Broken Butterfly Wings.

Lying in dream, hospital bed covered by a shed of broken butterfly wings, the doctor says: you’re pregnant.

Real life me, she knows nothing of swollen belly or hard contractions or broken water.

Push, the doctor orders, pressing cold cloth to my now beaded brow.

The pain, its real life hurt and dream me lets out yelps of an unforgiving uterus.

It’s a push and a push and a push and it’s over. I stand, gown clad and confused, at the end of a long corridor, hospital fluorescents flickering dream confusion.

Deflated belly, the pang of empty stomach, I ask for the baby.

Baby? the doctor asks. Why, there’s no baby.  

Hands on soft flesh, I feel tight skin that’s never stretched.

But the pain? I ask.

You’ve been eating broken butterfly wings again, the doctor says. Stern brow, steel rimmed glasses, pocked nose, pinched mouth.

We’ve told you, they aren’t good for you.

I nod, I know.

They’ll be gone soon enough, glint of knife a broken sparkle of light.

xoxo,

M.L. H’art

Wahton.

Waiting.

in line, too long, impatiently.

Wait for.

your turn, the weekend, it.

Wait until.

The Call.

Hello, she says, hello how are you feeling? Have you been well? Sorry for the wait.

The wait: stationary readiness and the hold of expectation; a pause – please catch up! Be available, attentive and attending – be ready to realize the unrealized.

The result?

Inconclusive, she says. The results, she says, well, they aren’t enough.

You see, the cells, the ones scraped out of you, are diluted. All wet with fluid and inconclusive. It’s likely, she says, it’s nothing. No need to worry, really. But it’s always best. Best to get a second opinion.

Second opinion, differing point of view – an alternative solution.

Surgery, she says. It’s a possible solution.

Steady handwork, manual extraction, the deep sleep before the slice.

The excision, she says. It will be an excision.

Excision. Resection. Exorcism. Exorcismus.

Out, out foul spirit.

Swapping letters, Catholic school girl habits reaching for the rosary. Please god…

So, she says, we’ll see you again in just a few weeks time. Till then, just relax and…

…wait.

xoxo

M.L. H’art

Phasmotor

Driving the highway late at night, I collect souls.

Pushed between the crevice of rock and hard drop, I find Felicia: whitewashed wooden stakes bound with weather-beaten fabric flowers, a cross bearing the moment she steered astray, drunk eyes guiding bald-smooth wheels of the sienna-rusted Taurus right into the mountain wall, brains and best intentions sprayed across mother nature’s back step.

Atop the bridge ledge, Sam: a photocopied picture of cracked smile stretched across nicotine yellowed teeth, eyes dull, blurred colors ruined by rain – an ode to the last time he jumped, free fall open sprawl, toward the river rush of rocks.

Cassidy, a wilting blue teddy bear tied to the stop sign with peeling yellow twine on the highway one junction straight out of Hell’s Gate, her two year old body a rock through the windshield, papa asleep at the wheel but still alive to, each year and on the same day, strap another bear to the same sign to mark another missed birthday cake.

Rick, withered and sad – his mouth prune wrinkled, eyes crow-scratched – the catalyst of a four car pileup disguised as a picket sign shoved into soft shoulder ground, his name carefully stencilled in his wife’s perfect scrawl, reminding motorists of future tense to please drive carefully, to please keep hands on the wheel at ten and two, not up the skirt of the late-night mistress who’s name the wife never knew.

George, the overnight freight runner whose ticking-time log book kept beat to a depleting savings account when, assets seized and family starved, his addiction to the red-blue-green glow of video lottery terminals became the last push he needed to send all 18 wheels over the canyon lip, his great descent a scrambled attempt to right too many wrongs – the only show of his sad life a bent guard rail, the broken headlight glass a monotonous prism catching moonlight.

Felicia and Sam and Cassidy and Rick and George and me, we drive all night. We wave to other souls hitching the long length of the one, the five, the two, the 97, the long trip home when, tucked beneath sheets thick with sleep, my own soul sighs and says: here, for another day.

xoxo,
M.L. H’art

Eleven Syllable Escape.

Passing you by – your feet sinking deep into downtown pavement, eyes fixed to shell toed shoes counting careful steps – I barely recognize you.

