nutworks

[nutworks]

Your eyes are crooked. I am sorry - I cannot see through the imbalance of your gaze. And this is far from commentary on your look Or eye Or balance You know me well enough to understand that I appreciate The imperfection.

Instead, it is a note on words that have been forced to rhyme When there is neither space nor time And rhyming cannot be a sign of love.

One large step back So I can see more clearly The grip you have on me on paper, On paper - where you pour your words. On paper - where I choose to not have read them.

I seldom have encountered better words that sit so wrong with me. All right things spoken, but the wrong air breathed. I look for ease - have I not told you? Shared presence not a puzzle to be solved, There is no time to pour over each minute, When minutes fly like seconds. When I am grasping for the edges of the understanding you should grant me, but cannot.

And look- it’s really not your fault That our eyes are just the same in color, But mine, they have seen more.

It’s not your fault That you have read too many books That helped you understand yourself but not the universe And I would rather be obtuse, then obstinate.

You cannot take what is innate to me, the air I breathe And teach another how to take deep gulps of understanding So I am done pretending That because we share similar gait, That we can walk alongside one another.

It is no bother For me to start again from scratch And when I spoke to you the truth that I Can live and thrive with noone by my side, Your voice got sadder, But I know For me to love a man, He would have to rejoice at words thus spoken. You are asleep, I am awoken.

[nutworks]

Good

Does it make sense that I hold myself so gently Like a bird with its wings fluttering in a loose ladle of my palms When everything feels broken, what better protest That to carry the soft creature that you are Confidently through this world?

Yesterday, I told my father that “I don’t need anyone” But I didn’t mean it like that What I meant Is that I need no man to carry me forward That I am my own agent of creation and destruction And it’s myself that I make love to And it’s myself that I grow old with

I am not scared of neither boredom nor desolation Everything I need - at my fingertips, here Inside my chest Within my reach I nurture myself persistently, with dedication

No need for the external gaze A stern assessment Nor compliment Nor validating words

I can be better still, But I am good And I mean that - good Not the best Not the thing to strive for But simply, plainly - good

And in this but singular life I will not twist my wrists into submission Nor will I lay in wait And anticipation of someone else’s firm grasp of guidance You hear me? I am good

It is that very word that hangs on my classroom wall As an example of poverty, of dearth of language - Take this synonym menu of many fancy syllables - Spectacular, adequate, virtuous, clean - Yet none of these thing mean what I am trying to say

I am simply good

Perhaps another word is enough Who I am is enough What I do is enough How I feel is enough It is good enough. Enough!

It is this simple tune that on a chilly spring morning wades through my body, percolating, like the smell of coffee, to my fingertips and toes and the split ends of my unkempt hair And with this feeling, I move in all the fluidity that a person can muster My smile fills my cheeks and I watch it resonate in others In this resonance, we are no longer strangers. For a short moment, we may be one. But this unity, though temporary, is not fickle I do not seek it I do not seek anything in it It is simply there to feel. A route back to myself and at the same time The route that leads me back to others.

I’m good.

[nutworks]

There is no "you"

There is no "you". No disembodied hope of rescue. No aim to be dismissed of my obsessive habits by some hero of my own creation. No life onto which to project the glories I’m too feeble to attempt. And in my daily toiling - little turmoil. When face to face with Other, I unfold delight and then retreat as promptly as I came.

I do not talk to men. I do not let them listen. Really. There’s nothing I can say that I would like to sit within their hearts, I’m selfish. It is all for me or for the ones I love - the fears, the joys, the trepidations. Little deserving, they will not observe the magic that I store.

An unobserved existence is a silent place of wonder. I used to crave the eyes of witness, now, I crave the easement of my mind. A life uncatalogued, unrecognized and thereby - free. Unwitnessed, unrestrained, innocuously quiet, still.

***

draft material

I thought that you would wait for me but not one waiting soul has seen the sun come up as glorious as I have. 

