ME WITHOUT ME IS MY LOVER
who is me // my lover // who am I // a moment // my lover that I love // that I think I know but I can’t know // who rides by and looks back // and keeps going // and looks back at me // my lover // obscure // who touched me // who goes on // who looks back // who can’t stay // who is gone // who looks back // is back // once tried // backs into me // looks forward to me // my lover who is still gone // my lover that I think I know but can’t know rides by and looks forwards and backwards but never quite at me // they love me but never when they’re beside me // only when they’re in front of me // only when they’re behind me // who is my lover // but someone who hides // someone who rides by and looks back while I stand still // so still // who am I // almost dead // so unloved // stiff with unlove // stiff from being watched // stiff from abandonment // stiff from being ridden // stiff and still // who am I // who am I // I am a dead ride // ridden until unwritten // who am I // good riddance.
GUIDED MEDITATION FOR THE WOMAN YOU COULD NOT LOVE
// a hot air balloon floats by her window // it is empty //
It wants to adventure, says the voice.
// the window next to her bed where you called her name during sex // orange
striped fabric // an empty wheat colored woven basket //
It is not real, says the voice, but it seems very real.
// she wonders if she had known from the start //
would she have kept on going? //
Wherever the balloon goes, says the voice, it’s a very safe and enjoyable time.
// she is thinking about pain //
Climb in and know if the balloon ever soars too high or too fast there are a number of controls that allow steering the balloon.
// relationships are not like this she thinks // but climbs in the basket anyway // per the meditation she’s now breaking off chunks of clouds // eats and sniffs // bites into clouds //
the taste sweet and mild //
Become curious to experience and learn about the world you’re floating away from, says the voice.
// as the world she lives in slips farther away from her // it’s possible her wonderment will reawaken // her sense of adventure // her desire to continue // to experience things // could come back threefold //
The farther away, the more strain to look for what is loved and recognized, says the voice.
// she thinks about distance // is recognition possible from that far away? // is love possible from that far away? // or was everything just representations // shapes of what she thought she knew //
Go back down to earth now and float over a zoo to see some favorite animals, says the voice.
// she turns the voice off // looking up into the sky // no straining to see below // recognizing nothing // clouds and the blue and beyond // she thinks she will find a new emotion up here // one she hasn’t felt before // not quite pleasure and not quite pain // no extremes // an experience waiting for her that she has not had yet // at least // this is what she imagines // floating into a new space that is opening for her // where the heartache and pain of what’s familiar does not follow // where you do not follow // where the hospital does not follow // she feels safest imagining things that aren’t real // true love // a world without bodily // emotional pain // she is trying to come to terms that she must live in reality // but for now she is floating through dark blue slits in the sky // she’s not going back down // she’s on her own // a kind of backward birth where being unwanted cannot follow //
IN WEDLOCK TRIPTYCH
I two-step down the aisle // alone // to no music //ceremony at an amusement park// I don’t say // I do // but people clap like I do // I fill with regret as guests banquet // we ride rollercoasters // an omen // the vicissitudes of coupling // one roller coaster goes backward // I wonder // does it symbolize erasing the wedding? // at dark // we sit at a drive-in theater // in the park watching black & white milk commercials // dancing cartoon cartons & straws // wink // blink // I look up at the stars & think// this is awful but if we have a kid at least they’ll be smart // the groom is smart // a reason to like him without passion // love // the groom // turns to say // if you think about it we only // have to spend 15 // hours a day together & we’ll be asleep // for 10 of those // right I said //maybe even eleven // if we’re lucky //
<<>>
I dreamed you married your cousin
She always agrees with me you said I dreamed you married
an alligator she knows when not
to bite I dreamed you married a
swamp I can eat her & eat her & never feel full
(moss falling from your mouth)
I dreamed you married a shard of glass everyone
bleeds for her & everyone should
<<>>
Deep in the forest my exÂ
Is living in a tentÂ
(The one I thought I’d marry)
He’s filling it with smokeÂ
Thick & itchyÂ
As Victorian laceÂ
& I can’t find the source
But he’s always smoking something—
The reason I left a life in smoke:
Glass pipes bubblersÂ
Bowls light bulbs tinfoilÂ
What’s on fire? I ask
What isn’t? He smilesÂ
I want to kiss him but
Notice his missing teethÂ
Smoke weavingÂ
In & out of the open sockets
Like a wedding veil in the windÂ
Telling me it married him first
CRUEL TIDEÂ
Nothing comforts. Not even licking and sipping other things—
tongue fever. Exit memory through melancholy stars, how the full July moonÂ
told you to walk towards me. Welcome to the supernova of my body,Â
the sine-wave of my orgasm, the scandent vines in my heart. WhatÂ
does the sky tell you now? I think of you and all the doors
in my house open. I try to remember a time I did not cry out for thingsÂ
that were not there. But I can’t. How even when I was new to this worldÂ
the universe made me scream for my own teeth.Â
Suzanne Richardson is currently in a PhD program at Binghamton University for CNF. She earned her MFA at the University of New Mexico. Her writing has appeared in Bomb Magazine, Gulf Coast, Poet Lore, Florida Review, DIALOGIST, Columbia Journal, and New Ohio Review, among others.