Taco Meat by Michael D. Goscinski

Aleathia says:

If you don't already know, I am in a relationship with an amazing guy and a wonderful writer. Writing brought us together and the love of the world has kept us moving forward. Michael D. Goscinski has recently started putting his work out there again and has a new blog called Taco Meat.

We have always had very different perspectives on writing both in content and process. In the last few years we have both lost some significant people in our lives which caused our writing to feel lost to us. This year Michael found his voice again and has been writing incredible, imaginative stories and poetry. I personally felt a bit jealous and stunted, but his enthusiasm for the written word sparked something in me and I have started writing again. It feels strange and different, but it is happening.

I would like you to go on his journey with him through his blog Taco Meat where he posts work from time to time, spotlights things he likes, and displays his unique photographs.

Thanks for reading!

Aleathia

The Marking of Years

Aleathia says:

From the alley it's clear
that summer is fading.

Tomatoes hang heavy and over ripe,
neglected on the vine from gardeners
giving up on their bounty.

Pools sit half empty, collecting leaves
and late flowers,
some have deflated
and look forlorn without tiny bodies
in colorful suits splashing about.

The temperature is better for walking,
the sun still warming the skin
between clouds and high country winds.

The night whispers a chill
and sweatshirts find their way
onto arms and in backpacks.

It is the time for all things to settle in,
to take stock of their future
and smile on the past.

We are winding down,
we are becoming silent and fragile.
Our years marked with another season.

Aleathia Drehmer 2016

A Soup of Patience, a poem

Aleathia says:

I forego walking today,
my heart too heavy,
mind too full to push
this body forward.
It has forgotten everything
it knows about the laws of inertia.

In a silent house
I cook soup from my heritage
hoping it will bring my father's patience
to the surface and push back
the haunting whispers of my mother
saying “I told you so”.

The smell of onions fills the kitchen
and the warm sun falls on my back
as I lean against the sink.
The sky is blue and clear
and I am jealous of how easy
it seems to let go of its worries.
I have never been good at that.

But I will try again,
grow stronger and wiser,
to settle my mind.

To live in real time
with all its suffering and joy.
I can do this.
We can do this.
One moment at a time

Aleathia Drehmer 2016

Painted Glass and the Meaning of Life, a poem

Aleathia says:

We walked to the museum in perfect weather.
It felt like an eternity since we had shared
something simple but important.

5 years looming on the horizon
and I’ve forgotten who I was before you arrived.

I contemplate the significance of this
in the grand scheme of life.

Have I lost myself?
Have we grown too comfortable?
What does that even mean?
But I say nothing.
Live in this moment, I tell myself.

We look at sculptures in the white, stark wing
and comment on pieces we love revisiting,
take note of new specimens.

The painted, hazy glass catches my attention.

I am alone in front of it, my body a blur in the center.
I feel lost in the world. You come and stand beside me,
the blur gets larger and changes shape.

It is something new. The piece is new, we are new.
I take our picture, a portrait, I say. You half smile
and say nothing.

I am home.
I am where I am supposed to be.

Aleathia Drehmer 2016

Secrets, a poem

Aleathia says:

I rise to early to another headache,
day three and counting.

My body is no longer willing to keep
its bulk nestled warmly between the sheets.

I lace up my sneakers and step out to the brick steps,
the air is crisp, spiderwebs hold dew and empty lifeless carcasses,
the birds sing a morning song I've not listened to in ages.

I walk. It is what I do these days secretly hoping
to shed this extra body I've collected over the years
of emotional hibernation knowing it is as much a fantasy
as the end of this headache.

The sky is pink with clouds
threading a needle back through pillows of orange.

I had forgotten these moments existed.
I had forgotten my love of solitude amongst the chaos.
I had forgotten what it was like to live.

Aleathia Drehmer 2016

UFO, a poem

Aleathia says:

The late summer dusk
settles in around me,
light fading more rapidly
than I'd hoped
walking the trail alone.

Bats fly low over my head
as if they are the hands
of an invisible marionettist.

A song plays through the headphones
reminding me of another time and place,
so distant and unreal.

I'm distracted by the smell
of wood burning
and the fire inside my hip.

I am back to living this moment
before it disappears.

Aleathia Drehmer 2016

I Answer with More Silence, a poem

Aleathia says:

Sometimes at night I can't sleep when everyone else is tucked in. This may be from so many years of working the overnight shift, but most of it is from anxiety. It has been a long time since I considered myself a writer. I just stopped doing it even though I loved it.  It ushered me through all of the most terrible things in my life except the most recent ones, the loss of my parents. Why did I choose this time to stop writing? When did I become uninspired to mark up the page and share my version of the world?

I used to think that misery and hardship were the driving forces behind poetry. The darkness within pushing out all the tasty morsels and ideas, but these last three years have the darkest of my life and the struggle to create words has been deep and seemingly unending. With the writing gone, the reading has moved out as well. It used to be my favorite escape and now it is hard to read for more than a few moments at a time. I have condemned myself to audio books and ADD.

The last month has been especially difficult for me watching my other half flourish with the written word. He is finding his voice again.  He is writing daily with purpose and this makes me happy, though I feel like I can't relate as much as I used to and it gives me a sense of complacency. We used to both love it so much. It was how we came together in the first place. I am well aware that people change. He and I may not always see writing in the same ways or love it the same as we used to. But I keep asking myself how I could lose something I did for 30 years of my life, almost daily? I'm not sure.  But this happened:

I Answer with More Silence

In the dark

I listen to the dog’s
jagged brand of snoring
In a minor chord
and out of sync
with the fan’s blades
cutting the air
and the thickness

of my melancholy.

Putting words to page

isn’t new to me

but feels foreign

and vicious

and subduing

at the same time.

The keys seem to ask

where have I been

and like any good mother,

why have I not called

in so long.

Aleathia Drehmer 2016