and striped shirts.  No dresses
or skirts. Her mother cut her
chestnut hair all off till it
fell on floor in a pixie cut at the

age of four. Girls called her him. She was
short and slim, no curves. They only
had one, no more. Her parents split
up before she turned two. She didn't

wear ribbons or bows in pink. She wore
black and blue in a purple hue.  She did not
laugh and she didn't play. She stayed in her
room till Groundhog's Day. She didn't have a

shadow. She followed in her mother's
wake.  Every night she'd stuff her mouth
full of chocolate cake, curled up in a ball
under the covers. She wasn't invited to parties

and had no friends. She'd write on her hands
and arms with markers and pens. She didn't
bathe. So, the words stayed etched in her
skin. She learned how to walk on needles and pins.

is a cluttered drawer
filled with tickets torn
in half and colored *****
that fizzle in the

bath. Stained cards and
ripped old photos, drummed
up dreams and wrinkled
bedclothes. Spilled perfume

and fire engine red nail
polish, letters that she'll not
demolish. An army knife that
carved his initials, a document

that stated it's official. It's so
stuffed she cannot close it. Today's
the day she'll recompose it line
by line, wrapping it up in poly twine.

started out the size of
a dime. I couldn't stick
my finger into it. When I lost
time it grew into the size

of my shoe. I'd walk around
for miles this way, carrying
the weight till it was as large as
my waist. I was stuck in quick

sand. Going down slowly no one
lent me their hand. The hole turned
into a stone pit that men did
cartwheels and even a

split. Over the years it expanded
as the ocean and sky. Sun and moon
cried into the abyss. I told them
I found the lost continent.

that fan the sky then
what am I? A black insect with
antennae, that can walk,
but cannot fly. Like an eagle

caged with a broken
wing I'm outraged when
my writing hands in a high
arm sling. They say a caged

bird still can sing. But who
will listen to my song when
there's no wind carrying my
notes? When my throat's sore

from breathing stale air? When
the sun is lost on the easy
chair. This patch I land on is so
small. Not room here for an evening

crawl. I'd be someone as a feather
duster, sweeping ceiling fans till
they luster. Gliding and dipping like
a gull at sunset! Just to get my wings wet.

up or push it
down. Put it aside
or bury it with frosted
cream donuts and

chocolate. Drown it
in one-hundred proof. Cover
it like the weathered
shingles on your

roof. Patch it like your
ripped denim jeans. Iron it
out so no one sees
the seams. Pull the splinters

one by one and stick
them in the corkboard with
your black push pins. It's deep
and dark like the sea and bleeding

like a sonnet. Wrap it up and
tie it like a bonnet under your
chin. Now head held high. Fool
them with that wide-tooth grin.

robins splashing
in the white porcelain
bath as I laugh at
two tangled squirrels

tugging at the same
nut. Rolling ***** of fluffy
grey like a ball of yarn they
make their way to a bare

patch of grass with a little
hook and sass. I spy a cornflower
sky with a julep smile as a sunflower
shakes her golden head in a raised

garden bed. A cottontail
nibbles on clover as I roll
over in my knitted hammock among
the trees, living life at ease.

into stone that she's thrown
into a lake. They skip and bounce
like an earthquake. They're so
cold they froze into icicles

on her face. She ties them up
in a bow like a shoelace. She shoots
daggers from her eyes, like lightning
bolts from the skies that take

a man by surprise. Once they
were a river that overflowed into
the land, the city streets like a brass
band. But after years of the flood

the flow had stopped like
clotted blood. She cannot shed
no more. They're all dried up like a
corpse's pore.