Lean                                                             ­       
Delicate                                                 ­                                                     
“ne plus ultra”                                      
Cooked slow                              
Gastronomically Intelligent        
Unassuming                                              
Gentle ­                                   
Docile
Fashionable                                  
“ne plus ultra”                                          
Ethical         ­                                         
Ecological ...    
...voices rumbling through refined-dining,

Excuse Moi, Mr.Gluttony

Since when is Meat Ethical?
If meat became so Ethical,
Then,
How Ethical You are?

Sheathing your hypocrisy                
and luck of humanity                                
with pompous words,                      
style and fancy clothes,
while you tingling your gustative papillae
with  “le goût friand”, étiquette,
capris and mannerism.
                                                    
You                                                            ­    

Don’t **** the rabbit! so                                                    
the rabbit can **** you in no time, “pooka”
          
Don’t tell                                                  
No one pre-empt you,                            
when asking for healing.

She bites her fingernails in math class
The numbers have always been a dancing cacophony of
confusion.
She was dyslexic
and the vignette of her vision were all the things
she couldn’t understand—
even when she wanted to.

Her lips weren’t the kind poets would write about either.
They weren’t soft, and red like cherry,
they weren’t velvety—
they were always chapped.
They were never inviting.
She’s grown so fond of peeling
the skin off until they bled
out the silhouette of anxiety
washing her insides
causing external decay.

But there was no external decay in coloring
outside the lines.
In 1st grade her teacher had told her
that maybe something was wrong with her—
but maybe its the unfolding of protest
in the early days.
Where little me believed that
things do not have to be perfect to be beautiful—
to deserve to be seen as art.
There’s poems you could write about
at the sight of coffee stained sheets
or faulty flickering streetlights
or collected dust that had found home in book shelves in bedrooms.
The little things that counted
were the little things that kept the flame alive.
Maybe the sun doesn’t shine for us,
but the world in its vastness conforms to the reality
that there are beautiful things in life
we are still yet to discover—
nestled in between the cracks we don’t step on.

In church she cracks her knuckles.
She found god more in navigating through life
and survival from mishaps
as opposed to sitting on a pew and
being told about how she could go to hell.
And in the lightest of days
she hums.
She hums along the rhythm of the abstract and imperfect structure of life.
Which brings us back to the hero's shoulders
and the gentleness that comes,
not from the absence of violence and misery in the world,
but despite the abundance of it.

- mgv

breathe in the air for me because I can't
bright but dark and suffocating, the stars squeeze me,
watching as they dance through each other like

french tips tapping on a foggy windowpane
pale blue grey lips trembling as they tug up at the corner
the elegant stretched fingers of mannerism -
alien, beautiful, silver and glowing
and throwing away all that came before,
looking toward the future, already there,
waiting for me
waiting for us to catch up

breathe for me because I can't
neck stretched too far, too far back
eyes cast toward the darkness, lips open, screaming, quiet
as the planets swirl in the deafening distance
and I bury my nails in my sides and it burns like

acid rain hissing as it strikes the ground
a high ringing somewhere in the distance in this empty office
stage lights striking the tops of eyelashes in the right position -
comforting and familiar, warm
but the eyelashes tremble and it's all you can see,
the only light in a dark room that could be stretching on forever,
blinding light, burning and staying for hours after as you sit, waiting,
waiting for sight
waiting for sight to catch up



*(I still can't breathe)