There is a dead rabbit in my garden
This isn’t a metaphor
There is a dead rabbit in my garden

I put it there myself,
I didn’t do the killing, just the commandeering

I rode past it on my bike in September
There was frost on the ground
And in its fur
Matted from the performance of death

On my ride home the world had melted
But rigor had set in like ice
I scooped up the morsel in a Subway bag

I watched for months
As the body decomposed through chemistry
Rather than biology
Enzymes were at work, not insects

The bunny still rests beneath clover
But it is a black cave now
With walls made of bone

With the sun came scavengers
Though only a thin layer of meat remains
Just enough for the fur to cling to
There are flies
So full
They walk

There is a man spending money
on me.
I pay the favors no mind
I say thank you
I sip classy cocktails
I never ask for more.
I accept
I am practicing being a lady
But the worst kind.

I will not inform him of our age difference
until it is pulled from me
like a splinter.
I stretch truths like an archer's bow
Flawless, unwavering draws
I keep my breathing steady
and give nothing away.
I am practicing being a lady.
I am coy when I change the subject from me
Mysterious when I feign interest.
I am a lady when I graze his arm
And kiss him in shadows

I will tell my grandchildren
I never thought this could happen to any girl in the real world,
just in movies, in dreams, on stars and dandelion puffs of breath,
birthday candles, through tunnels, over bridges, and at certain hours of the day
But certainly not to me.

I am not an actress
but I am playing a part.
I tame my blush
and smother my girlish traits
I've stopped wearing cotton
and I have considered shaving my legs for the first time in three years.

I am doing things that ladies do
ladies that have money spent on them
stereotypes I would have bashed
had I not seen the perk to playing into them
I will play this part.
I will do my nails

I am doing it for my grandchildren
to shock.
I am this strange woman who I once, as a strange woman
would have scoffed at.
But there's no time for scoffing now,
just acting.
I am doing it for myself
to shock.

I wrote down my sister’s name
I erased it
I couldn’t stand the curves of the letters
It looked like phlegm caught in the back of your throat

After her husband died
She mourned
In a way so foreign to me
And conflicting to the way I needed her to mourn
My heart broke and she carried the pieces home with her
Held them next to hers, I thought
And the countless other broken hearts
We all mourned so severely
I thought she’d hold the pieces close for warmth
But our portions of heart were swept under the bed
Which she now shares with a new man

Ryan’s death should have been about him
But it took less than 2 weeks for it to be about her new boyfriend
My sister
Went from “widowed” to “in a relationship”
In 36 days.

When we were 5 and 6
We created theatrical productions on our trampoline
We performed them for our neighbors
I just want to write to everyone
And tell them to erase the memories
Forget my smile
Forget my silly voices
Forget the dandelions I threw at my sister when she bowed
My sister would not take my heart and throw it like a ****

I do not know this person
Who no longer identifies as widow

Call me a knockout
and make my smile diminish
because you're my boss.

Sir, you're mistaken
I don't feel more attractive
when you honk your horn.

Whistling at me
only allows one of us
to show true colors.

Drive by and holler
void of personality
I'm just a figure.

Your blood may pump blue
But your soul is neon sign
broken and ugly.

A haiku for you:
Corinne Elizabeth Parke,
***** little *****.

lol

Tonight, we took communion
We drank deeply from salvation,
Taking long gulps of escape
And bit hearty bites of forgiveness;
Amnesty tastes so good some nights

We didn’t take the bread out of the bag
Until there were wine stains in our bellies
Stains all over our bodies
Our mouths so profoundly red, when we blew kisses at each other
we left perfect lips on lips
Our tongues red like ink pens
We penned in cursive, our names onto each other’s chests
Like all the other things we ever wrote were wrong
My fingertips like raspberries
My fingertips like spring time
Tonight, we celebrated surviving winter,
Toasting to its defeat
Our sadness has left us, replaced by rosy cheeks and hiccups
I have held my breath for this

I have allowed you to stain me so red
an autopsy will show internal bleeding
Tonight, we became blood brothers and sisters
My heart has swelled too large for my ribs
Broken from this cage and cried out
I will bleed like this long after the wine is gone.