Thin hair drops in limp lines from scalp to shoulder, spreading greys steal strawberry shine from lengthy locks, locks which used to compete with the sun. Your mouth is exploited by sad lines, deep imprinted tears in sallow skin dyed the color of nicotine. Matte mouse eyes skitter about tired lids, the whites yellow, the yellow fissured with splinters of bloodshot stress.

You’ve widened since I saw you last, hips a spill of squishy surplus, button and jeans fighting to stay together.

Turning, wizened fingers wrapped in paper thin skin reaching for my shoulder, your mouth a cracked red raw O, you say: hullo, girl. How’s your pretty life?

A sideswept chasse and I miss your grip, my hesitant smile a defensive apology for your attempted touch.

Again, you say: how’s your pretty life?

I scrunch my eyes, look you over, try to find the you I knew way back when you used to smile and shine, your packaging still smooth and store-front sexy, your laugh like rushing water, gurgling, bubbling.

Good, happy: I say.

Fidgeting hands smooth a hand-knit tunic over threadbare jeans as you chuckle, the sound of desperation like wheezing sand paper. Yeah, you say. Me too.

You flick a fired butt, the ember grazing paper skin – a quick ignition close to setting you aflame, your widened rack a torch.

Awkward pause, a beat too long, and I think of all the things I’d like to say:

Remember when we sat up all night and laughed until the moonlight cracked to let the dawn in?

Remember sitting on the kitchen floor in the first apartment we shared, eating spaghetti off one green cracked plate, red sauce splashing linoleum only we were in charge of cleaning?

Remember the friends, the drinks, the parties, the fun, the fun, the fun – the fun that poured so easily out of you, the unstoppable, beautiful fun?

Standing, your shoulders a horse shoe slump, I cannot find the you I knew way back when; the hardened turtle shell is hiding the you who used to be and so I don’t say the things I’d like, but instead say:

Great. Okay, then. Was nice to see you. Take care!

Faux enthusiasm, an eleven syllable escape and you’re gone from my memory again.

xoxo

M.L. H’art

Dressed up in Awkward.

Held together by safety pins, I secure straps of an ill-fitting shirt to that ratty old bra I promised you I’d retire but kept because it goes so well under everything I own, regardless of the underwire protruding white satin, marking indents on soft tit flesh.

I fidget in a room full of strangers, tugging at fabric which doesn’t breathe in summer heat but instead traps sweat, pooling beads of insecurity at the small of back, bleeding through fabric shrink-wrapped to that unseemly swatch of small hairs collected at the nape of spine, a bunny tail.

Shoes, weather-worn faux-leather, stick to swollen pads trapped in pools of stench I’ll apologize to the cat for later when, at home and alone, I slip off the smell and wash toes outlined in sticky dark dirt under bathroom taps which drip-drap into the chipped porcelain sink I neglected to rinse the last time I perched on the edge of the bathroom counter, feet sunk deep.

Bumping the shoulders of these strangers, I order another drink and, with a mighty gulp, shush the rush running laps round my brain as I strategically balance the energy of a room off-kilter. I check my cell again and again and again to look real important, phone face casting eerie blue glow on heat-flushed cheeks, a trick of light making my face look less cordial, more gelid.

Like a lost puzzle piece, I can’t find a fit: shirt too sloppy, shoes too tight, gaze too long, laugh too loud.

Dressed up in awkward, I finger the hole in my back jeans pocket and pray it won’t rip wide to show the sheath of bubble gum pink panties, a little girl playing dress up in mom’s clothes, hiding the stuff of childhood under layers of makeup and lace.

We exchange pleasantries: the rehearsed social motions of hullos and well-thank-you’s and you-know-the-usual’s. You pretend you care because you caught my eye: an obligation to the too long stare when, after you looked away, you realized there was no one standing beside you to goad into conversation and so, without a runaway lane, you’re forced to suffer through the robotic dance: left hand motion hair swipe, right cheek lift half smile, gaze down 4, 3, 2, 1, and up, maintain eye contact, break left, side step right foot, indicate exit, half hug (right arm over left shoulder), two pat reassurance, turn, turn, turn and…cut.

I repeat this dance with 12 other partners – the motions more fluidal the darker it gets – when, after having shed the last of the reserve energy, I nod in your general direction, bid my leave and think what a relief it is to swallow the starry night on the long journey home and not ever have to tell you how discomfited it really was to see you that way.

xoxo

M.L. H’art

Blue.

