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oh that.
that's just my habitat.
some women
take up counted cross stitch,
others
--with scorched souls--
even like golf
as if the order and pointlessness
were balm
for their frightening wounds.

me,
I have my habitat.
it's filled with
a green growy tangle
and those cries
like animated bells
that made you open the door
in the first place.

every night
I go in there.
most mornings
I come out again
either elevated
or barely alive.
either way, it keeps me fresh
like tennis
except
my medical bills are enormous
and my poetry
keeps getting sharper and more feral.

now that you've seen it
I know you won't be back anymore
or else you'll want a piece of all of this
mistakenly thinking that I,
like it,
will be exciting.
people want
to spend time in my habitat
like wanting to space walk
without gear
or training
or
a Houston to rely on.

my habitat
is my own private
supermax
funhouse
and I am just Bluebeard's wife
glad he's gone off to sea
while I
merrily
open the door
to my habitat
and disappear into it
flying solo
like Girl Lindbergh.
 Aug 20
irinia
your eyes incite such an echo on my lips
it reverberates every time I hear the trees, it engulfs my hands
I  feel how your gaze caresses my hair
sometimes only poems keep me whole
the hidden parts play hide and seek with daylight
all the me that cannot be create holes between words
I wait for time to confess its indifference
the solitude of skin is inborn but
poetry is this incessant birth of an imaginary me
Lies looking for girls to tell them
gather in groups--
little ions looking for a charge.

Girls grow up greedy to spout the wildest stuff
about each other
or boys
or you.

Girls spend hours in front of mirrors
telling lie upon lie.
I'm ugly/ I'm pretty/ that's enough/ never enough.

Girls grow and haul a whole hope chest stuffed with lies
behind them to college,
to the altar,
to the nursery.

Lies looking for girls to tell them are never lonely for long.
Diogenes ran a girls' school until he lost his mind.
The students lied and said he went sailing.

Sit with me. Talk.
Our mothers did the best they could.
We'll always be like sisters.
This tea is good.

Lies looking for girls to tell them
don't stop when friends go home.
They circle when you're
anxious
afraid
alone.

At sunset I shake all my gathered lies from my apron to the sky,
and when they work together,
oh my
how the feathers fly.
 Aug 18
Mike Adam
Lake view from
Beech canopy.

Legs, arms, enwrap
Broad trunk and
Ascend unlike any bird since
Dodo.

Sun through beaten
Coppered leaf-set.

Fair Day
With tall grass,
Bedded moss beneath

My seat of rooted
Contemplation
 Aug 17
Tanisha Jackland
we betray
our bodies
fluid in nature
despite our bones

when we ****
the pure
waters with
rubber oil speak

we are She
dancing in
the blood
giving us life

remember Her
for She is the silent
waters within us
sometimes raging
sometimes calming

be soft and
whisper to Her with
a sacred tongue
then you shall
be blessed
with favor
 Aug 17
sandra wyllie
a soapy crystal bubble
growing cramped under
his calloused foot. He flattens
me, as I stay

put. Walking around
with a grimace he limits
my breathing space
placing a gauze pad over

my face. Leaking like a water
balloon soaking his shoes
from room to room. Flapping
my hanging skin like a

hummingbird's wings. For years
I held it all in like a rain cloud. But I
rounded sitting heavy. Wind and eddy
shed my pearl drops slow and steady.
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