I watched you turn young again
Lost in the supermarket
Searching for a place to be
Searching for my hand to hold

I watched my skin turn old and pale against the steering wheel
The way back home is long and
quiet and
all dirt road

Wise girl turned wiser
Wise girl turned free
Perhaps too gone to be my girl
Still, she returns to me

Trees bleed crimson in protest
Before the wind drowns out their last, dying breath.
I walk through the barren orchard,
Marveling at their grand, glimmering display of defeat;
Their bodies torn apart by the sky's frosty breath.
I am but a lone red blade dancing out
stamping out
my frail stem.
A fiery ballerina on ecstasy.

You are the diseased soil in which these doomed seeds were sown,

You are the poison tree from which these evil apples dropped,

And you are the acid rain that raises the earthworms from their
underground abodes
and eats

eats

eats away.

You planted and preened the seed you destroyed.
Your midday whispers running up my legs;
You left behind a trail of innocent tickles that,
In the empty evening air,
Curdled into a sinister, aching itch.
You left my ankles and the insides of my knees abandoned to snap down on a mosquito
In one swift, final bark.

My thighs still sting.

step once
sit down
stand up
spin around

blink twice
tap thrice
turn that frown upside down!

cross your fingers
cross your legs
curl up
shut down

look left
                                                                                                    look right
run fast faster fast as your little legs will fly you
through the night

throw up
break down
blow up
find it fright it flight it fight it fist it twist it pop it smash it burn it **** it
stomp it out

scream

now go to sleep