You, who would have me believe
your greatest charity was to fool me
and that somehow feeding me bits from
the brunt and depth of your deception
was a kindness I should have appreciated
at least while you were doling it out like
a rich dowager to a gaggle of stinking
humanity from your mountain of pity
I am sorry that I failed you
You, who put such a premium
on honesty, and, indeed,
tossed me away having caught me
in your sort of lie, the sort that only
the most honest can understand
Again, I'm sorry I failed you
and, well, to be perfectly honest
(once and finally) when you told
this to me I thought you weren't
lying
You, who have taught me that
the biggest truth is so confounding
only the best of us can use it and
for me to try was pure folly
having no practice in twisting things
first arms, then wills, then my
pure and simple truth
I am sorry I failed you
You, who are safe on your mountain
where no one dare pull a brick
or a stone or even a single blade
of grass out from under you
I defer to you dear,
my one and greatest lie

You hear the high-pitch yowls of strays
fighting for scraps thrown from the kitchen window.
They sound like children you might have had.
Had you wanted children. Had you a maternal bone,
you would wrench it from your belly and fling it
from your fire escape. As if it were the stubborn
shard now lodged in your wrist. No, you would hide it.
Yes, you would hide it inside a barren nesting doll
you've had since you were a child. Its smile
remind you of your father, who does not smile.
Nor does he believe you are his. "You look just like
your mother,"  he says, "who looks just like a fire
of suspicious origin." A body, I've read, can sustain
its own sick burning, its own hell, for hours.
It's the mind. It's the mind that cannot.

Nicole Sealey

On the same night
I found my mother's scotch
and my step-monster's gun,
I learned how to deal from
the bottom of the deck
and find a fella easily parted
from his folding money yet
still think he's having fun;
That a 12 year old girl can
Make quick work of 14 year
old boy (learned the word
"sucker"), learned Barbie
was just practice for bigger
and slightly more challenging
toys;
How to hold my liquor
even if it refused to hold me
and that warm feeling in my
belly was only a short reprieve;
And at the crack of noon, after
the adults have come and gone,
how to get rid of the remnants
of a night of squalor... and
(finally) were they stashed
the ****

Some are friendly and like to be kissed,
Some are lonely with cuts on  their wrist,
But some have found,
When a man is around,
That it's surprisingly easy to walk into a fist.

You make the meat
of me, the ground bits
of flesh like so much
confetti-
Congratulations! dear
and all of that crap
mind the spatter!
make haste! as
the wheel spins
past the bladder
(This party *****!)

Once again I stammer
at the words left by
others
I, I, I... can't believe
stepping through
the garden of words
squandered,
slim pickings for
this bird
Nevertheless
do not mistake
my choices, the words
that feather my nest
to be second rate
even as one after
the other is plucked
from the line-up
(they can take
the best of them
and I'll make
something worthy
of the rest)
Call it a public service
Call me a first responder
Never have words
been under such
a threat
The most pithy,
the most hackneyed
march of one word
horribly placed after
another (free will
meets a firing squad
where each gun hasn't
the stomach and even
Hallmark dodges
a hit, where remorse
is lost among the
letters

Absinthe, I carried under
My coat and over the border
From Spain to my latest
Fling with hope
The clatter of language
Is different but the more
I learn the more I understand
None of them, neither coming
Nor going, has much more
Than a veneer of charm
We are doctors
Above all else
We do know harm
Pity, ain't it? That death
Sounds so much better
In Spanish although
I wear my German
Like a saw
Cured, *******,
Broken heart and all