I thought that I would find a home among these strangers, yet, having done my waiting, 

I have honed in on a home that is within the four walls of my mind.

Its quietude is counter to the very thing I would hold dear. 

The romance of it all is that the only thing consistent is the change. 

There is no you. No disembodied hope of rescue.

No aim to be dismissed of my obsessive habits by a hero of my own demise. 

No life onto which to project the glories I’m too feeble to attempt. 

And in my daily toiling, little turmoil. 

When face to face with other, I unfold delight and then retreat as promptly as I came. 

Although the speculation rests - what wonders do remain uncovered below the trouble of communication? 

I do not talk to men. I do not let them listen. Really. There’s nothing I can say that I would like to sit within their hearts, I’m selfish. 

It is all for me and for the ones I love - the fears, the joys, the trepidations. 

Little deserving, they will not observe the magic that I store. 

An unobserved existence is a neutral place of quiet wonder. 

I used to crave the eyes of witness, now, I crave the easement of my mind.  

A life uncatalogued, unregognized and thereby - free. Unwitnessed, unrestrained, unnoucuously quiet. 

And if you’ve done your waiting, you can find me by the unabashed river, wider in its banks that any harbor. Dipping my toes into a parallel existence as the daily concrete ribbon of the lesser evil takes me to and fro in a relentless quest to live until tomorrow. 

[nutworks]

this poem made me cry

It’s funny, because, as it turns out I love you and nothing really matters.

I love you because your smile is soft and bright and it does not matter because as we tried to watch the sunset from the Alcantara viewpoint, our bench pointed sideways, the sun set firmly in the valley and with our faces turned away, we could not see it set.

I love you because I’ve never seen a white tshirt sit quite this well on a person And it does not matter because of the dozen or so objects that populate your apartment only one is mine and, because it is green and living all you need to do for it to die is nothing.

I love you because I rarely can talk for hours, but with you - I do our laughter and tears ringing well into the night and it does not matter because all that it takes for the laughter to stop is a stroke of discomfort and, as you like to keep your windows shut , so you can keep all of it shut from me, in a decisive move, familiar gesture.

I love you because you had the patience to see through my many escapes, late arrivals, later departures, frivolous phonecalls, contained emotion and it does not matter because as it turns out when I do choose to be all there, I am, as I have frequently found, again, too much.

I love you because you were born striving and in your own quiet way you continue to strive each day, even as the day wears you down and your curls hang heavy, and you sink into the softness of your sparsely lit space, and it does not matter because strive as you do and strive as I might, the odds are still distinctly stacked against us in a world that does not accept softness, does not encourage strength, does not permit ease.

I love you because I did not choose to succumb to your awkward walk and your gentle voice it simply happened. and it does not matter because whatever shadow of love you have for me, you choose to keep it to yourself.

[nutworks]

I mean it- There is nothing quite like a cup of coffee in a stranger's kitchen. I never had the skill to play pretend, neither myself, nor with my daughter, but here are I am pretending that - drenched in the yellow sun, subdued by neighbor buildings, flush with the morning air - this is my kitchen. A tender place for every small necessity, and temporarily devoid both of its owner and my burdens.

I fix my nourishment with utmost care. A simple, economic meal of bread, tomato, cheese has never sat so well within my stomach. What, with the bin of dirty laundry roaming hive of fruit flies - distinctly not my problem.

I like to be absolved of all my hardship, sucked into another person's daily assets - a parasite, much like those fruit flies, I choose a lover of dimension. Men of accomplishment, achievement, passion. so full of themselves that they overflow into the vacuum I've created. Vacuum of indecision, spurred about...

a draft to be ammended

[nutworks]

I arrived with my wing broken, my back - aching, my arm - spasming. Dragging my wheels behind me in a box. A near certainty at my inability to take off. And you with your walls empty, your hope - toothless, the shutters tight against the windows of your home. All lights off when you leave the room. And as we walked - how you dislike to put in proper distance - the corners rounded, softened by your smile. And I saw the ocean blue of knowing: I am alone / I am not alone and this condition is permanent.

