Tear Duct Anatomy

Other blog: @museofterpischore

[tearductanatomy]

Reflections

I am sitting at the precipice of all things. Witnessing. The haunt of future and come-again past disallow the beauty of this moment.

I am, now, and someday will have been — just photons pouring through pinholes making pretty, pretty pictures. 

What will become of us, in dissolution? Of words and meaning? 

The roaring silence of our absence playing on for none to hear.

Will it have mattered? All the strife and hurt and kill?

We are just monuments in ruin, crashing waves upon the sea

-h.s.

[tearductanatomy]

A quiet kind of anger

I pray you never bear

these wicked burdens of forgiveness

injured first by others' choices

and again by memories

Enduring once, the father leaving

causeless strikes, and broken spine

Enduring twice, the silent grieving

endless work and redesign

I pray the ones you love

never need your absolution

and that strangers never leave you

with a hurt you can't repair

-h.s.

[tearductanatomy]

Growing pains

Creak, the intercostals,

ribs shift like big plates on early sea

and feel the pain of change.

Inhale the dust

plumed by chapter's close—

nostalgia smells of chicory and rose

and dark earth after rain.

Transmute, again

hard form to soft line

and embody now

this age of quietude.

—h.s.

[tearductanatomy]

To my valentine:

I cannot write you like the sadness of before—

I have no angst.

I have no anger.

I have nothing left to wish on shooting stars.

I cannot write you—

I am happy.

-h.s.

[tearductanatomy]

Older

The days turn, and I stay frozen, hoping Time will grant perpetuity. Creases solidify--the squint of sun and raised brow, the deep laughter and crinkle of happy eyes. I long for ease in the midst of survival, weightless shoulders and revival. A quarter-century, eaten. Digesting is hard with no moral fiber…

[tearductanatomy]

The Undoing

I cannot stop the undoing

the dream-pursuing and failure

the unraveling of myself from its core

the pondering of everything more 

In a world so ancient it’s new,

I inhabit a woman who

cannot fly, cannot teach

cannot reach, but can certainly cry

I sing-say, “It’s only temporary”

a closing chapter, a hero’s journey,

but this mountain is slick-steep 

and I have no oxygen to summit

The breaths I take pass through me,

barely feeding this gasping body

grasping hardly to identity:

I am a young woman on a rainy stoop in London,

a young girl counting strikes before thunder

I pin my old pelt like the prey of a shrike

Admire and attempt to move forward

but remnants gnaw and beg for return,

and the space I left begs to stop growing

I’m wild-weary of not knowing

the future, the long past

Of not knowing a single thing more than the last…

but what is there to know, really?

A wise con-man once told me,

”The world is your stage, and this is your show,”

but I never wished for watching eyes

or turned heads hoping for a fall

I’m one straw from capacity and can’t carry it all

I can barely lift my head

Let alone the albatross

Let alone these broken wings

I want to exhale and free butterflies

New lives from dead versions of me

Recompense for the dreams I let waste away 

Trades for the memories I buried, still screaming

I want to be a butterfly 

catch wind through glittering scales,

be impaled by a hungry beak,

cycled through to return again 

Because I cannot stop the undoing,

and when I am nothing,

I will rebuild in the buzzing darkness 

become greater than sadness

and learn to fly with outstretched arms

-h.s.

[tearductanatomy]

Vikings

I have known the warm comfort of silk and down, but the dead leaves rustle their call. The red moon is rising; I cannot stay still. 

I am a gazelle, running. I am a beast, chasing. I am the sum of generations, of blood and dominion, of servitude and jest, of song and dance. 

Touch my naked back and know: I am a flightless bird, but still, I fly. No cage can contain a soul transcendent, no band can hold these restless feet. 

In the night, I leave you. In dreams, I am someone else. My body stays where you hold me, but I am high above rumbling clouds searching for heaven. 

—h.s.

[tearductanatomy]

To Keep This Love

I thought the pain had gone from me. I thought my hard flesh had softened like a sweet Florida orange. It lingers, though. Hidden in once-broken bones. Parts of me calcified; some stayed torn.

I cannot rectify her good and evil, so my mind forgets the latter. “I love you, sweetie, I don’t want to fight,” she croons in her wicked honeysuckle tone. What about the crescent moon marks on my arm, freshly bleeding? I do not remember the reason. I can hardly remember the pain.  

