For My Next Valentine, Part 2

Why am I thinking of King Cake
Wreathed in a tether of flowers
I much prefer being on my iphone
I could just stay on here for hours

Oh there’s that boy from New Orleans
He’s been here for quite a while
He’s not all that bad looking
Maybe should put him in the Maybe File

Isn’t there someone out there for me
Who too likes long walks and talks
A guy who’d love me for being me
And not a toy to be kept in a box

Oh such a silly text from Sally
About that party last June
Yes, we should get together
And it probably ought to be soon

LOL, TTYL, and LUMOA.
Now time to say hi to Dad
Tell him I’m making the next Dean’s List
I love how he’s so supportive, and glad

That I’m my own true person—
Talented, thrifty, and pretty nice;
Cuz today’s awesome women
Are so much more than sugar and spice!

And still there’s that boy from New Orleans
He’s been here for more than a while
He’s not all that bad looking—
Maybe I could hazard one smile?

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For My Next Valentine

I wanna send you flowers
Or maybe some Mardi Gras cake;
To become your next someone
I’d do whatever it’d take,

Get you look up from your phone,
And get you on over here;
But to take such heartfelt risks
Causes such a shrinking fear.

Daisies, ‘glories, roses, or tulips?
Purple and green and some gold?
Or sip some liquor, ‘tis quicker,
At least so’s I’ve been told.

But I want us pure, clear, and real
Not lost in a sick dawn’s early mist—
As a week later you’d do a whimsey start
Remembering how we had finally kissed.

Call me a florist of winged feet
For a bouquet to melt yonder rock!
Look up, look up from that anchor phone—
Eyes to eyes, can’t we find room to talk?

I wanna send you some flowers
(And someday plan wedding cake);
Can I become your next someone?
Look up, look up, for Heaven’s sake!

Only Twelve

I just cannot comprehend—
Lost between the difference and the subtrahend:
I stand blocked by the Police Tape,
My 12-year old angel is in cuffs
And I must be to blame.
A middling school in LA:
She shot one in the head and grazed the others,
But we were going to Krispy Kreme.
Now I can’t afford a lawyer,
Maybe the family can help,
No dreamers here
And my own dreams for her are all gone.
She is just only a girl, she’s 12?!
She took the gun to school—
Where can I go to rip out her pain?
What did I miss between Snapchat
And her friends on her iphone?
It’s all my fault still and again and again;
Thoughts of suicide,
Thoughts of murder.
Walls of Police Tape:
Who would want to cross
And dwell inside the real true horror?
Was I not listening?
What was it I could not see?
I love my kid,
Undeniably,
She’s only 12….

As of 8:30PM CST:
Breaking News – Story Developing
Los Angeles police say middle school shooting that critically wounded boy was accidental
Feb 01, 2018
Geez, I sure hope so! That it was deliberate is too awful to contemplate!

Block This Caller

How do I tell you I hurt
That being your nothing pays only pain
That even now I pine away the hours
Until I get to see you again
Can we please sit and talk
Maybe catch up on this and that
Maybe remember how we used to be
Before all our feels went all flat
Why do I hope this’ll all change
I know there’s no room next to your sorrow
Maybe the time has come around
To accept there is no together tomorrow
How do I tell you I hurt
That being your nothing pays only pain
But it’s time to edit Settings on this old iPhone
Because it doesn’t only rain in Spain

Hospice Junction

So ready to cry in your arms,
But today’s broken heart is so déclassé.
I hold my iPhone in my clammy hand,
But mustn’t text when you’ve nothing to say.
Broken low down here in Hospice Junction:
I see pretty flowers wreathing the pretty birds.
I hear some pretty lady chaplain
Breathlessly whispering her fine holy words.
Some seventy-two have now come and gone—
The team completing some of their unending chore.
They’ve resurfaced that old tattered roadway, and,
And, another admission: how do they go on any more?
The Sun and Dawn drags up another new day,
Nurses and the all will shoo away the Dark and the Harms.
And they won’t get home until way after dark
O so ready to cry in your arms.