how to get everything you’ve ever wanted

First, you must believe yourself worthy.
This is not the same as deserving.
This is not a promotion, a raise, a graduation.
This is not the prize you win after countless attempts at winning.
This is you standing naked in an empty house at midnight,
the street below dark and silent, the fruit bowl in your kitchen
brimming with oblong shapes that eventually you recognize
as bananas. This is you aligning yourself with the stationary and the shifting:
the broken light bulb, the foghorn, the water tower, the power cord,
the orange chair you write in, the carpet stain that won’t disappear,
the sound of morning cars on Guerrero, the swaying palm tree, the laces
on your basketball shoes, a stack of paper, a water bottle snapped to your bike,
a piece of lint your lover removes from your cheek, that cheek, that lover,
the new blossoms on the lemon tree, the toilet that needs to be flushed twice,
the grooves on the coffee table, a calculator that needs only sunlight
to turn it on, the man who cut your hair, his pierced lip, his quick scissors,
the letters your grandfather sends, the gas pump, neon, frozen waffles,
a stack of martini glasses, doorways, picture frames, kitchen remodels,
long white envelopes bulging with receipts, a backpack filled with dirty gym clothes,
an apple tree in hibernation, empty check boxes, the steps outside City Hall,
a balloon escaping the clutch of a 3-year-old, tears barreling down her cheeks,
an anchor, a crossing guard, a detour, a yield sign poised on the lip of the highway.

Forget the pulverizing mirror, that blistering microscope of discrepancy.
You are not less than but equal to.
Throw away the movie reel casting you as the villain, the buffoon, the mistake.
You are not less than but equal to.
Turn from the narrow dead-end road book-ended by barbed wire.
You are not less than but equal to.
When he tells you you’re beautiful, say thank you.
When she holds your hand driving across the bridge, say yes.
When the morning opens, say hello.
When the light flickers out, say sleep.

my new poetry project - VERSE PURSE!

Introducing Verse Purse, original and inspirational 10-line poems for reading on the go! Choose an entire year’s worth or pick your theme:

relationships / love
personal reflection
spirituality and growth
food & travel
writing / creativity
the seasons / holidays
the environment / nature / animals
athletics / sports
politics / current events

prices:
$19.95 for each year (2006, 2007, 2008 available)
$12.95 for each theme

Verse Purse is printed on glossy, double-sided thick-stock paper. Two sizes are available (small & medium print). For more information, call me at 415.265.0085 or email maya@pursenverse.com.

no place else

you see it always, can’t help it, even lost, you see it, tiny light down the hallway, a place to tiptoe toward, the hint of a destination even though you know it’s not the real one, not the final landing spot, resting place, not home exactly, but somewhere in between, and what’s lucky about that is you don’t think the world is out to get you, beat you down, encourage your failure and ultimate demise, which is why you allow yourself the luxury of waiting just past when others might flee, which is why you can keep yourself from fleeing, and here you are. not fleeing, even when one of your friends cautions you against staying in a relationship that may not have a future, a relationship in which the odds are stacked firmly against you, and if this were her she would have left long ago, but then again she never had your willpower, your trust, your faith in the unknown, your love, even, of uncertainty, and how odds stacked against you is to you a perfectly reasonable way to proceed, you have always been stubborn, and now, now that you have found a place for your love to land, you are even more stubborn, even more willing to test the faith of what you can’t control, and when your lover called you yesterday afternoon, when she dialed your number from a hotel three thousand miles away in order to talk to you, to hear your voice, to find a place of rest and assurance there, you saw it again, a tiny light down the hallway, something telling you not to leave just yet, not to abandon ship, not to get out while you could, when you might salvage something of your heart, and you realized that this was the only way choice, to come forward, crawling if you had to, out of the dark, toward that light, that there was no place else for you to go.

clarity

One does not always have to leap,
full-throated, into the fire.

This morning, the rain.
Fat drops of it on the ceiling.
Other than that, a silent house.
Such a gift, this solitude, this baptismal wash,
this lack of fire. From each still room,
I could see almost everything.