Giants Among Us

The giants of this earth

are no taller than anyone else

The saints of this world

have no halos

The people who hold you up

are not made of stone

The sacred hands you hold

are made of flesh and bone

Where did all the magic go?

Where do all the heroes hide?

The people of this generation are always demanding a sign

They should be crying for new eyes

Why don't you see when you look at your neighbor?

in the mirror?

What has been there for all time?

You are in darkness all over again

When illumination is so bright it has made you blind.

Anna J Michener

January 24^th, 2011

Is it the Pen or the Ink?

Some people sweep dirt under their rugs

Put skeletons in their closets

Smile to hide something dark in their souls

But what I most want to keep from world

Is my tenderness

Oh God forbid anyone finds out

It's still there

Under the scars and the chipped teeth

I can spit bullets

But don't look too deep in these yellow eyes

I walked through the fire

To make myself cast iron

But there's still something soft at my core

And it's growing

I'm gonna have to cancel my street cred account

Return my diploma from the school of hard knocks

Wipe off my war paint

Strip the patches off my jacket

Oh hell, just take the jacket too

Now I am naked, vulnerable

I've heard weakness is strength

But I am afraid

Take a deep breath, Anna

Go ahead and become liquid

Don't worry

Because sharp things cannot hurt water

They just slide right through

And it is the rivers that write history

In stones

Anna J Michener

April 27^th, 2011

Coranado

Coronado

In 1541, long before anyone even dreamed this land would become

the state of Kansas, in the United States of America

Francisco Vasquez de Coranado traveled here all the way from Mexico

Searching for Quivera, a mythical city of gold

He travled about half-way across the endless prairie

Before he found a hill tall enough he could climb up and see what lay ahead

All he saw was more Kansas

And that's when he decided, “Fuck this, I'm turning back.”

A couple hundred years later, but still before Kansas would become a state

My ancestors arrived in covered wagons

Maybe it was because the wagon broke down

or the oxen pulling it died

I can only guess the reason, but the fact is my people stayed here

And Kansas still isn't very populated compared to other states

I don't have to drive far outside of town to see vast expanses of dry grasses

People who drive cross-country complain about the long, boring drive through Kansas

It is rarely a destiation, it's just a place in the way of getting some place else

But I don't see what's wrong with flat and wide spaces

I like being able to see the sky touch the ground all around me

I don't mind a color palette of just grey and brown, in infinite shades

And the way the wind blows across a field and ripples the crops

like waves in a waterless sea

I go to the lake in early spring and everything looks dead

But I know it isn't

Green things are pushing their way up through the earth and a layer of matted leaves

Birds and squirrels still make their nests in the skeletons of trees

and if you break off a little branch and cut it open, it will be green inside

I am always impressed by Kansas trees

clumps of them all lean the same way the winds have bent them

charred bits have been blasted off by lightning strikes

and branches bowed and broken by the weight of snow and ice

but still they are still alive

they survive storms of all kinds, and scortching drought

and they are always growing

slowly, impercebtibly to eyes dulled by the flash and speed of modern entertainment

There is nothing to see here if you don't know where to look

Or if you are blinded by the desire to see something else

I like to think maybe my ancesters stayed here because they wanted to

And they put down deep, strong roots for me to grow from

and to keep growing, through fire and storm and ice

And it's okay that I lean a bit to the side

and pieces of me have been broken off here and there

and I'm not as flashy as an orchid

not as fast as fiber-optic cable

It's an accomplishment that I'm still alive

and fragile, budding things find shelter in me

I don't need to be made of gold to be worth something

After every fire, every hail, every tornado, every drought

Life always comes back to me again

Just like this land

So go on back, Coronado!

Take your selfish, silly dreams of fortune with you

Leave this place to me and my kind

who see beauty in reality

Anna J Michener

4/25/13

Dear Doug (It's Been 20 Years)

Dear Doug (It's Been 20 Years)

I know you can't read this but I just wanted to write you and say

that I still remember you

I couldn't forget you if I tried

and I'm sorry that sometimes I HAVE tried

Rivers of alcohol and a landslide of pills couldn't purge you from me

I remember that year in that terrible place with you

more clearly, more often, than I know where I am now

I've been told that's PTSD

but I know it was your eyes

hungry, suffering, pleading, questioning

I wanted so badly, for so long, to be able to do something for you

That desperate feeling never went away, even after it was too late

It is an alarm bell I don't know how shut off

I wake up in the middle of the night thinking I must help you

I must help you

Even though you've been dead now for twenty years

I can still feel you looking at me across all space and time

I can still hear your crying in my soul

And I still have no answers for your wordless questions

Do you remember that one woman named Julia?

