the fear is real

 dear love

i can't i'm

afraid to ask it outloud

but why do i feel like

i'm a placeholder?

no no it's that i don't know

how to communicate what i want to 

to you. we've come to an impasse

composed of silence and resentment

at least on my part.

you seem to be obsessed  with your 

own problems which do not include me
but i wonder how you'd react 

to me cheating? i wonder if that

would interest you? i'm not

interested in cheating and for

all the reasons why you can 

just say men.

so that is not an avenue

open for me to use

to try to get thru to you.

tho i understand how

some justify being serials

the personal shame of betraying

someone you once loved

is too much for me to do it again.

it may be why some ppl flirt to create jealousy

 to feel as if their partner cares

about what they do.

  

all of my sadness centers

around this silence

this deferment of a conversation

about the health of our relationship

you will listen to me talk about

how you treat your child with a degree

of acceptance that you will not apply to

my critique of your treatment of me.

i'm calling it critique so you might

look at it from the outside

as you know my comments on your parenting

are based on evidence from reality 

observed by a third party. 

because i have clearly declined

 responsibility for this  child

(point for the minus category)

though present for the raising of

my opinions can be considered valid.

but when it comes to you and i?

apparently my point of view 

is wrong. so many statements

met with contradiction. requests

met with procrastinations-in -perpetuity.

critiques taken for attacks. 

recently you thought i wanted to kill 

you because i was talking to you

with a knife in my hand.

we were in the kitchen, preparing

dinner.  misunderstandings  

left punched, right hooked

 us into a semblance of sensible

we talked for a moment

when i became me again

instead of your ex.

* 

but what if that's what i'm about to be?

if we can't talk then why are we together.

i'm sure you think we talk because 

you never quit.

let me outline my issues

i know i keep you amused

but i feel i'm being used

you drive 3 hours for work.

you could have a job close  in town

and make as much but you can't do research

and you'd have to deal with real children

a lot of them all day

so you drive 3 hours for work.

but you have a child that can't be at school

before the traffic gets bad and you have to get

child ready for school tho he's old enough

to do it himself and you have to pack a lunch

though he can and will eat the uncrustables

from school lunch and LOVE them

and you must take a shower shit and shave

everyday but tuesdays plus you make 

bacon eggs for him everyday and coffee

and you wonder why you look so haggard

like some single mom like the his mother should look

but you won't give yourself a break on any of these fronts

they must be done exactly as you desire so you do them.

and that's just your morning routine.

every once in a while something goes really wrong

and you call on me to help you because i'm 

in your village. and every time i want to say no.

but i've capitulated because it's what partners do

and now i'm in charge of getting him to do

him english homework because i'm a poet.

i also threw his birthday party on xmas day

and made sure he had company 

as well as presents.

that was me. and i don't even remember 

that you said "thanks". to be fair

you had 4 broken ribs and were 4 days

out of the hospital with a possibly still leaking

lung. so i didn't expect you to be able to do that

but a heartfelt thank you would have been nice

and i don't feel like you said that,

maybe that's on me though. 

maybe i can't hear you anymore.

all i hear is your complaining.

today i told you please

go back to making weed your whole personality

because this obsession with your accident

is wearing real thin. you didn't know what i was

talking about. you said it's not true. you told me

about the pain you're in and how i seem to not believe it.

as if you don't remember how you were

when my arm was broken. we both forgot

the things i couldn't do.

so honestly, i don't know your limitations

but when you tell me, maybe twice, i respect them

and try to accomodate. cuz that's what partners do.

for instance you asked to me leave the toilet lid up

because it  hurt to bend down so i make it a point

to not forget.  you can't take the garbage out 

of the can, shouldn't lift anything really but

certainly no more than 10 lbs. so i have to remember

garbage days now.

but you still leave your laundry in the laundry room

after 5 years of begging pleading and anger

and i have given up and joined you in your sloth.

are there dishes in the sink 

that you left from making breakfast?

