When you look at me, what do you see?
I see a transparent body, outlined by bold black
ink, a distant reflection of me

You see nothing, yet you see me?
I see nothing but those behind you and those walking through
your outline, yet I see who you should be

If I were to disappear, what would you do?
I do not know considering, you are not there.
You are like air

If I am like air, can you feel me brush against your skin?
You are not as strong as the wind; you are like the air I breathe in

Why are you the only one who hears me?
I hear you because I am the mirror of your outline, I respond by showing you the truth of what you only choose to see

How do I fill myself in? Become visible and whole?
You find your true colors and escape into your soul

*A.L.W.

How is it, that I'm so perplexed?
You utterly confuse me
Your words, your actions, your motives...
They leave me dumbfounded.

It's always a game of guess and check
Except, I'm never right
How is that?

Do your words have a double meaning I fail to catch?
Perhaps there is no double meaning,
I'm pondering apparitions.

I'm slowly going mad,
Trying to figure out your game,
A hamster on a wheel,
Spinning and spinning in circles, dizzied.

You are my greatest challenge,
My 1,000,000 piece puzzle,
My epiphany forever out of reach,
My unsolvable riddle,
My terrible sphinx,
You will never reveal the solution, will you?

Hi, my name is female.
I might not fold my hands the way she does
Or flip my hair the way that girl does.

Hi, my name is female.
The width and length I am shouldnt define if I'm qualified for Vogue.
The way I lick my lips may not be as attractive as the next female,
How my eyelashes flutter may not appeal to you.

Hi, my name is female and I like mashed potatoes and Thai coconut.
They say “eat less, its prettier. Where this, it shows more.”
Why?
I shouldn't have to balance myself on misleading scales that does nothing but swallow my pride up.

Hi my name is female.
Because one chicken breast is smaller than the other….it's not the same?
Because another person's peach is plumper than mine….its better?  
They're still the same and we should treat them the same.

Words get thrown at us everyday and its expected of us to pick them up and change the way we are.
No.

Hi, my name is female and I shouldn't be talking this way just for a guy.
I shouldn't be crying for this guy,
I shouldn't be kissing up to this guy,
I shouldn't be changing for a guy,
I wasn't made for a guy.

Because I can't reach my toes like the next female, shouldn't mean a thing. Because my palms may ash more or my bones may creek more, shouldn't define how pretty I am.
Her hair may reach her elbows, her hair may touch her neck.
Her skin might love the sun, her skin might hate it.
Its still beautiful.

Hi, my name is female and I like mashed potatoes and Thai coconut.
Just because you may not like it, doesn't mean Its gross or Im repulsive..

One female can say, “I am” while the other girl across the street can say, “I is.”
“No I won't”
Or
“No I ain't”

I can still smile just like the next female,
I can hold a laugh,
Cough,
Sneeze,
Wink,
Eat like the next female.

We're all one conjoined masterpiece.
One cannot make me feel low of myself.
One will not tell me she's better than me.
One will not let me cry my eyes out.

Hi, my name is female and I have a name.
My name defines me.
I am beautiful just like the next girl who likes mashed potatoes and Thai coconut.

Embrace your beauty, honey. You're gonna have it forever.

you are
my
favorite
celestial
body

Lovely thoughts are shackles.
They invoke what even the microscope
omits from the commentary
Well-prepared cups of tea on Sunday afternoons
The dragging of fountain pens retracing ornate loops.

Each a relief from the threat of whatever crisis interred
by the quiet of a room
The practical, the indulgent, without progression.

The contemporary pastoral
is to be found
Amongst old boxes
of  boy's adventure paperbacks
and girl's glitterworn and broken hairbrushes
Shooting the mind off to tragedies
whirring still away at even further distances.

Memories, like sentiments
when copacetic
Provoking always the invasive link
the dependent, the pathetic.

A picture of a doomed ship in storm
Hung on the red carpeted wall of a restaurant

A jar of olives
left untouched
for decorative purposes
in the old grain store
which now serves unfiltered coffee
and plays loud but pleasing music
'til 6 p.m.

What I have spoken of are McGuffins.
The mind distracts.
Yes, the mind encounters,
we discover, we make lists.
But if you can remember
minutiae, try then to remember
History is the repetition of revelations.
The reel does not cut off.

In short,
don't congratulate
Yourself about life
until you've at least seen the nursing home.