Standard

You gave me little. I smiled. Accepted.
Bemusement. Hope. Enticement. Love?
Before we kissed, you told me you loved me.
Forbid me speak when we did.
I gave. You smiled. Accepted. Accepted again.
Time. Body. Sex. Devotion. But love?
When we lay in bed, I wanted to speak words.
Your fingers blocked my lips. The letters.

Standardized loving isn't loving.
But I need standards or I'll find you again.
I will love you again and hope.
Be still my gentle heart, I'm bleeding
For some other broken soul.
One more broken soul.

And we will love until you're through.
And I will love and move on.

My heart is full. Rooms with portraits,
Altars for the love of loss.
And so I love you still.

I fail your standards
So you leave me
Standing, kneeling, crying
on the altar
Where I exist alone
With a faceless god not present.

And I set standards so I
never need create a room.

March

We dreamed of chasing sunlight between
buildings on the streets of Brooklyn,
of laying under the stars outside the
valley of the flooded city.
There were bluebonnets in Texas when
I flew past the clouds to
land in stagnant puddles and
kiss you on the landing strip.
We explored cities I read about, and
we loved. we loved. we loved.
I dreamt about March in Texas
where I never thought about always or never.
I woke up somewhere between bluebonnets
and stagnant puddles in your arms.

Rings

Somewhere between our midnight and 6 am
I learned to never hang up first
I hear me office phone vibrate
5 seconds before it rings and
answer before you realize you called
We say goodbye 30 times before our bodies mean it
We whisper mutual love after sleep affects our thoughts
We're not ready yet for two Claddagh rings.
Soon, though, I won't realize you called before
your voice is in my ear.
Then, then we won't need rings anymore.

An Original Play

One: (Seated with Two)
We have sat.
Two:
We have watched.
One:
We have sat and watched. (Two nods)
For three weeks. (Two nods)
We have sat and watched as people walked by without saying a word.
We are deaf. They mouth what we call words but they say nothing.
We are deaf. (Two nods)
For three weeks we have sat and watched as people walk by speaking but
saying nothing and we wonder. (Two nods). We wonder if we are real or if they
are or if none of us are real at all. (Two nods).
We have sat and watched and seen.
Two:
I have seen a girl in pink track suit walking her dog and saying words to her dog
and conversing with the bearded man in a trench coat who heard only the wind.
One:
We have seen a girl in a pink track suit and a dog and a bearded man.
Two:
I saw the cracks in the pavement swallow words I was meant to hear but never
could because I am deaf.
One:
We are deaf.
Two:
I am deaf. The cracks told me. I am deaf.
One:
We leave. (stands)
Two:
I am deaf. The pavement told me. The girl and the dog told me. The bearded man
listened to the wind that told him I am deaf.
One:
What? (two nods) I leave. (exits)
Two:
(stands) The earth soothes me. (he sits on the ground) I listen to the words
from the cracks. They tell me I am deaf. We all speak but words. I am deaf.

Shutter

 I became you before college through photographs,

still frames of when you were smiling and meant it.

I want to meet that person again some day through

shutter clicks as we run through the burning streets of

Brooklyn, holding our torches to the amber skies and

singing love song to no one in particular but ourselves and

the people who have come to love us fully and honestly.

I see that person behind your smile and realize sometimes

you never really went away.

Bit your bottom lip, maybe.

Slept away some things, maybe.

Disappeared? Not entirely. No.

When Brooklyn burned at four,

I saw that smile for the first time and

I admit I fell in love with a girl from New York.

Smile sometime, darling, we're only frames away from happiness.

There.

When I close my eyes

I imagine my voice

vibrating through your chest.

I bring you orchids,

bandages so you might see

when you open your eyes.

There is always the vision

When I close my eyes.

I Am The Real Edith Piaf

I am the real Edith Piaf

Who sang the voice of Paris

On stages of satin,

Who started on streets,

Passersby threw change for chords.

I am the real diva

Begging rhetoric time and again

"What's the point? What is the point?

If I can't what's the point of being

Edith Piaf?"

Give me the porcelain doll in the window.

I am the real Edith Piaf

Who wanted nothing but the rain

in a circus of starless nights

Where she would sing to the angel

Mother Mary who offered sight again

When she opened her eyes to satin

In a garden where her only mother cried

"She can see! She can see!"

I am the real Edith Piaf.

If I can't, what's the point?

I want the poercelain doll,

Rain to block circus lights.

I want you and you

Who have ever scoffed to see.

I am the real Edith Piaf

I sing to the angel before he takes me

Before Paris falters and I

Fall on the stage of satin screaming

"I can sing! I can sing!

If I can't, what's the point?"