Love is
for friends
and grandmothers
and K-9’s,
kitty cats,
and brothers
Love is not
for sex and
lovers.
Tag: Relationships
To The Man in the Cheese Aisle
What do
you say we
get out of here?
Let’s take this
side-glance and
run with it
We’ll go beyond
the city limits,
as far west and
north as we can go
Chasing that
idyllic place,
that feeling
Circle each
other in the sand,
Swim the first
swim of summer
in a warm creek
by the beach
as the sun
winks the day
goodbye
We will dine
on mussels
and wine
and kiss
a salty kiss
on the street
Sand in
our shoes,
Strangers upon
first glance, but
past life lovers
perhaps
Your mouth,
your teeth,
drive me
to flee
Spring Back to Life
He shoves me down
with his words and truth
which only provides
the opportune moment
to Spring Back to Life!
Watch me karate
chop my problems
Hear me wail
and then
go silent
Widow Home Part II
This place was my first fancy meal, in a trailer-turned-Taj-Mahal where we ate steamed whole artichokes dipped in melted butter and T-bone steak. This place was Peggy and me, sixty years apart in age, sitting Indian-style across from one another, in a mobile three blocks from McDonalds hands clasped in front of us in prayer gently singing we are siamese if you please, we are siamese if you don’t please. At that time my voice was so soft it was barely there. And while my vibrant, open, excited child’s-mind could capture these memories I have just shared with you, the reality is that I could not even mutter a thank you. Often one-on-one with Peggy I would freeze. The intimacy of the energy that was with us being too much. Tapping a place I knew little about—the relationship between woman and woman.
Throughout every moment with Peggy, or with Tina, my great Aunt, I felt pampered, like a princess-child. Like I could take on the world. Like I was somewhere else completely. Like I was someone else completely. My higher self. I could rest. I could wake and see magical things. I was in a magical world. Like a girl in a Disney movie. Like a girl on TV, in a normal home, with a normal family. Where things looked good and smelled good and felt good on your skin. Where you were rewarded for your hard work—an orange and crème popsicle for doing the dishes. Where nothing was out to get you.
After two nights or so my dad would pull up out front in the pickup-of-the-week. It would be seven p.m. on Sunday, getting dark, a school night and Peggy would say something about that and arms would raise and for the first time in two days my little white arms would get cold from standing in the sea air watching my dad defend himself, sawdust and oil on his pants and hands, him talking about a late start and needing to finish bucking the alder and I haven’t even sold it yet and I’ve got to go meet the guy tonight, actually and me noticing the blue tarp over the heap of wood in the back of the truck. Peggy would give me a dry kiss on the cheek and though there was a certain carefree comfort I felt with my dad, my eyes might sting with a tear or two as I watched that mobile-home-castle get smaller in the mirror reading objects in mirror are closer than they appear and thinking I sure hope so.
Widow Home Part I
“The divine source of all life
is the fulfillment of all potential.” – Iyanla Vanzant
After grandpa choked out that night at the Best Western in Ashland Peggy had taken to moving from one end of the town to the other, and she never claimed it, but was it to escape his ghost?
First it was sell the A-frame where she and Ralph raised Moonbeam—the place with the immaculate carpentry, the knobby-pine cabinets and the gazebo in the back. Her first move was a humble move, I felt. It wasn’t the Peggy I knew to move into a mobile home, but she did. And she had a fucking tower built on to it. It was a sand-colored place with bamboo and a rock yard. Not much from the outside but on the inside it was like something out of Memoirs of a Geisha. It only had maybe two bedrooms but Peggy placed several of those oriental-style room dividers throughout, adding mystery and charm to my sixty-someodd (as she would say) year old grandmothers first Widow Home. A Widow Home being, I would later decide, a place where a woman dug into her own soul like digging into a second-hand bin of silk scarves, saying who’s in there?
This place was me opening birthday presents on a warm October day. My dad with his light blue plaid collared shirt tucked in and spotless corduroys. Who dressed him that day anyway? His eyes were bright and redless. Even my great grandparents (the good ones, not the ones who touched me) were there and I ran around in my little red and white dress that grandma Gladys made me on her sewing machine. Peggy called her “Mother”. I liked to play with the sag on her arms and she would laugh and smile sweetly. This was a woman they called practically perfect. This is a woman my 27-year-old self is certain still hangs around, acting as my own personal guardian angel. After all, it was she who in her dying bed made a reluctant Peggy promise, promise she would care for me if and when someone else could not.
