The Calm Before the Storm

Alphabet Ravine9 Comments

It was the calm before the storm
that stole my breath
with its icy silence.

In those everlasting seconds,
instead of his raging words’ predictable humming,
the still left you wondering what would be coming.
His face wouldn’t wear its usual anger, but a death-like grief,
as though he knew what monster would soon be unleashed.

‘Don’t hold it in!’ I was dying to cry to him.
‘That makes its bursting that much more violent!’

I did what I could- I anticipated, and how I hated
the calm before the storm.

Before the calm, you could see the storm clouds brewing,
but the churn of the sky- it was so close to soothingRead More »

On Being an Ideas Person

Alphabet Ravine5 Comments

After a month of nearly falling off the bottom of the earth,
Ma placed me in my bed, where I woke imagining
feeling wide-eyed, refreshed, wondrous of where I was-
jumping off the bed, landing in flexible splat as impossible
as the dogs I used to try to draw were ugly.

I didn’t really know how dogs’ heads or human bodies worked,
but I wanted a Lisa Frank retriever and my butt to be in the air,Read More »

Vice

Alphabet Ravine17 Comments

You don’t know the grip of vice until it’s a noose around your heart.

Trust me- if it went around the neck,
I wouldn’t have made it this far.

…I’d have made it nowhere!
It crunches like the tiger’s jaws
that you never see-
you simply die!

Very few lightning bolts can get the sound right-Read More »

The Tag-Along

Alphabet Ravine8 Comments

The thing about having your house burn down
in the 2K’s as a teenager
is you totally lack control. I
know; I can tell.

Because I’ve tried to find clothes
that were cute, clean, and matching,
and warm preferably,
in time to escape the fire
that’s interrupted my shower
with brisk November air.

Yes, the thing about having your house burn downRead More »

Same Old

Alphabet Ravine7 Comments

He’s still got the same humour. He’s just lost his sense of it. He
tells the same jokes a fraction of the time.
He was divided from the light for so long
that it all seems heavy.
So much for his diaphragm to lift was that laugh.

He’s on the same trajectory, but he’s further along,
and every little stepRead More »

Genuine

Alphabet Ravine8 Comments

I am in love enough with details
to be OCD, a poet, self-aware, far too engaged all the time
with every milliquiver of my fibers,

and I think I’m understood,
that my intentionality is seen,
that my terms and movements are known as technical.

But I’ve taught no soul my tongue;
if I do go noticed, I go labeled as odd,

and honestly, nobody cares! They are not in love with me.
And why would they be? I am captivated
by details. I am busy. Making good choices.

Read More »