borderline

nights like these i wish i had jesus
and a boyfriend by my bed
and you to call

some biological lonliness, desperation
muddies my blood
leaves me waiting, always,
for the next step
the final truth

for that warmth i only had in childhood
that warmth i lost in my youth

dust storm
with grit in your teeth, your eyes, your skin

i remember those clean wrinkles
in your plaid linen shirt
and your pants, soft from the washer

i remember those days with the cool white sheets
when you brought me down to lay there with you
and my legs were smooth under my dress
and my calves rubbed together like silk and honey

and i felt so light, like all that bile was pouring out of me
and i felt clean and warm and alive

and now my feet won't take me too far anymore
and my shoes are old and slap the gound,
stirring up heat and fine red dirt,
and dust is swarming around me
and filling me up
and closing me in

i organize
i press clothes
i smile using my eyes,
extend my hand,
and win you with the alignment of my teeth,
the brightness of my irises

i fix your printer
i soothe you with the sound of a mother's voice
i fry your eggs with onions and pepper

i take exams and feel the flow of knowledge
and the answers are obvious
and i never hesitate
to know i'm right

and late at night,
when the devil sleeps in me
and i can almost feel that blistering void,
i commune with that magic
and take all the world has to offer

and there is no other but me
and i bring the light to my eyes

congenial night
when the headlights and the heartaches fade
into a rush in your ears
or a total lack of sound

dark places
to spill your drinks
and wait for your friends
and feel that broken rythm
again pulsing through the floor

your lovers wait
in double beds with rose-patterned trim
their faces dark
and far away, some long train horn blares
and you wonder what reality is yours

and when the dark silence of your mind
will come to take you home once more

i lay down for no man
and days when i reach down in grass
and feel the dew curling around my fingers
and connect to the coolness and life in the ground
you, in your clumsy shoes, come to trample it all into mud

you, so careless and brash,
destroying the last delicacies of womanhood
flailing into the arms of some man to confirm you
but my soul is ripe
and my body is alive
and i lay down for no man

driving home at 3, 4 a.m.
the road is wet and all yours
tires roll over the asphault more smoothly and the window
is cracked open, letting in damp but surprisingly mild air

a lone dog limps by
emerging from a brief, thin patch of white fog
and a low car rumbles past,
a strange spectre of widely-spaced headlights
on some unknown fraternal journey through the night

back when you were getting home late, years ago now,
[delete: from Ramona, from taking kids to intensive care at midnight
and waiting with them, suddenly trusting them to do the right thing,
to behave in public
and their frankness astounded you,]
you sped over the rolls and lurches,
slid across the puddles, pumping the pedals to get home

now, when your nights are lost to people and drinks and soft beds
in houses that are not your own,
the trip past the tall grass
and fences
and leaning aluminum out-buildings
goes more slowly,
is more savory somehow
in this wet, shiny, misty night

you pass through a loneliness
and feel it seeping into your bones

in some muddy lot
all the horrors of life come real
that was the year
fires left the dirt slopes beside the freeway
black and charred
and the trees
spindly toothpicks burned through
like an angry child's artwork

later, when it wouldn't stop raining,
there were mudslides and floods,
echoes of nature's past violence,
reminders of things to come

someone, everyone,
made me the promise of a happy life,
success and satisfaction,
of the relief i'd feel after hard work,
the worth i'd find in the course i'd naturally take

but i don't find much worth in anything now
and i don't feel it's natural
the way my life is going
disaster mounting on disaster
with no meaning to the present
and no purpose for the future