Mosquito Days

It comes in waves

Some days sitting quietly in the corner refusing to leave,

like the dust bunny you missed in your floor-sweeping catharsis

or whining and buzzing in your ear,

like a mosquito that will bite you repeatedly before you squash it.

Some days, though, it hits you square in the chest,

like the airbag that deployed when your heart failed

and you crashed into that telephone pole.

I still haven’t been able to bring myself to drive by that pole.

 

You should be here.

 

 

 

The spring musical brought your ghost back,

although you’d never really left.

Remembering the year before last,

when you’d been too ill to sit through the show

so I recorded bits and parts so you could see the rest.

Remembering last year,

when you’d brought your new girl friend and her son.

You were so full of hope for your future.

Thinking about this year,

when even the sell-out crowds

couldn’t mask that your seat was vacant.

 

Tonight was Honor’s Night.

As our daughter was honored

I watched for us both

and chuckled to myself knowing

you’d be bored through all but those 90 seconds

when she walked to the stage to receive her award.

But you’d have sat through the entire two hours,

like the sport you always were.

 

I look toward the near future and know

there are happy-hard days to come.

Our son’s school musical.

Graduation.

Our daughter’s 18^th birthday.

College.

Endings and beginnings all over again.

 

Tonight with my bedroom door shut tightly,

so the kids won’t worry,

I sit pouring words onto paper

as single tears make their way down my cheek.

The kids are good.

Tonight.

I watch them closely.

 

It comes in waves

Today was a mosquito day,

but I only got bit a few times

before I squashed it.

 

~ Mk Michaels, 2014

 

 

 

Juxtaposition

These things make me feel safe;

My hands working the soil of my garden

A soft bed

Raising my children
You

These things frighten me;
Snakes 
Men 
Raising my children 
You

Some fears are worth facing,
so time in my garden will be helpful. 

 

~ Mk Michaels, 2014

 

Hush

Hush my love and listen.

far from the fret and fray.

Come sit by my side and hear with your heart.

Do you hear the gentle silence surrounding us?

 

With you by my side, my senses are heightened

and I feel all I hear

and taste all I see.

As the whisper soft snow falls,

I feel myself falling in love.

I am the soft breathing in the breeze and

the wind in the willows.

Feeling the flicker of a flame in the dark,

I know the stirring of my ice encrusted heart.

As I taste your breathe mingled with mine

my chest expands taking you deeply inside me.

 

Can you hear

the smooth comfort in your soft light,

lulling me with its tender melody?

Can you see

the gentle caress of your presence,

the color of honeyed amber?

Can you taste

the rise of the moon above the trees,

silken against my tongue?

Can you feel

the perfume of our bodies entwined,

petals floating in a deep and inviting bath?

Can you smell

the slide of your skin against mine,

the heady aroma of our union?

 

The near silent sounds of

a mother’s lips pressed against the head of her child,

the tender tear splashed on a page of poetry and

the silence of surrender

all magnify in my chest and I know

I am open and ready to receive you.

 

Every fiber of my being can feel your entrance;

gently, graciously, quietly

and yet so powerfully

you have come into my heart, my world, my life.

 

The scent of a butterfly’s aimless flight across a meadow of dancing daisies,

the green aroma of her journey mirrors

the budding of my soul in you. 

Promise, hope and faith.

For I am yours – bursting into bloom for your pleasure

and mine.

 

I’ve become liquid for you,

flowing, easing, no resistance.

As we come together,

the river-flow of cotton sheets ripple across our bed and

couples with the power of a stream carving away the surrounding rock

as it makes its way home to the sea.

 

Each moment with you is the

artful spinning of a spider.

Silken strand by strand

a steel-strong web gently defined.

 

My love, my own force of nature,

you are the pull of the moon on Mother Earth.

You are the rooted foundation of Grandmother Willow.

You are the skyward stretch of Sister Redwood.

You take me with such compelling force

and I am passionately willing.

 

Listen closely.

I can hear the tide coming in;

Transparent movement wave by wave

easing slowly and surely o’er the sandy shore.

Can you hear it?  Feel it?

 

Quiet, calm, embrace, mild,

Steady, strong, complete

Hush, my love, hush, for all is well.

 

~ Mk Michaels, 2014

Picket Fences & Redux ~ Contrapuntal

In a gutter overflowing with

CRACK!

pretenders, perverts and philanderers,

The palm of your right hand makes contact with my left cheek.

I hoped to find a strange bedfellow,

“You fucking asshole! “ I scream and flail backward,

if only for a night or two.

panicked, looking for an escape route.

In a quest, likely doomed from the beginning,

I have been here before

I sought a temporary savior

except not in my own home.

in a lair of cheats and liars.

Not in my own fucking home!

Spurred on by the smell of burning picket fences,

“But you like to be hit” you say,

I really didn’t care whether my search proved successful

as if this forgives your attack.

…or not.

Instead, it proves you don’t understand me at all

Instead,

Why are you still here? (Why have I let you stay?)

I found a diamond in the rough,

You invaded my heart, my home, my privacy, my deepest secrets

except the rough isn’t so very and the diamond most brilliant.

and then used them all against me.

With patience, persistence, and petal softness,

I am humiliated, exposed, invaded, betrayed,

Without being intimidated by the rusty wire fences

and yet, you have made this about you.

and riot police gear you were met with,

Your betrayal, your shock, your fears,

this diamond, my diamond,

your carrot dangling in front of me

found part of the heart I had sent into hiding.

if only I am a good girl, your girl.

Oh, the picket fences still burn,

“You fucking asshole! “ I cry again and stumble backward,

but I care a lot less about their demise.

falling into the picket fence constructed from the ashes of the prior.

Pickets crumble into a pile of lost dreams

and there, sitting atop the charred ruins,

a diamond shaped piece of glass.   ~ Mk Michaels, 2011

Into the light

Sitting in the dark,

believing myself content with the long shadows

stretching across my bed.

My vision intentionally blurred,

I saw little, and risked nothing.

 

My life full

(very)

children, friends, and

a garden full of grief channeled into

something beautiful.

I rarely sat still enough to look at it though.

I rarely sat still at all.

 

My demons knew the pace of

my walk, but not my run,

so I kept busy. 

Productive.

Running.

Staying far enough ahead

so as not to be caught.

 

I knew in my heart

something was not right,

but chose to ignore it.

Keep moving, always moving.

Smile. Always.

 

My mask,

‘fine’ personified,

exhibited a high-functioning,

albeit hairline cracked,

façade.

 

In the solitude of night, though,

my demons would catch up,

tearing skin from bone.

Each morning, I’d arise to

dress my wounds,

slip on my merry mask,

and begin my day.

 

You came in like a whisper.

Practically dismissing you from the start,

I appeared in my mask and finery

and merrily conversed

about the weather.

 

In time,

gently, bit by bit,

like the moon

pulling the ocean to shore,

you came in.

I didn’t notice the water

lapping around my toes,

my heel, and, in time,

my ankles.

 

The tide came in,

my mask slipped,

fell, and splashed into the

water surrounding me,

now waist deep.

 

Panic,

frantic flailing,

gasping for breath.

Needlessly though, I realized.

Oxygen was abundant

and the limitless cerulean sky

stretched above me.

Unaccustomed to the light,

I strained to see

what was before me.

 

The water,

chest deep now,

lapped against

my thudding heart.

I inhaled and leaned back,

letting the water catch me.

As I finally exhaled, I found myself floating

in the light.

 

~ Mk Michaels