Stall 54, a slight space with grey walls and a heavy door.

“Take off everything but your underpanties,” her voice thick with accent.

I let the word “underpanties” bounce around my brain as the big door falls closed.

In the too small cattle stall, I change out of street clothes and fumble a heavy blue gown over goosebumped skin. The lady, she yells: “stay there till I come get you, k?”

“Okay,” I whisper.

I can hear the shuffling of other women, pent up, pawing the ground.

52 recites a hymn, half word, half hum as she rips the gown Velcro apart over and over again, the crick of hooks and loops keeping beat to the performance staged by 47 and her small son as they sing Old MacDonald’s Farm, the child’s voice an e-i-e-i-o echo of farm animals speaking Portuguese. 55 mumbles to herself, drops her purse, classic girl spill, tampons and lipstick and pens with chewed lids scattering the floor: “motherfuckinshit,” she huffs.

The personality of these numbers a show of feet on display in the one foot window between the door and the floor; I stare at poignant pumps and fraying flip flops and smart sneakers; I paint pictures of these women in my mind: coiffed backcombed ‘do, peasant skirt, pleated pantsuit, desperate ladder climbing, school-test-frenzy, long road retirement.

“54? 54!” her gravelled voice worn with use, camouflaging a slight lisp: “follow me, please.”

Downtrodden patients awkwardly fidgeting matching blue gowns, embarrassed by the bare ass underneath, line the walls. No one makes eye contact.

In the room, I’m told to lay down, lay still, don’t breath, look left, now right.

On the screen, my insides in auric light: dancing violet, indigo, blue and green, a sway of yellow, orange, red; a rainbow reveal of creativity, awareness, intuition, health, love, wisdom, happiness, courage; my being in parts: the brain, the brow, the throat, the heart, the stomach, the ovaries, the adrenal glands.

Blue, so much blue.

“Stay here,” the door a whoosh-shick behind her.

Under low lights, I stare at the tiled roof wondering how the sallow stain managed its way, way up there, when the doctor walks in.

He pauses thoughtfully before the imaging screen and nods his head, pulls a clenched fist up under his chin, removes his glasses and slides his open-pore-pocked nose closer and closer until he says: “Hm, why yes. Right, I see.”

He walks back out. Whoosh-shick.

She looks at me and grins: “let’s do it again!” repeating the board game dice roll that didn’t get her to the desired square offering the jackpot win.

This time, black and white, a scroll of larynx and lymphnodes and esophagus. On the screen: white, white, grey, white and then black, black, black – a big black void. A hole.

“Aha.”

A blip-bloop press of sonar machine buttons.

“K, you go now. You’ll know results in five to seven business days,” she says ushering me back out into the herd.

xoxo

M. L. H’art

Ba-Thump.

Lying in the valley of this saggy old mattress, my ear stuck to smooth quilted slip cover, I hear your heart beat: a ba-thump rhythm rising up through coils and foam. Listening to your heart mark the two-four meter twitch of eyes desperate to close, I trip the waking wire of semi-conscience and drop somewhere between awake and asleep, somewhere between touching you and only remembering the way you feel.

Your prosodic night song makes me miss you most when the moon is cloud covered and I can’t sleep. There was a time when I could sleep beside you, when life was easy, when life was good. But the older I get, the harder it is to measure the weight of your heart against the feather Ma’at; the tools I use to dig the truth out of the gut of the late night grow dull and the dirt caked skin holding sinewy hands together begins to crack and bleed all over my bedclothes.

Morning comes faster and faster – a ultra-violet blur of tomorrow’s stolen from today – and though I try to keep time with your quickly fading pulse, the sunlight washes the sound away, syncopated counts an unraveling tempo turned off till it’s just me and the silence, sitting back to back, awkward and shy.

xoxo

M.L. H’art

Again.

I wake up in last night’s clothes, sticky with sleep, on the living room floor again; staring at the stained stucco roof of the old building where I’ve planted my urban life roots, I feel that familiar pang of regret start to turn my tummy, a tumble dry cycle of jumbled emotions slicked with the hangover grease of one glass too many.

The early morning sun streaks the tasks of another workaday week across the wall – an hour and I’m late again; a grumble escaping cracked lips, I drag my wrinkled jeans, my addict genes, down the hall to the bathroom stall and wash away last night, astringently cold water making make-up heavy eyes sting black tears.

