i have learned to breathe under holy water -
grew gills so strong they are
lined with celestial gold.

the ocean is a puddle to me now.

and i ***** pearls of pain,
lick them clean with my acetylene
tongue.

my acids will heal what the world cannot.

pills and love potions  
can't take away
my virginity.

i am clean, so clean.

the devil watches me and
cringes at my radioactive light.

for i am dead and alive all at once.
poison, poison.

the radium drips from my lips like
babyspit and i am too pure
for god himself

so i offer my golden blood
to a higher power

that would take the pureness of it all
and make it an ounce
of what i could have been

i will wade out
                        till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers
I will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
                                       Alive
                                                 with closed eyes
to dash against darkness
                                       in the sleeping curves of my body
Shall enter fingers of smooth mastery
with chasteness of sea-girls
                                            Will i complete the mystery
                                            of my flesh
I will rise
               After a thousand years
lipping
flowers
             And set my teeth in the silver of the moon

Your lies were pregnant
They gave birth to false dreams
And now here I am,
A grandmother to broken promises

Phenols*

Your heart was always empty
and I was full of self sacrifice,
so I tried to give your heart substance
with all my deepest love.

I poured and poured,
with pain I wrestled
before realizing I was pouring
myself into a stubbornly empty vessel.

You could have just told me
you didn't want any part of me
and not left it too late,
with pieces of me floating about
in a heartless man.

What do you do
when you realize
you're the aftermath
of someone's abuse?

It was written in the subtleties,
not the clear skin on your face.

You find it etched inside
of a voided smile.

The byproduct
of back handed remarks.

You stayed home
convinced yourself
you weren't really lonely.
But when you went out
you were made to feel the same.

Second guessing became
second nature.
Proving yourself worthy
became a personality trait.

It's not always clenched fist
or hit and run

It's a quick wit
and a razor tongue too.

The kind of love
that makes you
question the lengths
you've walked in life.

Makes you think
the only way is stay put
or go backwards.

The green eyed monster
turned you pale again
and you don't see
yourself in the mirror anymore.

Only someone who paints
her face with a smile
and tells everyone she's okay.

But the aftermath
is still just as deadly.
and your eyes feel sore
from trying to see
the good in things.

It's not always black eye
and a pain in your head.

If the flags read red-
then run.
No matter how far
you have made it.

About the time that the skin around his eyes
and behind his ears matches the evening sky
(black and blue, ****** pockets of purple),
a nurse asks me what happened and I tell her,
against white walls, and over a pile of bruised meat,
and beneath the phantom of a prognosis that includes
the words "injury" and "traumatic" and "brain" which seeped into
the atmosphere hours, but that doesn't make any sense,
because just seconds ago we were drinking
from cheap bottles, the color of honey or flypaper
depending on the place, we had black comedy
smeared across our faces like thick shadows under lamp lights,
we were stumbling across a road together
through the city's living darkness and we were twelve
and we were twenty-four and we were forty-five
all at once and that doesn't make any sense, but it's true.
A nurse asks me what happened and I tell her. But
I leave out the flashbang between the parenthesis,
the part where given the choice
between grabbing him or saving myself,
space and time come undone in the headlights of a truck
and I'm back on the sidewalk before you can say
"self-preservation."
The nurse tells me it was lucky I was there,
and a little clear fluid leaks out of his nose in tacit agreement.