3 days worth?

i rinse my bowl and spoon, i rinse my cup

i wipe the counter

i ignore the dishes tho sometimes on saturdays

i'll do whatever remains of your piecemeal cleaning

because the floor should be swept and mopped

and least once a month.

i'm already weary of this.

writing it out has me wondering

which of us is wrong? 

compatibility doesn't have right or wrong.

i feel like when we were a childless couple

we were compatible but that's probably

nostalgia rose coloring. 

i mean you were always a hoarder

and i can't say that you'd be any more

on the ball about reducing your hoard

if you didn't have all the extra curriculars

and homework to keep up with. 

you'd probably just spend more time

aquiring more.

i have a hoard. letters from the seventies

from friends and mom. i have boxes of

high school drawings when i thought i could be 

a visual artist, young girl writings and journals

high school yearbooks. some stuff from all the dead

ancestors that i haven't relinquished.

sometimes i want to burn them all in dad's chiminea

but i still cling to the past as if that confirms a path

to now.  so i understand hoarding in theory,

but to collect things that have no personal memories?

to buy stock for a purpose and then let it rust/

to say you're going to recycle down to stripping

the plastic jacket from wires, then spend the day

smoking and scrolling weed sites for bargains

because the feds are making this illegal again so 

you gotta stock up with credit you want me to give you/

this kind of hoarding is a sickness

that i can't cure nor really want to live with so

what do?

you aren't going to change. and i don't love this about you

and i don't love being a live in grandparent

and i don't love how everything i say is contradicted, invalidated

or googled. what, exactly, is it that you love about me 
that is not related to sex. and if it's only sex then we are in trouble

cuz you know why. 

it's not that either of us are wrong

and you have changed your outlook

and i have changed my mask

to just ignore the ways you ignore

and decide that we're 

what, 

more than roommates

but less than lovers

we can be friends with occasional

benefits. nah, that sucks

what sucks is how your hands

can still take away my pain

and i can still take away yours

and we don't do that anymore.

because i can't talk to you

because i'm afraid of how you'll respond

and then i'll have to make a decision

and give up on the possible

because you will not 

 

writing into the void

 because the past has become the now

blog lipids cover the internet a glimpse

into a trend that died years ago. go feast

on the past but this is the actual 

now still being documented

because long ago i gave up the dream of writing 

as a living. i don't have the glands for it.

it's too consuming. it takes a lot of energy

away from life. which consists more and more

of simply survival. that's everywhere, i even see

what's left of the middle class awakening.

)(

i watch this dictator 

in disbelief that this country

can not oust him legally

because whatever checks and balances

existed only in the co operation of the operatives.

since the justice dept belongs to the administration

and the military is headed by this abomination

of a leader, there is no legal way to oust him

because who is going to arrest him? THe head of the justice dept?

a lackey. the head of the fbi? a toady. the secretaries of war,

treasury, state? treasonous cowards or treasonous bullies. sometimes

both.  They know what's coming midterms and they're scared.

which means they'll rig the elections again. look for the nazi trillionaire

to get all buddy buddy by march. look at the dollars funneled

to swing districts. voting machines can be manipulated.

they will do it.

can they do enough to save themselves? watch closely.

it's going on at this moment. but my hope is that

people like my co worker and my sister (not her husband

he's lost), although being republican to the core

will just sit midterms out. becuase they don't like what's happening

and the fact they have to justify their support for this 

war mongering,  imperialistic war dog, who has and will

continue to use his military to attack the citizens of this country

is a li'l bit more than they can swallow.

willl he get away with it? who knows? he's gotten away with everything else.

back the future 2 was simply a documentary. biff won.

dammit professor, get back the past and change this timeline.

some people say the simpsons foretold this.

those who don't learn from history et cetera.

it's disapointing but no longer surprising.

yet my mouth is a fly trap 

with every new statement as in

how does he keep getting away with this.

ignore the evidence of your eyes and ears.

i want to scream at his supporters

look out for the snake

but they just see a rope 

with each constriction the snake steals

clarity, hypnotically convincing

the prey that this union 

is what they've been seeking.

look it says

i'm just a rope

with which to hang your enemies.

