Jocelyn Mosman
Organic MusingsYou say I am really cheesy,
and I ask you, what kind? Am I holy like Swiss, or sharp-witted like Cheddar, or do I grate on your nerves like Mozzarella? You cringe. I laugh. I say you are fruitful, and you ask me, what kind? Are you fresh like a strawberry, or sour like a lemon, or tart like a blueberry? We both laugh, and cringe. You are a blueberry, I say. and I picked you. Your eyes match the night sky, just as it reaches dusk, if I were an artist I would paint your eyes and the sky with blueberries. But you know I’m not. Instead, I write poems, and you decide I am a little more Mozzarella than Swiss. We both fall asleep, laughing. Eulogy for a MuffinIt was a good muffin,
the way it crumbled gently as it touched my moist lips. It knew no other mouth but mine. It was made with care and dedication and love, baked from some kitchen. I don't know who baked it, but I like to pretend it was a big burly man with a beard. Something about this muffin, it tasted like strength, had the consistency of my father's belt, and taught me patience as it melted on my tongue. A beautiful muffin! Its aroma filled the entire room, smelling of sweet pumpkin and spice and all things naughty and nice. It reminded me of Christmas- the one we had at my Grandma's in Pennsylvania after Grandpa died. It was sweet, but had just a hint of salt. I can't be sure if the baker cried when mixing ingredients, if he, too, had felt loss. This muffin left its remains sticky on my fingers like ashes, like play dough, like muffin dough if muffins are made using dough. (I'm not sure, I don't cook.) I wanted to know the man behind this muffin, the great bearded one. I wanted to meet the two cats, calico and black, that crawled up onto the counter, blocking the view of the recipe, and made this man create this muffin literally by scratch. I wanted to know this muffin man, the one who lives on Drury Lane. He created a muffin so insatiable, metaphors won't do it justice. A muffin like that would win poetry slams because it was so poetic when devoured, and the empty plate, licked clean by two cats, calico and black, looked more like a broken heart than a well-loved dish. The plate and me, me and the plate, we tasted the tears of the man behind this muffin. We both knew tonight, there would be no more inspirational muffins to kiss us goodnight. How to Love a Fat GirlShe's beautiful,
and everything I never could have imagined. She’s 23 and drinking whiskey before bedtime. She said her dreams tasted better when she drank. Her hair was dyed a shade of red and brown and black because rainbows are for promises, she said. "God wouldn't lie." She was 200 pounds and curvy. Her waistline was not large enough to hold her heart, but it was too large to fit in a rectangular mirror. She did not care about fitting into mirrors or boxes or bra sizes. She said it felt better when she left her clothes in the drawers and just walked around feeling her skin connect with nature. When I wanted to have sex with her, she asked me, "Screw or make love? There is a difference." She did not turn off the light to get undressed. She's the most beautiful woman I have ever witnessed. Tattoos were strewn across her body like the Sistine Chapel. I'd never seen art look so holy. She took my hand and placed it just above her heart. She told me that it beat a little faster because she might be slightly out of shape. But how can a woman so strong be out of shape? I told her that I loved her shape. She laughed. "Nobody loves a fat girl," she said. "Women like us are supposed to fall in love with people like you." She said. "We are supposed to fall, and we are supposed to stay down." She's the most beautiful woman I have ever met and yet she swore that I did not love her. She swore that I did not see her face turn pale when she stepped onto a scale or in front of a mirror. And that I did not see her hold a knife and a bottle of pills like a lifeline gone wrong. I told her that I know I did not see her pain and I did not see her past. I just saw a beautiful woman. I told her that's all I needed to see to know how to love her. RewindTime turns backwards
every second I'm with you. Seconds with you feel like an eternity. I'll reflect the sunlight in your arms and the moonlight from my bare chest. We use dials to tell the hour, and flowers will blossom in winter and winter will be spring, and my springs will recoil to spend negative time with you. I wish I could remember tomorrow, but yesterday is the only day we have left until we rewind again. My biological clock is an alarm and I have your child and get pregnant and fall in love all over again. The cuckoo cries. The last hour we are together, and the world starts spinning in reverse. I want to be with you until the Big Bang happens. We will turn to darkness instead of light. |
NeurosisI am dark matter, white noise.
I can’t fall asleep in midnight’s unrelenting stillness. The quiet makes everyone and everything outside disappear and I feel alone. I don’t know how to be alone without losing my self. Anxiety sets in like mist. I evade shadows, lose focus as the sun rises and sets. Some days, I can’t keep up. I need to breathe but I can’t. I am trapped on this blue planet, silently spinning through space. The world I was born into was a muted scream made audible in the emergency exit of my mother’s belly. I have made 20 revolutions around a sun I cannot control, a cycling of waves, planets, bicycles, periods, This noisy rhythm is dull against my heartbeat. The compression of blood in and out of ventricles in and out of veins, out of me: like the ocean washing the beach after footprints litter its pristine shoreline; like the final squeeze of catsup before it reaches its sputtering and anticlimactic finish; like you sighing, begging me to stop being so neurotic. Each year, a twister that sweeps me off my feet day after day, but I always find my way home. I don’t know where home is, not anymore, but being here with you seems right. The snow is silent as dots falling from the darkness of the heavens onto spindly trees The world is quiet here, except the wind on the window pane, and you beside me. You hold my hand, our body heat colliding in the darkness and I can’t let go. Fragile WomanOur slit wrists are
severe weather alerts, and we are sounding out unnatural disasters. We bleed until our palms are clasped together dripping our prayers onto cracked canvases. We keep our hearts like angel wings, growing a feather with every heartbreak, and I know women who are flying right now. They bleed out too many days without sunrises keep tally marks on their flesh, wait for their chance to breathe again without having to bite their tongues, and swallow bloody saliva that tastes like their unspoken self-defenses. I know women whose DNA turned against them, created a pallet of brown and grey and emptiness, never satisfied with their shade of pretty. I know women whose hearts are breaking without the metaphor. They are pleading without any god for a new one before theirs erupted in the ER… 2015 has a way of breaking women's hearts, and teenage girls are bleeding out broken futures. I know women who are performing exorcisms on their spirits, hoping that their unholy ghost paints their wings white with every slice of the knife. Fragile women, bodies made beautiful, and self-destructive. We aren’t meant to bleed like martyrs. Don't cast down your faces, look into the places of your body you've never seen. Every hair is a part of your halo, every scar is a rose petal for you to garden with self-love. Fragile women, we are born to be strong, ashes being relit into the fire we started from. Let our bruises become candles guiding our angels with broken wings and misplaced spirits home. I Needa shoulder
with body attached; a heart to beat in sync with mine; the spirituality of skin; joy in flesh and bone and all ten thousand emotions; pain that brings consciousness; that ridiculous smile; your grandiose chuckle; chocolate or your eyes or both; a new wrist unscarred and unscathed; a new throat to speak stolen words; a new spine to support yours like a double helix; a new hand and fingers and strength; guidance like a compass pointing truth; wisdom like a night owl asking “who?”; a life vest; a titanic heart when I'm drowning and there is no land in sight; a lighthouse calling me home; sand between my fingers like time spilling out; the wrinkled shoreline of neck; to be able to say all the words caught in my fishnet of a throat: i love you, goodbye
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