We think big thoughts involving omnificence
This water has become wine
This bread has become flesh
My soul has buried itself inside of my nooks
I think
Every time you touch me, you find where it has snuck off to
Like hide and seek
You are the very best at finding me
I can find shapes in the clouds
In your freckles, and in bread crumbs on your shirt
You **** ****** lips like a beast
You tousle up my heartstrings with ease.

We sat crisscross applesausely beneath a secret cave sheet fort.  
There was just room for the two of us,
To roll around and kiss
To pretend.
Shape shifting walls
warm lights and soft shadows
We kept warm with laughter and nostalgia and liquor
I could stretch and push our temperate hiding spot from us like lungs
and you would swallow me like air till I contract
We should be built into a statue, sitting here
So young lovers can relate to something concrete
And write poems about how special they are.

There is no embarassment when you have a baby.
This is the wisdom given to the teen dad on the bus
He practices his Arnold accent
And ever so gently shakes the baby
He holds it like a bomb
The stranger shakes a pooh bear like she has the mitus touch
But where crying babies hush at her touch
I half hope the baby gets louder

we spent the day believing in the future
we didn't set our clocks strange
but just spent our future time void of frivality
We lived intentionally,
As if tomorrow was our last
We jumped right over the present and started living it.
We ate our last dumplings
Kicked our past pile of grass clippings
Pulled a tick out of your dog
Bought the last box if bandaids.
You said we were going to need them to cover up all our mistakes
I hoped we'd save a few to push the broken bits of my heart back together.
we both hoped for scars
Reminders to the future
That at one point
We lived

To all those who reach this earth decomposing,
May you reenter this planet with vivacity
Run free with the sparkle of life.
I hunger to hunger as deep as you
To never cease
To have a penetrable mind
To understand the curves of my body do not restrict my movement
I will move past the bend in my spine
The arch of my foot
The joints in my arms
I will run faster than my legs can carry me
To the army of open arms,
You spread harmony among the masses
We are equal in your eyes
I will become instinct and reaction
I will be the flight to your fight
You have given us wings.
To you who have returned against “never”
May you prosper on this ancient land you’ve left
You beacon of hope to those of us with forgotten dreams
And broken promises
You are the exception, and therefore the healer
May we hold on to the hope this brings us
May we too break rules and skew pattern.
Thank you, you the soldiers of woe
Clearing the path of the heavy weights on our souls
The sickness before the health
And the parting do us death

I am good for nothing
But art.
To witness
Is to paint a life into color
To witness is medium.
I will let my hands get *****.
I have the ability to mold
And therefore the responsibility to
I shape
I stretch
I manipulate

And I expect much of the same in return.
Get your hands *****.
Dig your fingers into my knit
Tousle up my heart strings
Get me all knotted up

The man with a tear drop tattoo by his left eye
just winked at me with his right
I can't breathe
because of more than one factor:

this bus smells like the worst kind of bus stench.
this man is the sole reason the bus smells.
this man is a killer.

The tear drop was because:
"I put that guy to sleep, and he didn't wake up,
I did the crime and I did the time,
It's my way or the highway
to hell.
I'll see him there though."
With a laugh following each line.
Just the perfect heartless laugh,
that showed me exactly who this man was.
So I stopped breathing.

He has held a body so close to death
that he saw the last flashing images
of first love
lost love
unconditional love
and he pushed that body
into the light of the projector.
as he pushed,
he might have shielded his eyes
he might have stared, like a daring child at an eclipse.

he has held a body so close to death
that he heard the rattling croak of empty, thirsty lungs
and the swish of a cloak on a body so desperate for the warmth of another's pressed against its own.
he has held a body so close to death
that he could feel all the love held inside of it
like the flashing images were replaying and replaying
like a vhs rewinding and fast-forwarding
heating the corpse for the journey home.
he has held a body so close to death,
that for the job to be done
all he had to do was let go.