musings on laundry and love, a prompt from findtimetowrite.com a poem in 3 parts about 3 very different kinds of love. comments? input? prease?

1.
pops used to get up
around 2:30 in the morning
to do laundry

i had the suspicion
he woke from night-terrors
he was a bad-dream machine

i guess we inherited
all of the neuroticism
and none of the religion

his girlfriend confirmed this, years later
saying he'd dream of me and my brother
going homeless, dropping or burning out

trips to the psyche ward
drug use, academic probation
and emotional bankruptcy

between the two of us
it seems his nightmares
had 100% success rate

before i left home the second time
after the detox but before the road took me in
it was apparent i had brought bed bugs home

he said he didn't mind doing the laundry, believe it or not
there was a time, when he didn't have two pairs of jeans to wash
i resisted the urge to tell him about how familiar that sounded

sleeping in my car in the Salt Pit winters
trying to fill this hole inside me with booze
mania and mayhem, all garments he'd seen

some of my secrets come out in the wash
only to show up later after the fabric dries
but there are still stains he'll never see

those articles i wash by hand, after the nightmares
in the early mornings; in a river behind the mountains
where i hope no one lives downstream

2.
once, when i was homeless
Betty washed my clothes for me, but
i don't think she knew i was living in my car

it's her pick up line i'm still trying to master
i go to bars, play a gig, wait for someone interesting
and say "so... can I do your laundry and make you a sandwich?"

for some reason this never works

i have my own laundry room now
it's just that someone can't ask
for that sort of intimacy right off the bat

you can't help but love someone
when you fold their boxers, i know
because it's happened to me

so no matter what happens, i know she loved me
in that moment, if never before or since
even if my jeans were damp out of the dryer

Betty told me she believes
in gender roles because
she wants to fight to be equal

she doesn't want respect;
she wants to fight to be respected
she says she wants the fight.

i wonder then if i should fight for the rights
to wear pink, collect recipes from current fad magazines or cry
during a movie about high school, just for the fight

when we were kids we both got tattoos
from her boyfriend, the same hand that
i fervently wished was mine

wrapped in cellophane and into the night
my arm swollen in pseudo-meaning
i dreamed of that connection

when she offered to do my laundry i always wondered
if he ever knew about that, and if so, what he thought
about her folding my holey boxers with her delicate hands

3.
cum and blood
are two things that
don't wash out well

cum on black bleaches; blood on white stains
and since i don't wear any other colors
you'd think i'd be more careful

like kindergarten doctors
around a make-believe patient
trying to determine the prognosis
of "a boo-boo on the inside
a little bit to the right and below
the lower area around the belly button"
...I am at a loss for words

just put a bandaid on my chest
kiss my lips and tell me
that it's all better

I wish I had an agenda behind addressing you
but I don't want to sound like I'm
just trying to undress you
you're beautiful in your stardust smile
and I am trying to hold a conversation
while juggling my self-consciousness
I'm waiting for something special
like a backyard astronomer
waits to name a comet

I refuse to let my love burn up in the atmosphere
by getting temporarily caught in your gravity
I want to revolve around you permanently as a moon

lately I feel like
without a saxophone in my face
my tongue ties itself in forget-me knots
instead of the brilliant yellow of linguistic summer salts
I'm speaking in shades of blues
relying on melodies to paint
surrealistic emotional momentum
I'm waiting for your critique

tell me, my finger painting is post-modern
inquire into the avant-guarde roots
of my crayon Starry Night

let's lock Jung in the closet and
throw Freud into the bed-chest
and put make-up on our emotions
we can play dress-up in my parents' attic
you can wear mother's pumps and
i'll put on my father's dinner jacket
paste a fake mustache on my face
we can trade last names for an afternoon

"oh... i think
you've got a little mascara on your cheek
...let me get that for you"

it's childish but
I've been so scared of falling in love
I pine over make-believe crushes
but trying to stitch a heart back together
by thread made up of distance
is like trying to push together
two ends of a magnet with the same charge
knowing full well they'll never touch
maybe that's why I'm attracted to turned backs

so if you just pretend to walk away
I could put my arms around you
and we can fit like puzzle pieces

Time heals all wounds
but some accidents leave scars
and I want to be soft again
so that when you touch me
you go "oh wow, that's smooth"
maybe this isn't the right way to do it
but I've wired all the clocks in my head
to run backwards

I'd like to grow old with you
but first I'd have to start growing again
until our vectors coincide

Life is what happens during growth spurts
pain is just a sign that you're growing taller
so it's no wonder my head is always in the clouds
but thinking of you makes my butterflies tickle
and laughter is the best way to feel
the earth beneath your feet
what i mean to say is
you make me feel little again

you make me feel like
sampling ring-around-the-rosie
in a bebop solo
like painting your portrait
with my fingertips and
smashing all my clocks to prove
time don't mean a thing
we've got the rest of our lives to grow up
and only this moment to make sand-castles
so come play with me

today i packed my things
prepared tack for the exodus
to the land of cops and the collegiate
the desert of soul
i've squirmed from beneath
the heavy thumb of my past
as a slave to the muses
moving to the rhythm of
the whip of a pen
the will of a poet
the lust of an artist
no longer

I packed up my cold-weather clothes
a box full of fleece, hoodies, long pants
and wrote upon the side
Someday Seattle
I know there is a promised land
and that I have been chosen to go there
despite this greeting
I am not a Zionist
I'm just going for the climate
for the paper and poster shop in Pike Place
to watch the boats make industry in the harbor
and of course for the pirozhki

they say from the moment
you step foot on that land
it feels like home

My FarMor lost our family
her home, her nationality
and fought alongside Holger Danske
and often I feel like The Others
misinterpret this story as if
I were saying that they
should have stuck up for themselves
should have taken the chance and
gone down swinging to the very end
but that's not what i mean
it is a poet's work to be
misunderstood

there are things i've done
to ensure i'd never be buried
where i don't belong

Some day my Messiah will come
and I will take cocoa butter
rub it into her feet and
read the commandments
tattooed into her skin
to the lost tribe
that wanders in my ribcage
I think of her everyday
I wonder where she could be
as I wait, contemplating
this book of rules I've
ceased to follow
because I'm impatient
because I'm so tired
of waiting

I'm estranged from my religion
the generations darken back
and I know nothing of
who we once were, before then
apparently,
we were that well eradicated
(so to speak; so it has been spoken)
and so stand on our own
alone in miscomunication
but

i hear that to find this higher ground
one must not engage in the same warfare
the same extermination

people of the book
it seems you've forgotten
how to read
between the
firing lines

i know what i'm saying so

don't put a blindfold
over my eyes
don't light my cigarette
and for fucks sake
don't ignore that angel
when he comes bearing this message
for me

Someday Seattle