#8. One Day I'll Have The Pirate Sword

8. One Day I'll Have The Pirate Sword

Today I opened my childhood with a key from a stranger.
Large and small at the same time, the door was impossible to see with my eyes open.
The key was made from a Barbie dolls leg and cried like a dolphin when I turned it.
My mothers voice rippled through my blood like a flat rock being spiked across a pond.
She’s singing to me of roses and mittens, oh,
Of all of her favorite things.
Behind her my father picks up a stone and shows my little brother how to whip it at just the right angle.
Skip.
Skip.
Skip.
Splash.
My kid brother walks to the edge of the wet world and pick up a smooth flyer, he glances over his shoulder at me, and my heart purrs
The way my first kitten did after she chewed on my ring finger the day we brought her home.
He launches the stone and it soars towards the water and sinks.
My father frowns.
He could never see.
Why couldn’t he see?
Why couldn’t he see when my brother’s toss hit the liquid lake it became a monstrous sailing sting ray
It soared through the water like a shooting star over my hammock that night we swore we saw new life in the sky.
Brown paper packages tied up with string…
My mother consoles the frustrated 5yr old.
My father takes a walk
A pink kickball whizzes over my head and I throw it back.
“Out! You’re up Ashley!”
It’s my turn to kick and I’m nervous again. What if Danny sees me mess up?
What if I fall down and everyone laughs?
The pitch, the kick, the pop up, out.
“Out!”
The smile on my bullies face turns into daggers hanging from a line.
Laugh all you want.
Laugh your blades dull.
Laugh all you want you pirate. … you pirate?
I have long black hair and a small dagger and … a hook!
My little brother comes flying into view from the distance, Peter Pan!
Why does he have my sword?
“They’re my toys,” he says with that grin of his, “I want the big sword, that way I will beat you Captain Hook!”
I feel myself yelling to Mom that it’s not fair but it’s too late, he’s snatched my dagger and all I’m left with is my hook.
“Where is my crew? Where are my men? Bad Form!” I cry.
Peter Pan smiles.
“Hook is a codfish, a codfish, a codfish.”
I’m swimming.
I’m a mermaid.
We’re in a pool and the only person I trusted is swimming next to me. We have dinglehoppers in our grips and we’re looking for coins that her mother threw down into the pool to collect on our respective sides.
They seem to be all discovered when she says it’s time to count and see who wins and gets to be Ariel, but I see something shining at the bottom.
My eyes glow bright red from the chlorine and down I dive to the depths of the greatest sea in the world, faster and faster through seaweed, past fish and around coral to get to the shimmery shiny little circle.
I place my hand on it and it speaks.
“You’re too big! And I’m locked!”
Not to worry, I always carry an extra DRINK ME bottle around with me; I reach into my fins and guzzle the nectar of my imagination
It tastes like a ½-melted creamsicle flavored Flintstones push-pop.
The knob opens his jaws and sucks me into an English garden.
If God had a dandelion clock that was filled with white roses instead of seeds, he must have made a wonderful wish and blew them down on this land.
I’m beaming and I bound through the burly beautiful bushes and buttery bewitching botanicals.
Music floats into my eardrums like a 1-legged Barbie floats in the birdbath.
Under it’s spell I follow through the garden until I’m walking up a woman’s back.
Her dress is the rose bed and they’re all slowly turning red.
“Rain drops on roses and whiskers on kittens…”
She’s standing up, get off! Please get down, Alice! Wake up! Please!
Wake up.

…
It’s Christmas morning.
I’m in my childhood room.
My mother is standing over me with coffee.
She’s worried she doesn’t have enough soy creamer and raw sugar for me.
I’m worried I don’t have enough words to tell her my dream.

#7. Telling You I Love You Should Be Easier.

#7. Telling You I Love You Should Be Easier.


I have a secret that no one knows except my chap-stick
My lips hide buried treasure

In the Caribbean lives a parrot named Fredrick
He’s the greeter at a beach bar where sunsets will break your heart
He will direct you to where the map is.
But be careful, he is also in charge of telling patrons where the bathroom is.
Make sure you are clear…

He’ll tell you to take the farmers road east, up into the mountain.
He’ll say look for which way the rainwater drains and where the lizards sunbathe

You may want to leave your sense of direction with him
I promise he’ll take good care of it

You mustn’t leave until the sun drops low and the flash of green squeezes your pupils into ripe star fruits.

The dirt road winds into the rainforest the way my heart winds when I hear my fathers laugh

If you feel completely lost you’re going the right way
You’ll pass a home that treats cows like family
A house made out of leaves
A hog cemetery for drunken pigs
And slide around a cliff side with views that would murder the cynic in you.

When you come to the T in the road on the East side of the night
Where the stars make arrows pointing away from you in every direction
Teasing you to follow them to a different time on earth
And the breeze smells the moment the rain stops on an empty beach, park.

Walk back from where you just came and hang a right under the divi divi tree
If the humidity weights heavy on your skin like the sweat from the first time you gave an orgasm to someone you loved, look down.
If not, you are too young to be looking for the map to my secret.
The path should sparkle with crushed sea air from thousands of years of pirates singing and swinging from the masts of ships darting about the ocean aimlessly looking for trouble.
Leap over the constellations of shells until you come to a chorus line of stubborn bamboo,
Sit down.
Sit deep.
Sit still.
Anchor your hips to the earth.
Wait until the moon is directly over your skull
Her beams will illuminate a map painted on the bamboo with Dr. Pepper flavored Chap-Stick.
Copy it down and inhale the 23 flavors of my mouth.
You are on your way to resting within the pleats of my smile’s coat
I yearn for your success and I bid you god speed.

