I’m a Barbie girl
in a Barbie world.
Life’s fantastic! I
feel like plastic,
aiming for an 18-inch waist
because I can afford to throw my internal organs away.
I feel like plastic,
a neck so slender I have to choose
between eating and breathing;
there’s not enough space for two tubes.
I feel like plastic,
a 38-inch bust and
3-times the average amount of forehead.
I feel like plastic,
a size nine shoe squeezed to a three,
spending three to nine avoiding meal time
because my weight-loss book says,
“Don’t eat.”

I’m a Barbie girl,
in a Barbie world.
Life’s fantastic, but I’m
not plastic.
Bile tastes all too organic,
its taste chasing after me
if I exceed my daily nutritional limit of
2,000 calories.
I’m skinny enough that people think I’m healthy.
I’m not skinny enough for people to think I’m unhealthy.
Anorexia is as familiar as the back of my hand,
poised like a gun to the back of my throat,
waiting and ready to blow.
I’m a sixteen-year-old suicide case,
product of the war of production,
wearing battle wounds in the form of uniform lines
across the tops of my thighs.
I’ve been rewriting this poem since its conception.
I feel like the rough draft: concision is key.
(Be smaller.)
I’m trying rewriting,
trying to leave out things that aren’t
important enough, like:
four of my ribs
and my esophagus
and my stomach
and my small intestine.
I’m testing the limits of realism.
But here’s the thing:
I’m a real girl
in a real world.
Life’s not always fantastic,
but I am not plastic.

I am not plastic.

I refuse to be plastic,
aiming for generic weight range
based on content, not scale number.
I refuse to be plastic,
eating and breathing
like both are vital aspects to living.
I refuse to be plastic,
an actual hip-to-bust ratio
for not a thirty-year-old but a teenager.
I refuse to be plastic,
shoe size nine in size nine shoes,
trying to start enjoying mealtimes
because my “weight-loss book”
has been chucked down the chute.
I’m a living girl
in a terrifying world,
trying to remind myself that “Life in Plastic!”
is not fantastic.

46

I keep my pledge.
I was not called—
Death did not notice me.
I bring my Rose.
I plight again,
By every sainted Bee—
By Daisy called from hillside—
by Bobolink from lane.
Blossom and I—
Her oath, and mine—
Will surely come again.

He knew the ache could not be recompensed
they knew it too the moment echoes fell silent
There was already not enough love
in a world grown dark as darkest past

It wasn't the color of his skin nor dialect
or the  journey of a  thousand  miles
Not the place that he'd come from
       back when ―  left behind

             nor a heart of gold,  
      that never became a home

The colour of  unwritten silence
had  eclipsed  the waning  light
On the run from who he'd become;
     ashamed for all he was,  
couldn't erase a lifetime that felt a waste ―
               trying to untie a Gordian knot

He saw his body as an entombing barbwire cage
    imprisoning  a  wellspring  of  love writhing deep therein

Immured at arms length from the outside world
    where  the soul of a teardrop  abides  within
                         its insignificance

Shielding the  inherent  maelstrom
                          from the innocent passersby
Buried thoughtfully for the greater good of all ―
for the unsatiated dream boundless love betides

Written  artifacts  exhumed  like  ***** secrets
a lifetime of stigma's stain swept under the rug;
just whispered words written from an unfinished life
few ever really looked deeply between the twisted lines
arising from the soul of just another passing stranger

The long road begets a suffocating silence
choking out,           extinguished love inhumed
Ashes  of what once had been life aglow of light
               forevermore shrouded
          like the dark side of the moon



rivers

In a photograph
without a subject
you, standing
with your back
to my camera.

I long for a face,
your eyes, a soft smile,
or even just a pair of hands.

I remember us being
so lonely for each other,
and there on the shelf
a girl standing by herself.

Not just the empty cottage
dilapidated, all alone, my love,
you left three months ago
and the old house behind the dunes
now a photographic manipulation.

A wonder of the modern age,
complete with cuts and splices
where you used to sit, an empty
place in the bed, a gaping hole
somewhere above my navel.

I think it quite strange living here walled by this house
when I was wilder than now I lived in nature
stalking birds and pollen laden things
always my toes in sands or hot footed in summer.
I was in love with the sky, no matter the weather
in storms I hid beneath branching cedars
sleeping on mossy pillows, in the woods of my backyard.
I never gave much thought to houses then, I only went there
to sleep or eat and waited to leave again
waited for an inkling of sun to warm the cold grass
spent days climbing trees, red plums and cherries
I imagined that's how life would always be,
living outdoors under the sun or clouds
wet with rain, always picking flowers.

What if love was like the sun
and the moon was the essence
of heartache, a darkness
passing by every now and then
like a coldness that makes us lonely
on a long Monday afternoon,
would it be forever or only, hopefully,
for just an hour or maybe two?

Today I watched
a lump of rock
swallow the fire
of the sun
and tonight I saw
someone somewhere
toss a box
of diamonds high
into the sky
I swear
it's enough to make
a grown man cry.

the concrete isn't so bad when you're too distracted,
the buzzing of business and personal life gives you plenty to dwell,
keep your smirk and hopes to see them in hell,
enjoy your view from your kingdom of public property,
and complain about basic rights robbery;
tell yourself you'd do it right, if only you had a voice,
stuck somewhere in the middle, stuck without a choice.

voice of rust,
cracked hands,
brain of dust,
made nothing of the land
but will still adjust,
eyes of steel,
muscles weak,
nothing real,
made nothing but let me be
and i'll see how it feels.