The voices of police officers reporting
The batching
Dispatching
Hums and whistles in the background
On my Grannies radio
Sports playing near the front
Row after row of old antique figurine
Men and women
As I think in hindsight now
Of how the separation of gender, too
Slowly
Slow as a Southern day
Melts away.

And its funny
Because time does seem endless here
Whereas in the conundrum of the sparkling city
Every moment the clock echoes the passing of time
Its as if you have gotten or lost.

I look closely at faces
But hide my own form and face away
Without a touch of Egyptian liner or
Dust of rose
I'm confident enough in my own skin now
To think and say
This is just what my face looks like
But it feels good to chisel and embrace
Too.

With heavy hands I'll nestle
Make myself radiate less
Smaller, get smaller
As to not draw
More unwanted attention.

She limped, her legs swollen
Her teeth clattering against a mint green gum
My father didn't sit for the first 15 minutes
I wondered if it was because it was
Sort of sad to see her.

I'm an angsty *******
Once I get to about the three day mark
Of having spent time
In the Williams abode
Where I once howled into the moonlight
Over a boy or 3
Drank Smirnoff, in the dark of my bathroom
At the ripe age of 15
Explored and chased
Hurt and replaced
Carved my name out in pink
Buttercup lipstick
Replaced my eyes with a contact blue
Bleached my hair a pure white
Sought to be tiny
Perfect
Porcelain.

Ownership
Self ownership
Possession.
I feel like I had so much of that in college
And as I've grown older
I've found myself
Wanting to disappear
Into the crevices
Of shut up woman,
Just shut the **** up.