Maybe you’ve found yourself in the middle of what seemed to be a crisis of someone else’s need— maybe you, too, have stood innocently in line at the grocery store when all of a sudden the air was filled with the sound of a man screaming without words— just something primal desperate deeply disturbing to those of us suppressing our own internal frustration with this life by smiling at those around us and by refraining from the violence we sometimes imagine we are capable of. No, this was not the sound of physical pain but the other kind— the raw immediate jump off the edge. And we who heard it ..read more

When you drink too much only half of you is present to function in front of others as you might if you’d had nothing to drink at all and this is such a difficult task— you find yourself bumping into corners as if they jumped into you and you find that your hands forgot how to be graceful as you speak or lift the glass and somehow you are hyper-aware of everything you should and should not do but the things you know you should not think about seem to float to the surface of your consciousness which is only, you believe, slightly impaired, and before you know it you are dreaming again of him— th ..read more

What a strange name, Elijah. It sounded too human for this caged bird inside a glass box not even wide enough for him to spread his wings, let alone fly. He was perched on a branch removed from a real tree but there was an artificial landscape painted on his back wall looking like nowhere he would have come from— and the sign beside his name instructed those of us who wandered toward him not to tap on the glass which seemed unnecessary to get his attention because there he was beautiful yellow and green looking at me with intelligence curiosity and what must have been sadness because when I wa ..read more

This is why it doesn’t matter that I feel what you feel in the middle of an ordinary day or in the sleepless hours when the moonlight creeps slowly across our beds. Haven’t we lived long enough to distrust the ache the flutter the hope that fills our cheeks with an involuntary smile when we think about lovely afternoons spent in each other’s company? Isn’t it enough or better to remember how love makes lofty promises then disappoints hurts disintegrates if we touch it into existence? Isn’t it enough or better to admire from afar this fragile thing between us and promise we will never get close ..read more

I hope to be of service— to guide you toward the light to teach you how what when to speak or stay silent about love that appears in your life outside the boundaries of your current committed relationship. It can bloom like a rose in the most unexpected places and your innocent curiosity will be no match for the fragrance of the new. Know that you are not exempt from another failure as you succumb to outside temptation as you pursue a new, exciting diversion from the life you have begun to believe is not quite right for you, despite your being somewhere in the vicinity of middle age. Know also ..read more

I was in a movie a dream walking toward the elevator where you stood pretending not to know me– we rode up to the tenth floor as is if we were strangers as if my body didn’t already know yours and inside the room was everything you knew I’d need to be at your service for forty eight hours and I remember the taste of everything you left the peanut butter and jelly the pretzel roll with that marvelous glaze– the orange that orange my god that orange– I’ve never enjoyed one more, or since, and you knew you were never gonna feed my wish but you kept me baited, captive while you attended meetings a ..read more

It’s okay now, somehow — somehow it doesn’t matter like I thought it would, doesn’t hurt forever like I thought it would — but it never goes away, either, like I hoped it would. My love for him lingers like dust on a piano I no longer want to play. DeMaris 6.30.2022 ..read more

Somewhere in the past, both yours and mine— maybe closer to the year of our birth, or maybe closer to another century or another age in history— some mothers of our many mothers were forced to do what they did not want to do— made to receive the seed of another— the dark product of evolution that ensured our species would be fruitful and strong enough to rise up – to touch enlightenment and create, one day, a mandate that women should have a say over when or if they bear a child— and we thought we saw a beautiful light coming through the tunnel but it was an army of men carrying torches— afrai ..read more

This is what I had to do. Piercing this flag with a cross demonstrates the horror of what has happened to the freedom the flag represents. The republican religious right-wing conservative Christian fascists have succeeded in removing the protected right to a safe and private abortion. This is a result of democracy being subverted. It started with the Republicans blocking Obama’s rightful nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. This was political bullshit. Then, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.9 million. But because of the antiquated electoral college system, Trump became ..read more

Oh you, dizzy with boredom, I cannot complete you. I can only fill one of your myriad vacancies with whatever it is you do with your imagination when you are alone in the silence of possibility. Best if you don’t come any closer or I might find a reason to wonder about your day and how you fill it— and then every question would lead to an answer you would try to make sound true. DeMaris 6-20-2022 “Sunlight on the Floor” by Vilhelm Hammershoi, 1901 ..read more