#6 Gate B5

6. Gate B5


There are bunnies in my nose.
Little grayish brown bunnies
They live in vents in the airport

Inside is no different than outside at a gate
Snow flaked air gives my cheeks monkey bites

Where is my chap stick?

I want to know who bullied the lighting in the airport as a kid to make him treat me this way
Maybe he should talk to someone about it

My mouth looks vintage
My lips are cobras shedding their skin.

Flyers will do everything to avoid eye contact
Stare-rs are soul stealing
I’m doing it on purpose
It makes me feel like that bully must feel.
Guilty.

I keep sneezing into my armpit
I wonder if I’m allergic to airports
but it’s probably just the bunnies

#5 Heaven is Your Favorite Childhood Game

#5 Heaven is Your Favorite Childhood Game


Grow young when you get old
Build a tree house as big as a storm
Wash it in colors that make you glow
Fill it with bubbles that sing like whales
Sleep on a sleeping bag on the floor
Hang a swing from the tallest branch
Catch lightening bugs for your torches
Hold concerts for your old friends
Tell them you know a place where the old grow young
Where the birds play drums and the bugs make love
Where the air tastes like snow and the sun always spies
A place where a tree holds your heart because you gave it to him to hold
I’ll meet you at the tree house and we will run naked along his branches
My dear, grow young when you get old
Never change a thing about you

#4 Grin

Grin

If you smiled any wider
Tectonic plates would shift
Volcanoes would erupt with cherry blossoms
And cover the world in petals
Like tears from a geisha

I shrink to the size of an uncut blade of grass
Carrying a staple remover, I jump on your arm while you’re sleeping
Bound up your biceps and scale your ear
Tempted to snuggle in the peach fuzz
When I clamber to your face I want to lie on it
Forever kissing each freckle like a child who believes they can count the stars in a single night
But I am here with a mission
I position the staple remover next to your eyes and steal the lines that appear when you smile.
I fold them on their crease and race back to myself
Full size and overflowing with excitement I unfold the tiny pleats in the palm of my hand
They smell like bliss
I squeeze my hands into fists as tight as I can
Fusing them into my palms
You’re laugh lines inside my lifeline.

If you smiled any wider
The moon would come closer
Snow wouldn’t fall but float static until you touched it
my hands would bleed blood oranges
And we would make mimosas.

(3rd) Precipitation

Precipitation

Today is a rainforest of over dramatic egos
Speeding down the freeways in the overpriced soul sucking two door douche-mobiles
Blinking distraction and ignorance is dangerous.
Sitting on the roof in the forest the rain whispers in my ears that it’s time to slow down.
Sit back in my skin
Do you hear it?
Rain speaks. Rain says;
“Refresh yourself. Clean up. Hydrate your memory of a day when thoughts and emotions were more valuable than time and money.”
I am a loving Lioness of God, who sees and perceives the presence of the divine surrounding her, and who falls in love with that experience.
Today I fall in love.
Today I let my claws retract.
Inhale the birth of a cloud and exhale the death of a judgment.
I am a beast, a nonhuman, a filthy creature being cleansed.
I am a lioness who hunts downs hypocrisy and pounces on pretension.
But not today
Today my coat is drenched in celestial dew and I am in love with the spirit inside of raindrops.
Giving over to release and offering up to the universe my pride.
Tonight when you get home to your barely furnished condo and park your black black engine, stand in the street for a moment.
Let your palate slide back and face the sky, because rain has something to say and you’re only going to listen if it smacks you in the face.

12/22 Hot Hands

Hot Hands

Does it bother anyone else that Nail Polish is flammable?
Are my fingertips more likely to burst into flames at a bonfire if my claws are colored?
I am only as attractive as the color of my toes and fingers.
And if I breathe in the fumes of the paint I could get sick.
Sick people are hot.
But not as hot as my hands will be when I test my theory in the fireplace.
Keep your clean cuticles crossed and wish me luck.

12/21 Porcupines Dilemma

12/21 Porcupines Dilemma

I used to be one tough cookie.
I’d give you a cavity and a root canal with my eyes.
I used to only watch the nature programs on TV about animals that ripped each other to shreds.
I’d laugh.
I used to have a Mohawk.
My Dad told me a young woman shouldn’t do that to her hair.
It’s too masculine.
So I began calling it a woman’s Mohawk.
Wo-hawk.
I liked that I had to duck to get into the L train to go back to Brooklyn.
So I had a Wohawk and you had a Mohawk.
And we met on a rooftop on the Fourth of July cause we saw each other’s hair through a sea of anti-voluminous do’s.
And before the sunset, there were fireworks.
Like Sharks swimming to each other on a rough sea we parted the ocean of people.
I touched your Mo and you touched my Woah, but you really touched my heart.
You called me Porcupine and I called you Hedgehog.
We were Native American
We were punk rock
We were weirdos
We were tough cookies
Steel Sinckerdoodles
Leather Gingerbread Men
Two tough cookies.
Your apartment smelled like matches and looked like a bomb shelter.
It was a cool night and we shut the windows and sat on the bed.
Not touching. But so close.
Staring contest.
My skin tightens and a chill runs down my spine. It sprints down my legs and back up my sides. It completes its marathon at my mouth and I’m covered in goose bumps.
So is he.
National Geographic needs to do a bit on Porcupines and Hedgehogs.
To touch you and prick you? Or watch you shiver?
That night I froze.
Sacrificed heat so we wouldn’t inflict damage upon each other.
Two tough cookies are too sharp to keep each other warm.

Poems for Days

My friend Jeremy Radin is a rad poet.
We had a poetry and tea night.
We drank poetry and recited tea.
He has inspired me to write.
I will attempt to write 32 poems from 12/21 - 1/21
Hopefully 1 a day for 32 days.

Follow me on my Poem Path here.

Follow Jeremy Radin on his