The one who didn't just ignore you, but seemed to especially enjoy tormenting you?

I saw her on the outside once

At least one, maybe two years after you were gone

In a clothing store in a shopping mall

I was free by that time and there was nothing she could do to me

but do you know what I did, Doug?

When I saw that woman I ran and hid behind a sale rack in the corner

Pressed my back against the wall and slid down to the floor

I was shaking so hard all over

I couldn't stop even when I wrapped my arms tight around my knees

I peeked out at her from behind some long dresses

She had two young children with her, a boy and a girl, and they were calling her “grandma”

You'll never believe this Doug, but Julia smiled at those children

Smiled

I was shocked her face was capable of such an expression

But she smiled at those two children, and spoke kindly, and seemed happy to be with them

And they seemed happy to be with her

They had apparently never seen the other side of their grandma

Just as I had never seen this side of her either

She was so mean to us Doug, I thought she had no heart

But she did, she did have a heart

She just chose to hide it from us

Why? How?

How could anyone with a heart be cruel to a harmless, helpless,15-year-old boy dying of Huntington's disease with no one and nothing in this world to comfort him except a stuffed green bear with only one eye?

I remember how Julia would take your bear away from you Doug, and how you would cry

She would bring ice cream to work with her and eat it in front of you, reminding you how you would never get ice cream again

Sometimes she would come in and tell security to drag you into the isolation room and tie you down to a bed for her entire shift because, she said, she just didn't like the sight of you

The sounds of you being tortured for hours and days and nights at a time echoed down the hallways and still reverberate throughout my mind

As your body failed you and the food you desperately wanted to eat ended up on your lap or the floor instead of your mouth, Julia didn't help you

She would take your tray away and tell you if you were going to make a mess you didn't deserve any food

I wanted to help you eat

But Julia reminded me how it was against the rules for us to touch each other and she would be happy to call security on me if I tried

I'm sorry Doug, I'm sorry I just sat there next to you day after day

and watched you waste away slowly, not just from the Huntington's

But because you were being starved to death

I'm sorry I was just a witness to all the neglect and abuse inflicted on you

And there was nothing I could do

Except pick up your green bear every time he slipped from your fingers

And wish I at least had a button, so I could replace his missing eye

But I was only fourteen, and a prisoner in that place too

I had nothing, not even a button

It was people like Julia's job to help us and at the time I thought she didn't because she had no heart

But she did, I saw it later

That she could be nice to children; some children; just not us

What was the difference? I wondered

And I wonder still at this common dichotomy:

people can to be so loving to those they consider their own kind

and so hateful those they perceive as different

at the same time

Even I have that split in my heart now

for you see, Doug, I loved you so much

it made me HATE that bitch Julia

and everyone else who had a hand in what happened to you

I admit I have often though I would like to see

that woman locked up

Condemned, despised, and treated as she treated you and me

But oh Doug, those two little children I saw with her!

I know if she got what she deserved those children wouldn't understand

They would ask, “Where did grandma go?

She was always so good to us, we love her, we miss her, bring her back!”

They would cry, and I wouldn't want to see that

I wanted to at least stand up in that store and point her out publicly

Say in a loud voice, “How would you like your grandchildren to know what you do at work, Julia?”

“Would you be proud if they saw what you do to other children less fortunate than they are?