*

it's easier to rail against the things macro

that i cannot change rather than examine

the things micro that i should be able to

change. like leaving a situation that

seems doomed anyway. 

i love you but i don't like you right now

becuase of the things. 

i don't need to repeat them they 

haven't changed. they won't

unless i do something about them. 

but i can't stand your whining

about them. how that scrap must

be kept how  this one was going 

to be the treasure that etsies

you into comfort. yeesh

you have a year's worth of inventory

to unload. maybe 3. if you didn't have that

permanent ban from ebay you might 

make a living selling it.

but whatever. 

it makes me weary to reiterate

all the ways you disrespect

me and my desires. 

so i guess that means i'm done for the day.

merry xmas to me

 so i got a new mouse and keyboard

light green, raised keys. and already i feel like

i'm writing better because this is the way it's 

supposed to feel. +

i can sit back in my chair with my new

warby parker ninety  five dollah glasses

mid range vision.  oops nope these

are the 250 progressives from 2 years ago

i've bent and sat on so  many times

they really don't fit my face but i'm used to them

they're my driving glasses at night cuz the warbys

blur things at distance, which is fine during the day

but i don't want to hit a car cuz i can't judge distance.

i know this is blech but it's what i'm thinking

as the key makes the words flow and i don't 

think i'm the don with a wonderful 

enchanting best ever story so it's 

not so much ego as wow what ease

what sweet typing heaven i've come into

funny what a new keyboard will do for you

when it's a perfect fit.

now i think i'll go do something else. decorate a tree

buy a gallon of paint maybe go to sleep cuz damn

i'm worn . thanks for the keys!

love language

 mine seems to be 

fixing it. no matter

what the prob, i try to find a way

to fix it. this time i can't fis

four broken ribs and hole in your lung

but i till think i can fix

how you speak to me and treat

my requests. demands. whatever.

i don't like it when you speak to me

like i'm your son. i'm not the one.

you want me to listen to you

"for once in your life". but that's ok

i almost called you my ex's name again.

not to your face, just in reference. the funny thing is

i've been saying the same about you. you don't listen to me.

when did we stop?

it took a lot for me to not just walk out

when you said that, to not break down in tears

which in my case would be letting one escape.

i don't want to be in this space, this interstice of air

and flesh. push harder, get it all out. 

instead some more stuff inside died. a captulation

to so-this-is-how-it's-going-to-be.

i won't do Fred again. i can't. 

"tell me what you hate about me

whatever it is i'm sorry

i know i can be dramatic

everybody said we had it 

made...

sometimes even good things fall apart"

it isn't you, it's me.

i think you were always this way

i didn't notice because i was so beat 

down. years of him saying no one else

would ever want you. and i stayed because

i was young annd weak. but now i'm old

and strong or maybe just tired of bearing

the weight so i prolly have that backwards i was

young and strong enough to endure the pain

but these last days have drained me. the broken arm

for which you take no cupability. 

the 6 month old mess in our yard

the laundry still hanging all week long even tho

you just put it there yesterday. the refusal 

to use your available housing during the pandemic

the neglect by you of  mine

whille yours lives with us.  asking me

to credit fund your latest collecting obsession

cuz i offered to credit fund your car's repair

instead you drive my dead dad's truck 

for the price of half the insurance.

thank you for:

cooking every night

{even though lately i've been getting my own

because frankly i can't wait for to you stop

smoking and relaxing cuz i don't eat all day

and a bowl of frosted mini wheats sounds perfect

right about now}

taking out the garbage faithfully every time.

paying the lot rent.

buying all our addictions.

finding me desirable even 

when i dont' want to be anything like that i want

to embrace my old crotchety self.

last night i stopped at ichekai for dinner

i asked for a bowl of soup and a menu 

to go. took off my glasses to study it

and the gang of guys behind the sushi bar

were jokin with the bald guy "i can't wait

to get old and cranky" and they said it a couple of times

maybe even in reference to me but i dunno

i'm not paranoid that way and i said loudly

noooooo it hurts!

