Loneliness

the road dogs

/ mbrazfieldm / 2 Comments

she sits there looking dazed pecking at her phone with her pink sea shell fingers

“they call me tre on account i only got three toes” she said in a proud laughter

she feels her way around the rim of her fancy thrift store jeans bought four years ago for ten bucks and donated by well bred college coeds from ANY THREE LETTER U

“i’m waiting for my road dog to help me do my laundry she’s the only one i trust we used to be drinking buddies back in the day tell me if my shoe stinks.” she stretches her tan prosthetic type shoe at my face i smelled nothing

with a distance in her blind brown eyes she asks if the blinds are open because the lights bother her she cusps an old Kleenex under her nose its allergy season

“can you hand me my eye drops they’re on the dinner table next to my dad’s diabetes pills did i tell you that he lost all of his toes and he might lose his left leg? we’ll know tomorrow.”

her head tilted down as if hoping her sad thoughts will seep out through tears of frustration as her father who named her after her own birth country was now struck down and she could no longer be daddy’s road dog either

that that that

/ mbrazfieldm / 7 Comments

i don’t like to be kissed first

as it gives him power

i like options and opportunities

to leave him first

and not feel rejected

too much

i don’t like to be told

that he loves me first

because if i don’t feel the same

he might turn into a raging dog

i don’t want to have to consider first

that i will run for my life

i don’t want to fantasize

that things will be beautiful

i’m tired and the angels on their silver glide

have long left me behind

to rationalize

that its best to nip it in the bud

this fear instilled in me

that a first kiss might be the real thing

Hyperion and Effie streets

/ mbrazfieldm / 2 Comments

“it’s been years since i thought about using my toes” she said sitting quietly on the corner of Hyperion and Effie streets she grew up hippie baby royalty before the majesties turned bourgeois as fuck “it’s been years since i thought about painting my toe nails” she said tucked tightly into her wheelchair under a patchwork or greens and bright reds and her nurse coos “you take you Sublocade  now ma’am” with her bugged pewter blue eyes and see through seer sucker skin she looks to the underneath of the yellow bougainvillea tree and snarls at the men smoking lined up slouched on the brick wall looking at their toes recalling a war and the traumatic brain injuries and legs blown off as more than one slouches sobbing in fear “it’s been years since i’ve walked on my feet” she sighs out loud through aged yellowed lips that once kissed the sky and the dandelions but now are sealed most of the time to keep her cancerous insides from falling out “it’s been months since those boys have been here” she said “i wouldn’t want them to see me falling apart” she wheezed under her breath on that corner of Hyperion and Effie streets

don’t want marching saints no more

/ mbrazfieldm / 2 Comments

I don’t smoke anymore. I don’t pay attention anymore. I don’t do much anymore. Anymore matters not to anyone. It’s been about two weeks. There is a foggy dream pricking at my waking reality. There is a politeness as to not give away who I am, and who we are, and what we are not made of. Orion’s Belt has lost another Queen Sister. Look up, see? The castle shines less than it did about fourteen days ago.

Sitting next to me, he, young and professional talked to you about developing a plan for hope. Sitting next to me, your cracked yellowed fingers, stiff like frankincense resin, shuffled through your last official systematic memoir, but he and I didn’t know. Did you know? Or did you know you couldn’t go on? Your blue framed reading glasses made of plastic were spotty and needed a scrub. Your skin ashy and hair matted into a bun, those fingers searching for that someone who told you that you were fine so that we could tell you too

 We met on St. Valentine’s, you tried with all of your might on St. Habet-Deus and laid yourself to rest on St. Alvaro’s soiree. Yet, when the old timer hard core practicing apostles hailed St. Polycarp, I stood looking at the west atop the building’s nest with my back to your door sealed by the authorities of science and service.

mock the bird

/ mbrazfieldm / 5 Comments

in walking Kadapul petals fall to coat my steps

but really they’re just dirty leaves

as my daydreams waft into another direction

there is a certain equalizer in knowing

something comes this way and we all feel it

thoughts crumble upon the upward pounding of my feet

instinct against the grain

follow through with the maps in my head

stop and wave at a child and her puppy

another block and sun does shine

a mother talks a husband hounds

from his sitting family

‘what do you want to drink’

with coffee in left hand

passer bys ignore me

i blend into the posted centennial wall

the one by the bronze pig heads

and the bike racks rented by the Metro line

death mask faces reflected in mine

our wrinkles in the old and young

mock the bird silhouettes of our sky

our return in trying to make sense of our lives

a drop of water

/ mbrazfieldm / 2 Comments

a new year began with new decisions set into motion life has become as tasty as it is to bite into a drop of water going along for a cruise Sunday traffic as it should be nicer cars whiz by yet the wind in my hair with tinges from the valley we pass the Fortress of Hollywood’s mysteries pressing forth on the one o one music from your youthhood fits you like a stretched out girdle particularly where the lace is falling off but i say nothing i nod in support of your choices instead my face is made up mostly the eyes my scars and wrinkles the tattoos on my arms they make me feel something the hills and horses grasses and trees stand around me like pall bearers to be i turn my face to the right and my lips kiss the warmth of the sun instantaneously i wonder if i placed my breast in the light would i get that effect of feeling again