For some reason, each time I get more and more scared

So we were flying over the Himalayas. I was urged to look out the window at the vast expanse of white and rock. Only the cabin was filled with a deafening screeching noise, air rushing in around the exit door. "Is everything okay?" I tentatively asked the stewardess, not too sure I wanted the answer. "Abnormal, but fine," she reassured. Before we'd left, he'd reminded us to remember this was all a dream. Still, visions of the door flying off into the clouds, bodies sucked into the air spinning as though in dance, filled my head. Bodies breaking upon white and rock. There was no comfort.

The Dough Baby in a Box

Like that incomprehensible—
mind.

They say the mind is not obscured to itself. But for me, it’s like blowing out a candle from afar, the flame oh so tiny—only to pop up, big and bright as ever.

And I say
I don’t know, I’m not sure…

until

you would swoop over,
whisk, wind me through trees

until we were days away
till flesh under nails. bruised.
until. someone with slanted eyes. and you.

until I no longer needed you?

Revisions

I keep revising a poem I posted here last Thursday (Notes on There's a Cricket in the Wardobe), because at first it had seemed okay, but now, each day it seems worse and worse...and so it becomes shorter and shorter. maybe by the end of the week it will be entirely gone!okay, i think i'm finally done with it. I'm left with just three sentences and a new title.it is posted below in it's new incarnation. I've deleted the old one.

You Could Always Be Counted On To Tell Me When I Was A Hypocrite

there’s the real, and the not real.

"tomorrow?”

and yes, but no.

Can't Find the Edges

thin skin, like the see-through shell of a tiny snail.
later still, something uncoiled inside—i’m splayed.
not like a small bird hiding in long grass.

the deer crash through the forest. i hear them blowing air through their noses—hidden behind bushes. the doe chomps field grass, cocks her head to listen, prances before us.

and it is raining. and it is pouring. it is cool in the forest. sometimes the rain drips. he says we have all lost our minds a long time ago.

and who will eat the meat off my bone? it’s an overcast day, and my overcast mind.

Revision/There's A Cricket in the Wardrobe

We were on the bleachers in the gym—it was some pep rally. You had hair like my boyfriend. Long on one side, only more brown than black, brown eyes. I smiled. Now with a baby, a wife? In my dream, you called her, “my lover.” How bohemian. So we were on the bleachers. I looked up at you. And then?

Then we were at lunch and you ate my crusts. Didn’t you? You used to get so mad. Ignore me for a while. Sometimes we’d drive in your tiny car. You were concerned for my innocence.

In your pictures you look the same. Only there’s a little girl in your arms. When I had a headache, you’d put your hands on my head, pretend to draw it out of me. Right? And usually, everything under wraps. In my dream, you held a phone to my ear, I heard your tiny daughter calling you daddy.

Someone once told me you were a little ball of string I just wanted to unwind to see what was inside. She said when I finally got there, there might be nothing. We’d walk, your arm 'round my waist, hand on hip. When I gave you the pictures my dad took of us, you said, “Oh, were you trying to look sexy?” Sometimes, you’d turn away. That campout, again, you were mad. Still, there was breakfast.

Years later, you picked me up at the train, in the rain. Then, once again, you wanted nothing to do with me. One christmas eve, we met at the longhorn, one time we went snowboarding. You slept at my house on the couch downstairs, got a little mad cause I read the map wrong. One 4th of july you picked me up at the airport. My plane was late. Later, you came to stay, used the payphone across the street to call your girlfriend, slept on the floor, left early, came home late at night. I barely saw you that month. But one night, I layed by your side on the futon. We finally spoke. That was all. You left. I stayed, went to asia, went looking for you at your work--five years later. You called me that night, told me you’d fallen in love.

Now, it’s been five years again. In the meantime, I’ve gotten married, another useless degree. And you, you’ve fallen in love, had a baby. Your talent exploded.

You used to say you just didn’t know how to handle me.