Knobby-wristed boys stroking my thighs
Arms wrapped 'round my waist, filling my ears with their sighs
They hold me, and they ask most politely
To touch each of my ******* when they're pressed against me tightly.
I'm lost in the haze; it's a plume of smoke in my brain
Requests patter past me like drops in the rain.
The room is dark, outside it is cold
I am older than they and they are not as old
'Round my soft unkempt body, they wreathe their desires
We don't ask, "Do you like me?" We are not liars.

Now is the time when I Must do more
Than Rage against the dying of the light.
I need to wait under the cover of the Dark
For Morning to come again and battle,
Ray by ray,
For the creation of my eternal Day.

(Clouds and brief showers included).

I want to be by the limitless sea
By the limitless sky
Where all things are free
Free, free, I love the word 'free'!
Nothing that homes, puppies, or life ever could be
All I know is that for centuries past
Only the sea and the sky
Knew they would last

My waist is a size zero
My hips are a size six
My thighs?  Maybe seven
And my rear, a size five.
Quantify me, America
As a woman, I am a mathematical equation
Jumbled, confused, with too many unknowns--
Perhaps now I will drop fifteen pounds, maybe put on eight.
Will these size three jeans still fit if my *** doubles?
What percent of rayon will give enough stretch?
If x is my waist-to-hip ratio,
Where in your standard do I fit, America?

In with the old--
Hurtle now-vintage trains down dank dark tunnels
Remove their careful electronic maps,
Strip them of their automated voices.
When my bones are dark yellow and brittle
And my tendons poorly strung,
Muscles taken from toned tan thrones--
When my years number just forty--
Build my casket, lay me in it
And let dear Friend Sleep close my eyes.

I am tired.
I am an ancient shell with separating gears,
Unwinding slowly.
I trudge familiar paths like the train,
And those tracks never change--
My worn body, my bleak self,
We always end up where last we went
Though they have gutted our insides now,
To make them new.

Hush--
You know it's me.
I am like the supply staple of your grade-school years.
Maybe I'm the protractor on which you scratched your name.
The scarred ruler, numbers all faded into gritty, sparkly blue.
You put me away behind wood cabinet doors years ago,
Promising, childish lisp all a-quiver,
To one day use me again.

--I sleep.

There are unending fears
That scurry through my mind
Like rats, furry and Unyielding,
They take Refuge in my dark, dripping depths.
And when all the world is dreaming,
Dancing wildly, drinking deep,
And when all the world hums loudly,
One collective, hum-drum snore,
I am the one that's left un-sleeping,
Plagued by the misery of night.

I didn't choose to walk these train tracks.
I chose, I did, to put my naked feet on their rust and grime.
I did not expect that in the dark, when I was blinded, that the gears would shift.
That oncoming, in the pitch blackness
Was a hurtling train.