Underneath the ten pounds of make-up
and the personality you fake to please everyone,
the face they deem
Gorgeous is layered with faux smiles
and tear tracks
Like runaway trains that seem impossible to stop.
Years of pain and anguish;
actions driven by anger;
nights ended with soaked pillows;
thoughts clouded with judgment
for she will always believe she is
UGLY

You know the song I whisper to myself in the night
For I myself sang it to you and I myself let you
Crawl into my bed of despair
Of desperation and
You rolled about
Slept in it and
Immersed yourself in the nakedness of my being and
I was a wilting flower
A ****
But you didn't care
You pressed your Jewish face, hands and tenderness
Took in my stubborn scent

You made me feel like a rose

Your voice always sounds scared and nervous and  
Agitated
It is precious because it can change a universe
You’re intelligent but
My name is toxic in your mouth you know
Saying it kills you
It's thick vowels are murderous
Mixing with the mourning of a
Genetically inherited pollutant elsewhere
Deep in your throat
hidden and hushed
Your mother tongue drowns weeping at your rejection of her
My name and her sobs don’t mix well
She behaves like acid rain
Killing the flowers in your heart and
I don’t feel like a rose in that place anymore
I feel like I'm a **** again and
I just
Want to go home

Her hands are shaking.
Trembling, trembling as the box moves closer to her reach.
Her heart is racing just as fast as she used to everyday after school when she ran from the school bullies.
Her heart is pumping blood just as her wrists do after she introduces them to a blade.
Her heart is slowly being mended just like the reconciliation of her relationship with her psychotic sister.
Her hands are shaking so bad she can't make out the outline of them in this dimly-lit room.
The candle light ricochets off the walls.
All she can think about is how he has stood beside her this whole time.
The room smells of cigarettes, which reminds her of the first time she met him.
That night at the corner liquor store where she went after her grandad died.
Trying to drown the pain by drowning herself in
pills and alcohol.
She was approached by a man who smelt of death who tried to steal her money, and if he got any further, her virginity.
Just as the man went to put his hands on her, the boy stepped up and protected her.
That trend continued for years as he protected not only her, but their love as well.
She knew she had finally found something worth loving truly for.
No more hiding who she truly was behind drugs, lies, and a noose hung ready in her closet.
She realized that he made her complete.
She'd walk to the end of the earth for him and he'd crawl with broken legs all the world around to see her.
But as the bills piled high and the eviction notices multiplied by the hundreds, they didn't know how to move on.
She turned back to the drugs and the pills as she knew she was drowning,
Drowning deeper and deeper.
Waiting to feel his hand plunge deep in the water to save her life.
And he'd do it every time.
She realized that he took her sky high with his love.
This would soon overcome all her addictions, leaving her only addicted to his love.
She could barely breathe as her hands touched the box.
By now she was surprised they hadn't fallen off from trembling,
Trembling so much.
As she opened the box, her breath rapidly started to leave her body.
She could feel herself going numb.
She couldn't speak.
As he pulled the ring from the box, her body shook more and more from excitement and shock.
He asked for her hand in marriage, and she started to cry with joy.
After they kissed he whispered, "You've always been my addiction."

Smoking is a working class disease
They said; he smiled at this.
Lean in body and broad of mind
With shirtsleeves rolled,
A modern man's philosopher
Who stuttered over the words
Like his fingers did over her chassis
Detroit rolling iron beneath his palms
Grease and lubricant under the nails.
The cigarette cherry glows in the dark
Giving him a hard edge aura  
The gloaming settling into the lines
Of his work-worn face

My grandmother's bones
Provide the support
To my empty rib cage
Evening the structure;
Her disappointment
Would be something great.
Taciturn tea leaves
In a ceramic urn
Allow some comfort
From their steam
While the lines
On my palm lie-
My bracelets of fortune
Can't be that short.

She collects the rice after weddings
Looking for prophecies in her cupped palms
Searching each grain for a story.
She thinks of the children they ought to have
And their names with deeper meanings:
Against birth, defender of man.
A blonde girl
And a precocious boy
Who she knows will one day learn
The language of suicide
Their starfish hands
Never to be the pickers of rice

A cigarette is pathetic tinder
For lighting a revolution
In a house were curtains are drawn
Against all outside movement
And trinkets of an affair
Are cast away with casualty
Or slipped between the pages
Of books no one will read-
Dense things
With a sense of malice
Scratched into their surfaces,
Un-dyed by the sun