The Noresoup Jukebox

Misty May, busiest bee yet,  quickest to pick up a sorry call wish you could see Vietnam though you might prefer other company I would've liked yours cried in the corner of my hotel balcony  hanoi golden holiday  old quarter  golden is your voice  holiday is the silence as i sob you allowing me to thanking me for calling you up it is still true that you are perhaps  the only man I'll ever love what does it matter without  good company  french quarter and the bustling night market pho on the street side  banh mi for breakfast  and all the coffee this world will ever need you tell me to hold on just one more tough day and then easy will come the rest November so tender finding me at my roughest sincerely sincerely with sniffles and awful allergies sobbing girl poet; sobbiest of the century

 when i was 5 needed a rundown of alphabets, shapes, and things mother  who always made me cry passing me on to father  problem child now at 55 mother who needs same patience love and affection  mothering i never learnt  now what you require  all lost on me how to be something  you've never met or known now weak and old demanding for mother who is softer  not strong and blank but this is all the mother i know

when has writing ever been enough? this sorry thorn on my side, not knowing just never knowing whether it is better to let it bleed or let it poke and all the shame returned to me on a beautiful autumn night when everything had been going so right. when else does it all go so wrong? i suppose now is a good time. why was i stubborn as a child? why couldn't i  leave this rhyming behind? for more honourable things and far more admirable gifts is it true that my fate lies in what my beauty brings? oh mother! the very little that i can do and vanity does not make up for the things my untrained hands cannot do. and was it a crime to read so much? or find so much solace in writing. curse the pen and the hand that holds it; for making me nothing but  a very sorry girl poet.

oh lover, patient keeper of all my woes when was it that i decided that i wouldn't mind keeping you close. sorry for the debacle at your front door who knew girl with fiery head would end up soft and silent purring in your warm bed. and well, sorry to have you keep up with all this performance. girl who seems confident overt with her self-assurance covert with her desire to believe all that she says and more and to receive the kind of love she has in store. who am i to make you treasure hunter, no map or compass  fight through the thick weeds of uncertainty; sharpening love into a machete. and who's to say  the treasure is worth all the wounding, bruising and bleeding. well, no matter may your wounded hands find me exploring still,  and then the nursing later. and if the wounds cannot heal may it be enough to have  witty company or that your hands have something to hold red locks, tender arms, or something more.

awkward demeanor  let the clouds roll by as i try to imitate their grace fleeting softly, and then crowding just in time, to bring soft rains and when the light hits, just so very right, may colours cascade all those pretty hues and may my mouth learn their ease when it comes time to speak or confess sorry "i love you's" and if the sky is blue and meant to be clear for a sunny day may i learn to be recluse, but not in horror or embarrassment  may i learn to rest with the clouds wherever they go when the skies tire of their fluffy clutter 

and so i sewed up two pairs of pants so they no longer sweep the floor and bid adieu to house for two weeks oh mother who seldom loves me and the seasons changed while i was gone skies that no longer burst into tears and the garden aubergines all wilted like the person who left that week terrace now full of past; family who hoards and house painted a different colour and if i was meek then, i am no longer  cardboard heart that hardens to steel i wonder why i left for the green fields when i had found contentment in the hills bored was i? of the many i had and yet, the very little it had healed and when i came home, dog loved me more and house seemed to glow a prettier hue i suppose distance is another thing precondition to loving me and returning just before the heart grows cold