Ahhh yes, my expectations are too high.
I want to sleep in my own bed.
I want to have my cake and eat it, too.
I want to star in my own autobiography,
(And I'd like to survive it).
But from what I can see,
No one survives their autobiography.
Some footnote goes on to describe the ending
After the ending,
And a dash between the years
Indexes for us everything they did
Between birth and death.

But I don't want my Hundred Yard Dash to be a run,
A smoking jolt from the starting gun,
And now we're off.
I want to walk in peace
Along the shore,
Enjoy more,
And hurry less,
And worry less about the lesser things,
And sing
A song of glory to the great,
And be very on.

-jenn

When new toasters
Are for new crustomers only,
Old crustomers crust.

-jenn

Love is a dark word.
It's a dark matter,
Dark energy.
It's not the part that you can see
Bowing at centerstage.
It lives and breathes within the fibers
Of the velvet curtains.

Love is a word that comes from under the tongue
And behind the teeth,
More at home
From deep back of the throat,
Like a guttural 'baroop' of the bullfrog,
Or the bawl of a cow
Bellaring to her calf.

But when the stage has been cleared,
Even as the empty prairie grasses blow,
Parting like the wind in your hair,
The quiet stands surreal in the spotlight.
It puts it's tongue behind it's teeth
And whispers a roar that can only be felt.
And the wave of it presses me down in my seat,
As I sit, the lone audience member,
And my heart throws open it's sashes
And sings along with you, "Love, Love, Love."

-jenn

I don't know what you want me to do.
I never have.
I guess that's why I've always disappointed you.

But now that I've given up,
I sit, like a jack-o-lantern,
The day after Halloween,
And let you poke holes in me with a pin,
Like we did, as kids, to that poor pumpkin of ours.
We practiced our nursing skills,
Telling it, "This is going to hurt you
Much worse than it will me."

-jenn

I'm going to learn from the cutting
Taken from the top of a good plant.
I've been severed and dunked in rooting hormone
And carefully placed in nutrient rich soil.

I've taken root here,
And I'm going to spread,
And cuttings will be taken from me as well,
And that's good.

It's all good.

-jenn

You know that part of your pinky finger
The doctor cut off and threw away?
That's me.
That part that was always in the way,
And couldn't quite escape the reality
Of the big machinery, the swather,
Coming down hard, trying to connect prematurely,
That part that got smashed,
That part that bled,
The part that had to have an abortion,
And you shook your head in shame and wondered why,
That part that needed sex,
Because it never had any love to compare?
Yeah,that's me.

And I know you'll never miss it.
You'll go on just like before,
Making jokes so everyone sees how tough you are,
But I wonder if some rainy day
When you sit at the kitchen table
And reach for another sip of coffee
From your old green coffee cup,
If you'll notice that part of you
That's not there anymore?
That's me.

-jenn

Ohhhhhh his love is pure and sweet.
He doesn't want me to eat
Hydrogenated fats,
But he doesn't mind if I smoke a little after sex.
He's so sweet, he even checks
Very closely,
To see if I do.

-jenn