Here are a few of my sample poems for you to cruise through if you like.  Most are being compiled into a book that you will soon be able to buy here... If you want to read more or get a sample of my short stories, hit the contact button on the home page of this site.

Chicken Pox

This is not a poem about Chicken Pox

This is not a poem about a crusty childhood disease

That would be gross

This is a poem about chicken pox and how I never had them

This is a poem about all the things that I didn’t have but could have

This is really a poem about regret

Regret for what I should have been

The CDC states, that 95% of all woman of childbearing age have had chicken pox

But not me

I am not immune

Like 5% of the population, I walk with the uneasy gate of a person about to be ravaged by disease

Like many regrets I have

About things I should have done

About things I could have experienced

I regret not rubbing Donny O’Toole when he had the chicken pox

Everyone else did and they all got 2 weeks off from school

I got a lifetime of worry

Waiting to get the pox

This is still not a poem about chicken pox

It’s a poem about being afraid

Afraid to rub Donny for a minute

But not afraid to waste years with regret

Those kids, I imagine them grown up

Do they even remember getting sick or do they just remember that they don’t need to worry?

Do they boldly display their chicken pox scars and taunt me

Perfect round dots that stare at me

To remind me that although I have impeccable skin

It is all temporary

Ask Donny O’Toole, he’ll tell you that he has 10 scars and one of them is the size of an almond on his left cheek

But this isn’t a poem about Donny

It’s a poem about the things that I didn’t do but could have

I could have studied harder

I could have not smoked that first joint

I could have not crashed that stolen cab into the crack house

I could have not wasted those 7 years in your shadow

I could have told you to go fuck yourself before you fucked me

But I didn’t

Maybe the chicken pox would have killed me

I might have died at the hand of tragically contagious but fairly mild disease

Mavbe I just regret the drama

Or maybe I like the drama of living on the edge without even a vaccination to help me

Sure, I could get the vaccine but that would be too easy

Too much closure sometimes makes me feel like I need to reopen something else that was shut a long time ago

Maybe I am the 1% of the population who are naturally immune to things

I guess it doesn’t matter

This is all about bad decisions

It’s all about the things I could have done but chose not to

About the time I didn’t get the job at the TV station, so I am not Diane Sawyer

It’s about how I don’t ask questions, so I am never quite sure what people are talking about

It’s all really about being too scared that day to get chicken pox that I wait to get it everyday

It’s about being too late

Now I am too old to be frivolous

It’s about you all, I bet you had chicken pox and you are sitting there right now, thinking how much better than me you are…

This is all about going balls out and taking risks

Getting all uncomfortable and itchy

About doing something stupid and getting two weeks off of school

Where can you get that kind of magic?

You see, it’s all about writing a poem about chicken pox

And, not giving a fuck what anyone thinks

Except all of you… so, I hope you liked it.

Cubicle

I sit in my cubicle, my little space at workCloth walls and some metal poles, give me my sense of individuality, my sense of privacyWhat is this?This is not private?I hear the beast in the cube next to me breathing and clipping it's fingernails

I think I even smell it’s feet

These flimsy skeletal walls that pretend to protect

If you protected me, you would have a roof and a lock

Screw these putrid, phony, fake havens of boxed lives

You can't box my RATH, Mr. Incorporated

Did I tell you I hate my job?

I telemarket stuff, sell stuff that I don't care about

I work for the white guys, you know the big fat white guys, making them rich, buying their cars and feeding their egos

When I was a little girl, I wanted to grow up and be somebody

I wanted to be a star

I thought things were going to be different

I thought life was going to NOT suck

What was I thinking?

It was so long ago

I am so far in this fucking rut, I can't even remember digging

I stare at the wall, eating corn pops out of a baggy, hoping no one notices me

And, they don't

No one cares

They have no minds

It doesn't seem to even bother them

I want to jump up every minute from my desk and scream with my picture of my kitties in one hand and my coffee cup in the other and run out the door

I want to wrap my phone cord so tight around my neck that I can't even breathe

I want to stand naked in my cube and slather lotion on my body and dance

I want to scream, look at me, look at me rock

At least then things would be different

I would be somebody

I would be the naked girl

I would be the naked girl who rocked

I’d walk up to my boss, my resignation in my hand and only a little cocoa butter to clothe me

I'd wear flip flops and whistle a happy tune

I'd say, "I quit"

Hear me, "I quit FUCKO"

I'd skip down the hall, flapping those flip flops

Stopping occasionally to rock, like I do

Thinking about how I was somebody

Somebody really crazy

Somebody who rocked

Rocked really hard

CUPCAKE

Reunited and it feels so good

I hadn’t had a Hostess Cupcake in 20 years

Until today

I held the box in my hand with wonder

I wondered if I could really eat it

Could I eat both of the cupcakes in the sleeve?

Could I do it in one sitting?

The calories

The net carbs

The joy,

The pain,

The creamy delicious middle,

The gelatinous top,

The moist cake,

They way it all melts together like a wondrous bakery miracle

Could I do it?

Oh yes

I did it!

I did it hard!

I savored every second of it

I devoured them

I licked the paper,

I licked my fingers

Then, I opened the second sleeve before I took my first breath

I could put the cake next to my nose and smell my childhood

The smell of that cupcake unlocked a door to a simpler time

A time when I could lay in the grass for hours, thinking only of the ice cream man

The smell of the cupcake catapulted me back to a time when I didn’t care about tomorrow and I didn’t really remember yesterday.

The creamy middle reminded me of my mother

How she would freeze the cupcakes to keep them fresh

We couldn’t wait until they thawed

We would chew at the frozen cake and unearth the hardened ball of frozen cream

Then let is melt in our mouths

It was heaven

Hostess cupcakes bring me to places of exploration before I realized that life was going to burn me

I washed it down with milk and then remembered that I still hate milk

I washed it down with coke and remembered that I still love coke

I thought about my friends, about trading lunches at school, about smoking cigarettes behind the dumpster, about swearing and teaching the dumb kids about sex, about being a bad little catholic girl and man, it man it still felt good.

The cupcake looks the exact same

Maybe a little smaller?

Or maybe I am a little bigger

I remember looking in my lunch bag and knowing that I had something cool

I would see that cupcake sitting along side my Peanut butter and jelly sandwich

Along side my malformed peanut butter and jelly sandwich that was on a frozen hamburger bun

Again, my mother with the freezing and freshness

A sandwich that had slid out of the wax paper and was resting, naked in the bag, in soggy wet spot from the thaw

I would see that cupcake and know it was going to be all right

Everything was going to be O.K.

I don’t know why I bought the cupcakes today

I don’t even really remember it happening

I know that I ended up eating the entire box

I know that lay down on my couch in a tasty, sugar drunk haze

I know that I woke up with a chocolate ringed mouth, ashamed and with a hang over

But I felt young, I felt alive and those cupcakes set me FREE!