My eyes are a rare color where you come from and your eyes are cut from a different cloth. Our skin - the same type of leather, the type that breathes calm. Don’t make me slow dance / slow dance with me. The simple truth of being together is a dance and it is slow. And we both know time flows too quickly.

You avoid the river because of the wind it carries. But if you didn’t, you would know that it passes past the ornate shores as tenderly as our time together has passed us by. And that there are dolphins that swim at its mouth and that it contains the pigment that colors my eyes.

I don’t live here, but you do too. You shoulder the burdens of the present and of history, unfolding still like the creases of my eyes on the mornings that we did not share, unfolding, like my refusal to spend the night, acidic, like your mother’s cooking, sour from the war she had escaped. Kristina.

My wounds are two generations removed, but I too know the struggle of walking away, of fighting with the current, of the rain that will not pass. So what - we let our stubbornness sit in comfort, maybe together, our stubbornnesses will move boulders, turn them to pebble, turn them to sand that will stick to our skin as we swim in the ocean of what we left unspoken. I walked a small plant with me into your space, something living. I am leaving. I will send you books (your shelves are half empty). Please do not forget to tidy your kitchen, to fold your clothes, to take care of your teeth and to breathe more deeply.

Put down the cigarettes, stranger, I need you to stay.

[nutworks]

34 on 35

Touch my ankle one more time. Point to the sinews that hold me upright. Until your fingers are pressed into my muscle memory.

Then you would learn that I best see myself with my shirt unbuttoned, gazing in through my plexus. holding onto my breath, eyes folded shut, approaching what must be the meat and bones of being a woman.

This spring did not sing the way that springs usually do. You see the sun still surrendered too early and the blooms were walked to a pulp before I could catch the beauty of this transition.

Temporary, this torrential downpour. Temporary, the morning sunlight. And I will never again be in the body whose tendons sing in this peculiar pitch. And this mixture of odors, that makes me falter, this flavor of sadness, which chokes me daily, the angle at which the hair stands on my skin, will never repeat.

The dust that gathers in the corners of my conscious will never sit quite this well.

And I think intensely of the foreign cities cobbled streets clad in Jacaranda purple.

But to put down roots that will sever the pavement, to give my daily burdens heart, that I could pound out with my footsteps, so that they feel like bread and salted butter. Roots so strong that when I hold my face against the bathroom mirror I can see right through my reflection.

So when you press the tautness of my achilles tendon understand that beneath your fingers broods a summer storm.

[nutworks]

a simple ask

The dewdrops pooling down my back, I ask you leave a little bit of sweetness to go with all my patience. Leave me

a memory of summer grasses pressed down by our bodies, the tremor of an evening warmth. Hold me

beneath the sturdy shelter of your eyelids, until the storms that took over of the city pass on by. Remind me

to forget preoccupations that I find are dignified for woman my age.

And with my body, outstretched and limber-

please leave me be.

[nutworks]

better than nothing

It comes easily The lifting of another’s burden. Hoist them upon my unfragile shoulders, deadlift and squat press them, if asked nicely.

Take on the faults that are not mine, Into eager outstretched fingers, And bash them into my chest Until they are fully molded into my own Imperfect ways.

Chain my long limbs to not my own boulder And let it drag me down Until a familiar darkness sets in.

Instead, I want the depth of a green forest, Peppered with the glimmer of the lightning bugs Spread thin across a summer night.

I will take the low croaking of toads to be with me, And press it all slimy against my face, And hold it, like a precious child, smelling of dampness and moss.

I cannot be Like the petals floating down the calm surface of the river, Carried along by its current. I want to feel the sharpness of the evergreens stinging at my soles.

I know, there is great darkness in every soul And each of us teeters boldly at the edge, But I have broken free From the concrete That held down my feet. And I will claw my way up from the bottom.

I want to go in, not down, Deeper, not lower.

