I am SOOOOOO mad! Somehow I just managed to screw up my entire blog and lose an hours worth of writing all because I was trying to change the template. Now it will not post anything I write even though it tells me "your blog has been published successfully" in a cheerful tone. Errgh! Leave it to me to entirely waste my time. I feel like alice in wonderland...nothing is familiar, I'm just trying to do one little thing, and everything is getting in my way!!! well, this is a test. let's see if this has posted.

OKay, here are some crappy poems that I only half like. But I still think they're pretty good. People often say that they don't understand my poetry. It's called IMAGERY and IMAGINATION people! I am just trying to get across a feeling, even if it is sort of abstract. On the other hand, most of my poetry is confessional, which I am not proud of. I want to get away from that and write about larger themes but it seems that no matter what I write it all ends up being autobiographical and I think I'm just going to have to live with that for a while. I promise to put up some more poetry and prose and short stories soon, as soon as I dig them out from under my bed or wherever it is that they are hiding.


No Martyr

In spite of all this victimless martyrdom
I remain
the only one slain.

It has hurt me well enough
but I never understood
before

how I let you spin me
of my own cloth.

I was the warp to your woof;
you were always running through me
while I stood, alone,
your ugly tapestry.

With my jute fists I let you weave me
a ragged soul
and never defended
its enduring pain.

I bit the fibers and held them
in my mouth
and forever more will I chew to make them soft.

My gift to you.
My gift to you.

Yet you will consider me burlap
as though it is undeserving
of great love and glory.



Baby's Daddy

I will be finding the good in you
for the rest of my life
extracting it out like thick black oil.
Your demands and your demands
took place the of all of my young-sweet plans.
How you posessed me
and I pretended to be pitiful--
I will spend the rest of my life explaining--
How I tried to be somebody else
How I found its far too expensive to disown yourself
How I spent one too many
afternoons
holding onto a yellow broom
while staring at a doorknob.

Demands beget demands
and now I cannot clean my hands
so I will forever be finding the good in you
looking as hard as I can.

Help!

Forget Jamaica. Well, don't forget it, but put it aside for a while. Now I am in New York. How did I get there? I read the neighborhood section of the New York Times and suddenly I am on a sidewalk. There are tall brick houses on both sides of the street with stone steps crawling to every doorway. Wrought iron fences, waist-high, line flowered yards. Shops intermingle with homes. It is four o'clock on Friday. Black lamp-posts stand stout every twenty yards, like friends, and though they are not yet lit it is comforting to know that soon they will be. The trees are old and tall but look young, still missing most of their leaves. The first green growth on the branches is twittering in the wind. Vendors' tables decorate the street. A purple tablecloth grabs my eye. A handsome young poet is playing a guitar on the steps of a brownstone. His beard looks soft and delicious. He is, of course, taking collections. Children are playing hopscotch right in the middle of the street. The adults keep only one eye on them This is not the neighborhood I live in, but I have to walk through it to get to my less afluent apartment in Brooklyn. (I guess--it's hard to imagine NYC when you've never been there--but I assume that from Brooklyn, one can walk anywhere...hell, I don't know). I stop to look at a colorful knitted hat. The air is still cold and frosty but there is the taste of warmth that is just beginning. The air smells polluted if you breath too deeply but its not so bad once you get used to it. No matter how long I've been here I keep thinking to myself "I am in New York City" with a sense of awe. No matter how stalled my life might seem, I know that I am in NYC and therefore, by association, I am doing something great. I can see skyscrapers over the roofs of these houses. Just around the corner, I can hear horns honking and people shouting and shoes clickety clacking and bells ringing and dishes banging and lights flashing and love making. Just around the corner, the earth is moving. I look at my reflection in front of a bakery. I am still the same girl. But I feel different. I look at the people walking past--everyone has somewhere to go and it seems like where they are going is the only place there is. The barrio girls, the fancy women, the school children, people of all colors and cultures, the butchers and the bakers and the candlestick makers--all the people here--have one thing in common--they cannot aford the luxury of being afraid. Each place you turn there is something new to bump into, something to propel you into your inner resources, something to make you stand up for yourself. "What do you want?" is the question New York asks. "You shall have it," is its reply. Into the great wide open...the eternal abyss of what you desire...all questions can be answered here.

I am here to answer my own question. What am I made of? What am I made for? I am hoping to run into my destiny. Maybe it will run into me as I am walking on the crosswalk among hordes of people, come swirling down from heaven into my head. I am riding in the current of desire and dreams. I know I will be served. I am going to be able to say "I survived." My postcards home read "I am homesick only for the rolling green pastures but it really is not too bad...it is a short drive to the countryside (3 hours). My neighbor sometimes lets us borrow her car. We love the adirondacks. I am nervous about Issac starting school--some neighborhood kids walk to school on their own but I will be taking him myself... We adopted a dog from the animal shelter to keep us company. The furniture is sparse but Issac's art decorates the walls. Throw dinner parties for my new cool friends. Still haven't found a publisher. Have been writing a lot. Start teaching soon. We've been to all the Yankees games so far but three. Issac implores you to write more often. Please come to visit soon. Love--Melissa"

