You said the anger would come back
just as the love did.

I have a black look I do not
like. It is a mask I try on.
I migrate toward it and its frog
sits on my lips and defecates.
It is old. It is also a pauper.
I have tried to keep it on a diet.
I give it no unction.

There is a good look that I wear
like a blood clot. I have
sewn it over my left breast.
I have made a vocation of it.
Lust has taken plant in it
and I have placed you and your
child at its milk tip.

Oh the blackness is murderous
and the milk tip is brimming
and each machine is working
and I will kiss you when
I cut up one dozen new men
and you will die somewhat,
again and again.

you do not need to be quiet.
you do not need to expose your heart
to this brutal world to feed its ugly desire.
you only need to walk into the wilderness of your soul
and breathe, succumb to the silence in your heart;
rebel and provoke, then embrace the soft despair
of your broken body and heal; in the miles
of broken road between your heart and mine, repent;
cry a little and scream, for the valley will echo
in redemption and uplift you into the timberline
and up again to the highest point above the valley floor
until the sun whips its fingers across your face and you stagger,
kneel, then pray in your enlightened state;

you will smile when you come home
to the craggy rocks and dusty rivers
and the tender patches of moss along the boulders;
you will tease the tall grasses and the buttercups
and the sunflowers with your fingers
and push deep through the mud with your toes;
here, silence is forgiving.

19
***
Slurpees
Good music
Stunted moral judgment
Good friends, good times, good fun

locked in  cage
he holds the key to
she's waiting for him
on the other side
and he wants to free himself
but doesn't
doesn't know why
but he doesn't
maybe he's afraid
afraid that without the bars
she would become too real
they would become too real
and reality scares him
scares the ever loving hell out of him
ever since he picked up his first book
he realized,
fiction is just so much prettier
than real life

Lately I've been thinking I'm invincible
and wondering if I'll spoil our romance by trying to make it last forever,
as most women do, they say,
but we both know I've never listened to 'them'.
I have this teacher that's been crying and yanking out dandelions in her yard
because what else is she supposed to do
but she tells me I'm a little more likely to develop a psychological disorder.
I think we're all psychos, really,
all depressed and anxious, at least,
and sometimes my ceiling never stops spinning,
but I think I'll be alright.