Squander & Squalor

So honestly,
how do you think Cinderella felt
on her first day in the castle?
Do you think she was cool with all her handmaids?
Do you think she took the elaborate ball gowns
and sumptuous feasts in stride?


Somehow,
I think not.


I think this beautiful
blue soul
fretted and frowned
about her new found wealth.


I mean, sure,
she loved the prince
(who wouldn’t)
and she loved not having to scrub the floors
(phew!)
and the slippers, damn, how dainty.


But, how quickly could she forget her neighbors in their meager drafty dwellings?
How could she squander after she knew squalor?


I don’t think she could,
and as much as she hated shrivelly, soapy hands,
I think she would have been scrubbing
old Mrs. Cupboardnut’s floors,
and taking a gang of knights
to play with the boys and build
a new tree house.


Would that have been enough though?
Could she really return home and trade her rags for royalty?


When the prince travels to lands exotic,
I’m sure she sits alone in the tower,
straining to hear the crackle of a fire,
where finances have been traded for family.


And when she scales her bed,
and sleep kisses her g’night,
of what does she dream, and in the morning,
what does she dare do?


I’m not the narrator of this story.
And the answer is held in cells not yet penned
for children not yet dreamt of.
I can only add myself to the chorus and crowd
who waits and hums silently the tune of her next song.

Food Philosophy

I believe that food lies somewhere between a lustful passionate romance and an artful, soulful expression of self. I’m not talking about the slop that they serve at the joint around the corner, and I’m not referring to the multi-star Michelin rated restaurants that the snooty nosed patrons flock to. I’m referencing the food that I produce; I’m talking about the meals that I create with my own two hands and a generous dose of divine inspiration.


Food is my mistress. At night I slink to her. In the dim light that emanates from the back of my fridge, my hands wander, caressing plastic wrapped melons and tupperwared loins, of pork. I think there are very few pleasures in this world that are as satisfying as the first bite of a finely prepared meal. I find great joy wandering the aisles of Wegmans as I search for the perfect accoutrement to pan seared pork chops, or a luscious stuffed chicken marsala. Excitement seems to follow me around corners of the meat counter, through the ripened cheeses, down the bakery section with yeast drifting through the air like invisible balloons. I stop, picking up the loaves, feeling the thick steamed crust, hearing the crack beneath my fingers. My heart races as I eye the pesto peeking out from Mediterranean Bar. Tonight it will be mine, oh yes!


Other times, when I walk into the market, my lust subsides, and the artist in me is reborn, my imagination streaked by the colors of fresh produce. I see my circular canvas with a myriad of side dishes sliding in and out of the frame. Main dishes first pan seared, then fried, then roasted settle at 12 o’clock, then 6 ,then fade away to make room for the next candidate. I wander the store in a daze, my inner eye set on the perfect composition of sight and salt and savory. Bit by bit my palate creates itself in my basket. Fennel fronds protrude from the edge, tickling passersby. Mushrooms of different sizes and shapes sit next to the onions: red, white, yellow. A beef cutlet imagines its marriage to citrus and bleu cheese. Back at the studio, I sharpen my instruments and prepare for the frenzy.


No matter how I am feeling, food is always an expression of self. Whether I am keyed on an unhealthy passion for a single ingredient, or I am longing to create the perfect plate, I will always see the food I cook as an extension of who I am towards those I love.

Autumnal Aria

she sat there on her knees

cradling the orange orb

in her lap, deftly cutting and carving

curves and lines,

intersecting, connecting, creating

the pumpkin’s grin

and it sat there glowing

its tiny flame growing

and under the watchful gaze

we fell into each other:

fingers and hands and

toes and arms

and lips and

I embraced her tightly

beheld by only

the pumpkin’s grin

the night began to wane

and she held me

in her eyes

and released me into the

crisp autumnal air

filling me

and inspiring me

and before I knew it

I happily bore

the pumpkin’s grin

Soup at 1A.M.

I got home and he was there
with soup on the stove at 1AM
I told him about my evening
and the music and the dinner


and I left out her eyes
I left out that soft swell of comfort
that poured over me,
like a lazy wave calming the frantic beach
each and every time she touched me


He asked me if it was tense,
If it was OK,
If there was sexual tension
and I said, “Yes”


and I left out the curve of her hip
I left out that curious fire which like a coal
brightens and rekindles for that brief moment
when set upon by breath
each and every time she kissed my cheek.


