nursery rhymes & jazz

i found out i get a discount at the cheese store we loved, where your friend had her birthday party. & i want to tell you but we haven’t spoken in four years three months & anyway you’re engaged to someone you actually love now & i’m happy for you but i also want to tell you the italian woman we crushed on together at the job we shared had an affair with the vice president & isn’t that sickening? isn’t it funny? silence is always the best answer but the spirit guides are telling me my throat chakra’s blocked cuz all i do is swallow my truths but i can’t bear sharing it with those who don’t understand so much so that i’ve lost it entirely. & the great minimization started with you because you were so gentle & kind, so cloud-like & we know i love cotton candy & i wanted you so i took you & remember when i told you i always get what i want? well that ended with you. i’m not sure i even sleep with desire anymore. & maybe that’s the point of intentions, of what ifs. & people keep sharing that quote from jazz about choice & rising in love but do they even know that’s a fifty year old man talking about a high school child he then shot lifeless? & that at her funeral, his wife slit her already dead face? sorry, i should have given a spoiler alert & i like that quote too, but shouldn’t the context matter more? shouldn’t the darkness, the evil behind the line matter more? i always choose, i always rise in love but maybe i’m just a murderer, out of my element, shooting bullets through connections until they dissolve in my palm & i end up weeping at windowsills for years until i can scrape myself off the floor & choose again to rise in love. next time will be different, i whisper, i promise. but the gap in my resume is what’s needed, what’s right. i cannot rise until the splinters are pulled out, sure, but have i learned yet to not clutch frayed wood so tightly, i ache? i want to be a bird, but i keep everything & everyone in cages with the sheets pulled over & occasionally i slip it back & show you the mirror but it’s only ever my reflection staring back at you. i know, i know, i know. i know who i am but who i am frightens me more than he does, more than the ache does. who i am is the monster i avoid at all costs & hope another monster won’t mention it when he lies beside me. there’s no lesson in the ache, only beauty. there’s no beauty in the ache, only lesson. & i lessen myself til i fade like a dandelion blown on the breeze of a newly formed spring day before the sun has actually won. couldn’t there be more if you just gave in? stood up? wiped the dust from your blouse & opened all the windows in your house? it’s coming, it’s coming. it’s on the precipice like a pornographic movie, like a stampede on a cliff. what’s the difference between flying & falling, sensationally speaking? the questions change but the format remains & i’m going to avoid the answers that come because i don’t want to hear it, i don’t. i know my purpose, but fear shrouds me like my father’s arms every time i fall down & scrape my knee. encompassing. safe, somehow, despite the blood cells knowing there is more to heal. little by little, i encapsulate. little by little, i brick by brick. huff & puff but i can’t let you or anyone else blow this house in again. little pig little pig let me in. but roots grow from my feet now, we all end up back where we begin.