“You’re crazy,” she exclaims in a Tasmanian screech. The pot calls the kettle black. The kettle boils over. “No, you’re crazy,” I rebut. “You’re just like your father,” she jabs, knowing where to hurt me. Words devolve into action. I cannot defend myself. The hippo rolls over and takes the beating.

Nothing’s ever easy. “Me, my, mine!” she yells from the center of the universe. Even Narcissus would be appalled. Still, after everything, I feel guilty.

I’ve cried my face into hives one too many times. Why should I try to keep this love? It is tainted with deep memories of dark corners and fear. Is it worth it to love her? Is it worth it to care?

—h.s.

[tearductanatomy]

Hot Toddy Dreams

Tuesday. Hot Toddy. Frogs.

Far away, a war rages, and sunflowers grow.

Here, I grow sunflowers and wage war with myself.

Dreams, dreams. Funny things wiggling in my brain. So many to choose, too many to chase.

I am running, but in which direction? Away or towards, I do not know. My legs are tired, though.

-h.s.

[tearductanatomy]

Mentha

If I could bottle your laughter

crisp as an apple

fresh as mentha sliding down—

Your wonderful sound is infections, erotic

hardy, melodic

and beautifully round

h.s.

[tearductanatomy]

All that I Am

All that I am, extending

consciousness pretending to take shape

straining to maintain itself—

The balance is fine and nearly tipping

a dam dangerously close to spilling infinity into the world of form

incapable of knowing more than the bounds of perception imposed by a body well-worn

These atoms assembled will someday return to disorder

and all that I am will be shifted, restrictions lifted and consciousness freed

returned to the ultimate sea of existence 

waiting to take shape once more

h.s

[tearductanatomy]

Always close, but never you

Branded neurons,

these lines I used to trace you 

refuse to fade away, 

refuse to be replaced

Small reflections in a sense:

a book or empty train car,

hospital lights and sycamore

full lips and stoic principle

Fond memories are burned

into pathways in my brain

and I cannot erase them

until you fade away 

h.s.

[tearductanatomy]

Hopelessly hopeless

Give me love to stop the yearning

give me growing old and learning 

every line on aging bodies 

trading words and silly hobbies

Give me kids so we can show them

how to dance just like their parents

in some California kitchen

or an East Coast beach addition 

Give me time so we can make up

all the years we spent and wasted

on the ones we thought would last us

but were really just distractions

Give me love and I will give you

everything I’ve ever been through 

I have healed and I am stronger

and I can’t wait a second longer

-h.s.

[tearductanatomy]

October

Wildflowers in the snow,

the pain long-held has been let go

As Fall begins and Summer wanes,

my wounds have healed and I am changed

-h.s.

[tearductanatomy]

Prednisone

Lucid, in this rare moment, my thoughts align

like the summer stars and their arbitrary meaning

I feel my deepest machinery dividing 

I am dying small deaths and diving

head first into the ground for the first time in years,

I can finally taste reality on the back of my tongue 

from a little red pill in my belly, bubbling,

opening my eyes and chambers rusted shut,

breaking the dams that hold memories

and ideas of people I thought I loved 

but I can see everything so clearly

I loved my version of a boy so dearly

that I forgot he exists somewhere

with another girl and a beautiful life—

This little red pill is a 1 a.m. reminder 

that I want a beautiful life too

and I should heal so I can find it

-h.s

[tearductanatomy]

Peace

Clenching the doves,

I release the white

I surrender and shed 

unraveled dreams;

I am featherless, 

fatherless, 

and crying,

but somehow, 

I still fly

-h.s.

[tearductanatomy]

Retrospect

Wavering in an alcove of time,

we sit and sleep on old green couches

share words and watch each other grow

kiss on cheeks and pretend this is forever

watch trains leave the station at ashy dusk...

You exist in another place, now,

and you sleep in a bed that you bought with big boy money

and you sleep with a girl who loves herself too much 

and I sleep with strangers in cold houses

and we talk every once in a while

but we’re still wavering in an alcove of time

somewhere in a moldy house 

in the grey garden under spitting clouds

dancing in the kitchen with the lights off

falling in love but I don’t know it yet

In haunting retrospect,

I see it all 

and this heartbreak is knowing

we can never return.

-h.s.