And he looked at me with a discouraging
face and shook his head
tended to his soup, adding more pepper
and stirring the pot
steam languidly swirling around his salted hair
and asked me if it’s, “Going to get old quick?”


and I
for all it’s worth breathed deeply
of the sweetness in the room
closed my heavy eyes, pulled
the corners of my lips into a smile
and shook my head, “No.”

I Know

I know you would be upset
if I told you that
I still have the shirt I wore
the first time we fucked


I know you would be upset
if I told you that
it is still sitting, folded in upon itself
on my dresser next to
her overturned engagement picture
love letters sitting on divorce letters
and a watch long dead
that I still hear ticking


There are mornings when I wake
knowing that I’m losing the little
we had, and like an addict
I need a hit to bring myself
back to that moment


and I carefully unfold the
creased rumpled pile of fabric
and breath deeply
smelling you
your perfume
your sex
your kisses
your words that sent me to my knees


again.
feeling, now, your seething body
below me
on top of me
around me.
and then I’m finished
and return the repository
with its silent secrets
and sink down from my
high,
to the dim blue room of reality.


I know you would be alright
if I lied.
I know you would be alright
if I told you that I don’t love you
that I never did, and never could

a diddy in iambic tetrameter

The thunder crashed and lightning flashed;
the tempest razed the world outside,
but in her arms he's safe and calm.
The laces of his heart untied.


-theGester

Then It Was Something More

“Then it was something more. I wasn’t actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity...”

It was really those flashes

in her eyes

that made me do it,

that made me feel that there was something

to be caught, something to be experienced

behind the frigid front.

No, that’s wrong; it was never frigid, only physical.

I guess that’s where I fail,

that’s where I’m the naïve little boy.

I can intellectualize the difference but I cannot

make myself understand, I cannot

make myself senseless.

I can displace,

dispell,

detain it,

but it grows like a chrysanthemum gone wild,

needing to be split

and replanted constantly.

Slowly now.

And I find I’m tired, I’m tried I’m resigned

to keep dividing these roots as my love grows,

fed by tender touches and furtive kisses.

“...for a moment I thought I loved her. But I am slow thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires...” –Nick Carraway

“Then it was something more. I wasn’t actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.” –Nick Carraway

“...for a moment I thought I loved her. But I am slow thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires...” –Nick Carraway

“It made no difference to me. Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply—I was casually sorry, and then I forgot.” -Nick Carraway

Something I Can Never Tell You

These meager dribbles of pen & ink are the escape valve of my heart. These lines keep me from loving you, from losing you. These words lie on the page and act as my repository for emotions not acted upon, not felt, only calculated, only intellectualized. These are my words left dumb, my touches restrained, my tears siphoned away, my sex only dreamt. Someday, I wish to no longer have any need for black ink. I wish to wash my hands clean of their dark stains, their smudges, so that I may crumple this paper, eat it whole and let the love I hold come flowing freely from my mouth.

Definition

I wish

to redefine

this too tall term:

family

Some nights,

Some nights I sit

Some nights I sit, wet with paint,

high off the fumes

of my own tired thoughts,

and wonder what this term will mean

to him.

If I could,

I’d start my own

dictionary

and paste our picture

beside that word.

The sign that signifies my love.

Some nights,

Some nights I sit

Some nights I sit, in your room

with you curled up

butt in the air,

(un)fairness incarnate

I sit with you,

illuminated by the gleaming

white lights of that

tiny Christmas tree

and foolishly cry

for the things you never had,

and may never even want.

-theGester

Indigestion

Have you ever

had that feeling when you eat

too quickly

and you have that piece of food,

just somewhat larger than your mother would have approved of,

stuck somewhere on its slight journey

to your stomach?

It’s tight and uncomfortable,

and you want to push it down,

you want it to get where it’s going to end up,

but you have no voluntary control over it.

You just have to wait until

peristalsis slowly works its silent magic

and relieves you of the discomfort that

you have foolishly wrought upon yourself.

Tonight, your memory is

stuck,

I can feel it wedged so tightly

on its way to wherever

painful memories go to be digested,

and squeezed

of meaning

and hurt

and finally

expelled

in a final form that has no logical relation

to the soured sweetness that I partook of.

I ate of your love too quickly

and I glutted myself

on your kisses

with hugs and sweet caresses

dripping from my

masticating jaw.

It wasn’t pretty;

it was beautiful.

Moderation has never been my strong suit

and now as I stare at this empty plate,

your absence is marked now by indigestion,

and I can’t quite seem to find the right prescription.

