Booting…booting…booting
Power on
Channel change
Weave through channels
Comical in a moment
Historical in the next
Melodramatic then bold
Tailor made for for the masses
Everyone has a channel they like
And I tune to all

But what when alone?
No channel to choose
A dark reflective screen
Replays a dark mien
I am a TV
For you to watch
Delicately balanced
Too easy to botch

i have a cousin
who leaves for college
in two years.
she’s always wanted a pet.
since she was little,
elementary school.
her mother
(my aunt)
always told her
(and her little brother
who’s in seventh grade)
that she wasn’t old enough for a pet
and that they could get one—
a cat, or a dog, maybe—
when she was older.
she didn’t stop asking.
now she’s sixteen.
her mother now tells her
that she’s too old to get a pet.
that there’s no point anymore
since she’ll be moving out soon.
there was nowhere in between.
no goldilocks zone.
she was never just the “right” age to have a pet.

i don’t know what this is a metaphor for,
but there’s a bigger picture here,
i know it.

Every
"fresh start" I
seize. I paint myself a
different colour every time, only for the
tide to drag me in
and soak it
all
away, and it'll
dampen my spirit and flood
my lungs with seawater but it will
never submerge me no matter
how much I
beg
it to -- or
maybe it's because I beg
it to, and there's more joy to
be reaped in wounding me
with its grinning
denial.

I cashed in my hard-earned youth
On you.
I'm emotionally bankrupt,
Overdrawn on account of you.
There are insufficient funds in the vault
For future investments.
Besides, you have the combination;
So, I wait for a safe *******
With the velvet touch.

Here, in this village,  
I, am unpigmented canvas  

my suburban skin,  
unfamiliar.

Where the trees
bleed colors of resurgence  

into the vacant
and vibrant damp,  

dark, earth below  
to begin and paint again.

60 days down the road till I am,
rippling like a pond for you,
make me writhe with wet storm clouds shaking my horizons sending waves,
still me with heavy heat summer days where nothing moves and earth is coarse with love and honeyed thick air,
move me gently with a cool autumn breeze soft mornings strolls,
commence my tides to enter and draw back steadily day after day never quit pushing me out and pulling me in,
the moon and the wind fight bitterly over who owns the water who moves who stills,
But i am tuned to you alone.

That tree that stood tall...
 
Years of knowledge ingrained in its ligaments...
(Numerously choked by its own rings)
 
I still see our carvings...
(The haunting scars imbedded deep into the bark and our memories.)
 
Hieroglyphic memorials for our first everything...
(The dates of which things died.)

The knot furled into its center...
(Forget-me-nots decaying at its very roots.)
 
Do you remember?
(How hard was it to forget?)

His efforts were altogether one big joke,
And the punch line was his ego.
I could no longer stand this clown,
Nor the balloon animal between his legs.
Every now and again, I picture myself
Stuffing him into a tiny car,
And watching it drive over a cliff.

©Copyright 2014 Written and Edited by Racquel Davis

I fancied burning;
nursed charred fingertips
from placing them between.
lips. I enjoyed love warm.

Love was easier
to kindle with friction
under sheets pre-lit,
shaped by body-heat.

Somewhere, an oasis
is brushing her hair,
is rippling with light,
lush with a fleeting smile.

I found her in autumn
laughing like a creek.
Her hair the color
of poplar leaves afloat.

She, restless, cascading
away and sometimes
over me, cannot
be contained readily.

My other lovers:
they were forest fires,
were all holocausts
filled with sharp facets.

An oasis is still sharp
to the taste. Her kiss
smooth: I can feel it
douse memories of cinders:

her eyes turn soft with mist
within my scorched daydreams.

The Gazelle, forced down to the bed
Her cries, filling inside her womb
Her crimes, fester over her body
painted like an open wound.
What crime is being prey—
What sin is weakness,
to be smited by The Lion?

The Gazelle, pinned across the bed
Clawing — shrieking — kicking —
The Lion is stronger still.
Thoughts of God bring thoughts of repent.
And today — tonight — tomorrow, The Lion leads her sermon
The Gazelle pleads mercy.
The Lion consumes her.

The Gazelle, lying vacant on the bed
Apologies fill the stagnant air
Regret — wrath — sorrow stains the sheets.
The Gazelle knows not what made the full lion feast.
Her blame is hers, pointed inward and not out
The Lion leaves.
The Gazelle — torn — seeks The Hyenas.