-After Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz

-For K.

The last time I tried to save a soul was 2003
my back was unaccustomed to angel wings
grandiose thinking had my halo breaking light
Leslie
I knew if I could hug her she would break
the pieces I caught could be remodeled
melded and molded into better
I could make it better

singlehandedly
s curl and cape; Here I am to save the day!

she needed me
I needed her to need me
you need
I need you

So maybe I don’t save souls
no angel the devil hasn’t touched.
This is the only poem left to write…

This is the poem I’m writing
instead of writing how I now tear off strips of paper worrying
them between anxious digits, whispering mantra:
she loves me, she loves me not, she loves me, she loves me
not…This is the poem I’m writing instead of a poem calculating
the new distance from me to your arms instead of the poem
metamorphing your brown eyes into glaciers instead of the sunset
glancing off the trees where I will propose to you poem.

I am writing this instead of buying bouquets of I love yous bathed
in entwined hands.

Because I never saved anyone

And if some poem
unmasking my alter ego’s failures can make you remember
the way my face feels burrowed in your neck,
how my back arches into you, how you’re the only one who could love
my Clark Kent flaws…

If some unmasking poem could do that?

Then I am no angel, no devil,
I have laid down my cape for you
we can build mud castles over it together.

“The language of love notes is the same as suicide notes.” -Courtney Love

Stringing twenty-eight measures together / she wrote all her lyrics in pencil / unsure of herself // staccato thumbprints lined around the edges // sing her a song that won’t asphyxiate on contact / untune her breath // an octave below what she needs for her heart to beep beating / overdosed on rests // she counts her own backbeat / kamikaze rhythm // escapes climatic overtures: / scribbling sharp kisses / strumming death chords.

“I think we need to see
other people…” I whisper to you in the rearview mirror
you’re unresponsive, avert
your eyes.
I idle along hoping you’ll get the hint:
I need space…
at the next red light you’re just as ambivalent
to my needs; bobbing
your head to the music; too close for comfort.
I sigh heavily, roll my eyes
and when the light blinks to green, disgusted
by your inability to understand my subtle hints I pause
then leave you in my dust yelling at you as if obscenity was your name.

Afterwards the sun drowns me in filtered orange
she’s padding almost soundless
from my darkened bathroom
I’m pretending to be asleep.
She stands between me and daylight draped
in one of my t-shirts and says
“is this anything more than a poem
you’ve already re-written a dozen times?”
I snort, half-sleep—most lie; turn
so she only sees the plane of my back
and let my breath becomes a sigh

“what is it again that I’m suppose to write?”

Terrified, I cower in the darkest corner
shaking in my boots
this creeping unknown swallows me
a gift I didn’t ask to be given. Trembling
I open my eyes to the repeat of nothing
an errant branch scraping against a smooth windowpane
the shadow of the curtain whipping against a bare wall
is nothing
but what it was, it isn’t in the illumination of the light switch
mush less than my mind creates in the imagination of the dark

Three-quarters of the way to absolutely nowhere
another nameless gypsy-prodigal daughter finds herself
or loses her former self
at a quintessential dusty truck stop diner. Her waitress, Nell,
carries coffee like priceless jewels on a plastic tray.
Road weary she orders not out of need, but
out of knowledge that food is a necessity.

Everything tastes like dirt and decay, anyways;
and she has felt like death won the war with life
for miles. Watching shadows play on the deserted desert dunes
she manages a wispy smile at the setting sun of her past.
Uncontrollable tear stains are what she tips Nell,
though she thinks herself too solidly jaded for waterworks.

She reaches to touch Nell briefly before rising to leave, a thank you gesture—
And finds herself clutching to the warm palm of a stranger
the first form of human kindness she’s felt in years.

And just how would you react,
if someone cheats you? A deal
is a deal is a deal
is the power of your word: a promise.

I spun gold
from straw. Do you even know how labor
intense that process is? How thankless peasants
in dungeons become
when they shift the ivory tower?

She got it all: the fame, the fortressed castled,
the handsome prince. Was my fee really so high?
She would have other sons
I will never have an heir to teach the magic of strands
from straw
to repeat my legacy
to bear my name.

Lucas pads into the kitchen after 3am
roaches scattering across his sticky floor
and up the yellow tiled walls.
Beneath the oval window a rusty faucet drips
he knows the rhythm by memory;
the clinks as the stale water hits crusted dishes;
oxidized silverware, a tower of mismatched promotional cups:
the summer blockbuster from two years ago, a new energy drink,
the 1999 final four…

Lucas lives life out of necessity not nostalgia
never has he gazed into the moonlight with dreams.
He stands half-clothed in front of the fridge and contemplates the john in his bed
the reality of the money he doesn’t know is no longer in his wallet
all because he thinks Lucas has a tight ass. Lucas knows he has a tight ass.