Fantasy
I am a lover
in dreams
a wife
later on
a mother
hypothetically
an idea
forever
always
always
always
available to
be a girlfriend
good for a
flatter
a flirt
when I’m not
being a brick wall
I am of my own creation
You reap just what you sew
I am a fantasy
good for only
brief periods
of a man’s day
outliving the
otherwoman’s
demands
I live
in the space
before sleeping
in the stolen time
after dinner when
your wife
is cleaning up
I live in your
dusty roads
lined with roses
and sunset light
I am an idea
an adventure
I show up
on mountain-tops
when you’ve fallen
behind the group
and feel
that someone’s
there with you,
that’s me
You think,
I know who
would like this place
You give me that.
No, I’m Good!
I am only
weeping,
screaming,
and calling
to humor you!
I do not despise
the world and
all those
within it.
I do not fear
that insanity
is upon me,
not really.
I do not pace
my space and
tug at my hair
for fear that I
will never again
be rightfully loved.
I did not go from
over-the-moon
to bottom-of-the-sea
all because of three
little words you never
said to me.
Your absence did not
tail-spin me into isolation,
fear, and fool.
I am perfectly capable
and hopeful!
You had nothing
to do with my head
ballooning to the sky
and getting gnarled in the trees.
You are not the reason
I see Lucifer in the face
of all those around me.
You did not tap a place
inside of me that only
knows rage and sadness.
You did not remind
me of how little I am
loved, of how unlovable
I am.
You did not!
The Time, Mother
The time you changed your name from Darlene to Brenda
The time you gave me a blonde baby doll and told me I had a brother on the way
The time you tied a friendship bracelet on my wrist and said now I’ll always be with you
The time we stopped to pick a rose on the shoulder of the highway…and it came with a bee
The time you made long, dangling hippie earrings–for a living
The time my room flooded and you cried because you felt bad
The time you bought ten hamburgers from McDonald’s and for the first time we all got full
The time we looked at a house we couldn’t afford and we all picked out bedrooms anyway
The time you took me to the Bayshore Mall and bought me an eggshell-colored Easter dress
The time you put barrettes in my hair (I don’t remember it but I saw the pictures)
The time you sang You Are My Sunshine to Cloud and I looked out the window and held back tears
The time you volunteered at my school library and I was embarrassed because of your short, slutty shorts
The time you lit a cigarette, looked at me and said don’t ever do this
The time I stole 2 cigarettes from you and you never found out
The time I realized our hands and fingernails look exactly alike
8:05 p.m. the time you gave birth to me, far too young
The time you failed to meet the expectations of your adopted mother
The time I knew exactly how it felt
The time your dad died and if you hadn’t already lost all hope, you really did then
The time you tried to wriggle your way into societies mold but it just didn’t work
The time you introduced yourself as Moonbeam and it all made sense to me
The time you socked my dad through the pick-up truck window
The time we left you in the dust
All the times you left me in the dust
The time you cried and said you’re sorry
The other time you cried and said you’re sorry
The many other times you cried and said you’re sorry
The time you googled me everyday for five years but never called or emailed
The time you said I’m so proud of you and in my mind I said for fucking what?
The time you said Enough already! and I said Okay
Fleeting Lust
The temperature
of thy hands speak
nothing of thine heart,
of thine passionate spirit
In the wind goes the
crimson and red
of your lust
in one ear
and out
the other
Little Girl Me
Little girl me
wore yellow rubber
gloves Dad bought at
Safeway along with Sun
yellow dishsoap
I would knee-stand
on the vinyl and metal
chair in front of the sink
in front of the small trailer
window looking out on the
ducks and geese and rabbits
in their cages
A kerosene lamp was lit
as the sun went down and the
night would come alive with sounds
Almost every night Dad had me do
the dishes while he would read
to me from the Holy Bible
They were nights I enjoyed
and miss.
TERAH RACHELLE VAN DUSEN 