White Shirt

I wrapped myself in you tonight
sweet combed cotton
cologned in your scent
symbolic to my touch
This white shirt
at one time there
in the spotlight
just hanging on display
undisturbed on a hook
among all of the others
becomes a tender caress
over warmed naked skin
clothing a deep longing
within my patient soul
And a memory of quiet nights
spring grass underneath our heat
slowly brings to my heart
the sight of your smile
until I recalculate the miles
between our clocks
My casual happiness
in long-lived comfort wanes
and lonliness appears
like the slight wrinkle
covering the tearstain
just above your right sleeve
on the day you had to leave

A Lonliness

Do you hear my voice crying for help anymore?
My hints lie around like forgotten toys on an old floor
My sadness comes in faithful waves of dreams
Now muddled in murky rivers and streams
Of conscious and careful amniotic hope
I balance my blessings inside the lump in my throat
And a womb of security stays hidden somewhere
Buried with secrets we will never share

Clearing the table and drawing bath water tonight,
I realize my voice is simply out of your sight

Nightmare

The nightmare repeats what my mind has carved
That feeling of danger captures my words
Rabid like dogs being beaten and starved
My tongue lashes out --  I still have not learned

Mistaken and shamed, I cannot retreat
Where is the ink that will scratch out my lies?
Gone like a puzzle that's missing a piece,
Forgiveness and promise will not comply

Swallowing the sword that smiles my pain
Daring illusion -- my sharp witted slight
Those howling hungry hounds drive me insane!
And corner me in the dead of the night

The nightmare predicts of me losing you
To my own fabricated fatal view

Stained Admiration

This milk stained shirt wet against my skin
smells like twenty four hours of wake
Not that you would even try to understand
or appreciate the security for him that I make
My mixed emotions are too fragile and tense
to stand upon some glass box near your will and speak
but "clinical" would be my most agile response
if you would let me remember my reasons to grieve

When it amounts to you and all of your day
we solve and salute each pertinent cause
But turn for a moment upon my gaze;
We are nothing but mismatched souls with flaws

This milk stained skin has started to itch
from showerless nights and hunger soaked mornings
Whatever we once thought is only a myth;
Complacent thoughts replace adjacent warnings

Drenched again in unsynchronized desire
I find no part of this memory of us to admire

Nursing at 4 AM (Blank Verse)

A slight tingling sensation warms my breast
You gently persuade my body to free
The immunized elixir to your tongue
With half sleepy eyes and curled hands you take
My raindropped shower, a downpour of mild
Sweet and dewlike feast to your appetite
Appeases your quick hunger instantly
Soothing your hollowed, pained cry for comfort
Your soft, searching hands rest upon my face
Stroking, caressing my familiar smile
Your arched brow reveals that you are in dreams
I pull you closer and whisper secrets

These words you will hear from my heart to yours
Only in our world of mother and son

Details

Somewhere between the fits of coughs
and the stirring of tonight's stroganoff
I looked up to the corner of the stove
above the kitchen counter
and was distracted by
the careless placement
of the label on the side of the vent
I started to rant and rave
about how easy it would have been
for someone to take five minutes more
to center that warning
just to make it more pleasing
to a baker's tired eyes
It's the little things, I justified
Pay attention to the details...
Then I remembered with a soft smile
you always do that
and I looked longingly towards the door

Nevermind

Muffle my heartsong to no sound
Suffocate me in a pillow of your silent anger
Walk out again to protect your ground
I should have known I was so close to danger
You showed classic signs of shutting down
I thought we had grown better and closer with time
But you slapped that faith with a complete turnaround
When I woke this morning to...

Nevermind.