Bar Napkin Musings

I broke up with the sun today and decided to spend the rest of my days with the moon because I don't speak sunshine and because words hurts less in the dark when they get washed out to sea before they ever have a chance to become castles and because I don't need those castles or those walls or those kings gleaming in the midday sun to tell me where I don't belong

~ VoodooRue, September 2023

A Memory

We are fighting in the backseat as usual my brother and I are fiesty, territorial children arguing over the invisible middle line across the backseat of a brown Ford Pinto (that would at one point carry us all the way to a family vacation in Maine without spontaneously combusting) on the way to a maybe-once-a-month family dinner at the Mountain View Diner

We battle over backseat territory

while my dad whistles along to

Ronnie Milsap's Smoky Mountain Rain

(my dad could have won a whistling championship, if such a thing

had existed among poor folk in

rural Pennsylvania in the '70s)

while my parents

chat casually about

how it feels like it's going to rain

The diner has a dining room

attached to the diner part

it's carpeted and advertises a

"smorgasboard"

(I don't know what that is)

and an organ player

who will sometimes

if I ask nicely

play a song

for the little red-haired girl

I order spaghetti and meatballs

every time

and eat it like an animal

lifting heaping forkfulls of

dangling spaghetti into the air

and lowering them into my mouth

like a tiny

tomato-painted savage

my family is embarrassed

every time

and I am unbothered by that

On the way home

it does start to rain

and I'm not sure which parent

was right about the rain

but my dad is now

whistling along to

Looking for Love

in All the Wrong Places

and I wonder how they found it

and how many wrong places

they had to look for it

and if they ever really found it at all

and if I ever really would

~VoodooRue, February 2024

For Mom

A quiet sidewalk fracture catches my mother one evening after dinner a silent summer sacrifice to the sidewalk gods of Dauphine Street

A knee makes contact

and the bleeding begins

as a straw hat tumbles to the ground

It's July of 1999 and

there aren't many people here

It's hot and exhausting

and who even comes here in July?

Besides us

An after-dinner white knight appears

another tourist

to carry the broken sacrifice

back to her hotel

while the sidewalk stain remains

My mother

is four years older then

than I am now

and my knees are terrified

of sidewalks everywhere I go

and what kind of sacrifice

they expect from me

My mother

doesn't get to take something away

without leaving something behind

In the end, how much will I owe?

~ VoodooRue, April 2023

Untitled

When I was a kid

I used to think that the sky

over the city

and the sky

over the country

were not the same sky

because I didn't think that the two

could exist in the same universe

I didn't think that neon

could exist in the same universe

as starlight

And now I just can't decide

if I'm neon or starlight

and how bright

I am meant to shine

~VoodooRue, August 2022

I'm Not Okay

I want to run away

with the poem of my dreams

ride into the sunset

on a fiery metaphor

hold hands with the moon and sun

and fall in love with words

and the people who whisper them in my ear

But there is no one near to whisper

and I don’t have any words to spare

because I don’t want to say

I’m not okay

There’s nothing poetic

in I’m not okay

There’s no way to make not okay

beautiful

This poet wasn’t built for distance

wasn’t meant to ever

be more than an arm’s length away

from some kind of

any kind of

love

wasn’t meant to leap-frog

this distance between nouns

and the adjectives that make them

feel so good

And I just want to feel good again

~VoodooRue

January

I tell myself

that I can survive January

that this bone-deep cold

is the hardest part

of the new year

and how hard

could the rest possibly be...

...And then I slide into February

like 10-year-old me

sliding onto a frozen lake

in oversized

hand-me-down skates

trying to find my balance

and hoping that it's safe

but in the end knowing

that I was always going to sink

~ VoodooRue (January 2020)

Resolutions

I

Breathe

Breathe deeply

in January

when breathing is the

most terrifying

when the cold threatens

to gut you from the

inside out

and know

that it can only get easier

and that there will

eventually be

a thaw

II

Collapse

Fall into

the new year

and its fresh beginnings

and start again

rebuild

what foundations

are warped and

give no support

and build something

that cannot

ever

be broken

III

Connect

There are tides

that depend on you

and there are words

that wait for

a chance to break

across a silent shore

so do not give up

your breath so soon

just because

the air seems too thin

to survive

and do not forget that

the phases of the moon

are the phrases

of your earth

IV

Love

Love deeply

even when it is

most terrifying

when the fear feels

like it will gut you

from the inside out

and know that

it is not a blade

slicing

but is instead

the burn of

your heart

filling in its own cracks

because you let it

V

Be loved

Allow the sun

its chance to kiss

your face

instead of hiding

in the shadows

lie back

in a field of dandelions

and bloom

and finally

for once

be warm

~VoodooRue (January 2018)

The Truck Poem

I woke up one morning

and spit out blood

without any idea of 

where it came from

or if it was even mine

but I'm pretty sure

the blood on your knuckles

matched my DNA

again

It was the same DNA

on your windshield

when you decided it should get

acquainted with my face

and it got very well

acquainted with my face

and my ribs

and my knees

And your truck

which didn't survive

whatever lesson

you were trying to

teach me

crumpled

like paper

on its side 

where I had already folded myself

into a ball for safety

And I was still looking

for safety

when I was climbing over

your body 

to find a way out

so you can probably blame me

for that broken collarbone

but I don't care

Because I still find myself

climbing over memories

and spitting out blood

to find a safe place

~VoodooRue (November 2018)

