Facing the wall,
On the edge of tears,
Only her shoulders speak.
Her right foot times the tension
Of the moment
In strained silence.

Across the way,
A friend, an adversary
Sits in shamed symmetry.
Her chin takes refuge
In her hand-
A hand that can’t contain the anger, the embarrassment, the fear.
A hand that hides the mouth that spoke too freely,
But now says nothing.

Wake up and smell the stench you made
again, you ****** it up again.
Self deprecating, grating shame
surrounds your stupid, childish hope
that you could live in love again.
      That crushing disappointment fills
the eyes and hearts of those around
and grabs your gut and wraps it round
your beaten, broken promises
in faith and fancy cruelly drowned.
     What fooled you into thinking that
redemption was within your reach?
Who made your mindless mind so each
and every time you try to speak
you **** all over verbal bleach,
      a choking stink that makes them retch
and run from you, the grody glitch,
the thoughtless, soulless, brutish *****
that bites each hand of human help
and digs her deeper, darker ditch.

Welcome to the self centered,
health center.
A hospital treating,  
ailments of the ego.

A patient with a bruised pride
having been chastised,
a marred mojo
and a hubris overblown.

X-Rays uncover,
the damage caused
by humiliation and regret.
Bones fractured by
that 'thing' he shouldn't have said

Miraculously, he did not die of embarrassment.
He's expected to make a full recovery

I'm not an idiot.
I have faced your subtle rejection
as often as one's own breath;
the sting and recoil dull with each
understated devastation.

Believe me when I say
that I kick myself
dutifully.
A jaundiced bruise for
each time the familiar
feeling creeps and wells beneath
my goose-pimpled skin.

Today, you brushed my hand
a second too long.
The day before, you leaned
against the wall-- I undressed
you with my eyes.

God knows
why I read into these moments.
The butterflies
are just as soon ripped
wing from flimsy wing.

I'm not fatuous. But I'll
take tomorrow's lashings with
a smile. Call me your
masochistic romantic. Cringe in
my blushing face.
Leave it to me to find the
cliched glint in your dull eyes--
for I will always get off on
falsities before
settling for indifference.

I'm such an embarrassment.
No one wants to be with me,
because clearly I'm not pretty
enough, thin enough, or good
enough for anyone.
Thanks for making me feel this way,
but don't worry, I'll get it over it, and
prove you wrong.

He kicked the can before any of us had even been frozen,
but it was full of his in-law's dip spit,
and so in his mid-sprint he slipped on the tobacco slick and accidentally slid straight into Elizabeth, who felt sick from the sudden hit to her stomach, so then vomitted all over Kent's apologetically bent head.

I guess you could call me a
smooth criminal, if your definition
consists of a slipshod ball of nerves
who just so happens to find nirvana
sliding their fingertips into your pocket.

I've not managed to steal a thing, and
y'know exactly how hard it is to pull off
the greatest heist when my knuckles shake
hard enough to throw California straight
into the ocean.

Shut up.

So what if your hand happens to be right
next to mine?! Don't mean a thing, of course not,
and stop makin' so many assumptions,
you're always puttin' words in my mouth,
'specially when I'm next to ya.

S'fine, I've already finished anyway! Objective
accomplished, reward obtained. Hope ya don't
mind that my hands are little sweaty...