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 Mar 2013 Marie-Niege
robin
her mouth was sandpaper.

her mouth was sandpaper
and she spoke like
a smooth surface,
words scraped into fluidity
like a wooden sphere,
turned over behind teeth ‘til all friction
is lost.
she spoke like the walls of a birdhouse
in the room of a dead carpenter:
pretty unassembled things.

her mouth was sandpaper
and every kiss chafed,
rubbing raw my lips
and tongue
crafting with each touch
drawing blood like
juice from an apple,
like sap
from wood already cut from the tree.

her mouth was sandpaper
and she told me
i bite my lips,
rip at
the inside of my mouth,
cannibalize myself cell
by cell.

bone saws in her mouth.
the only difference between teeth of jaws
and saws
is mercy
(and she swallowed her mercy long ago).

her mouth was sandpaper
and she spoke like a carpenter’s hands:
rough palms,
tough pads,
a utilitarian artist
a crafter of dead flesh.
a mortician for dryads
and kodama.
the art and the artist
in lips
tongue
and teeth.

her mouth was sandpaper
and i brought mine to hers
again and again,
her bitten-rough lips
opening like doors to
purgatory.
less entrapment than addiction -
returning once more to nails and hammers,
hell’s blacksmiths below
heaven’s painters above.
coming back home
to the space between,
to bone saws
and a carpenter’s hands.

her mouth was sandpaper
and her voice was carpentry,
her teeth bone saws
her words
birdhouse walls.
her mouth was purgatory
but her hands
were hands.

her mouth was sandpaper.
i held her hand
and chafed my lips raw.
I miss when Jane didn’t smoke.

She sneaks under morning’s cloak

Goes to class and laughs

With an empty head

At my empty joke.

Empty is the ***** flask

I pretend not to notice

Tucked into her lunchbox

So I stare at her sandwich instead

No crusts

A housewife’s handiwork

There's no use pretending anymore.

We are empty

We are fading

And she is faded

And I am waiting

In the food court of a failing mall

While she is debating

Whether or not to give it all

To another blue-eyed boy

Because he made her feeling something

Her father didn’t

After his deployment.
These walls are made of hapless imaginings,
paper and ink.
a word is a word is a word
Context.
context

Folded, filed, arranged,
paper and ink.
not concrete not diamond
In each story we love we find ourselves.
yourself

Today you told me you were hopeless,
paper and ink, darling, paper and ink.
I’m a storyteller at heart

but you made me this way

whispered tales of adventures

told before I drifted away



I remember the feeling

but never the story

why, why can’t I remember



All you’ve left me with is a longing

to connect the dots

so whispered tales I continue to tell

until maybe one day I can get it right



And the words and feelings

can finally be joined as one

and I won’t feel as empty
 Mar 2013 Marie-Niege
Misundastud
My heart
is cracking
shut your mouth
listen to me
no words to be
said
your heart is
falling to the
ground
boom snap
it shatters
hoping
to make
hope to
have a brighter
and better future
listen to me no
words to
be said
thank god
for giving you
what you
Have
 Mar 2013 Marie-Niege
Jen Ayala
My eyes changed color since you saw me last
I can tell because I see different
My skin is softer since you touched me last
I can tell because I feel different

My prints are still the same though.
I planted a mango seed,
Hoping?
Not sure what...

But the mango grew
Out of its context,
Poked shiny green leaves
Looking for sun and surf,
But found itself awakened
In a land of snow and cold.

Seven leaves into its
Exponential Mango growth,
The newest leaf
Yellowed...
Shriveled...
Died.

The Minnesota Mango
Meditates now...
Watered, but waiting....
Slumbering?
Planning a spring break?
Meditating?
Waiting for summer sun?
Perhaps....

Today
I heard about
A neighbor boy
Who smuggled in
A baby alligator
From the Bayou,
South and warm.

At least my Mango
Stays inside its
Crockery planter,
And an alligator jail break
Will leave him
Freezing in his tracks...

We'll see what happens
In the summer.
 Mar 2013 Marie-Niege
Vidya
out:
     murmurations and even
     simpler:
     the way grass grows and
     dandelion pollen rubs off on your
     nose
     the motive behind a ******
     of crows in this galaxy of
     peacocks

in:
     bloodskinbone and
     respiration and a
     heart that won’t *******
     quit.
Should I roll back into nothing. A ghost into a house with many beds, and a large window with a large sill you once said you would make your writing nook. And read and drink hot cups of tea and coffee. I can still see you there, in my future. A wet, gray and fogged morning out there. And you're across the room at the window. I feel like maybe I shouldn't create this dream and hope. That one day, you'll pull down my driveway. Find me working on something outside, and sweating. Or riding. Or i see you through my front window in the cold with my fire burning. I feel like maybe I shouldn't create this a dream and a hope.  But you know what? **** holding back.
I'll believe onward in you even though you might not ever pull down my driveway, one day.
I deserve nothing for my emotional abuse that was placed upon you by my doing. I get why you may never come down the drive.
I still want to hold onto that thought. Because that might keep me alive through these years, even though i don't really feel like livin' anymore. I'll be there. Off of that high way, i will be there if the dark doesn't take me away. If the need to pass on doesn't become to much. I would drop to my knees if you pulled down that drive some day. You would hear the gravel in my voice and see the struggle on my brow. I may roll back into that house, or a second deployment in the desert, or death. Death is easy, no last good fight left in giving up on myself. Even though it would hardly matter anyway. You would come down my drive. And i would drop, and i would cry. Because i do cry, because i've been crying, because i'm crying now.
That place out there, where I will reside, where i may hide. You're always welcome to venture out. Sometime. The future is always uncertain. Come and hug me, come and scream in my face, come and make me bleed, come and **** me lovingly, come and destroy me in every way you know possible. I'll be on my knees,
i'll be on my knees.
So I said to him
"I've got my demons"
Two bit termites that eat me away
'Cause I was never a real girl
--would you look at her nose--
Lying *****

And then he points back
Says look at them skeletons
Hanging from the closet
Among button down shirts and sanctioned blazers
But they're made of plastic
Some cheap bio lab representation of what's meant to be human

NO I scream
And my voice bubbles out like tar
Paving over his cracked ideals
Sealing up the sink hole where I buried my heart
--saving it for a rainy day--
And I slam the door in his face
Hoping it hits the ******* nose he stuck in my business

Hounds are scratching at my door
Whining for a chance
To rip apart the rabbit
That's hiding in my head

I stand up and let them

— The End —