you don't want that, it hurts!

and everybody clapped 

only i dont' know what they must have thought

so later

after i finish my soup and order

and put my glasses back on i look over to the bald guy

and say there! now i can hear again.

i pretend i'm invisible when i take my glasses off

so i tune everything out. 

he tells me about his vision check.

i nod. it's all mixed up 

the day after but i was typically nerdy

being by myself but the reason i 

went in to order at the counter instead of waiting

in the car in the parking lot and ordering online

was to prove to myself that i could 

go out to eat alone.

even though i was taking home

the bulk. also because i sat

at the counter and consumed soup

i left a 20% tip. i feel like

that proves my point. i can do it.

still i'll probably get take out.

****

i gotta pay some medical bills today,'

shrink my retirement fund a li'l more.

((  

*

mornings at 66

 it's quiet here

the fan's soft music soothes

the tinitus, ache in my left hip

transfers to my right hip

a notification from one of the two

phones in my room. curtain

blows softly, the keys strike a slow

beat offbeat, smoke rising from 

the tip of the joint. 

in 5 minutes i will be required 

to gather everything i need for the day

head to work to lose

 what little self is left in labor.

earlier i recalled a scene of an old

woman being escorted by a younger one.

they moved slowly down the sidewalk

the older's hair wafting in the wind

gray and long as a cartoon witch and i

didn't know if i'd seen it in reality on a 

reel. let's not even go into how silly

that moniker is for the short clips 

of mundanity that we now film

with our cameras. it took me

several thoughts to realize 

it was irl. a stateof being

that is becoming more 

integrated with the scroll

daily. at least i don't only

dream of work these days.

last night i dreamed i fixed

the hot water handle with a screw.

this morning, it still requires

attention to completely stop it.

such is the worth of dreams.

personally

 i've got a lot of aches and pains

that do not diminish as time goes by.

tried a cortizone shot for my 16 year old

sciatica. it abated for a couple of weeks but

it's still the same month, and it's ba-ack.

since th out of pocket is met for this year 

what with the whole

 almost dying at the doctor's office

 episode i didn't have to pay but as i understand it

from google reviews the shots are 8-9 hundred

so i wono't be doing that again

they tell me there are other options but hoops

that i have to jump thru before exhausting 

reasons why insurance won't approve at this time

cuz you have you tried plan b or b1.a?

and anyway none of what they have comes with

even a 90 day warranty. if you 

die on the table you were told the risks beforehand.

your heirs can fight over the medical bills.

which begin anew on new years' days.

i want to lay down but i want to type.

not neccesarily to write. type.

fingers to keys. mind slowly drift away 

let the birds tell me their stories in 

a language i can only feel. 

****since i already wroonte today, i was going to pay billswhen 

i sat down,

i just wanna drit away down stairs.

gotta put pandora on.

going to go to the reopening of our formerly favorite 

sushi place that has turned into a buffet. 

the staff is the same so we're going to try it.

i feel like trump must have felt on day 732 

of his campaign to get re elected when 

he ttold a flock of christian voters to

"vote ofr me this one time and

you'll never have to vote again"

and no one

called him on it. like yo

bro, what do you mean by that?

how many ways can there be to explain it?

but he didn't have to. and he knew then

he could stumble onstage , say damn thing that popped

into his heat and people would exclaim, hell ya

that's badass .

so if i were trump, there would be no limits

and i feel like i can say damn thing about life

or gossip or fantasy or delusion

with a straight face and proper line breaks post ironically not caring about left or right hand symmetry just drifing off on a the next.. oh! a shiny new balenciaga

*

or maybe i've always written that way.

it disturbs me that this is essentially what he does

in his onstage ramblines we can call them soliloquies

because i think when he speaks he mainly speaks

tto himsself.

what's most depressing is how much room 

he takes up in my head. 

while i and me and you and you and me

pay his rent.

fuck i hate this shit.

impeachment seems a fools binky.