[nutworks]

Here’s the thing - For the rest of my years I will continue to become. Turning fuller, softer, more stoic.

Unafraid of the webs and folds That will come to line my eyelids So long as holding the line Between myself and the disrespect Is, every year, a lesser burden.

And the quality of my voice will matriculate from the meekness it’s been taught to the kind of bold that will finally release the pressure that’s been holding the vocal cords taut.

I will speak with clarity, unwavering, unsuccumbed to the waves of chaos put in motion by some finicky dudes and their shit attitudes because I will bow down to no such affliction.

Only the small creatures will hold me hostage- animals, children and the first rays of spring nested into the depths of an unfolding blossom.

Naivete and wisdom are unfortunate neighbors but with them I carry a fortune, a trove of well wishes, a well of quiet breaths to behold.

So let not bitterness take its hold And favor the flavor of relentless remorse. less. ness. Allow the sunshine to kiss your wilting eyelids into a durable moment of burlap peace.

[nutworks]

When the season came to roost,

Clouds thick with worry, 

There was not a soul left 

That would bandage the wounds.

One, two minutes of sun 

Is all it takes to understand

That in the whistling wind,

All things are ordinary.

And still, I look to you with questions unforetold

In the stillness of the evening

It strikes me 

That’s there are creatures 

That wander the night as I once did

Their loneliness scattered 

I take my loneliness daily

Squandered minutes in the morning

Empty pockets of time in the afternoon

And a slow slather of it when darkness arrives

Until the season renders useless

The many ways in which I hold my breath

And the stones grown warm

With storied hours shared. 

[nutworks]

a catalogue

I have seen a man far too young to tend to his affection, taking liberties instead of freedoms. But as he cut off his curls and matured into his form, what opportunities were there melted away. 

I have seen a man so unsure of his life, that he had none of it to give back when time finally came to share more than a bed.  I have seen a man hesitate so long that he let his dearness pass him by,  dismissing it as “lesser than”, only to be caught in a storm of petals a minute past the expiration. 

I have seen a man never utter his lovers’ name, trying to prove it immaterial, as if the sleep they shared was not a version of a binding contract he spent his whole life running from;  left alone now with his plants. 

I have seen a man throw himself into the wind, heart-first,  and let the air currents sweep him across the ocean, only to bash his head against his same old self,  brush off his trenchcoat and drown his conscience in the pool. 

And maybe one day the bone dry clay will render itself soft again, slipping past my fingers, supple, dictating its own will.

But for now I deal in stone, heavy, and here to preserve my warmth, until spring's unlikely arrival. 

[nutworks]

tangerine

A big family  and a small garden  with a tangerine tree.

Orange bright against the plastered fence, saintly, keeping sanctity against unsanctioned chaos of the year two thousand and twenty two. 

Run a brush slowly through my hair, longer, by the year. At its longest now, since time has stopped,  repeated motion rendering the locks illustrious.

No more lips cracked from dry air, cracked from heartlessness. No more cracked knuckles now that time has stopped just so with the sun having landed in my teacup.

A stroke of white birds circling above the lucid green. Winter means moisture now, not cold. The water towers are replenished,  the floods have washed away the soil, emptied the basements of dry rubble leaving behind the muskiness  that will sit until July.

Oh the quietude of it all, the humming toil of lucid days. The sun, the rain, the heat - all stagger into one.  Small cares set carefully upon embroidered cloth out in the garden.

This vase here of my remorse and a platter of anger silver spoons of petty arguments to the left, push in the chair before grandmother croaks.

All this done unto us sweetly, as the tangerine tree continues  to bear witness and to bear fruit. 

[nutworks]

Most likely grown enough to understand that life its not to be boiled down to a night spent dancing in a crowded smoky room in Lisbon.

That the daily tribulations are not reflected in the disco balls suspended in the droplets  of such joyful sweat emitted by all those  whose eyes illuminate the night.