I didn't say that though

I didn't say a thing that day

Just cowered, frustrated and tormented, behind a rack of bargain clothes in a mall

I knew nothing I could do would make any difference

Nothing can bring you back

Sometimes I think you were the lucky one, Doug

You died with your innocence

You didn't have to grow up gutted and twisted and haunted like me

It's still kinda hard to live with the atrocities I've seen

and the knowledge that everyone, everyone

can be a saint, can be a monster

depending on whether they see someone as one of us or one of them

and all these lines, these roots of all atrocities

are actually imaginary

There is no REAL difference between us and them and you and me

There is no such thing as orphans, for we are all family

But you and I Doug, we were singled out and cast aside anyway

And that still hurts so much

even after all this time

Sometimes, to comfort myself, I visualize a future past

Think of how things could have been and hope they might still happen

In heaven, or an alternate universe, or even just my mind

I have to believe there will come a time

When I can go back for you, Doug

I will climb inside my own 14-year-old self

and I will find out who I would be

if I had just been allowed to be me

I will take your hand and we will go outside

There will be no locks, no guards

No human-made divisions between humans

Cement walls and steel bars and doors will crumble into dust

at the touch of fearless, knowing love

We will go get ice cream, or anything else you want

I would feed it to you, but you won't need me to

You will be well and strong enough to feed yourself

And even your green bear will grow a new eye

So will Julia, and all those who abused us

They will grow new eyes and new hearts

They will let you live, and will not plant the seeds of bitterness in me

They will embrace us as their children

And I will embrace them as mine

Anna J Michener

August 29, 2012

Standing Next to a Parking Meter with Quarters in My Hand

You were beautiful, next to a piece of crap art downtown

Beautiful, in a vintage dress that didn't quite fit

With a haircut you gave yourself when you were drunk

Everybody loved you

And you didn't know

You were so beautiful

And you had no idea

You were a rough diamond in the grass

Not much cleavage, but a perfect ass

Smoked your cheap red lipstick off, and put it on again

Grape-flavored lip gloss, a little sparkle under one lash

One of your winged earrings came off but you didn't notice

When you threw your head back and laughed

You smelled filterless and fruity

You made wild declarations to strangers

In your child's voice

Threw your arms around a parking meter

Kissed it as it expired

Everyone asks where you went

And when will you be coming back

Don't be sad for all you know and can't explain

Or all you don't know and listen for in vain

I found your lost wing in the gutter

I want to kiss you before you expire

Anna J Michener

7/29/2011

Dangerous Secrets

I knew I hid some part of myself

Deep in the darkest dungeon of my soul

Sometimes I examine the key

And try to recall what I locked up down there

A monster? A demon?

Or something pathetic and shameful?

A hideous deformity?

My curiosity eventually gets the best of me

I have to go see

I open the door slowly, nervously

There's a little girl in there

Bright-eyed, chubby-cheeked, smiling

I recognize her immediately

For she is me- the little girl I used to be

Many, many years ago

She is so naïve as to believe

That she is here to love everyone

And everyone will be happy to receive

Her attention and affection

Her invitation to play only children's games

Wherein everyone wins and nobody loses

And everyone laughs but no one is laughed at

Everyone is in on the joke

Everyone is in on the fun

Come on, come on!

She beckons with her hands and her radiant face

Oh no! I slam the door

Trembling with more fear than if I'd seen a demon

For that little girl once got me in more trouble than a monster

She evoked such derision, such scorn

Walked like a lamb to the slaughter

Into the hands of predators and vultures

She is better off hidden away where no one can hurt her

I'm better off carving gargoyles for the front of my house

And losing this key

Anna J. Michener

April 14^th, 2011

Boo Radley

Dungeon-dweller, come up the stairs

Open the windows, for the light, for the air

Your jailers have gone away, taking their locks and bars

All that's left is the trick they played on your mind

Force-feeding you shame until you felt unworthy of liberty

You are accustomed to imprisonment after all this time

Anything else feels terribly strange now

You must sacrifice the comfort of familiarity

for the freedom of change now

Reach for it, move towards it

Consciousness, hiding in the attic of the brain, come down the stairs

Inhabit the body again, a refugee returning home

the muscles have atrophied, the bones creak

you can only crawl, only creep

fearful to be again in this place that was so unsafe

Afraid of the land-mines left behind

years after the peace treaty was signed

But this is your place if you only claim it

Plant your flag and begin to clear wreckage

Plant your crops and begin to hope again

believe in your own bountiful harvest

What is this strange tingling all over my skin?

It is the sunlight, remember?

Remember, or if you can't, just start over from the beginning

It's okay to cry like a baby who has just been pushed from the womb

Just don't go back

You have grown large and strong

There is no longer any reason to hide

Anna J Michener

June 9, 2013