I watched a girl knock over a drunken man’s glass
Off a fence post
The highball glass didn’t wobble off
There was no instance of dull fear at the
Inability of prevention
Simply it just was on the concrete
With its shards reflecting the headlights as they passed
The tattooed drunk did not get angry
As some men are disposed to become under a similar circumstance
He muttered in a dead pan voice
-*My long island

I used to always wait
In the dusk of the day when the fireflies were awake
Watching the last rays of the sun streak out on the sky
Thinking that she would come home again
And then walking away whenever night fell and
I was too tired to make sense of anything.

In the many times when I stood on the grass
Thinking of the many things that we would have done
It was a smile I held on my face, believing earnestly
That someday we would do all those things all together
In the warmth of each others' shadows.

Time tears the soul into parts
The drudgery of the days that I spent
Sealing away the parts of the world that I didn't want to see
Because I was a coward, still am
Taking the essence for granted.

When night fell there would be a silence
Veiled by the darkness of the evening stars
And I would lie on the ground and look at the sky
In the wake of a series of tear drops, moving
Wondering what would come to me.

So easily were the days torn away
Now it's rain after rain and the snow in the sullen earth
Pulling the strings, spring and summer and winter
The autumn light failing to shine any path
As I throw the leaves away with my feet.

She would always tell me, sometimes
That it would've been wiser to just walk away
And I know that it was the right choice, but the bad choice
So I stayed and stuck it out even through all the times
Chilling my bones and giving me frost bites
But letting me grit my teeth and bear it.

Life wastes away like that, and yet
Somehow it feels as though I have lived through a lot
The pain that grinds, the emotion and the helplessness
How time and people prepare you for that
Innocuously toying with you and saying
That everything would be okay.

I am able now, to close my eyes
Dream of the day when footsteps will sound behind me
I will turn, and after all the reveries and empty waiting
Find that someone else was waiting for me instead.

I have wide hips, a wide waist.
chubby cheeks and
short legs
given to me

by my mother.

she is not a witch.
she has wrinkles, yes
but they do not define her
nor would she let them.

I have no interest in making friends with fish,
small birds,
candlesticks or clocks,
or rodents.


I need human contact to survive.

If you put me alone in a house in a forest,
I will not clean.  
I will not wait to be saved.
I will not ask for your permission to go outside.

I will leave.


I do not need a prince to live happily ever after.

I have short bushy hair
and a ******.
yes, it's there.
underneath my cotton underwear and long lace skirts
that no one is telling me to wear.

I have a sister.
I go to her for advice.
I look up to her and I talk to her about
Everything anything everything

I do not need a prince.



I look up to my mother.
She is not a source of fear,
she is a source of comfort
and relief.


what are We teaching our daughters?

these imaginary princesses
teach our babygirls

to have long eyelashes
to have two inch waists
long luscious hair
*** appeal


and if they don't,

they will never live happily ever after.

If I need all that to get one,

I do not want a prince.

I do not want to be anyone's
cinderella.

I will not chase after anyone
if they choose to leave.

I will weep into my sister and mother's shoulders

But that poor,
poor
princess

will always be chasing
squirrels
to talk to

and men
to be saved by.

When will we teach them to save themselves?


When will they teach themselves
that there is no such thing as perfect

Explosions in the sky
Rip apart the shreds of thought I so
Desperately struggled to gather around myself

More beautiful than fireworks' light-hearted
Sighs, these demon waves penetrate
My ribcage, throttle my heart

Lights, lights, the unknown maestro
A landscape plagued by hiccups

When she turned her gaze upon me,
I was a mote of dust
caught in a beam of sunlight
I was huge and beautiful
and bright.

I laughed and danced
and shone.

And when she turned away,
a cloud moved across the sun
and I was extinguished.

I like to pretend
That I'm over you
That I don't still think about what
We could've been
If I hadn't ******* things up.
I like to pretend
That you never left me
For good
That you're always coming back
But you're never coming back.
I like to pretend
That you never hurt me.
That emotional pain
I pretend
I never felt in my heart.
Burning
Burning
Burning.
I pretend
When I tell everyone that I'm over you
But I still think about you
Everyday
Every week
All the time.
And I long for what we could have been
Even though I don't know what that is.
And try as I might to
Change it,
Ignore it,
The fact remains
That what we had
Was destroyed by me.
And what you did
Hurt me.
And I am not done.
Feeling this hurt
This betrayal
This,
Everything
Bottled up inside.
Rather than explain
Why I can't
Look at your picture
Hear your name
Read your poems
I pretend.
And they seem okay with that
But I know that you
Would see right through that
You
The only person
That can tell
When
I'm pretending.

One eye staring at me,
       The other eye staring into space.
Half a mind on my words,
       The other half on groceries,
                                 life,
                          bills.
And I'm dying on the inside,
         Because I forgot why I should care
That his attention
                                  is Elsewhere.