Stepping out of last night’s tired clothes, I pull up today’s panties, pink with shame, but forget to change my socks again; a quick glance in the mirror and my habits are an obvious expression: red nose, bagged eyes, ruddy cheeks, creased forehead.

Checking my wallet waiting in line for a dose of wake-me-up, I count the cash left over and am thankful I didn’t spend it all again; fumbling with the creamer and the sugar and the headache, I nearly miss the bus and spill medium roast all over the hand I forgot to wash the bar stamp off of before leaving the house.

Licking ink and coffee off the backhanded skin that slapped me with the realization I’m too old for this shit, I plough into a blue shaded bus seat and catch the reflection of a little girl growing the worn lines of absent memory and feel that old familiar sting sneak up the length of my oesophagus again; bitter bile biting at my throat, I choke it back and close heavy eyes and silently count the stops until I arrive at work – just on time, but not all there.

The click-clack of a life wasted on an ergonomically adjustable keyboard sets the tempo of a day behind the desk again; the formulaic process divided into billable hours when, at the end of the day, I go home, hit the bottle back and start all over – again.

xoxo,

M.L. H’art

In Somnolent.

Holding sleep in the palm of my hand, I pull closed tired joints, each knuckle choking one more hour.

A hint of night light paints dancing wolves on white walls – the snarling silhouetted pack surging forward, pulling back: a sympatric shimmy, tree leaves making me believe I’m being hunted.

A sway in starlight and the man enters my room. He’s been here before, the stench of his dark trench coat a familiarly sticky scent of dank earth and rusted blood and dried skin.

The shadow bird perched on the closet door quavers: he has a knife, little girl. Be careful, little girl.

Heart knocking ribs, crouching under covers, arms clamped to wobbly knees, eyes pressed closed, sharp blows of breath heave heavy lungs – puffing away shadow puppets playing amygdala tricks.

A negotiation between conscience and imagination, the wolves retreat and the bird stops singing but the man, the man draws his blade. Refulgent metal catching moonlight, his silver sharp tongue licks slick shank.

On theatre walls of bedroom late, drips of backlit blood run a slippery wash over white paint, soak into threaded carpet, rise past dusted baseboards, spill over well-worn chair covers, splash into dresser drawers ajar, creep to the edge of the bed and, lapping at bare phobic toes curled, stain sheets, a blossoming claret bloom spreading over pillow shams, dying nightgown hem.

It’s been days since I last slept.

xoxo,

M.L. H’art

59.

Heaving coo, a woman moaning, stout body writhing – the sound, a disjointed image of sleep. Coming to, shading sun from crusted eyes, it is morning. The woman momentarily falls quiet and I am left looking round the room for evidence of her, her ghost gone.

The cracked window spilling fresh spring air is a speaker box clue: blaring her purr, distorting the ruffle of her clothing flapped loose.

Standing at the sill, I stare out onto the balcony but cannot find her in the filter of early morning light. A dream figment, faded.

About to turn from my windowed reflection, I see her scuttling, her fat body edging the old apartment brick.

Dressed in moulted blue-grey finery, her nose a cere of soft fleshy swelling, she collects the flimsy night sticks and dusty day old trash blown over the parking lot concrete. Holding them carefully in her mouth, she is greedy.

The descendent of the great figments of war and peace, she is not the product of her genes: she cannot race, she cannot carry; she is not a messenger nor a passenger; she won’t detect nor save.

Her great, great grandfather puffed up his chest, a cog integral to the machinery of the 72 lofts of the Battle of Marne; the grandfather before him, a peaceful conciliator delivering olive branch signals of landlocked safety following the flood.

A forgotten shame of her lineage, she floats from dumpster to dumpster, her next meal an a la carte menu of half-wrapped three-day stale burgers and rotting tin can residue pecked out of kitchen catchers. Her waste, the trace she leaves behind, has the acidic corrosiveness capable of eroding metal, eating stone. She is dirty, she is sad: she is the didus ineptus of downtown.

A superstitious lady, she makes the same rounds each day, bobbing her head up, down, up, down asking passersby to take pity, to throw her just a crumb, not realizing superstition is only the repetition of an action with no influence over desired outcome.

Pipio! I call over the balcony. Pausing, she looks up, cocks her head left, then right. On the breath of the wind, she escapes down the alleyway in flight to haunt another ornithophobic.

xoxo

M.L. H’art