Possibly the Most Honest Thing I Have Ever Written Down:

I had to fight back tears on the train today
Remembering myself barefoot and
Half asleep beside you in your car
Those nights you used to drive me home.

East

A man calls for prayers outside the Islamic Center and I follow
His voice toward Mecca and into the frigid evening-
East
Toward the river and my run-down apartment,
East
Toward a lonely ocean,
East
From where my family came,
East
Toward Jerusalem and the stories I hear at Mass.


I haven't set foot in a church since March, it snowed then too.
It is always well into the afternoon when I wake on Sundays
And I drink tea under the sliver of western light
That, on occasion, enters my living room
While the last services close at Immaculate Conception.

A bit more about dreams

The zombie dreams have returned. I've probably told you about them. They come randomly, every few months or so. I still don't know what they mean. They are markedly sadder this time and lack the campy movie bravado of the past. Now, people are forced to watch as their loved ones are changed and destroyed. In the last dream, a man killed his own (undead) daughter with his bare hands in order to save my life. Then he held me as if I were a child again. But I'm not a child, in dreams nor here now, and although it wasn't real, I could feel the weight of that much sacrifice.

Things were really tough and I felt bad, so today I bought myself a teddy bear with a little white scarf, but every time I turn my back the dog tries to eviscerate him, and I think maybe that's a good metaphor for something or other.