and I was listening to the preacher talk about shame. To have so much and still want more was a sin. It was all I could do not to break down in tears. I wanted more. I always want more. I could hear God talking to me reminding me I was loved and that people love the way they know how to love. I missed my parents, I missed my father. Richie wasn't back home yet and I am always worried about him. I wasn't bored, I swear I am never bored but I do get lonely and apparently I was, have been. I was planning an escape I guess as I always do when I feel like I can't breathe. I had a secret or 10 and wished the world would just calm the fuck down and I didn't even know the phrase yet. God was listening. I lost a Saturday lost a piece of my heart and I didn't even care who it hurt.

What makes me want to look over the next hill? Why can't I ever just enjoy what I have and how I am loved? I don't know. My mother used to tell me that when my eyes were grey she could tell I was sad. I'm afraid to look. Fear motivates me to go put on my boots and look. Isn't the grass always greener? I was wishing when I heard how much I could provoke someone to get my attention to say the thing I didn't want to hear that I had slept on that church pew for a few weeks until someone found me. Pat Conroy wrote in the prince of tides that he wished there were two lives afforded to every man and woman and it was the secret life that sustained him now. That secret life blew up on him and I feel a little speckles of blood on my face. Shake it off Carrie, get on with it. 69 days. Conroy has a new book out, I will look for it tomorrow, go to the thing I have to do, find a post office, maybe go to the market and find some grapes the little champagne grapes and some good cheese and work. In the afternoons my studio is quiet and the cats sleep around and Best Friend will call and the mailman will stop and have a soda with me. I will listen to some music, create something and forget that there is even any place other than my world. I lost a Saturday a few weeks ago. I lost my mind. I lost my heart. I lost my head.

******************************
So I didn't get to finish this last night I was too tired you have no idea what good news this is.

Think I'm going for a walk now
I feel a little unsteady
I don't want nobody to follow me
'Cept maybe you
I could make you happy you know
If you weren't already
I could do a lot of things
and I do

Tell you the truth I prefer
the worst of you
Too bad you had to have a better half
She's not really my type
but I think you two are forever
and I hate to say it but
You're perfect together

So fuck you
And your untouchable face
And fuck you
For existing in the first place
and who am I
That I should be vying for your touch
and who am I
I bet you can't even tell me that much

Two-thirty in the morning
and my gas tank will be empty soon
Neon sign on the horizon
Rubbing elbows with the moon
A safe haven of sleepless
Where the deep fryer's always on
Radio is counting down
The top 20 country songs
And out on the porch the fly strip is
Waving like a flag in the wind
Y'know, i don't look forward
To seeing you again soon
You'll look like a photograph of yourself
Taken from far far away
And I won't know what to do
And I won't know what to say

Except fuck you...

I see you and I'm so perplexed
What was I thinking?
What will I think of next?
Where can I hide?
In the back room there's a lamp
That hangs over the pool table
and when the fan is on it swings
Gently side to side
There's a changing constellation
of balls as we are playing
I see orion and say nothing
the only thing I can think of saying

Is fuck you...

****************************************
When Ani sings I think she must be dancing in my head winding her way around by cerebral cortex. Everyone has a skeleton in and a closet to keep it in and my best friend is mine.

Every song has you that the singer sings to and the poem they've written poems for. Every turn in the road has you following directions you put in your head like a GPS and when you run off track and are disappointed one day and the next day you find a tastee freeze and get one of those green frozen drinks that turn your lips green.

So I've walked the plank and the sharks well they like me. You can't drive fast when fear defines you. I am home and the house is cool, the temperature dropped 20 degrees and I slept oh so well.

When I say you sucked out my brain the translation is I fell in love and I forgot you should be flattered. My hands grope for my head when the lights are out and I can be my own nightlight, it's just easier than explaining every fucking thought and why I have it. Will you have to be a stronger man? Oh sure but I think you can manage it. I have. Alone. and Afraid.

If you see fear's shoes by the door throw them in the yard and let them fill with water from the sprinkler. "Just don't treat me like I am something that happened to you." Yes Ani is singing in my head again and how she "knows" things and she's gay. Maybe it's those things she knows that makes her that way in the first place. Maybe she was born with it.

A man told me recently that when he was inside of a woman before he even came he was thinking of how he'd get rid of her. You're not alone, I thought, sometimes before you come we wish you'd disappear like a puff of dust and we could get a do over. You're not alone. You want to whisper "I am truly sorry about all this but you aren't cutting it. You aren't who I made you up to be in my head. Finding that out is the pin prick in my balloon and as I will wait to exhale when you're gone."

I can eat a whole room full of apples and I am never afraid of snakes. I've danced with them, I've lived with them and even married one. Clarity is a wonderful fucking thing. The lights are on and I keep asking "what were YOU hiding?" Are hiding, still hiding. Don't tell me for a moment you were thinking of caring, that you had plans on it, that it was on the itinerary and THAT truth alone busted a hole in your ass. You get to feel like this after I'm living in your house, driving your car, tell your kids you're a bastard.

I just wanted you to kick the stones out of the way until I had it figured out. I smashed the boulders myself I just don't have the energy to clear the road. Discuss this plight ad nauseam and the Bobs of the world will tell you what you want to hear. She must be playing you why would she care? What have you said, what have you done? Oh Gods he's right. Where's the nearest bomb shelter?

Ok, rant over. Maybe.

When the gray cloud passes I will find my voice again. I'm working on it. I'm not counting today that's good news on so many storm fronts.

You can find me at Summerpoet@msn.com or my work at poetsummer.etsy.com.

Thanks, Carrie.