If I could draw or
Paint or sketch,
Or sculpt or even
******* embroider,
My self-portrait
Would be titled

Cliché, Bright Eyed Girl,
Girl Who’s Falling
For ‘The Bad Boy,’
Girl who Doesn’t
Stand a Chance:
Girl Self-Involved in Petty Problems.

I’d be a surrealist
I’d befriend Zelda Fitzgerald
In Paris, then the clinic:

A sad clown face
So eager and fragile,
Drooping low,
Fair, but not the fairest
Dripping, melting,
Like those clocks, or something

into a dream,
Where I, a Botticelli,
Venus,
You, a Gonzo trip

And you’d press into
My soft full hips
With nicotine stained fingers.
A bee coating the peony,
Such slick pollen
From past flights of fancy:
You linger for the most succulent taste.

I’d trace the ink of your tattoos,
They lay beneath your skin.
I’d crawl down there too,
Pushing up against your veins.


With the crest of a wave,
We’d crash together,
Golden silk surrounding us:
Coming
Out of the foam.

Then I come back,
Back into the frame:
A sad little girl,
Face lowered,
Unruly hair shadowing her face,
While you look past,
Walking away in the foreground.

But I can’t paint,
Draw, sculpt, whatever.
I’m no Dali.
Just like I
Can’t make you
Fall, fall, fall,
into a cliché,
In love
With me.