That the cheers engendered  by the silver of confetti stars  descending from the ceiling, stamping themselves upon the humid bodies, leathery skin and red hot cheeks are not the real motivation.

And that whatever stranger meets your eyes across the room as you dance gently,  miles from each other, is not the destination of your joy, nor real cause of it. 

And that the music booming through the crowd is far too hectic and worn out  to meet the mornings of the everyday, the mornings, where  instead of sun reflecting on the endless vastness of the Tagus there’s only slush plastered across the buildings clad in weathered grey. 

The steps you clamored down  together with your luggage and your unexpected date  are not where you reside. 

The door pushed open with excited hands, the counter that he leaned you on, the bed you sprawled across that night - not yours to own. 

But how can you resist the punctuation  of the dreary and the ordinary with such joy?  And if it fills you, why not seek it further?

So to forget it is a ruthless sin, to measure all you days against it is a blasphemy. 

[nutworks]

01/16/23

It ought to be enough - 

Each morning, opening the front door

Scent of the incessant rain succumbing to the seasons

It soon will turn to snow

***

I would like to hold my environment

Close to my chest

To embrace 

The gray days

Their shortness of breath

The stoutness of the buildings

Unremarkable

The amicable caress delivered

In form of a cold dirty splash

By a passing by car.

Nothing green 

As far as the eye can travel,

But distinctly auburn sunsets

Reflected on the interwoven mess of the naked branches. 

All this

Sits sickly like a fishbone in my throat

And I can neither swallow it

Nor get used to it. 

I would like

To embrace it all as mine

As it is

But I have seen

Places so much greener

And people with their eyes shining bright

At the sight of auburn

Reflected not against the naked trees

But lining every roof

[nutworks]

I can feel the new life forming inside me, taking shape as real as is negligible, its effects echo through my body- tender breasts, an acting heart, and warmer skin and fingertips that feel one thousand speaks of sand on every surface.

and even if I am to disappoint myself, I cherish the few days together with this dream before I wipe the palate clean in favor of the love I already am lucky to behold and the responsibilities I carry to it.

but let me imagine, that one day this hope won’t feel so lonely and I’ll welcome not with sadness but with tears of joy these changes to my body that will certainly destroy life as I’ve known it but bring about another life for me and for this tortured world.

And I will care for it in ways I know I can i have an excellent track record caring for new life and I will watch it fruit, not only formulate and nourish myself from outside within and with a shoulder I can rest upon I’ll close my eyes and feel like for a moment’s time there’s nothing to decide, nothing to conquer or to fix. and let go of control as I fall deeply into love.

[nutworks]

At thirty four, I decided it appropriate 

That I be treated to dinner

And so, I set myself across the table from you

And graciously accept the offering,

Foreign as it is

For a child, that was raised into obedience.

Praised only

In situations of complete compliance

And good humor.

For a girl who grew up anticipating

Another person’s discomfort,

And would throw her entire body

At a budding

Conflict

Before it had a chance to breathe towards a resolution.

For a young woman,

Who laughed along 

To her male friend’s tasteless jokes,

Terrified of losing their approval. 

For a woman, who’s father would say

“Look at what you did! He’s upset now. 

Go fix it” when she stood up to her husband.

For this creature that learned self-erasure so early in life

That making a decision of any caliber 

Would lead to crippling anxiety.

For the woman who would treat her men to gifts, small and large, 

In the name of equality,

But in reality

To prove some kind of worth.

For this woman,

Accepting a simple meal

And another

And another

And a cup of coffee

And a movie ticket

And a ride back home

And a tall glass of wine

And a man who fusses over her comfort

Is an act of rebellion

Against compliance.

And so, I set myself across the table from you

Look you in the eye and ask:

“Is your plan to treat me every time”

And you shrug your shoulders and drop a casual- “Maybe”

And I ease into my dumpling

My back tall against the chairback

And when we’re outside,

I let you hold your umbrella over my shoulders

To protect me from the November drizzle.