)()()(((

on another note

the manipulation of timing and matter

with hints from the fighting crows

as you approach the red light, see how

confluence works in the gulls flight behind them

and far behind that, a jet ascends from the airport

contrail behind, or maybe a cloud and

twenty feet ahead is the left turn, the cars that were stopped

begin to move when a tangle of feathers 

with an eye watching you looms two feet beyond 

the glass. it catches itself and heads up before

you can react and the light is green now

so you punch the pedal and go.

the whole drive takes half as long as usual

not because you were missing some time

it's just how you flowed thru the traffic 

a free radical skirting cars trucks and lights

thru some combination of charge and spin.

the miracle happens at anderson and waters

where you always get stopped.

green flashes on 3 miles ahead, no cars around 

and seventy is achieved like an UAP

orb in the night sky . you're through

the light like you  had sat there the entire

two minute and 34 second cycle

and earned this freebie.

i heart aoc

 Harry Truman once said, paraphrased because i can't actually be bothered to look up the exact quote which i saw only moments ago on another device, any politicean who becomes rich is a criminal. 

all the rich pols currently imhabiting DC came to mind, facelessly, unified dems and reps coaslescing into the famous visage of the criminal in chief and thought they're all like that, right/

then i pictured Alexandria. AOC . the people's rep. i have wanted her to be president since she first hit my brain. don't understand why she's still just a rep. except maybe it has something to do with her not accepting massive donations from corporate and other rich donors.

here's a woman, invited to the fashion event of the year where everyone attending is a celeb or rich or somehow in media, and she attends in a white formal with a long train bloodstained with the message writ large across her latina ass "EAT THE RICH".  smiles coyly over her shoulder as she walks up the grand entrance stairs. i don't think she was invited again.

she tours with the other honorable member of the chambers, senator bernie, or BERNIE! as the bros would have it. or would have had it if 2016 had been a fair race. if any of them were a fair race. because it appears that democracy, as some famous greek from way back once stated, is doomed to be ruined by the mob.

our founders recognised this, which is why the franchise was first only given to white, male landowners. once they began to include the rabble, electtions were up for sale. whigs and tories both hired immigrants to vote more than once in more than one election. so the history of voter fraud is written with receipts in many history books. which is why it seems a valid target for reform. however, modern methods of voting  verfication have made the need for outright bribery to be employed (witness musk spending millions in individual checks to voters in whatever state that was ). rather than actual voters making fraud, machines now do the heavy lifting. however, i digress.

i heart aoc because she was on the floor using her time to point out the hidden theivery being to afforded to members of the chamber whilst food stamp receipients can just fucking starve. i heart aoc because she is out there speaking up for universal health care. i heart aoc because she endorses mamdani and his policies. i heart aoc because she is representative of the people and she doesn't forget where she came from,  serving. she sees her position as serving, which is what the moniker "civil servant" means.  her job is to represent the people who elected her and she does it in the best way possible. by remaining among them. 

gmailin

 The Choppers start at dusk. They keep us inside because maybe there's a criminal roaming the streets and the cops chase them through our neighborhood and there's a shootout and maybe being inside isn't such a good idea when you live in a 10 can. We're in the screen room, Lonny and me, smoking the computer weed all legal like. He says "i heard someone at the window last night but i didn't wanna wake you."  

I give him the side eye. "what stopped you ?"

"it went away"

'IT?"

"they"

I think for a second about the "it".  i always get suspicious of Lonny when he doesn;t wake me up. But if he's telling me  then what's to hide? i let it go. wait for the choppers to pass. they're flying low tonight almost drone height, stirring the dolorous tropical air into something akin to a breeze. i really don't have much to say   anyway. Lonny does all the talking.   about work or someone he knows or his kid. his kid. his daughter's kid that is, the one he's raising.

that's why i don't talk. it's a kid. what can you say about it? they're the innocent tragedies in the making, the ones where you see the future but can't change it. oedipus engraved in our genes. so what's to say? mostly i just listen. only jump in when the yelling goes on too long. kids are rough, they make you wanna slap 'em just cuz you ca't get thru to stupidity quicker than that. and blah blah the constant things you have to keep up with along with going to work and making money. the whole thing sucks the second time around when it isn't yours. that's why i wouldn't do it. yet here i sit, caught in it anyway.

