I wish you loved me how
you loved him,
you speak with
reverence to memory
and not of present,
emotions run not
through your veins;
with me it seems,
I haven't shed tear
10 years yet
the lack of
sentiment lies
within you,
i feel achieved
when i hear an
“i love you”,
I’m listening through
static; thinking I hear
clearly but being drowned
out by what’s louder,
your touch is deafening
to clarity, and I don’t know
if they felt this way too,
reaching out to transparency
never seemed so tangible,
and being grazed by
fingertips of yesterday never
felt so confusing,
your emotion seems
only soluble through
my tears, and my tears
only seem to fall
with your emotion
I wish you loved me
like you loved him.

Don’t get arrested if you’re poor!
There’s no way they’ll let you go!
Privilege just means private law
To those who’re in the know

And if you ever wondered why it seems
The system disregards your self
It’s because you are on separate teams
"The law"’s an anagram of "wealth"

But do not worry, not all’s lost,
You poor demented yob
You can have freedom at a cost
-The freedom of the mob

Oh sure, The mob won’t listen
And doubtless will not care,
But it’s guaranteed admission
To most likely anywhere

But where will the people rally to?
Well, you may think this is funny –
It’s the same place that they always do-
The mob follows the money.

And the people rule the country
The same way as did the few,
But now you cannot blame them
Because "the people" includes you.

I knew she planned on staying.
When she unpacked her belongings.
Mia told me she wasn't playing.
This time, she would cause the falling.

She woke me up the first night,
After he ran away.
Mia's chapped lips whispered our old times,
She reminded me of tooth decay.

For the next few days, Mia was my shadow.
Her doe-eyes trailed my every course.
Waiting patiently for me to plateau,
Before attacking without remorse.

Mia told me she was mending my cuts,
My battered heart, and my sliced legs.
She was making me whole with every hiccup.
He may have left, but she was here to stay.

We held hands throughout the store.
She helped me buy my favorite treats.
Binging together before locking the door.
Purging never tasted so sweet.

Mia held my hair and my pink tongue.
Her fingernails made my throat bleed.
Convinced me secrecy made this fun.
Our kneeling prayers were a mystery.

She wiped my tears with her acidic hands,
And whispered how much she missed me.
Mia uttered how only she would understand
My longing and misery.

that buzz starts
and my palms flood with
sweat.
the needle hits flesh
and it’s all familiar;

I’ve been here before.
still, it’s all forgotten,
except for the idea
that the images I’ve
asked him to mix up
on my arm are very comforting
to me.

Our Lady of Guadalupe
and an ink pen,
I’ve grown up surrounded
by both,

so to stir them together is safe
in its sacrilege,
not sacrilegious at all;

permissible in fact,
because of their combined power,
a display of faith in my own
ability to create, to destroy
darkness and demons

with notebooks and prayers
offered from a small stage,
through a live microphone,

or in a coffeehouse with
the newsman,
the laureate,
the tiger,
the bundle of nerves,
and the denim-clad
troubadour.

Our Lady of Poetry
will watch over us all,
in our church,
the church of the spoken-word.
*
©P&ZPublications; 2015
-JBClaywell

He’s not the ‘forever’ type.

He’ll take you to a park on your first date and ask you to dance to hungry eyes, and he’ll say ‘gosh, you’re intelligent - you’re not just smart, you’re intelligent’ and he’ll say it like there’s actually a difference.

On the second date he’ll make you fall in love. Not the ‘real’ kind of love but the heart racing, take-your-breath-away kind that says, ‘I don’t think I’ll ever meet anyone like this again.’

The cruelest thing he’ll do is let you believe you have a special place in his heart.

He’ll call at 10am or 10pm or halfway through dinner. He’ll call and your heart will lurch and you’ll swoon and laugh and pretend it didn’t hurt when he didn’t turn up last Saturday. He’ll call and you’ll drop your ego like you drop your knife and fork, and you’ll run straight to his front door.

And standing on his porch, you’ll smooth over your skirt and hair, and bite your bottom lip like a schoolgirl who hasn’t learnt her lesson, and he’ll answer the door and say, come, meet my friend. I’m teaching her to dance.

She likes hungry eyes too.

she laughs
like a chandelier
that could outshine the
sun