Five little girls, of Five, Four, Three, Two, One:
Rolling on the hearthrug, full of tricks and fun.

Five rosy girls, in years from Ten to Six:
Sitting down to lessons - no more time for tricks.

Five growing girls, from Fifteen to Eleven:
Music, Drawing, Languages, and food enough for seven!

Five winsome girls, from Twenty to Sixteen:
Each young man that calls, I say "Now tell me which you MEAN!"

Five dashing girls, the youngest Twenty-one:
But, if nobody proposes, what is there to be done?

Five showy girls - but Thirty is an age
When girls may be ENGAGING, but they somehow don't ENGAGE.

Five dressy girls, of Thirty-one or more:
So gracious to the shy young men they snubbed so much before!

Five PASSE girls - Their age? Well, never mind!
We jog along together, like the rest of human kind:
But the quondam "careless bachelor" begins to think he knows
The answer to that ancient problem "how the money goes"!

"Love me baby, love me."
Oh that's it!
A little to the right.
Oh you've got it!

******* I wish you didn't put the chocolate so ******* high.
Sometimes a girl needs her sweets, you know?
Never mind my expanding waistline.
I have no one to impress, right baby?
Wow I'm so glad I have someone as big and strong as you to reach these things off the high shelves.

Now finish up so I can put some clothes on. I've got errands to run.

I can't wait to get my tattoos.
I'll get the lyrics of all my favorite songs and poems
on my back
even though they say it's
not cool to get them where I can't see them
but you can admire them and trace them and read them
and kiss them
Will you lick my skin?
How do I taste, late at night
unshowered and covered in the day's breath?


If you promise to kiss every tattoo I get
I will get every inch of me inked
**Every inch

I knew she was like water, she'd probably wish to be compared to a sea but she was more like a lake. Still, calm, never moving without an outside force.

But still I loved her. Her calming waters soothed my wounds and her reflective surface forced me to see myself the way I am. But still she never moved. I could ripple her surface, make her waters splash upon new sides of her shores, but in doing so I watched in somber wonder as she washed the people in her shallows up upon her banks, sore and bruised down to their hearts, and neither would reach for the other, trapped in the curse of stillness.

She assured me she loved me, she assured me I'd always stay in the deepest depth of her heart. And yet slowly, what was once a depth so warm and vast, I found my toes grazing the bottom, and every time I did I tried to swim back, back to where the water was endless, bottomless, yet never could I stay there long. Other people were causing wakes, and fighting against them was becoming difficult, for I am not the strongest swimmer.

I began to wonder whether I was still welcome, for her silences were getting longer, her ripples I could cause we're so much smaller, and in my self doubt those wakes moved me ever closer to the shore, and with each step I could take full footed along the bottom I began to sob.

I tried curling myself into a ball in those shallows, tried to allow the water to cover my head and tell myself I still mattered. But the water here was so frigid, my lips began to turn blue and my lungs burned. I'd return to the surface and take long breaths and use them to scream silently.

From where I stood, the water only knee deep I saw the figure of a man at her center, and as he raised his arms my scream became caught in my throat, and as his arms slammed upon her surface I saw the wave come rushing toward me, the longer it moved the more it grew and I said silently to myself "this is the end."

In those surreal seconds I remembered the others, and was reminded of her stillness, and in those horrible moments I knew I was nothing anymore, just another piece of useless trash to be lying upon her shore.

you're like bolt lightning in an old bottle
irrational and far too difficult to control
but then again no different to a shouting father
screaming wildly at his helpless child
that has taken to lying through his teeth
about the demons hiding beneath the surface
of his pallid skin.

as if shouting would ever make the world
stop spinning quite as fast, or make the
sun stop glaring at the faces of the forgotten
ones who reside mainly in their houses trying
oh so hard not to break themselves in half
while attempting not to let life take them
when it's so early in the year.

I lifted you as high as I could.
The next day my left arm ached,
And I half-smiled recalling why,
Proof I had done my job.

It came as no real surprise,
To be accused of doing nothing.
The only woman pallbearer,
Of course my body should be brought into play.

The aching of my arm
Was proof
That I didn’t let you down.
Until, of course,
That was the task at hand.

His hands are large and strong
I knew this all along
Strong enough to hold me down

Smiles are contagious
His are crooked and malicious
Watching me squirm, crying

My daddy is not safe
I know now because he was taken away
But I thought this form of love was ordinary

I didn't mean to get him in trouble
But I was afraid when his hand was my muzzle
Now everyone looks at me like I'm made of glass

My mom says I can't talk to him
But I just don't get it
He said he wouldn't hurt me

My daddy wears orange
Mom answers his phone call with a look of warning
His clothes are in boxes down in the basement

There's a stack of papers on the counter
That mom's been staring at for the past hour
I think I need to help her with her homework

We make the bed with stains across the mattress
I don't think I can keep up with this practice
I pretend I don't see the guilt in mom's eyes

My mom and I sleep next to each other at night
Because we're both afraid he'll appear in the morning light
Looming over us with his hungry eyes