Her voice would cleanse me, but
Her voice-mail popped every last
Bubble in the bath water.
Her phone rang and rang.
Wringing me out.
Leaving each ring
In the bathtub.
-
I thought you were still in the shower
but I found you in the sunlight that the patio keeps.
I missed the tightening of your skin as it dried.
Then it loosened you in its warmth just to
Show me the sweat beading. Growing wherever
Like seeds let go from the wind; held no longer
Than they should have been.
-
It was a careless orchard.
Rowed haphazardly.
The organics of now
Fruitful and ripe
But only for that moment.

Each year it happens.
The apple tree viewed from my balcony
gives up its fruit
until at last one solitary apple
remains high up,
beyond reach,
riper, redder, more robust
than any of the others
that have fallen or been gathered.

Unmoved by rain,
unshaken by winds.
It is as if
this one remaining fruit
is determined to resist
the onset of winter.

Day after day
I awaken;
raise my bedroom blind,
rub my eyes
and seek it out
amidst the protecting foliage.

At first resistant to my gaze,
it then proudly displays
its presence,
as if to say
“Behold, I still remain,
a testament to the perseverance of Fall.”

Each year I too remain
despite the apple’s everlasting reminder
that I myself am transient
and will one day
be shaken from my bough.

I am reminded of O. Henry’s last leaf
painted by an aged artist
to give support and strength and sustenance
to fading hope of life’s recovery.
Perhaps the apple, too, is but a dab of oil
on canvas.

Indeed, am I myself a product of
an artist’s keen, unfailing eye;
living in some vast
parallel universe
adjacent to and yet unseen
by all those bygone friends,
amidst an orchard of fallen, rotting apples?

You are allowed to take up space.

2. You are allowed to have a voice, even if it's hard to continue speaking.

3. You are allowed to leave whenever you feel unsafe or uncomfortable, don't ever let anyone keep you where you don't want to be.

4. You deserve more than someone who doesn't know how to respect you.

5. You are allowed to put your own needs first, don't forget to take care of yourself.

6. You are allowed to love yourself.

-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She puts her hair up in a mop,
loose and tight sweats combined,
that leave everything,
everything,
to imagination mine

except her feet, always bare,
as if she breaths thru her
purple painted toenails,
exhaling her arousal smell

this hydra-headed hairdo mess,
spills up and over, down and under,
**** if it is not the most sexiest
hairdo I ever seen

she catches me staring,
she standing, on the kitchen ladder,
frowns a clowny pretend perturbed,
angry woman little girl pouty look

"what!
what are you looking at?

false exasperation, sighing angry like,
who she kidding....


"me?
nothing!"

"just watching and observing"


and this kids,
is how you write a
******* love poem,
never using
the word love

*******.

18, small village, small life. So far,
I feel like i am floating,
                                                     never doing anything of substance with my life.

Life is confusing, never felt like i had one.
A wallflower watching peers find the bottom of ***** bottles with loud music.
In love with the idea of being in love but never understood the concept.

Boring and tame, not any more.
I want to write, be creative, find a voice inside my head. Find me.

Do cliché things like move to a big city where I'm dust on a piece of the puzzle.
Be of substance, find the one, understand that love thing.