remember when I lived in Maine

 

I've forgotten how to relax again

Pay attention to your breathing 

Feel the rise and fall of your stomach 

Soften your shoulders 

For a second -- 

Then everything braced again 

This year, so hard, has softened me 

I am toughened and suppler, like leather

the robot in the grocery store

 

every time he rolls past me with his giant googly eyes, i want to tackle him to the floor. i want to hand the $30,000 it took to buy him to a human being who will use the money to pay rent and who will open another checkout lane when the line is backed up halfway down the baking aisle. i want to rip his googly eyes off. i want to beat his plastic head in. it's not a head. it's plastic. 

the only time i felt for him was the day he tried to escape 

snowing

My heart —

it closed 

back on skis again 

ever sad and ever lonely 

I held my father's hand each time that he cried

As a child, sick 

Lying on my side on the brown couch in the basement 

He brought me peach fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt, gently stirred

He brought me orange juice diluted with water 

He'd bring me whole wheat toast, pat of butter in the center 

I see how deeply I have been loved even as I've felt so unloved 

I see how unloved I was even as I've been told I'm so loved 

I don't know if I can bring myself to care any more. I'm so tired of feeling hurt. 

I'm sorry for equivocating. The cigarette poem was about exactly what you thought. 

For a while I fancied myself far braver than I actually was. 

I'm a more honest person now. I've suffered for it. 

I look skyward into big, wet flakes 

The fencerail sparkles

Small crystals cling to the tiny blond hairs on my cheeks 

He looks like you and I can't get it out of my head —

How much I wanted you 

Stuck in the shower

 

I have been closed off to magic