“Once upon a time, there was a tiny Seed lying in the ground.
It did not know what it was or how it got there.
It thought it had always been there,
Peacefully resting in its dry, cool bed.
One day the bed became moist,
And the Seed awoke feeling thirsty.
It started to swell and released tiny white roots… [‘In The Ground’]”

Yelena Eckemoff could easily moonlight as a painting artist, children’s writer, or romantic poet. Her jazz/classical concept albums have become multi-media, multiverse experiences, as she tells her stories from unique points of view: a lioness watching over her cubs, nature’s changing seasons, the scent of Blooming Tall Phlox, a lovely wildflower the Russian artist remembers fondly from childhood. …

it hurts too much
laying these dead Barbies out in a line,
like toy soldiers, willing them
a final resurrection
and for what?

I watched her eat half a pastrami sandwich
with gusto
after she helped decorate your nursery,
James, you will never hear her beautiful voice
wash over you in waves, the sunlight in her face,
as she remembered better times
despite the darkness she relived every day

not like this, not like this, oh, god, not like this

My finger pauses over your name in the book of tunes, as I charge my little pink jukebox. I didn’t know why. …

I watched the beautiful women, asked to dance. Dedicated beautiful love songs, of pining, want, and need. Why, I asked myself, not me? I went to a party dressed in floor-length, black velvet and rhinestones, Cinderella in this story, but no Prince Charming ever came. My boyfriend stayed home, ashamed of me, ashamed of himself, ashamed of love.

Who will sing “Wildflower” just for me? I imagine lots of sweeping, trembling violins, reaching for an impossible key that wants to break and shatter and dance just a little.

The last dance is not for me. I am here to watch, to tell their love stories and review their love songs. And lock up.

But I am wildflower. Not her.

Midway into the holidays, I went back to Keto, turned off the news, and checked out of social media for awhile. I couldn’t take any more of the constant bullshit noise pollution of Us vs. Them Big Gov., Big Tech., & Big Media jerk themselves off on. It was like living in a fiery hamster wheel of Super Bowl commercials, Ted Talks, and ABC after school specials, from 20 years ago.

I’m an introvert and misanthrope anyway. These lockdowns aren’t fucking with me any more than any normal day. But I know they are killing most of the rest of the population with the isolation, loneliness, depression, anxiety, and all that other good stuff. …

as we grow further apart, I can see moments — all too brief — where one decision makes up a lifetime, holding back, defying, waiting, waiting for the right time, the right one who may never come, maybe because he had to die, a casualty of little, petty wars of old, white men, having nothing to do with me, maybe another woman, another man, someone within his grasp, someone convenient, ticks off all the boxes

because we need to eat, because we get lonely,
because he or she is in the way

it’s okay
it’s hard to see me, too
hiding in your pocket,
seeing these spectacular sunsets,
whispering, “I love you,”
just before you flutter those beautiful sun-lashes to sleep
I love you more than I love myself,
which is why I am here, withering in the corner, nursing my aching bones, the winter chill never-ending in the stone-cold, darkened spaces of my heart murmur,
will it ever, ever end? I am too old for you, darling,
my teeth are rotting out, and this weight can’t hold for much…

a hundred million tik tok commercials
to get to you
je t’aime

he — dad, father figure, a million other extra characters vying for the leading role
- forever in the way of
our splendor, just your body
clicks against mine,
like love’s greatest light switch,
your key in my locket

I don’t mind
your mouth on my neck
our youthful bodies,
for this one blissful moment,
dancing to the beat of a hundred million
love songs, like this,
to this, just this

together,
we are free
of entanglements,
duty, shame, adultery, one more beautiful than the other,
the others

you are mine
for now, and
I never want to let you go

Originally published at https://carolbankswebercoggie.wordpress.com on January 8, 2021.

and yet,
you still talk of death
like it’s a game,
where the goal is to rack up
the most
body bags

are you hard?
wet?
or just plain fucking sadistic?

do you know I hate you,
all the way over here in my little hamlet in the woods
of my mind, my mind lives in the same two houses,
where the roof leaks, and strangers come and go,
taking my milk, eating my cookies,
never bothering with my name

(think Christmas)

you will never love me
I am never going to be good enough,
young enough,
pretty enough, or fuckable
in all the right places —
the tits and the ass, and the oh-so tiny…