we wrote more poetry
in the wrinkles of your sheets
in one night than
I have written in the pages
of my journal all year

the weight of seven
hummingbirds -- 21 grams --
is what leaves the body
after death

on that hummingbird breath
the soul leaves
a wispering whisper
of seven tiny, winged cavatinas

being sung back
and singing themselves
forward
into the chorus

to enter again
a melody -- in
the Eye Of God

shimmering
iridescent
wings beating
the rhythm of Love



c. 2018 Roberta Compton Rainwater

None of us know each other
None of us want to even try
Or maybe it's just me
And maybe my standards
Are too high

They wouldn't understand
All these strangers down the halls
I sit alone on my bed
And hear giggles through
The walls

And no matter how hard I try
It always comes to this odd end
I have to constantly remind myself
A therapist is not
A friend

i can’t write about what it feels like
to run my fingers through your hair
or feel your hands on my skin
(no matter how much i want to)
i can’t speak to the softness of your lips
or what it sounds like
when you whisper my name
(no matter how much i want to)
i don’t know what the skin on your hips
feels like after you’ve showered
or what it’s like to wake up
to your breath on my shoulder
(no matter how much i want to)
i can’t write about the feeling
of our skin
soft and rough
holding hands
(oh god, i want to)
i can’t write about you
in anything other than the abstract
no
matter
how
much
i
want
to

Sometimes, in the shower
I think of all the hands I have let touch me
And have to scrub myself so hard my skin blisters,
Use my nails like a blunt knife, try to tear into a new skin
One they have never seen
I'm reminded of all the ways I have said no with my body,
All the times it was ignored,
And turn the water so hot I feel hell singing in my blood.
I hear all the ways I said no with my tongue,
All the times it was ignored,
Bite down on lips that never spoke loud enough
I’d sever this useless muscle from my mouth
If only I hadn’t already hidden the razors.
But sometimes, in the shower
I think of the times I have touched myself
Ran fingers over a soft-skinned body
That could not do more to save me
And I remind myself that this precipice of hatred,
The dancing cliff-edge of blaming myself
Should not lead to scars and blood in the drain
I think of all the ways the water has held me
Has embraced me for hours and asked me to give nothing in return
In these moments I know a body is just flesh
This sinew and marrow carcass of me
Is blameless for the reaching hands
Of the ****** and rotten bodies of them
It’s just a frightened body
And I forgive it
I forgive it