January 20, 2004, Tuesday

Imagination can be a dangerous thing. It takes us away from where we are and deposits us in an entirely new and different world, one that doesn't really exist. While imagination can help us to discover new things, for me, it seems to be only a temporary distraction from reality that is like a mind-fuck. It is my drug. I need it. If I don't daydream for a couple of hours each day I don't feel right. I get edgy. Grumpy. My daydreaming, while at times productive, consists mostly of imagining my life somewhere else doing some other thing, avoiding the real work that is in front of me. Lately I've been loving me and Issac living on the shores of Jamaica in a raised wooden shack, making sandcastles all day and I am gloriously tan with colorful silk cloths tied around around my waist blowing in the wind. The diet of melons and beans has done my figure wonders. I don't mind being poor. Our days are given over to nothing but swimming and walking along the beach, climbing mountainsides, and talking to the island people who are all as poor as we are. We stay away from the resorts. Issac develops the cutest Jamaican accent and at night we jam out with our neighbors because my prize possession is my guitar. Issac dances and shakes a marraca and runs around with the black girls. We go to the church full of crazy bright religion and we do our best to pray. I post gaudy pictures of mother maria on our wooden walls. I import clay and sculpt. I home-school Issac and several other Jamaican children. The people are thankful and send me food and chickens and goats. I am never lonely. I draw and I paint and I write. Creative energy oozes out of my body. I write letters to everyone in the states who ever doubted that it could happen, and tell them "our biggest fear is a hurricane. I dread tending the garden but we depend upon it so for our survival. I am becoming one with the earth. My fingers are brown from the clay."

God- why do I have to go to math class? Why am I too much of a wussy to actually DO this little dream of mine? It feels like I am too poor to even go live on a poor island with poor people. Isn't this silly? Utterly.

January 14, 2004, Wednesday

I am blogging for the first time. School has been going for less than a week now and I am already absolutely exhuasted. I have early morning classes and I am realizing that was NOT a good idea. Next week I think I will try waking up at 6 am so that we can actually have time to eat breakfast and get dressed properly before we get in the car to drop Issac off at the babysitter and drive me to my bus. Yeah! I just love how the first impression I've made on my professors and fellow classmates this semester has been one of tangled hair and pillow marks on my cheeks, unlaundered clothes encrusted with baby food, stress zits, tardiness, unorganized folders flowing over with errant papers, and pleadings to please let me borrow a pen or pencil. I totally feel like I'm losing it, whatever "it" was that I once had.

Last semester went like a dream: I made two A's and a B, the work never seemed too overwhelming, and I was having fun. I think a lot of this is due to the fact that I lived with my Mom and Henry and they cooked dinner for me every night and cleaned the house, Issac was younger and did not so easily make such a mess, and it was the first time I was really back into the swing of things after separating completely from Mike. I was thrilled just to be one among a throng of people, happy just to be able to talk to people my own age. Also, I was entertaining the idea of dating again and every cute guy I saw was a potential date. Now, every cute guy I see is a reminder that I don't have time to date. This is vaguely depressing.

How do you date when you are a single mom? Thankfully I have some time to myself because Mike is with Issac every other weekend, but this is time that I have to use wisely. I use Issac as a screen to test potential dates.

Cute guy no. one: "So what did you do over the weekend?"
me : "I was so busy. I hung out with my son Issac and had a blast. You know, he did the cutest thing the other day..."
Cute guy no. one: "Oh, you have a kid?" (Shocked look on his face, looks like he might be sick)
me: "Yes he's one year old and we are best friends..."

Sometimes they ask if I like being a mom and I prattle on about how awesome and exciting it is, but I never forget to include how much hard work it is.

Cute guy no. two: "So, do you want to go get some drinks?"
Me: "Sorry, I'd love to but I can't. I have to leave right after this and go pick up my son from the babysitter's."
Cute guy no. two: "You have a kid?" (looks shocked, jaw is hanging open. Looks very afraid.)
Me: "Yes, he's one year old and he is soooo cool. Do you know what he did this morning. Ha ha it was so funny...."
Cute guy no two is looking around for someone to rescue him. He is no longer interested. He wants out.

Cute guy no. three: " So what do you do?"
Me: "Well, a lot. Let's see, I'm an English student minoring in Education, I'm going to be a teacher...I'm in school a lot, and also I'm a mom. So that's mostly what I do."
Cute guy no. three: "Wow, you're a mom?" (Incredulous, seems kind of intrigued)
Me: "Yep. You know, he did the cutest thing last night...."
Cute guy no. three: "Can I ask you something personal? Was it an accident?"
Me: "I hate it when people ask that question. What the hell do you think? My son was not an accident." (I frown somewhat angrily. I wonder why people are such assholes. What are people THINKING when they ask that question? I know exactly what they are thinking. They are storing up the evidence to talk themselves into actually using condoms and other forms of birth control more regularly. They are making a mental note: "see, it DOES HAPPEN. Yikes.")
Cute guy no. three: "Sorry." (Looks somewhat sober.)


Occassionaly cute guy will say something like "right on!" or "cool!" when I quickly reveal my mommyhood status, and doesn't even separate the distance between us as we're talking, but even then dating still seems like such an impossibility. I just don't have the time. And even if I did, I'm not sure I'm ready to get back on that wagon, because I'm not sure what kind of a ride it's going to take me on. My history is one filled with dangerous curves and rocky cliffs, high speeds and hold-ups, wild horses with bits in their mouths. I'm ready to walk on my own for a bit.

So here I am-- finding myself stuck between wanting to spend time with others and enjoying any moment of solitude I can find, in the beginning of a busy spring semester at the University of Florida, and with the coolest little kid in the world.