Most girls think of boy bands.
Most girls think of heart throbbs
But they are shallow
I am not like Most girls
My crush was not with a throbbed
Or a boy singer
But with a doctor
A Most unusual
Was there something wrong with
Me
At the f**king time
I will never know.
I am not like Most girls

Hormones in youth are ticking bombs—
and Freud’s just chuckling in his grave.
Love’s eyes still gleam like polished guns,
but necks? Oh necks won’t misbehave.

Eyes lock—a beauty storms the scene!
Neck, don’t you dare! (It dares. Of course.)
She floats like anarchist’s dream—
same then. Same now. Same deadly force.

Women’s sly smiles? Just primers set.
Men’s chests? Just trenches, soft and weak.
Love is a blaze! (Doubt? Just regret.)
Youth—dear friend—pray, don’t speak.

But age? A ceasefire, calm, profound.
Hormones now sleep—no more unrest.
Eyes see the truth (it’s bleak, I’ve found):
that beauty walks… still bombshell-dressed.

Ah! Pavlov’s mutts just drool and stare.
Neck—why still twist? The threat’s long gone!
Terror? Exes? Just hot air.
You look. They look. The script reads on.

Women—eternal partisan,
from Mars? From hell? Who even knows?
They’re strange. They’re sharp. They’ve got a plan.
Hormones? Asleep. War’s on freeze.

Ivan Pavlov, a Nobel Prize laureate, was a renowned Russian physiologist best known for his work on classical conditioning, famously demonstrated in his experiments with dogs.

Burn me alive,
End it all now,

I’m tired of the world,
I want to crawl back into my shell,

Of ignorance and bliss,
Before feeling overcame everything,
And my mind could manage and stall,

The unending dread,
The unending pain,
That recycles through my body,
And mental membrane,

Temporary relief,
Doesn’t last long,
Seeping into my bones,
Polluting my core,

Essence,
Lack of presence,
Take me away,
Bury me down low,

Erase me from existence,
Free from my soul.

Squall
by Michael R. Burch

There, in that sunny arbor,
in the aureate light
filtering through the waxy leaves
of a stunted banana tree,

I felt the sudden monsoon of your wrath,
the clattery implosions
and copper-bright bursts
of the bottoms of pots and pans.

I saw your swollen goddess’s belly
wobble and heave
in pregnant indignation,
turned tail, and ran.

Published by Chrysanthemum, Poetry Super Highway, Barbitos and Poetry Life & Times. Keywords/Tags: pregnancy, pregnant, goddess, belly, wrath, anger, storm, monsoon, hormones, pots, pans

i seek,
this echo of resplendent joy.
You.
how weak,
am i to fall?

this sound among all,
is one i'd deck the halls with.
Yours.
perhaps this fall,
i shall embrace.

the sight,
the sound,
You.

it rings,
oh,
does it ring.

perfect life I dreamt of:
a shot of hormones
a boy who loves me
a place to call my own
and freedom to live

I have it all
yet why is it not enough?

four years it’s all I thought of
the fix to all my problems
all but one
became the start of all of them