I’ve tried all the over the counter remedies:

I’ve lied to myself,

I’ve rationalized,

I’ve tried to hate you and your soft visage,

but none of it has done any good.

Somewhere you sit, and I can still taste you on my lips

and it makes my groans all the more sinister

and my stilted movements all the more sad.

As I lie in bed I would swear that it’s moved,

just a tad,

and it gives me hope that in the morning

I’ll be ready to open the fridge and begin foraging for my next meal.

Until then I’ll search for sleep,

still never regretting that first bite.

-theGester

The Modern Day Cinderella

Have you met the modern day Cinderella?

Don’t go looking for her

in some hovel;

she’s not broken and blemished,

bent over the hearth with

cinders besmeared upon her brow.

Instead she’s in the big box bookstore down the street;

she’s traded that pale dressing gown and apron for

jeans, from Amvets, a size and a half two big,

an 80s band t-shirt her older brother wore

when he was in middle school and

a tag around her neck that marks her as indentured.

This girl. She’s there in the corner stocking the tall shelves

with crisp, un-creased, newly printed copies of

Lolita

and on her breaks she slowly thumbs her used copy of

Dharma Bums

with three generations of grime & notes smeared in the margins.

This girl. I’ve seen her in her carriage too,

that ‘99 Ford Focus hatchback, black,

with an Indigo Girls mix CD playing and

her windows down in late November

her hand-me-down black pea coat wrapped around her shoulders,

fall’s fine fingers playing with her dark brown locks.

This girl. She doesn’t need a fairy godmother,

in fact she’s never even been baptized.

She’s got faith in her own two feet

and an ancient pair of Docs that have seen more shows

and tromped through more fields

than her fuzzy forest friends can count.

Oh, and her prince,

that’s me.

I found her there with her hand pressed

against Nabokov’s naked tongue,

and then, we had a ball.

We danced in an empty house

with drained glasses tottering on a stained card table,

the band projecting through tinny speakers.

She didn’t trace squares on the floor

in four four time, but let it loose.

At the chime of the bells, with a pensive

look, she flipped open her phone and began to run.

I caught her for a brief moment,

and with a kiss she left me in the bare light of the slivered moon.

She didn’t even leave me a slipper but a number she had *67’d,

and now I’m left wandering the aisles between

Faulkner and Foucault listening for the swish of corduroy

I can’t forget.

Have seen my modern day Cinderella?

-theGester

So, this is the point where karma catches up with me?

I told myself that I needed to

destruct

some relationships.

I told myself that I needed to

feel

what it was like to leave someone

in the dust

I told myself that it was OK

to want to feel wanted,

for the sake of needing

to be held,

and gazed at,

and lusted for.

I don’t even regret that almost one night stand

any more.

I can’t completely forget how foul it felt in the moment

the tainted pleasure I derived from white, too white skin.

She was a beast,

a pernicious primordial pinhead.

But she wanted me so badly.

And she did get me in bed,

And she did get me naked

And she did get far enough

for me.

I needed to be wanted,

I wanted to be needed,

but what she wanted,

I couldn’t give.

She loved the way I kissed

though.

I remember that fondly;

I remember that and smile.

After she gave up,

after she tried to

seduce me,

persuade me,

guilt me,

and finally beg me

into fucking her and my resolve held

fast and hard,

she contented herself with grinding

against me and kissing

me deeply.

Biting my lip till it bled,

and kissing me still harder.

That perhaps was her one redeeming factor.

In the morning, the phone rang before the alarm clock

heralded the morning and I

pulled on my clothes, embarrassed for

having to see her naked for that brief moment before

she slipped on her robe and I wanted then

to save her the same awkwardness.

Ain’t I a gent.

With mumblings and crooked smiles, we said what could be perceived as goodbyes and I left with an unused pack of condoms and an obligatory cup of coffee in a mug

she’ll never see again.

You Are Not My Angel

You are not my angel.

They died long ago,

And it’s better that

Way for I found them

Much too hard to embrace.

Ethereal wings and blinding white

Light does make it so

Difficult to hold hands,

Let alone kiss cherub lips.

I find I much prefer you.

Your solid company and

Banter, your warm embrace

And mere look fills me with

The confidence to conquer

Your lips

Are the solace I seek and

Your body is the Eden

I wish to return to.

I will pay the price for his sins

To enter the garden and

Reclaim paradise.

-theGester