Bare Feet On Linoleum

(album: Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass - 2020)

Stay on your path Sylvia Plath
Don't fall away like all the others

Don't take all your secrets alone to your watery grave about
Lovers and

The secrets you keep will keep you in deep like Amy and
And brother
And all of the people you meet on the street will reiterate lies
That they uttered

Leave me in peace, I cry
In the middle of the night
On a slow boat bound for Catalina for no reason

Tiny drops of perspiration dot my forehead
Could be mistaken for dew drops if this were photo season

But alas this is a real life – and it's been a real fight just to
Stop my mind from committing treason
Why you ask?
Because she told the townspeople I was crazy, and the lies, they
Started to believe them

But anyways – that's all over now

I've moved on, gone scorched earth
And now I'm left wondering where to go from here
To Sonoma where the fires have just left?
South Dakota?

Would standing in front of Mount Rushmore feel like the Great
American homecoming I never had?

Would the magnitude of the scale of the sculptures take the place
Of the warm embrace I've never got

Or should I just be here now
Bare feet on linoleum
Slicing vegetables onto water that I will later turn
Into stew

People love my stories
People love visions