how directly my attendance can affect my future...
no matter how much my
heart is pounding
my stomach turning over and over and over and
my brain in sync with it,
pumping red, hot, scarlet thoughts through my nerves
and my heart is pumping
red, hot, scarlet worry through my veins
and my stomach is filling with
red, hot, scarlet acid
about to make its way up
from all of this sickness. and tiredness. and nausea
and discomfort that has become my life lately,
i can not miss school.
god forbid i miss the exam reviews
god forbid i take a sick day
god forbid i try to care about myself just once..
you go around telling me to love myself more
to just be happy and be positive
to take time for my own needs
but everything depends on these exams
this red, hot, scarlet anxiety
surrounding me, adding on with every letter i write,
the red, hot, scarlet color of the pen used to grade,
to judge,
to **** my chances at college
or a future
or anything
or any happiness
and the red, hot, scarlet
and the white, winter, frost
and the blue, searing, cold
colors of the flags of our country
the land of the "free"...

The greatest vacation,
Is waking up,
Without a heavy heart,
Or a sad soul...

I was going to write a poem

   about how I stood on the corner after
   work, gripping a squishy handlebar with
   my left hand and holding K’s flip phone
   in the other.

My stomach flip-flopped across JFK blvd, down 20th street, and to that little alleyway where I stood alone for a while.

An old lady stared at me...

   did I trigger a happy memory of her
   youth,
   or was she just smirking at the beads of
   sweat on my forehead and disintegrating
   soles of my ballet flats?
   My black dress slouched over my body
   like I was going to a  funeral.

And even though my acro class was yesterday, I still felt upside down. There’s no way I could stay in a handstand that long, but I would’ve done it if it gave me a different explanation for why I was so sick.

Inside of me were those cropping rainbow scribbles that I used to make on Paint, you know, the ones that seemed like they could create a picture but ended up turning into shaking lines?

I could feel the lack of your presence, I could FEEL your not being there. As the minutes passed and I kept standing and waiting my face drooped and it was hard not to cry right there on the spot.

It was just past lunchtime but there was still a steady flow of businessmen filling the sidewalk.
   They glanced at me but I just looked
   away because they were my father's age
   and gave me familiar half-smiles.

I said that I was going to write a poem because I didn't have enough energy to do anything but list words,
but I guess this just turned into a ******
one.

In constant flux we fluidly touch
all across the spaces
time zones generations ancestral wombs
we meet and depart meet and depart
still feeling the vibrations
a rain cloud, a Sunburst, the song of the Raven
war cry and peacemakers vying for a hearing
poets caught in the river of sound
singing for a moments listening
and then welded into the great silence, silent.

I had never known
a person
with so much kinetic energy
as to uplift me
from the sinking mass
of fragmented debris,
but this woman
who
laughs heartily at common jokes
and gets drunk on
one shot of ***** - 30 ml.

She has got my senses blooming -
painted like lilacs in spring.

The rope that you’re using to hold me
I crave as my very own,
for I am your woman desiring
and submissive is now what I am.

Your whip might hold such terror
for one who knows not of pain,
for me it’s an object of wanting
that drives me to seek it again.

The gag that holds me in silence
so my protests cannot be heard,
arouses me more than I tell you
as screams are held deep inside.

So much of me needs all this from you
making me want in this way,
I cannot find it with others
only you can control how I play.

The torture you give is sublime now
such suffering drives me insane,
my mind goes deep into meltdown
and beyond anything I can explain.

The force of your lash overwhelms me
with agony driving so deep,
yet I must take all that you give me
as you dry the wet tears when I weep.

‘Tis then that you hold me so softly
with arms around me so tight,
to know that I am your slavegirl
and suffering for you is so right.
*

From the Francesca Anderssen collection of 101 **** Verses 2017