Insecurities and scars, well worn and in need of love.

So you don't hear well, you say
Left ear a bit better than right
You're a little apologetic at first
But you look me in the eye
And at my lips when they move

When you look away
You don't hear me sometimes
But maybe that's okay
Maybe I could learn from you
To speak with more intent

I wait as your head is turned
And due to your brief absence
When you look back my way
I brighten all the more

I want him.
I want his beautiful blue eyes, blazing with desire and love
his soft, full lips, tracing my entire body and taking my own lips as prisoners of war
kissing me, kissing him with everything we've got,
everything we've kept in, pouring out in this kiss
I want to trace his face with my fingertips,
from his short blonde hair gripped in my tiny hands
to his smooth cheeks and his strong jawline and cup his face in my hands
planting lovemarks on his muscular neck in a shape of a circle; our never ending sign of love
I want to whisper sweet nothings and love poems into the curves of his shoulder;
the place where his shoulder and neck meets and that little soft spot,
near his collarbone
I want to outline his chest with words of forever with my hands
sketching an imaginary pattern of hope, want and passion
taking his callused hands in my soft, velvety one
embedding little butterfly kisses in his palms,
just little shadows of them, quick and gentle,
lightly brushing my lips against his lovely hands
I want his entire self,
giving up all of me to him and him, all to me
hushed words of sweet pleasure escaping from our mouths
like little wisps of smoke, trailing over our bodies that move in perfect harmony
I want his everything,
I want nights spent under the Michigan stars, cuddling against each other
talking about all the randomness in the universe
I want to fall asleep to his steady heartbeat with blankets as our only armour
after giving myself to him, a gift of true love to which I will never regret
I want forever and eternity with him, growing up and getting married
having little blonde kids, watching them run around the house and us laughing at all their silliness
and growing old with him, looking at him each and everyday
with the ever present butterflies in my stomach
doing somersaults and flips off the high dive every time I see him,
even after 50 years together
I want to hold him on his death bed, or he holding me when my time comes
I want us to have our small eternity just like Hazel and Augustus
and our almost happy ever after because even though nothing is perfect,
our ending will be the closest to perfection as possible
I want him forever and always,
just him,
only him,
from now to eternity.

Oh!  There it is!
The blood of my Mothers’
Sins
Blossoming on
My white sheets
Like a bouquet of English roses.
A shame -
Laundry day had
Been yesterday.  

My thighs have been painted
Rouge -
They blush
Like my cheeks
When my gaze
Lingers on my body
Too long in the mirror
As I put on my Sunday dress.

The needles in my
Lower back fill my
****** with blood -
I am a woman now -
And as such I must
Wake before the sun
And wash my sheets
And my body
Before anyone has a chance
To smell the iron and the shame
Between my legs.  

I have never been so
Acutely aware of my body:
My sore ******* feel like
Overripe tomatoes ready to burst,
My stomach bloated and taking up
Space I’m told is not ladylike -
My head throbs, my limbs ache, and
I continue to shed my insides.
How is it I never noticed
The cry of my body before?

A week of blood
Before I have served my sentence
For a woman
Who dared to disobey -
I clean the stains
And wash myself
Away.

An empty pen
when a verse
comes to mind
is like

you’re heading to church
with a burdened soul
And your car
won’t
start