Unleash The Thighs

Well, its taken 24 years... no, actually there is a great picture of me when I'm about 3 strutting around in a one-piece with ruffles and a butt covered in sand. I didn't care then that my skin was 4 shades paler than everyone else's or notice that my thighs selfishly grab more than their fair share of the fat on my body. But shortly thereafter I began the maneuvering of bathing suits: endlessly searching for suits with shorts for the bottoms and buying them even though the tops were totally ugly, or finding board shorts to wear over the suit and being the uncomfortable fat girl who wears clothes to swim in. Well, I've had enough.

I am tired of having a sun burn that goes half way up my leg. I am sick of laying around in uncomfortable soggy cloth as I lay by the pool. I mark today as independence day for my white legs and not-so-small butt cheeks. I have officially bought a bathing suit with regular bottoms. Its time to stop caring that my inner thighs touch and rub together when I walk.

I have spent years fantasizing about the sexy bathing suits I would wear when I had tight abs and carved legs, or when my skin miraculously started getting tan. I could just see the sun bouncing off the oiled muscles in my calves as I walked around the pool. I would put on some of those big "I'm so hot there's no way I would ever even give you a chance" sunglasses and just lounge around in my hottness. But you know, I'm almost 25 and I still haven't gotten close to that body. I could have potentially passed my hot-peak and my butt still jiggles when I walk and I've never had that perfect tight crease in the cheeks right below the cut of a suit.
Damn that crease.

So, instead of crying about it, which the 15, 16, and 17 year old version of myself has actually wasted time doing, I've decided to shed the shorts and cellulite hiding wrap and smile at the girls with the strings holding their suits together as my thighs rub on my way around the pool. I can admire the brown tint of their skin and continue to hope that someday my freckles will completely connect so I too might look so good. For now, I'm gonna try to jump in and out of the pool with freedom and lay with both legs flat on my chaise lounge, I'll let you know how it goes.

Pantoum

I don’t like you,
You should leave.
Why don’t we just go out?
You sure are cute.

You should leave.
Well, she told me that
You sure are cute.
I wish he’d call.

Well she told me that
He doesn’t care.
I wish he’d call.
That seems obvious.

He doesn’t care,
Why don’t we just go out?
That seems obvious
I don’t like you.

"It's Like, You Know, Pissing In the Wind."

No, I don't know what its like
to piss into the wind.
I am a girl.
I sit down to pee, or squat
if there is no other option.

Grandma Dorothy

“If there are two things I know for sure,”
you told me once with smiling eyes,
“They are that Jesus is the Christ and it will rain in Seattle!”
You always hated the grey skies.

Wall sized windows line the room
and look out at the jagged line of buildings
lining the bay during a soft sunset.

Safeco Field sits still with its roof pulled back
enjoying the rare moment of sunshine.

You would love this evening,
no hint of rain.

I look down on your face and close my hand
around yours.
And, though machines speak in their beeping language
that you are still here, I know you are not.

Your chest rises and falls, I touch it to feel your heart beat.
Sure enough, it is there
but you are not

because if you were, your fake pink nails would tap
on the plastic lining your bed.
Your feet would shuffle around the room
and we would yell at you to sit down.
You would smile at your nurse and crack a joke
with the man on the other side of the curtain
whom no one had come to visit.

When I ran from the airport into this stale smelling room
you would have met me at the door and pulled my face
down next to yours,
said my name five times in a high pitched voice
and squealed that no one had ever missed anyone
like you had missed me.
If you were here, your eyes would open
and you would squeeze my hand back.

“It’s time to turn off the machines
and let her go,” they say to me.

I kiss your cheek and whisper that I love you
even though I know those ears cannot carry
any messages to you
and that you already know anyway.

The beeping slows down,
my chest tightens
as yours stops moving.
It feels like the machines
force you to go.

I will blame it on those machines
even though your gnarled hands
would stubbornly grab on to the metal railing keeping you in this bed
and you would never choose to leave
if this lifeless form laying so still
were really you.

To My God, Shiva

I walk briskly through mobs of people,
streets of cows, and try not to get hit
by a rickshaw so that I may worship my Goddess.

My Kurta pressed with close attention.
She will bestow on me money, happiness, children,
she will make me well.
I must hurry.

One hundred rupees for my flowers,
for Shiva’s flowers. As my Shiva
comes into full view I will stop.
I will breathe.

Stepping up her stairs I will brush the ground,
step, brush, step brush,
go down to my knees.

Her goodness fills me.
Her golden feet
guide me.
I hear sweet songs on the loud speaker,
red bricks permeate my feet
with warmth gathered from the sun.

I drop my rice at Shiva’s feet.
I will go so that I may see
Shiva’s hand make me well.

On Being the Fifth of Seven Children

Like a squawking duck fighting
for a piece of bread tossed
by one lone pig-tailed girl,
I fought for attention from my mother.

The girl has only one slice,
twelve pieces.
The big Mallard in front will eat six ,
the slow one will get none.
I fight off two others
for a half-soggy piece I salvage and gulp down.

Does the girl notice that some are still hungry?

Here I Go!

The blogging community seems to be where its at these days and I call myself a writer so why haven't I jumped in? I'm not quite sure what has kept me from putting myself out there but its about time I gave it a try. I want a place to put my poetry and stories up. I'm gonna start by putting up some recent stuff I have been working on.