My eyeliner is between a scribble and a scrawl. A child's template was used. And found ineffective. My slanted eyes are uncooperative; they are bulging, flat and exact. There is no glimmer that would stop a man in the street from staring at me. I rub at the mistakes with my fingers and uneven nails before the paint has fully dried into the crevices of my creases. It's splotchy and red and bruised. But, it's done the job.
After all, there's a fresh canvas.
Oct 10, 2018
Oct 10, 2018 at 3:16 PM UTC
I pull at the strands of his shirts, his sweaters and his jeans.
I become a seamstress and know he will come to me.
He buys new clothes instead.
Oct 7, 2018
Oct 7, 2018 at 11:21 AM UTC
I’m paralysed.
It’s the slap in the face I can’t quite remember, but the blood clawing through to the surface of my skin begs me to never forget.
It’s the cool whip of air that feels like daggers tracing my body, mocking acupuncture treatment.
It’s the strands of hair, descendants of Medusa’s snakes, that threaten to reach into my throat and wrap my lungs.
But I'm waiting for the moment after.
When I can touch palm to cheek, and caress the wound with a simple upturn of lips
When I can take a step back, out of reach from the outstretched weapons of murderers and into the arms of my sisters
When I can shave to beautiful baldness and pull the wraps loose to look like oversized sweaters
I can wait
Oct 7, 2018
Oct 7, 2018 at 10:59 AM UTC
Why Men Cry in the Bathroom
For so many reasons.
I will tell you the why.
I think you know,
Or perhaps, you think you know.
Men are always O.K.,
Even when not.
We expect the worse,
Accept the worse,
Nonetheless,
We are forever unprepared.
Wearily, we cry,
In the bathroom, in private,
Lest sighs slip by,
We be unmasked,
Early warring, strife signs warning.
Copious, tho we weep
Before the mirror confessor,
It is relief untethered,
Unbinding of the feet,
An uncounting
Of beaded rosaries,
Of freshly fallen hail stones,
Of night times terrors
By dawn's early edition's light,
and welcomed.
But look for the mute tear,
The eye-cornered drop,
*** tat, that never drops,
But never ceases formation and
Reforming, over and over again,
In a state of perpetuity of reconstitution,
*The tippy tear of an iceberg revealing,
And I see you peeping, wondering,
What is beneath*
Look for:
the torn worm-eaten edges of spirit,
thrift shop bought, extra worn,
grieving lines neath the eyes,
where the salt has evaporated,
discolored the skin.
worry lines,
under and above,
browed mapped, furrowed boundaries.
the laugh line saga,
where better days are stored,
recalled, as well as recanted,
publicly, privately.
Why just men?
I don't know,
Perhaps,
it is all I know. end.<nml>
Jan 6, 2013
Oct 7, 2018
Oct 7, 2018 at 10:49 AM UTC
She threw to many sharp stones.
So as her glass house tumbled down,
She would pick one of the shards of choir glass off the ground and use it
as a instrument.
Always playing the same violent violin piece across her dynamical skin.
Her mother always knew she had
a gift for music.
So when she heard the same solemn chorus pitching from the living room ceiling,
She darted to steal the show.
And become her daughters duet...her piano,
To hug her so tightly,
Singing and squeezing
Until her violin chords stopped bleeding.
Jun 15, 2018
Jun 15, 2018 at 3:54 PM UTC
My bed has absorbed my tears and wiped my cheeks dry as I have fallen asleep.
And for this I cherish my bed.
My bed has told me that it's moulded to the shape of my body so that the mattress can keep me warm from the cold, harsh winter.
And for this I'm grateful to my bed.
My bed has been all I've ever really known.
And for this I worship my bed.
But it never told me that it wouldn't ever let me go.
It never told me that it would make it harder to pull myself out.
It never told me that I would only sink further into its hold.
Jun 15, 2018
Jun 15, 2018 at 2:56 PM UTC
Do your legs ever hurt
After running away
From all those who care about you?
Do your arms ever hurt
From pushing away
All those who desperately want to love you?
Jun 9, 2018
Jun 9, 2018 at 10:34 AM UTC
My sentences get rambled up.
They make sense up there, but not once they're down here. They lose their "umph", their clarity, their ingenuity. Some too short, some too long. Never comfortable or natural in my mouth but perfect and unflawed in that glorious thought bubble.
But I'm learning to say it all anyway. Despite uncertainty, despite unoriginality, despite "perfectness". Because the biggest "despite" I've come to learn is myself.
Jun 9, 2018
Jun 9, 2018 at 10:32 AM UTC
I think I'm always going to be that piece of gum.
Not the one that's a metaphor from Selma, whose all hateful because someone "chewed her up and spit her out". Not the one that got stuck in Mikail's shoe and just added to his already climbing pile of **** Not the one that got caught accidentally in Isabel's best friend's hair and had to be cut out with scissors and made them trust each other even more.
I mean the one that was offered from that nice girl in school who had a nice backpack and whose name you'll have forgotten long before she's gone.
I'm absolutely terrified of being that piece of gum.
Almost as irrelevant as the girl herself.
May 6, 2018
May 6, 2018 at 2:15 PM UTC
my heart nearly stopped every time i had to cross the street
so let’s thank the queen for writing it down
before she’s just another thing i have to step over
all the rest have tickled my feet so far
and everything under construction reminds me that these days
the only remedy seems to be better luck and more cloud cover
i’ve been racing to crash on the couch
just to wake up to see if i have time for it all
and i want the stereotype to be true so i have nothing to cry about
with the way things are going
you’d tell me not to be so brutal to myself
but the thrill i used to know is now paying its dues to the concrete
i was almost convinced i wasn’t asleep
when she whispered paris
nothing, everything may have changed
so this is not like anything i’ve never meant:
my heart nearly stopped with the regret of not talking to you
it's hard killing birds when you don't have any stones and
besides this time i think i've really done it
two days and this is already my favorite story but
second chances don't have to be so mysterious
maybe i just wanted to see you smile again
i should have said it w/o one of and the s after the L
still choosing o over x
and your pull showed my hands a home in the back of your denim
two across the channel makes the significant not so, if you want it
i’ll keep looking for you so long as you
don’t stop drawing me maps
if i died in my indecision then
your mouth showed me heaven
you’re the closest thing to purpose
i’ve ever tasted
i wish you knew how much i mean that
Mar 5, 2018
Mar 5, 2018 at 2:01 PM UTC