He also knows that every line is well rehearsed
the screenplay of the city he’s been acting in since 14.
He squashes a lone roach with a calloused heel
stuffs the night’s earnings with the others in the darkness of the freezer
and strolls back to get rid of the snoring benefactor who rented the script he was selling.

Conditional Love
c. 2002

Dear Mom and Dad,

My Dearest Parents,

No way they’ll know something’s definitely up if I begin my letter like that. How do you begin a letter telling your parents who sweated blood to put you in school that you’re leaving-possibly forever-5 credits short and a semester shy of graduation? Well, in the two hours since I decided to breakdown and tell them the truth I’ve gotten nowhere, except deeper into an endless sea of balled up stationery.

Okay let’s try again.

Dear Parents.

No.

Dear Mother and Father.

Okay, since when have I ever been so proper? I guess I’ll just stick with Mom and Dad.

Dear Mom and Dad,

-Now what? Should I be blunt and straightforward?

I’m dropping out just wanted to tell you I probably won’t come back.

No, That’s not the way. I have to do this smoothly, let them down gently. I have to make them understand my reasons. Make them see that this is going to be good for me.

Dear Mom and Dad,

Remember how the day I graduated from high school you told me that it was time for me to go off and live my life? For the last three years I’ve tried…

I tried, I tried, what? I rapidly tapped my black ballpoint pen against my thigh. I have to be truthful with them…they deserve no less.

I’ve tried to be the person that you both wanted me to be. I played nice with the other kids and got the grades to make you proud. I thought all I ever wanted was to be a doctor. I realized it never was my dream, but what you envisioned for me. I need…

…Freedom, Responsibility, A life, to live my own vision…yeah that’s it.

I need to live what I envision my life to be.

That vision doesn’t include being a doctor. I love you both and I’m not doing this to punish you or anything, but I’m leaving school. I’ve wasted three years trying to be something I don’t want to be for you. Do you think that’s fair? I don’t. I’m dropping out and joining the PeaceCorps. I’ll be able to see the world and help others and that’s really what I want to do…be creative and use my hands.

I know I‘m letting you down. I hope that in time you’ll be able to see that I’m doing the right thing. I’m going off to live my life…not for you, but for myself. Beside there’s always Anisa maybe she’ll be the doctor you always wanted.

Love Always,

Melody Mathers

A week later

All my things are packed well, all that’s left after the massive garage sell I had. When you’re going to the Balkans you really don’t need all the little knick-knacks that you collect over the years. As I sit here amiss my most precious packed belongs I wander about my parents and how they feel about all of this? I know they must of gotten my letter, I mean the postage system is slow but not this slow. Maybe they’ve just decided to forget I’m even alive. I’ve been disowned and they didn’t even have the nerve to tell me.

“Hey Mel, mail.” My housemate Ira said tossing an envelope into my lap.

I looked down at my mother’s elegant cursive. Inside would tell me whether my parent’s were commending or condemning. Though I knew it was probably the latter I hoped for the former as I tore the envelope open.

Dear Melody Michelle Mathers,

The use of my whole name wasn’t a good sign.

Let me just start by saying that your letter was a shock to say the least to your father and I. I want you to know that you’re breaking your father’s heart. Here came the guilt trip. He’s been telling everyone about how his little Mel is going to be a doctor. Now he can say his little Mel is going to be what? The Peace Corp is not a career it’s a hobby. It’s something that people do for a year and then leave.

Thanks mom for all your support.

I just wonder what you’ll do after this Peace Corp vision has lost it’s luster with you? You want so badly to live this dream of yours out then do it, we don’t really have the power to stop you. Just don’t come crying to us when things fall short. You want to be an adult then do it. At least we know Anisa won’t let us down like this.

That was just the thing I needed. I’ve known since like forever that Anisa would be a better daughter then I could be. Fine. One day she’ll realize it like I have that whatever they choose for her isn’t what she rally wants. Hopefully it won’t take her as long as it did me.

I can’t say that we understand your decision or even support it. You have severely let us down and we don’t in anyway condone it or the tone of your letter. If you come to your senses before this is permanent we might consider forgiving you. We aren’t going to stop loving you but we are disappointed and won’t watch you destroy you life.

Sincerely,

Mrs. John Mathers

Well, really what had I expected from them? Of course they didn’t approve or understand. It wasn’t something they would do so it had to be a wrong decision. I hated how they made me feel like I should be gracious for their forgiveness. It was my decision right or wrong I’d made it and was sticking by it. Finally I’d taken control of my life.

Solar Return

Where were you? The planets aligned
moon reflected craters incomplete astronomy
the circumference of another year
postcards to nowhere

constellation trails unlike breadcrumbs
lead to no home
another decade withdrawn replaying retrograde footsteps
orbits of time only moving forward

through telescopic lens imagine
catching the light of passing comets; refracted flares
of a former you, a latter-day me, untwined
succumbing to a gravitational pull.