I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it----

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a **** lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
0 my enemy.
Do I terrify?----

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else,
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart----
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash ---
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there----

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

My thoughts are crabbed and sallow,
My tears like vinegar,
Or the bitter blinking yellow
Of an acetic star.

Tonight the caustic wind, love,
Gossips late and soon,
And I wear the wry-faced pucker of
The sour lemon moon.

While like an early summer plum,
Puny, green, and ****,
Droops upon its wizened stem
My lean, unripened heart.

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

your eyes are not oceans
and you are not a natural disaster
you are manmade and you will topple
and i will be the one to topple you
because you are a literal bag of human ****
and if you think that telling me
that i deserve ****
will impress your fellow man friends,
you had better watch the **** out
because i am coming for you with a taser
and a buzzsaw
your mra t-shirts can't help you now,
****

Paint dried a guilty tattoo on his skin
Your gallery he stood in
Worthless, in every sense
You stayed strong benind a glass fence
He took you up to hang on the wall
But every breathtaking picture has a flaw
But even when he poured your ripped canvas soul into a trash can
A piece of art's beauty is not determined by the nonunderstanding of a man

I'm doused in pink
And people think
That I'm weak
If my palette was bleak
Would you think me strong?
You'd think wrong
I'm made of steel
And quick to heal
I may be covered in bows
But heaven knows
This princess is tough
My edges might not be rough
I may look like a fragile flower
But I hold so much power
My femininity doesn't make me
Some weak little daisy
Beautiful yet tough, like diamonds & pearls
Just like the girls with ribbons and curls

She draws black wings to her eyes
in a green-wash reflection, light
cascading through the shutters
of the ceiling fan, whilst red lips
rehearse a smile for her lover.

He will hold her like a wallet as
they pay their way through town.
It has been months since she felt
human touch, mammalian warmth,
or whispers exchanged across the pillow.

His eyes are on the screen as she
undresses and then falls beneath
his weight on the mattress. An empty
thud, a hollow sound, as his night is
given purpose, and then falls to sleep again.

She lies awake and wonders where
her night went. There was laughter
across the table, drinks stirred with straws,
and UFOs painting pictures in the sky.
The sea roared in the distance like

a passing train, and so there must be
an escape to a far-off land for her
to start again. Start again beyond
waistlines, over coastlines, and all ties
to employment. To start again

with a half-naked lover, who will
watch as the wind kicks up her hair;
as her skin freckles once more
in the sun.