To The Aegean Sea

It was difficult to mourn for your passing. Just as it was more difficult to kill the terror in the labyrinth, than to be killed. To be killed cold blooded, among virgin youths and maidens. I would have none the face to show you in heaven. Not when I have sworn you victory. And freedom.

I haven’t the time to explain. When I reached shore expecting a banquet for my, our triumph. You welcomed me. Your body lying lifeless on the shore. And I wept. I wept for the departed body, the lost soul. For the life that sought end for me. For the triumph and misfortune I brought home to Athens.

I defeated Pasiphae’s bastard and escaped through a ball of thread to the sea. It was the love of a princess that saved me. Yes, the daughter of the enemy, just like Medea to Jason. Her name was Ariadne. I watched her all the way to Naxos. Her wood locks wafting in the wind. Her cheeks burning in the cold. If you were alive to allow me, I would have made her princess of all Athens.

But the way back home was a terrible one. I lost her. How it would’ve been easier to bear if I lost her to the sea, or to a disease. But I lost her because Dionysus saw her through my eyes, and longed to possess her. And Mnesemony left me with no memory. Not until I’ve reached shore and found you there. Not until then did I remember. How the night before she melted like wax under the sun between my hands. I failed to turn the sail white and you killed yourself. And I wept. For Ariadne, beautiful Ariadne whom I left asleep in Naxos when I had sworn her queen of land.

Your heart is a door, slightly ajar -

- a little opening in a room of paper clouds and plastic cups. No air to breathe, just wind - the unexpected breeze, cool against sun burnt cheeks. The wind against open eyes, blinking rain, stinging sun burnt cheeks.

Your heart is a door, slightly ajar. Open at 10, close at 5. Inviting people to come in, only on working hours.

Your heart is a door, slightly ajar: tempting the brave, hungry for a show of courage; but sick to its stomach when fed, finger ready to poke your gullet.

Your heart is a door, slightly ajar; slowly closing; saying goodbye.

An Instruction To Forgetting

Begin by putting away boxes

The music of midnight footsteps

The warmth of hand embracing fist

The taste of coffee and cigarettes

Tucked inside

Replace the mark on the wall

Where a frame used to hang

With a poster of a naked woman

With a beer in hand.

Open yourself a can, raise it

To the wall and say “To forgetting”

Swim inside your covers void

of another skin. Steal

the cold under your pillows. Feel

the vast space that the bed

and you have become

When the desolation sinks in, resist sleep.

Who knows who might visit you

in a dream.

A series of long nights loom.

End by smiling.

Patience is a virtue,

Forgetting is a must,

And the moon awaits company

It’s you and her for a while

Into the night you say “To forgetting”

you raise your beer again

But no one will be listening. 

The Process of Nostalgia

1. Remembering

There are no breathings

in a photograph. You cannot hear

the laugh, dissect the syllables

of dishonesty or make happiness

concrete. Just a still

of a moment trapped in time.

Resting silently on your lap

like a dead butterfly.

Your palms are sweaty

from trying to go back

like Somewhere in Time.

But because this is real

you fail constantly and it sinks in.

Your insides throb and you decide

to forget only to remember more.

2. Forgetting

You have, as with all things, forgotten

The start of forgetting

A wave goodbye, a halt

Of pen, a key thrown

Into the sea, and tears were shed

Rivers running always to the ocean

Hard as it is to point the beginning

You agree:

Love is short, and forgetting - so long

But as morning always follows the night

You knew.

3. Remembering, Again

Outside your window the rain starts

To fall, muffled

By a heaven of cement

And a network of walls, intensified

By an internal storm.

The cloud follows you

Around, pulling you

Into the drawer where you once held

The key. Pried open

What you thought you’ve forgotten.

Brimming with photographs

Screaming, Breathing, Alive.

Lose

There is everything in remembering; The full spectrum of emotions.

Extremities and all between. Forced away

Or pulled closer, but always there. Like a word

At the tip of the tongue.

To have taken from one by death, accident, euthanasia or sickness.

Soporific humming of tune against a backdrop

Of moving clouds. Gust of icy wind

Against summer heat. Drops of rain on a welcoming

Tongue. To a moment in time --- To an afternoon scene

In mid-may. To a lullaby sung into an infant’s ear.

To a memory, long forgotten.

To be unable to find; to miss; to fail to keep.

Sad Spanish guitars beneath a dull moonlight. Slaps of violent wind

Against bruised cheeks. A taste of blood and tears.

To a moment in time --- To a series of nights, unbearably

Desolate. To a scene of sharp words thrown against each other.

To a memory, uninvited.

To squander; to wander from.

Triggered by the senses, heightened

By nostalgia. Seemingly quiescent, but always awake.

Like a word

Pretending to be asleep

At the tip of the tongue.

Map of my Memories II

1

Echo the years of your existence through the lines

On my forehead. Tread with a point

Of your finger the edge of my hairline

To the tip of my nose.

Trace my scars, I wore them

Like badges of motherhood.

Pass the eyes, dead tired, wide

And white. Part my lips evenly

Like the red sea. And then as if obliged, hear my story.

2

Envelop my neck with your long fragile fingers

To measure the orbit of your days.

Cup my breast beneath your palms as I have

Nurtured your soft head between them. Measure the length

And strength of my arms down to the protruding veins

In my hands. Hands which many times

Slapped your cheeks

And healed them back. Outline

Every curve down to the thighs.

Let the image of birth come

To you. Nanay to me,

And me to you.

3

Fit your fingers between my toes

There the sand once passed

Through. When we shared a walk in the sand

That, I could no longer do. Mark the blisters,

One two three. For each time I ran behind your

Every whim and pain. Carry me now, if you can

Now that my feet can no longer carry you.

Rain! Rain!

You bleed like the sky you said.

Paisleys hanging on a string 

of dotted lines, teasing 

the half moon into

upside down.

Dashing. Falling.

Asking. Can you taste 

the ocean, before it hits

the ground?

You bleed like the sky you said.

I knew the pale drops 

were blood you shed. Everytime

I reach out inside,

to pull open my canopy.

11/365