this point

I am turned to face up the stairs
toward the door
that leads
outside
to light

and I no longer see
you
standing
in your nightgown
hunched in the dark
smothered by the ache

and I no longer am
me
open to fear
carrying the weight
of your destruction
connected to my soul

I am turned to face the light
and I
am
free.

post

This is not the first time I have lost
my mother
I remember you sleeping on the couch
downstairs in the basement
unable to get up
to live
to care
to give
to think about anything but your
ill planned escape
your destruction of our world
because you are sick
I understand now that you have
been sick my whole life, and long before

borderline personality disorder

you have a name
the person you become when you
die
and are no longer my mom
no longer the person who looks on me with love
with grace
with a desire to do what is good for
the children you have brought into the world
the family you hold the power to destroy
and do
because you are broken
and I see it now

But what little girl, teenager, and even
adult can really understand
this disease
this deficiency
this total madness

the angels have the phonebox

Dear heart you have blossomed
Grown
Found truth and stumbled upon death
You have fought and stood
You have been moved to understand beauty in the face of adversity
And now I am going to tell you how brave you really are

You see the world through grey and blue
Through something that you have been told is imperfect
But after being pushed down again and again
You rise up and face fire
You face the dark and you walk forward
When so few do
And let me tell you
The world waits
Patient and warm with welcome
For you to run
Like the night waits to become day
The world waits for you

You have become my sister
Awoken and feasted on life
You see everything around you
You fight with depth
You fight with grace
Your heart is for the destitute

You will not loose your strength in this though
Even in these years of growth
These years of circumstance and truth
You will not be pushed down love
You, with untouchable beauty
You will only bloom now

-E.C. Fleury

a house is built where it wasn't before

I was told about this in my dreams
and with a word that hung in the air
I was warned about the coming destruction
I misunderstood a warning as a sign that change was possible
the deepest truth about what is
about what was
about what always will be

change was not possible not because I did not choose it
but because she did not





the dreams:

I am in the front yard of the acreage house and there is a big black bull
loose in the yard
my mother is throwing the little kids up in the trees to keep them safe
she is yelling at me to take them inside
I can not open the door.



It is a winter night
so cold there is no sound
so dark only the white snow is visible
I am trying to get from the shop to the house
there is polar bear somewhere in the darkness
Dale runs out of the house with a gun and a dog
but runs into the dark with no direction, the wrong way
I am attacked by the bear
I hold open his jaws with my bare hands
they will not shut.


It is a cold winter night
so cold there is no sound
so dark only the white snow is visible
I am trying to get from the shop to the house
only this time there is a wolf somewhere in the darkness
Dale runs out of the house, the wrong way again
the wolf attacks.


the word:


I wake up in the morning
and hear this sentence in my head

'the memories of the family you have now will have to sustain you for the rest of your life'










all this is told to me years before now.
and yet now the dreams are reality
the destruction has come.

gratuitous ninja moves

how do you begin to explain a life
that has never been spoken of
only whispered of in the darkest places of fear
never realized
the conclusions and final destinations blocked by everything you don't want to ever let cross your mind, become concrete in the space of reality.
how do you articulate what has happed
after the world has come to an end.






Long Black Limousine, Shiniest Car I've Ever Seen

Heavy sun
Heavy lashes and a beat up car door
Breaks scraping and the choking sound of a bird’s death
Throwing up on a strange and familiar highway
Without words or voices or windy tires
This was never my fault
This was your victory

Crashing through the crowds until you were satisfied
Leaving your children in a bloody fermenting pool behind you
On to the next
On to the roping in and the churning out
I want to make you hurt so badly

I want you to be alone and abandoned and aching
For you have set me on fire in your doorway so many times
You have taken and taken and taken again
Any hope that I held like a burning rope in my hands threaded through my gut
Your sword of diseases
You are the cold
You are the homeless winter
You have stricken me with grief
And forced me to walk with shame

I am your daughter but you
You were never mine
I wish I could rip the poetry from your heart and turn it to dust
You have lost me
You have beaten me
and finally I have had enough
your ragged life is no fault of mine

All of your children have gone missing

-Elise Fleury









the reality of my mother, of myself, of my family.






I have lost.

tried to be the robot king, but settled for the robot boy

j: don't dance around the robot
k: that is a phrase I never thought would be uttered in our house
j: I always knew it would
k: really?
j: except I always thought we would be robot worshipers and the end of that sentence would go something like -without your ceremonial robot worshiping dress.

snippets of a conversation from tonight


(Evie was circling the new iRobot Roomba vacuum)

How long does it take to mail a freakin baby?!

which is what I said in a dream last night.

Baby is what Cowboys call their girlfriends

I was on my way into my grandparents house
and asked my mom why some men call women 'baby'
she told me that 'baby' is what only cowboys call their girlfriends.
I believed her for a long time.

lets give it up for the ones 3 feet above us

At the end of the above average but not spectacular production half of the audience rose to their feet in a rousing standing ovation.
I stayed where I was.
The idea of pounding the palms of my hands together to declare my appreciation does not fit in any mode of communication that conveys any sincerity in my mind.
To rise to my feet and bang my hands together to communicate my excess of emotion and gratitude is even more puzzling.
Social customs demand context and I suppose in the theater, the customs and traditions are carried out with as little speculation of their efficacy as possible.
I am usually faking it, more conscience of self than communication.
I often wonder how many other people are faking it and how many people hold fast to this tradition because it means something.
Slap your hands together, rise to your feet, slap harder.