* was gonna see if a short story would develop but instead i really need to write this angst i'm feeling so i need to drop the fictional distance at all. no choppers on the porch. truth to power. the power of relationship, of implicit promises, of future. no one knows how much time they have(despite the protests of peacfrogs and other end of worlders who insist it's this coming up month's end. and if so, yay) and when i think of spending the last years of mine slaving to give my daughter a home it makes me feel trapped. but what of love? ithought i could separate myself from the mother role but instead   placed me in the step grand role, and through that i've tried to not be wicked. but i'm selfsih. i am. i want to have something that is ours. his and mine. even if it was second, at least it would be ours. but when our alone time comes, it still centers on the kid. sigh. i mean i don't really care, do u?

so this is what i wanted to say: i feel like we're lost. like we don't have a home in each other's heart anymore. i feel disrespected in so many ways-my requests go unanswered or put off, my demands are delivered in exasperation and fulfilled sullenly because why should i have to demand? i am the one compromising which actually is simple capitulation to inevitalble.

real life examples: the "cleaning" of the shed; the influx of ever more objects into the potato hole;the laundry detente; the last time you mopped the floor or broke out the vacuum and used it yourself. 

and the elephant that really stomped on me: you started a fire. in consequence of that i broke my arm and bent my stent. in consequence of that i used all my personal time for the year and met my out oof pocket maximum in insurance costs.  i lost half my wages for 3.5 months. an entire quarter. the only reason i've not gone broke is because my dad died and left a few bucks. some of which you've borrowed. i ask you to help me pay these bills and you tell me this-and i'm paraphrrasing because you're so pendantic but the gist-- was "you were the one who decided to run  into the room with the fan and run out."

mic drop.

it makes me want to cry. i have a broken heart about it/ i mean it's fine you don't have the money now or you can only give me a few bucks at a time. something like that would be compromisable. but to feel like you have no culpability in the path of my life for the last few months is unconscionable. tthat means you have no conscience. and yet you're wracked with guilt by so  much. always saying sorry for the wrong things and nekver meaning them it when it counts. 

so the kid is innocent. the kid has no part in this part of your actions/thoghts/words. i don't want to hash this out with him in the house. so i wait and i brood and i try to see a way to salvage this while living with a person i am afraid to love.  because to love means to bee advantageous. and some people will take advantage. 

i have blocked your path , wanting to play the little dance strangers in hallways do when about to collide, and end it with a smile and a kiss. you stood stoically speaking of something inconsequential till i let you pass unmolested. 

you come to bed as i'm about to fall asleep, so i leave our bed for mine earlier now. no cuddling for weeks, no sex on a regular basis. it makes me ponder if you're fucking someone else. we both cheated to leave our spouses, would we do it again? i 'm pretty sure i won't cuz i sincerely don't want any more men if you and i were to split.  you are a special kind of selfish breed, you men. i can't even explain except to use phrase fish swimming in sea of privilege. and did i spell that word right? hey, it's 2025, spelling is so last century.

All I want is tobacco and to be pain-free. I'm hoping a week off will do that for me maybe I can muscle through you till the new personal time comes in. And I got to make a decision about insurance the more they push it the less I want to do it. Said the best thing the other day but I can't remember what it was. I guess that's why I tweeting took off. 

Anyway, sitting on the edge of no wind or w h e n depending on the ai's ability to understand poetic manipulation of wording. No win. N o w h e n. It means the same as timelessness. There is no wind when I speak the word. 

I just lit a cigarette but I only have one minute to smoke it. Good little worker bees would be right at the ADP machine but I only acknowledge it as time to get moving inside. Where it's freezing and time creeps like a win when it's winning.