She takes me for granted. Sometimes I want to give up on her. Give her a scare and make her aware of me.
She preaches about being healthy, only giving me the things I need. Taking away the toxins that make my work so much harder. The alcohol and the smoke that fills my lungs. And just when she thinks she has me tamed with green vegetables and lean meat, I retaliate on her and ask her for grease and sugar. I store it then as a reminder to her of the power that I have over her.
I have so much potential for her, things to give her, but she doesn't want to listen to me. The only time of day that I have her full attention is at night, when she rests. It's then that I talk to her, that I use her brain and her heart to tell her about all the things we could do, all the things that are waiting for us in life. She likes to listen to her heart. The poetry that he sings to her of love and loss. Reassuring and soothing her as he pumps steadily inside me. It's he that she loves, making promises to me and herself.
And then there's the children, the little dreams I hold inside of her, waiting for the right moment to release them into truth. I know their names and what they'll look like. I will help to create them, nuture them, let them grown inside of me, taking the full brunt of the pain. Only to release them into her hands to care for. Again, she will forget this.
She takes me for granted.
On Not Flying to Hawaii
I could be the waitress
in the airport restaurant
full of tired cigarette smoke and unseeing tourists.
I could turn into the never-noticed landscape
hanging identically in all the booths
or the customer behind the Chronicle
who has been giving advice
about stock portfolios for forty years. I could be his mortal weariness,
his discarded sports section, his smoldering ashtray.
I could be the 70-year-old woman who has never seen Hawaii,
touching her red lipstick and sprayed hair.
I could enter the linen dress
that poofs around her body like a bridesmaid,
or become her gay son
sitting opposite her, stirring another sugar
into his coffee for lack of something true to say.
I could be the reincarnated soul of the composer
of the Muzak that plays relentlessly overhead,
or the factory worker who wove this fake Oriental carpet,
or the hushed shoes of the busboy.
But I don't want to be the life of anything in this pitstop.
I want to go to Hawaii, the wet, hot
impossible place in my heart that knows just what it desires.
I want money, I want candy.
I want sweet ukelele music and birds who drop from the sky.
I want to be the volcano who lavishes
her boiling rock soup love on everyone,
and I want to be the lover
of volcanos, who loves best what burns her as it flows.
Alison Luterman
in the airport restaurant
full of tired cigarette smoke and unseeing tourists.
I could turn into the never-noticed landscape
hanging identically in all the booths
or the customer behind the Chronicle
who has been giving advice
about stock portfolios for forty years. I could be his mortal weariness,
his discarded sports section, his smoldering ashtray.
I could be the 70-year-old woman who has never seen Hawaii,
touching her red lipstick and sprayed hair.
I could enter the linen dress
that poofs around her body like a bridesmaid,
or become her gay son
sitting opposite her, stirring another sugar
into his coffee for lack of something true to say.
I could be the reincarnated soul of the composer
of the Muzak that plays relentlessly overhead,
or the factory worker who wove this fake Oriental carpet,
or the hushed shoes of the busboy.
But I don't want to be the life of anything in this pitstop.
I want to go to Hawaii, the wet, hot
impossible place in my heart that knows just what it desires.
I want money, I want candy.
I want sweet ukelele music and birds who drop from the sky.
I want to be the volcano who lavishes
her boiling rock soup love on everyone,
and I want to be the lover
of volcanos, who loves best what burns her as it flows.
Alison Luterman
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