I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it----

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a **** lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
0 my enemy.
Do I terrify?----

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else,
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart----
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash ---
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there----

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

When I reflect upon, the most pain ridden..chest tightening, disturbed memories...they nearly cause my heart to cease from beating.
Yet, I cannot conjure up the strength to cry.
I've poured out  the regrets, the torment, the sleepless nights and panic attacks that have induced *****...to the point of self paralization.
I've drank and inhaled..to the point of near death..attempting to numb..in a frantic frenzy to run, hide, drown or bury, the torturous memories.
I do all of this... To sober up... And realize...that it's still There.
I'm standing at the base of a pile of life's stench ridden...dark, gloomy, shockingly disgusting memories.
They are stacked as high as I can see..to the proverbial sky. Fuming...as if a train wreck had just occurred.
Yet...I'm still here.
Simply standing.
Arms loosely draped to my sides..shoulders back..lungs still taking in every breath..heart calmly beating.
I gaze up at the wreckage.. Aware that I will have to pick through every portion...and last foul piece of agony, affliction and wounded heart scraps.
I will have to learn from the life altering chaoses and saturate any ounce of joy...then move forward.
Allowing this past to remain...to cease to direct my future...and slowly disinegrate into the soils.

HOPE; The feeling that what is wanted can be had.

Where are the words, the ones with sparks
to set a fire in wooden hearts
and set to work my wooden tongue
with all the wit that they impart ?

where do those words that all belong
in works of poetry come from ?
I know them only as the guests
that visit me by book and song;

my own words bear the awkwardness
of someone starting to undress
with clumsy thumbs and wooden hands
and should perhaps stay unexpressed..