If I Had a Nickel

If I had a nickel

for every time I've wanted

to tell someone

exactly what I need

I would have

more money

than I could

ever spend

But

if I had a nickel

for every time

I've told someone

exactly what I needed

and gotten it

Then my bank

would be empty

~VoodooRue (September 2018)

More After Midnight

Sometimes I think

I'm more after midnight

than before

that I am more

in the dark

than I am in the daylight

that I am nothing more than

five feet two inches of

unremarkable

but goddammit

does this tiny vessel

have a voice

and you

are going

to listen

~VoodooRue (May 2018)

Dear Everything I Hate About Myself

I'm going to need you

to take a break and maybe

go on vacation

Because

frankly

I'm fucking exhausted

I will buy you the ticket

if you just go sit on a beach

somewhere

and crack open

a Corona

and listen to a bunch of

shitty Jimmy Buffett songs

Because I am still here

trying every day

to get out of bed

and you're not helping

because you are

the worst lover

I've ever had

And I would pay

a million dollars

if you would just leave me

alone

~VoodooRue (April 2018)

Untitled

The older I get

the more I am nothing but mouth

I go from aching

to angry

from sadness

to sarcasm

from desperate

to just dark

and there are no miners

left in the world

who are brave enough

to go that deep

~VoodooRue (March 2018)

Home

I have spent a lifetime

writing love poems

to places

that have never

loved me back

because my home

does not belong

to places

but it should belong

to me

So now I'm trying

to build the doors

to my home

because

I have enough walls

and I'm trying

to fill a welcome mat

with a love poem

to myself

~VoodooRue (February 2018)

Life's a Beach

I don't know

where I stand

with the tides

every day

But I do know

that I am drowning and

I know

that I have sand

in places

where I'm not supposed to

have sand

and saying that

I am uncomfortable

is putting it mildly

Because life is a beach

that's what they tell me

life is a beach

from a distance

a sunlit, beautiful dream

But up close it's cold

and it's wet

and it hurts

when you let it in

~ VoodooRue (February 2018)

Dark

As a child

I always feared

the things I couldn't see

and the things I couldn't understand

from the dark things

that lived

in the empty space

under my bed

to the dark things

hidden between the words

of the grown-ups' arguments

And to this day

I'm still not sure

which is more frightening

the blank

under-bed space

from which a child's

nightmares are born

or the dark

between-words space

from which a child's

insecurities are born

And here I am now

still not knowing

where to look

to find the light

and wondering if

in the end

it's all just dark

~VoodooRue (February 2018)

Memo to Myself

Sleep

in the middle

of your own bed

You are not waiting

for someone

to fill that space

You don't need something

so one-sided

to find comfort

You can be

the center

of your own world

~VoodooRue (January 2018)

Fifteen

Some days I am

fifteen again

and I don't really know

where the city

begins and ends

and I don't understand why

everything

doesn't go dark

at the end of the day

because all my beginnings

and endings

have sketchy borders

and it feels like I am

always in the dark

~VoodooRue (December 2017)

Untitled

I run from October

because I don't

know how to relate to color

But here I am

ahead of the game

for November

Because l understand

every shade

of rain

~VoodooRue (October 2017)

Untitled

I have gone to war

in every language

against my own heart

battled every god

created by egos

because we need to believe

we are loved by something

bigger than us

when we should be

in the singular

beautiful language

spoken by our own hearts

enough

But that's the only word

I don't know

in any language

~VoodooRue (September 2017)

Untitled

Punish me today

for the sins I have committed

Punish me later

for the sins I will commit

Don't punish me

for the sins I wasn't

even original enough

to think of yet

~VoodooRue (August 2017)

Listen

Listen

said the prisoner

kiss me

and let me tell you

all my secrets

I am as naked

as I have ever been

and I have nothing

left to hide

No

I answered

and turned my face

into the sun

because you are drunk

on the perfume

of my freedom

and you have nothing

left to lose

~ VoodooRue (July 2017)

Scenes

A bottle of red

A bottle of white

And I'm sitting in my favorite

Italian restaurant

in Hell's Kitchen

and waiting for my glass

of red

and thinking that

Brenda sounds like

a materialistic bitch

and that Eddie sounds like

a bit of a pushover

But in the end

they both found someone

who wanted to be with them

for a little while

At least until last call

~VoodooRue (June 2017)

Bones in My Teeth

There are bones in my teeth
from all the words
I've had to swallow
trying to consume
the broken parts of me
that will not be digested

I have no more room
I am full
and this mouth
will never be clean

~VoodooRue (June 2017)

I'm Almost

I'm almost 9

I'm almost 16

I'm almost 30

I'm almost 46

I'm almost 9

for a summer in Queens

and the days are sunshine and

beaches and city streets

and baseball games

and dirt that never touches me

I'm almost 16

at my first Broadway show

with my high school chorus

and I don't understand

all the things I see on stage

but I know I want to

I'm almost 30

and this company has agreed

to pay me for the only thing

in the world that

I'm good at

and here I am again

I'm almost 46

and my company has agreed

to bore me to death

so I will I write poetry

sitting in a bar

with red duct tape seats

and wonder

if I'm almost

where I should be

if I'm almost home

and if I'm almost

happy

~VoodooRue (5/2017)

Untitled

I'm at that age where

loss becomes a regularity

and not a rarity

where stories still start

with once upon a time

but never quite make it

to happily ever after

where dreams fly south

for the winter but decide

they like it slower and

warmer and easier

and never come home to roost

and here I am still

sitting in my nest

just trying to figure out

if my wings are strong enough

to carry the miles of unfinished drafts

that weigh me down

~VoodooRue (5/1/2017)