I may be a little rougher
than all those other girls:
skipping stones instead of gluing sparkles
rib-cracking laugh instead of lipstick smiles
tree climbing scrapes instead of hair curler burns —
but I’m softer than all of them.

I am your little avocado
dark skin cynicism and hardened core
but really I’m just as easily bruised

So, Sweet Smiled Serendipity,
please remember to kiss my cheek
      my nose
          my finger tips
when we lie together in a blanket of 2am sweat
because even after a night like that
I am more fragile than you’ll ever know.

I saw a dancer, seductive
Trail-blazer, paint a picture
Of the future; in the future

There were silvered swans
Gliding the surfaces of mirrors,
Dragons spewing sunset

Into the sky. Later, the moon -
Distant dream-fellow, will rise
Above a plane of promises.

But the dancer tripped and fell,
I was reminded the stars are cruel
To reach with lesser fuel

Than is needed, imagined
Only in a dreamer's desperation
To depart an insensible nation.

The soap in my downstairs bathroom reminds me
Of the ooze that leaked from a pregnant snail
After I mutilated her shell to use the meat as bait.
Forcing a hook through her body and casting it into a lake,
I waited for a fish to swallow the tiny knife
And hoped it would get lodged in his esophagus.
I pulled his lungs from the water
And laughed as he writhed at the end of my string.

I don’t fish anymore.

i will wade out
                        till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers
I will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
                                       Alive
                                                 with closed eyes
to dash against darkness
                                       in the sleeping curves of my body
Shall enter fingers of smooth mastery
with chasteness of sea-girls
                                            Will i complete the mystery
                                            of my flesh
I will rise
               After a thousand years
lipping
flowers
             And set my teeth in the silver of the moon