How Stupidly We Squander

The terror grows larger,
swallows hope
and stars,
as her eyes begin
to bulge, rounded fingers
clutch air unable
to sink claws
into the nothing
her son
has become.
This woman is chasing
self-loathing
with grief, mind
moving far too quickly
toward loss
and resignation.

Having happened
upon her small son,
her two year old,
on the third floor
when the elevator
doors opened
to his what me grin, I got
to be the hero.
I placed her
heart in her hands
still beating
and smelling faintly
of shitty diapers
and fishy
Desitin.

It took
all the will
I had not to sob
with relief
drawn by a wooden
bucket from some
deep well
I still
don’t understand.

For love, you
would pray to a god
in which
you don’t believe
to give you death,
disease, insanity.
For love, you
would travel
to hell for the whatever
wherever, why because,
because, shhh because
it’s okay.
For love,
You would write
their name
one hundred times
on your graphing
calculator.
For love, you
would watch
them leave
and abandon you
as their heart
stopped beating.

Ciao, Bella

This is the island
from where I send out
bottles of an endless
supply found in the ship
of drunks from which I
came to this island
from where I send out
bottles sparkling
crystal green each day
passengers of languid waves
going toward your place.
This is the island
from where I send out
bottles to anyone
who will always be you in which
the messages are varying declarations
of I love you, I still
love you, I will
always love you
or sometimes
merely

S

O

S

This is the island
where you are not now
and will never be
any more than the vampire
I was so sure
would arrive to take me away
on the day of
my thirtieth birthday.

Mount Eerie – You Swan Go On

oh so it’s over.  oh so we die.

 

a bathroom does not count as a room of your own

sitting on the toilet
hands over my ears
I can still
always hear
the pounding
of keys
and the mouse
tip a tip tipatip   tip a tip tip
a tip, tipitiptipitiptipitip
clicking page
after page
page
page
page
page
page
page
page
page
in a place
with no corner no room
no space

did you turn the light out did you turn the light out did you turn the light out did you turn the light out didyouturnthelightoutdidyouturnthelightoutdidyouturnthelightoutdidyouturnthelightoutdidyouturnthelightout
did
you

TURN

THE                 LIGHT                 OUT?

try to run
from your
mind with a hand
on your eyes
brittle
brain
brittle
brain
brittle
brain

men are

ken doll chests contradicting
themselves with fuzzy
hair and cool, firm clay
to lay your head upon
and close your eyes.

hands shaped from granite, sculpted
by standards, goals,
and expectations
that lose their shape
and become formless
to hurt you
when they’re angry
or yield fingers
to touch
and hold you when
you please them.

plump bottom lips
with tiny lines
that split them while
sleeping or suffer themselves
as tightropes spewing
hurtful things
when they split yours.

adonis thighs,
ice sculpture photographs
of marathon
running – and running
out when you
need them, falling
down stairs
to a busted up tooth,
a broken bank account,
and a sleepless night
watching porn
while you sleep tossing
in the bed you share
alone.

Copy of Your Vagina

There is no such thing as love.
Only degrees of sexual attraction
and the horrible things
we do to each other
when the novelty
wears off.

Dexatrim

I remember your body
in slide show, memories
shaped as by too much sun
in my eyes, as if composing
paintings from things seen
with my fingers spread
over my face,
peeking out
from in between.

Don’t look at my fat
you’d say, smiling
mostly serious.
Topless, your nipples
resembled those
on the playtex bottles
you fed us from as babies, dark
and cylindrical
when erect.

What was said
about your body?  Your hands
covered your belly
when naked,
your bra always on,
cross your heart,
no underwire, diaper pins
attached to the straps
long after we’d outgrown
the diapers.

I heard your brother
and his boyfriend
call you
whale on the beach,
the chant we laughed
at while watching
Portland Wrestling.
As a girl, I thought you
both sexless and invincible.
Why did you never
buy yourself new panties?

You Are So Beautiful to Me,
you played the record
over and over
so loud, repeating,
vinyl popping, speakers
overloaded, crackling, distorting.

 

You Are Not Here

My shadow’s shadow skims
fibrous
of my body,
more viola
than violin.

August 8, 2011

Sometimes in life people look for reasons to dislike you.  And they look for reasons to be angry with you.  And no matter what you do ever – you will never please them.  They will always be able to manufacture a way you have let them down even when you have tried so hard to be good to them.  And it will suck.  Every single time it happens it will suck because you will never see it coming.  It will always feel like a sucker punch.  And it will hurt every time.  I wonder sometimes if life tries to beat everyone down regardless of whether you’re rich or poor or what color you are or what sexual preference.  I wonder if life sneaks into everyone’s closet and waits to beat them down when they open the door to get dressed in the morning or whatever.  Or I wonder if money can buy you weapons, those things that you can have that make you able to say no, you won’t do this to me.  Security, I guess.  I wonder if money can buy you security against the fucked up things life and people do to other people.  Because people are fucking cruel. And the world is not your mother.  And some people even have fucked up mothers.

I found out today that my dad has cancer, but that is not my story to tell.  In the past 13 years I’ve barely seen my dad and I don’t know how to process it.  My mom died 13 years ago.  We were very close and I’ve barely gotten over it.  No, I haven’t gotten over it.  All I know is that at this moment I have this feeling like I could float away off the earth.  And the idea of both my parents being gone terrifies me.  How selfish is that?  How selfish is that.

I’m thirty eight years old and I’ve never felt older in my mind than seventeen.  I liked the person I was at seventeen much more than the person I am at thirty-eight.  The person I was at seventeen would have refused to be a victim.  The person I am at thirty-eight has bent over to give people a better angle at which to kick me.

as if I don’t already see them